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Saturday was cleaning day but we escaped, into a very murky morning.
While I’d moved into a very much smaller house six years ago, I still had 13 cats in residence and though I can manage a minor daily clean-up, it seemed a good idea to have a proper job done once a month.
A friend asked if I could employ his cleaner who needed more work, so it was the obvious thing to do.
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Our cleaner is a very nice lady with a heart of gold who has obviously had a hard life, but never says so.
She is not very many years younger than myself and she has had some fairly serious health issues.
When I got home and saw her on Saturday, I tried to send her home but she insisted that she would finish, working slowly.
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The idea of having someone clean up my mess has never sat well with me and to see my lady struggle pains me.
After leaving my place, instead of going home she intended to check on another client who is very ill. That woman is just home from cancer surgery and her son, who would have been able to help, is in hospital after a serious accident.
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Grant had news of a young cousin…
Married, with a four year old daughter and a new baby, he recently began to lose feeling in his hands and feet.
It turned out to be a tumour at the base of his neck, impeding his nerves, which could kill or cripple him at any moment.
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On Thursday this week he will have very risky surgery which, if he survives, will leave him having to re-learn everything and possibly extremely disabled.
It is hard to conceive of dealing with such an appalling situation.
How insignificant my problems are.
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You don’t have to look far to find a tale of woe. Every time we go to the post office, there is another handful of begging letters with images of people or pets in varying states of extremis.
Junk mail is one of my pet peeves. Interestingly, that was today’s WP prompt. “What are your pet peeves?”
I didn’t intend to write about them!
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Junk mail and lost airline baggage could form the rings around Saturn.
Airline baggage came to mind because of last night’s dream where I was checking in for a flight at Heathrow and someone ran off with my suitcase.
It was my Delsey that never weighed less than 25 kgs, hardly something anyone could run away with.
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No wonder my spine fell to bits. I began carrying heavy bags at the age of 8.
In English boarding school days, I was forever catching trains that seemed always to be on the most remote track reachable only by climbing up and down stairs, often in a great hurry.
In those days, wheels had not been invented.
The sort that went on suitcases.
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Saturday was decidedly grey, but the gloom was broken up by fields of an astounding, almost luminescent green.
Normally, if not snow covered, the fields should be brown but grass has come alive in the warm weather.
However, it’s an odd colour.
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The succulents and sage have begun to grow too. Last night’s hard frost should have put paid to that, but they don’t look discouraged yet.
Still, we’re expecting colder weather and the possibility of two centimeters of snow on Friday.
How will we manage?
I think you’ll probably survive. Someone has to feed the animals and birds!
We’re lucky that our problems are insignificant compared to other people around the world. Especially since returning from Ukraine, I feel myself cringing each time I whine when something is tough or goes wrong.
I hope that Grant’s cousin comes out of this better than expected as it sounds like a risky operation, but the alternative sounds far worse.
Oh my, I’m sorry to read about Grant’s cousin (although the surgery sounds risky, the post operative doesn’t sound great either) – I pray for the best outcome. I always marvel at how you can find colour in an otherwise grey landscape and I love your succulents … I hope they survive the cold winter.
It is very true that reading of such terrible misfortunes affecting others, our own woes and gripes often pale into insignificance. I would love to employ a cleaning person, but cannot justify the expense. Besides, I am one of those people who would probably clean up before they arrived, so they didn’t talk about me to other people.
Best wishes, Pete.
Grant laughs at me for pre-cleaning tidying, for just that reason!