Shy

This morning Smithers and I walked up the road to visit a very old friend of ours, who was ordained after he retired, having run his own family business all his working life before that. He’d just come home from a stay in hospital, where he unfortunately caught Covid. We spent a pleasant half hour with him and he was delighted that Smithers felt well enough to visit him – he hasn’t seen him since before his eye troubles began.

After lunch I drove Smithers to the optician’s where his new glasses were given a tweak with a new, plain glass coated lens being fitted for his bad eye, replacing the previous prescription one, which he didn’t get on with. 

On our return he walked down to the Broadway to buy some bread, and as he walked back up the road and on to our drive he found me bent double, trying to photograph the centre of a hellebore flower. He had a job to make me hear him coming, so he waited patiently until I creakily drew myself upright, and then he gently called me again so I didn’t jump or keel over! Even with my hearing aids in I don’t always hear very well. 

(And for those of you who were amazed that I mentioned ‘running up the stairs’ yesterday, I want to make it clear that first thing in the morning I’m so stiff I can hardly get up them at all, and it’s only after a few hours have passed that I’m sufficiently supple to attempt to put on any speed.)