Last weekend should have been Miniatura, which is always a happy week. It lifts me, cheers me, gets me out among those I regard as blessed, being the folk who miniaturise the world and all their troubles. But it did not occur.
However, that saying about doors and windows – when one shuts another opens – turned out to be wonderfully true.
Early in the week a lady stopped by to ask if I would like a lot of books for the community library, as she was clearing out the loft. I accepted with alacrity and two big bags full of books arrived on the drive. The next day the OH was out in the garden when another lady stopped by with exactly the same question and result.
I took myself off to the local hardware shop, where I found a lovely metal three tier trolley, perfect for the books. It was so desirable that the one in the shop had been thoughtfully glued to the wall. Taking my queue from this, and the theft of the first metal table, I requested assistance from the OH who helpfully sunk a huge metal ring into the drive, and with the addition of a padlock and chain there is now a modern take on a mediaeval chained library on the drive. It really looks the biz, there is still room for a plastic table with big books and children’s books behind it and I now have enough books to rotate the display and probably keep us all going through the next lockdown and beyond.
I went off to the opticians for drops in my eye so the optometrist could look at the back of my eye. The eye that suffered the blow, which was my good eye, has responded by very quickly growing a type of cataract and I am now borderline for driving and have been referred for cataract surgery to save my sight.
I came home trying to console myself, reminding myself that at other times in history and in other locations on the globe, I would just lose my sight and to be glad that I have enough inherited money left over to have the surgery privately. I did know I was struggling to see, so do you, if you’ve noticed the typos. On a bad day I squint to see the words on the screen.
But as I came back, weighed down with dark words, determined to stay positive and grateful, it suddenly got a lot easier. For lo! A big cardboard box of crafting things as a thank you from Hochanda for the lengthy birthday card, was waiting in the porch. I was thrilled, absolutely thrilled. They really didn’t have to do that, because I didn’t win. There are stamps in the box, dies, paint pens, enough card to make all of my Christmas cards, bottles of glue, ink pads and some lovely little glass rectangles, which you are supposed to put in memory albums but which look like real dolls’ house glass windows to me.
The box was huge and so was my delight.
I instantly used the black paint pen on the frieze, of which more next time. I shall use every single thing, and the box.
Such a pleasure, a box full of lovely things just for me.
I have put so much into giving things to other people since March. At least once a fortnight I go off to the post office with a parcel, to lift spirits and keep the people round me and at a distance going, it was an amazement to find something coming in the other direction.
Bad things happen and good things happen.
Sometimes in the same week.
But to bring the good things into sharper focus all I have to do this week is put my head in a box.
Magic!
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