Calmer Waters

And so it goes, there’s little change; days flow into each other, one after the other.

This is how I started the last entry in a private diary about our slow slide into oblivion. I don’t feel that I can - or want to - share every moment with all of you, some things need to remain private. Pain, distress, the inexorable progress of disease, mental and physical, are not suitable subjects for the mundane and often frivolous confessions we spill into social media.

I have since realised that the first statement is not altogether true any more. There’s little change in the situation, yet there is some small change in me.  I may have said, here or in my private diary: “I am permanently stressed and permanently depressed.” If I haven’t said it, or written it, then I have thought it. But that’s not true now, either.

There comes a time when one accepts even the most hopeless situation. Life goes on. An innate sense of survival takes over. I think that is what’s happening to me.

The weather has been fine, I have spent a lot of my free time gardening and when it’s been too hot to go out I’ve read indoors. Beloved has been happy to potter about outside, leaning on his stick, snipping at this and pulling on that and when he’s been tired he’s just sat in the sun.

I’ve stopped watching him all the time. In an emergency he’d soon know how to get my attention. Besides, he has a panic button. I’ve gone out for up to three hours at a time and he’s been fine. He’s not likely to attempt anything that requires physical strength or mental athletics.

Even Millie is settling into the new routine. I take her out for a short walk in the morning and not again until late in the afternoon. She has a daily paddle in the river and several doors are open for her to come and go as she pleases. She is not meant to leave the garden - we are hedged or walled in and gated, but the other day, during a violent thunderstorm, she panicked and got out, I don’t know how or where, but she made her way into the village and ended up at the pub after having raced along the high street. I expect the pub door was open and she made for its darkish, cool and cavelike interior which might seem to be a safe haven to a frantic dog. I happened to be out in Ludlow at the time. Beloved never even noticed that she was gone until a young man brought her back after the storm. Two messages told us not to worry, she was safe; we didn’t listen to either of them until afterwards.

Perhaps Millie has the right idea, a village pub is indeed a safe haven in a storm and we should all three seek its comfort more often.