Seriously weird

I got into work before my colleague and started doing some research. Not long after this colleague's arrival, another staff member came in with the shocking announcement that the practice manager had been involved in a serious accident and will be off for several months. The rest of the day was strange, to say the least. I joined a Zoom, because I needed something to do, and a man from IT services delivered my laptop, but the password had not been set up, so I couldn't access it.

In the afternoon we had a meeting with other local SPs. Our office is small, so we had to open all the doors and windows, as no other room was free. After that, my colleague/friend A drove me to Longfield, the building in my blip.

I used to volunteer there as an aromatherapist, about twenty years ago when it was still called the Cotswold Care hospice, and still looked like a house with multiple extensions. Let's just say it's changed beyond all recognition. Although it's still a day hospice/wellbeing centre, it is now light, bright, modern and spacious. Someone led me to the garden room, which I would never we have found on my own. This one overlooks (you don't say!) a part of the garden, and I could see the small mosaic patio outside, to which I contributed a tile. (The design was supposed to represent a hare, but in fact turned out to be abstract when finished).

The Death Cafe was being held there, that's why I'd come. I hadn't been to a death cafe in person, or online, since before the dreaded pandemic. Death cafes are hosted all over the world, the idea is that people come together over tea/coffee and cakes and then split into small groups and talk about any aspect of death that is currently of interest or concern to them. Each group has a trained facilitator, and there is a round up, or reconvergence, at the end. I was pleased to be able to report that my mother and I had completed her funeral wishes plan last autumn, as this had been something that was bothering her two years earlier, in 2019, when she was more lucid in her thinking. Everything else that was said in groups is, of course, confidential, but I left with plenty to think about, and vowed to attend the next death cafe in Nailsworth. I also had a chance to network with others regarding my new job role.

As it was a glorious Spring evening, I had decided to walk home, a distance of several miles, but through country lanes heavy with blossom, bluebells, horses and heady scents. I was not disappointed, andfound the shortest way home, something I never succeeded in doing twenty years ago. Maybe I had more time in those days. The canal was alive with moorhens chasing each other, or moorhen mothers with their fluffy punk chicks swimming behind in lines. All was well in this small corner of the Cotswolds.

When I got home, I parked myself in front of the TV to watch a show, watched the first few minutes, then woke up just as it was ending!