Nomovember

Sometimes it’s hard to keep a secret but I can now reveal that my beautiful daughter Helen is here in England all the way from sunny Manly. Manchester rain greeted her when she was reunited with her sister Jenny and niblings Martha and William at the airport. Helen brought some Tim Tams for us but no actual sunshine, blue skies or warmth. No, I’m not sure ‘nibling’ is a real word but it’s less clunky than saying ‘niece and nephew’ and has a parallel in ‘sibling’.

Liesel and I went to Jenny’s in the afternoon where we apologised to Helen for the atrocious weather and played with bubbles indoors, to Martha and William’s delight.

We stayed for supper and we even drunk some wine. That Helen is a bad influence. But she knows a thing or two about playing with Instagram, a skill we should all develop.

We missed the Rugby World Cup semi-final between England and New Zealand which possibly explains England’s wonderful victory: we didn’t jinx the team by our presence.

Martha and William had a larger than usual audience for their swimming lessons this week: Helen came too. Later in the afternoon, after I’d walked to Jenny’s house, we enjoyed looking at their artistic endeavours too.

Martha’s collage, made from 5p and 1p coins, morphed from a snowman into a polar bear.

Halloween is approaching and the Blood Donor Centre in Manchester was unusually spooky on this occasion.

The care staff were talking about the fancy dress party they’d be going to later and my attendant nurse was extolling the virtues of pumpkin pie. My blood flowed like a well-earned cup of tea, which is exactly what I had afterwards, along with too many biscuits.

I said I’d meet Liesel at the Craft and Design Museum when I’d finished, a mere 23 minutes away from the Donor Centre by foot, according to Google Maps. I was therefore stunned and taken aback, not to say, immensely disgruntled when, well over halfway to my destination, and not wanting to overshoot, I checked Google Maps again and it told me I still had 20 minutes to go. So, not that I was feeling weak and feeble or anything, I called Liesel to apologise and we agreed to meet at home instead. In other bad news, my Fitbit battery had died. So all those thousands of steps today weren’t counted. In a coffee shop, I fought the blister pack and installed the new battery.

We (I mean Liesel) tidied up our flat so that we could accommodate our guests for a practice Thanksgiving meal. Nut roast, Yorkshire puddings, red cabbage, mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce that William said was like jelly. Thanks for a fantastic meal, Liesel!

Martha used my PC to type her name. She also pressed other keys that turned the image on the screen upside down, a feature that I’d forgotten even existed!

Helen is here in the UK to surprise her friend Tracey who celebrates a major birthday this week. Helen drove to Somerset, Tracey was stunned into silence and they spent a day at the spa.

A man came by to take away some more of our packing boxes, thanks to Freegle, hooray! The flat is slowly, slowly becoming less clutterered. Still lots of boxes to process, though.

We took William to Chester Zoo again, and on the way, dropped some more stuff off at charity shops, hooray, hooray! We saw all the usual suspects at the zoo, and again, we commented on William’s world basically being an adventure playground.

William weighed it up, but decided not to climb a tree, not even one with low branches that he found ‘in the forest’. Yes, of course he deviated from the carefully constructed path.

William slept in the car on the way home again and I collected Martha from Nursery. While she removed the pulp and seeds from her Halloween pumpkin, William was happy to paint a picture of a pumpkin.

Alan and Una came round as well and we dined together before Martha and William dressed up to go out Trick or Treating.

Speaking of ‘Treating’, I was hoping to treat the great British public to the wonderful sight of a brand new moustache. I started growing one early for Movember, the leading global organisation committed to changing the face of men’s health.

Well, Liesel didn’t like it so I thought I’d go for the best of three, and seek support from Jenny and Helen. They sided with Liesel. So I decided to go for the best of seven. Huh. I couldn’t even get Martha to lie that she liked the ‘tache. So, off it came, to Liesel’s delight. Given more time, it might have resembled that of a Sikh gentleman’s, or with some tweaking, a Hercule Poirot. No moustachioed Mick for Movember in this manor. Maybe next year.