[FLYING BANANA]

………………………….. has been a pain.

Whilst at the funeral I naturally turned my phone off, and left it in the car tucked away. As a result I never turned it back on till late Thursday evening. 5 missed calls, and 5 voicemails. 4 from Tim’s father asking me to phone as soon as I could. So I phoned back and spoke to Tim’s father apologising for the late return call. The message was about Elizabeth, she had been taken back to hospital as her breathing had got worse.
And it wasn’t looking good. Tim’s father said I was still welcome to over but Elizabeth obviously would not be there.

I cancelled the trip and said that maybe I could come over next week, I’m back in London in 10 days time. Tim’s dad said that would be fine and he would let Elizabeth know. I said I would phone him again on Sunday for any update.
The other missed call was from my cousin Christine saying that they would not be home till late on Saturday afternoon. I wasn’t bothered about visiting anyway. But I phoned back and left a message and said maybe another time.

So Friday’s plans were thrown out. So I set off on foot Friday morning to Waitrose to get some flowers for my visit Val at the cemetery . Then I walked back past the house and up to St.Andrews, which is in the opposite direction to Waitrose. The weather held out ok. Last visit was in September 2019. Michael had been there a few times in between. But no visits since March this year. When Michael takes any plants he has a tendency to leave them as he bought them complete with cellophane wrapping and sometimes paper.

So I was not surprised to find 5 pots with just soil in them, the plants were long gone. So I tidied up the grave and emptied the pots contents out. I left the empty pots by the bench, common practice so it helps anyone else visiting if they need a pot or two.
The flower arrangement pot was laying on its side. I took that over to the tap and cleaned the muck off. Filled it up with water and took back. I placed the cut down flowers in the pot. I cannot remember the name of the flowers which is annoying as I have them growing in my garden at home. I had taken some scissors with me from the house to cut the stems.

I started off with the news about Bob, but I believe Val already knew that. I waffled on as I do. The memories came back and rolled down by cheeks. Time to clear up and get back to the house for a cuppa. And see what Michael had been doing. As it turned he had done absolutely nothing. Not a thing. Before I went out we had discussed about going to Waddeson Manor, National Trust house the other side of Aylesbury. So I naturally assumed he would get the tickets booked as he has a laptop. No nothing had been done.

So it was down to me to make the arrangements. Now this where it starts to go downhill. There’s me thinking as he has a nice new laptop his printer would be a Air Printer. So after I had made all the arrangements I set the iPad a task to seek out the printer. Nothing. So I went in search of the printer in case it needed turning on. Moved a few boxes and found the printer and turned it on, still my iPad could not locate it. Turns out it’s not a Air Printer. Only now does Michael tells me he has to plug the laptop in via the USB port. So I now had to do it all again on his laptop. At last we printed off the details.

Turned out it was a cracking house to visit. You park the car and take the shuttle bus to the house. Cost £4 return but it was worth it as it was now raining.
We had a wander around the house, once owned by the Rothschild family.
We found the stables where one of the cafe’s was located. Michael had a cream tea and I had a sausage roll. The only cream tea worth having is a Cornish One.

To be continued……………

Thanks for reading.