Saturday Morning, Update.

HI readers:

Thursday morning:

So I haven’t done an update post for a while, It’s 1:30 in the morning and now seems as good a time as any.

not a lot has been going on here, but quiet is good. I’m doing a whole lot better than I was last week. It was the deepest depression I’ve had for a long time. it all started on the Saturday before last.

I was waiting for a phone call. A few of us get together on Messenger and chat every Saturday. While I was waiting I checked my voice messages and found one from Jim, a friend of mine, who told me that another friend had passed away earlier in the year. The one who passed away, Reeva, had been  a friend for more than 23 years. She lived right across the hallway from Ima, who died in 2021. Maria and I met both those ladies on an email list and we became firm friends. We use to  have long phone conversations. Those three, along with Maria’s husband Joe, have been the best friends I have ever had. I haven’t been as in touch with Reeva as I should have been lately, and it hit me hard to learn that she had passed away. I know she’s happy where she is, and she isn’t hurting anymore, she had a chronic illness and she was in a lot of pain.

This whole thing has been a reminder to me, that life is short and friends are precious and we should never take them for granted. It’s so easy to drift apart from the people we love. We don’t intend to do it, but we do.

I haven’t done much writing, since the A to Z Challenge finished. That was a lot of fun. I enjoyed writing, and I enjoyed reading other people’s work. There are so many interesting blogs out there.

The writing group I’m in has been a real blessing. We are only a small group, but we are getting to know each other and it has become a sort of support group, as well as a writing group. I’m really glad to be part of something like this, even if I have to get up before 1 AM twice a week, to take part in it.

Church has been going well. Last Sunday our organist was running late, and I was just about to climb onto the organ bench when someone saw her coming through the door. The service was interesting, and the singing went well, except we have a new choir member who can’t sing in tune. She does her best, and she means well.

We had a visitor at church … a pigeon. he somehow got into the building and didn’t want to leave. We were singing our final hymn on Sunday and Miriam had to move me out of the way in a hurry because the bird was right over my head and I didn’t want to get dropped on. Yikes! People wer trying to get him to leave, but they didn’t have much luck. 

We had Bible study on Sunday night. It was rather cold, so I wore my big fleecy jacket. It was warm in the Church hall, though. We are doing a series on the book of 1 peter, and we finished the first chapter last week. I’m really enjoying this study, we have had some good conversations and I feel like I’m getting more out of this one.

  We had choir practise last Thursday, and it was great to see Miriam again. She and her husband David had been away for 3 weeks. She said it rained the whole time they were away. They went to the beach but she wasn’t able to get into the water, she said it wasn’t safe.

Last week I went shopping with Lindy. She’s one of my favourite people who works at the "life choices" agency. They are all nice, but I’ve known Lindy for years, and she’s lovely. We had a good catch-up.

Yesterday I had a man come to do my cleaning. It’s the second time he has come and the first time was a surprise for me, he’s the first man who has ever come to do my cleaning. He does a good job, though. He fixed a problem I was having with the power in this part of the house, it was nice to get it back on. Sometimes, if there are too many things going at once, the switch will turn off. I’m careful about not having too many things plugged in at once, and I don’t know what caused the power to go off yesterday, but it was nice to have it back on again. That’s something I need sighted help for.

Saturday morning:

I was going to post this on Thursday but didn’t get to it.

Thursday was a good day for me. Lindy took me shopping again, yay!We went a little bit later and so I was only home for about half an hour when it was time to go for afternoon tea and choir practise. This week I had chocolate cake for afternoon tea. It was nice, but the carrot cake I had last week was better. The chocolate cake was really, really crumbly, I made quite a mess.

We were the only ones at the cafe, and that was nice. We picked the songs for Sunday and Miriam said she wanted to sing the Lord’s prayer, the version by Sister Janet Mead that came out in the 1970’s. I had heard it on the radio but  had never tried to learn it. I found it on youtube and played it, and we were sitting there in the cafe, singing along to "our father, who art in heaven …".

We went to the Church and ran through the songs for Sunday. Then we tried to do the Lord’s Prayer again. They want me to lead it on Sunday but I told them I don’t really know it. It’s not hard, I’ve worked it out since then and I think I can play it on the organ, which would be better than trying to sing along to someone’s phone playing it on youtube.

The pigeon wasn’t there when we got to church, I don’t know who managed to get him out of there. I hope it found somewhere safe to stay, like in the park or something.

We stopped on the way home and I got some fish and chips for dinner. The place was quite crowded. I have a poem on the back burner of my mind, about conversations in a takeaway shop.

Yesterday was a quiet day, I didn’t really do much. today should be quiet too. I had a bit of trouble getting up and organised today, I actually got up and then went back to sleep for another hour. I had a prayer time, but my computer wasn’t cooperating, so I couldn’t start the bible study I’m planning to work on. I’ll get that sorted later. The computer seems to be ok now. I really do need to get it fixed sooner or later. It’s not making weird noises at me anymore, but it gets very slow sometimes and there are times that, when I restart it,  it goes for a little while and then cuts out.

There will probably be another group call on messenger later this morning.  we do those every week.   I’m looking forward to that. Most of the people in the group are blind and some of them I’ve known for quite a while.

Writing group is happening right now. We’ve  had a bit of chat, and now we are each working on our own projects. I’ve been finishing this update post, and I am going to run it through a spell checker then put it on my blog.

Thank you for reading my ramblings.

song of the day:
Our Father:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUg8B1VA0Bs

Love from,
rishie and the Virtual Family.