Today was far wetter and more windy that yesterday.
Jackie drove us to Setley Ridge Garden Centre to find a birthday present for Elizabeth. The paths were so pock marked and filled with water that it seemed sensible for my wife to recce the joint before I left the car.
I waited for a reasonable length of time watching rain streaming down the windows, until I though she had been in there long enough to think that we would be able to find something suitable.
I didn’t linger over the outside displays
before entering the internal arrangements of ornaments old and new laid out with the various plants for sale.
We settled on a nicely rusted cast iron garden snail, and also bought a card which we carried off to Elizabeth’s.
Ella had also been informed that this was her grandmother’s special day, because she had brought her mother, Danni, over for lunch.
At one point, Ella, sleeping on the sofa, briefly woke with a start and let out a distressed cry. Danni, simultaneously, on the other side of the room, had banged her head on the sharp corner of a shelf. She herself made no sound but rubbed her head in pain. Had there been some symbiotic communication?
While we were there Elizabeth’s friend Franz phoned her to wish her Happy Birthday from Manchester. She was, of course, able to see him on her mobile device.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s choice cottage pie, crisp carrots and cauliflower, and tender spring greens.
