It’s beginning to occur to me that I really ought to become more interesting for my upcoming 3,000th post. The trouble is that I’m actually becoming more boring. I can tell this because I keep repeating stories. Mostly I remember and delete them, but it’s happening more and more. Then there’s the general feeling, when trying to think, that I’m running through porridge. I just seem to go slower and slower as the resistance builds up. This is despite making serious efforts to improve my sleep patterns. It has got so bad that tonight I had to describe “the button on my torch that makes the light go on” to Julia. Then it occurred to me that the word was “torch”.  With a memory like that it’s not a surprise that writing poetry is becoming more of a challenge. Fortunately, this sort of thing is the exception and I’m not ready to vegetate just yet.

Tonight I watched one of the kids from across the road on his way to football practice. To lace his boots up he raised his feet and put them on top of the garden fence  (waist high!). I can’t even raise mine a quarter of that height. I was going to say that it’s only a few years ago that I could flex my back so far that I was able to stand on my fingers. All my fingers, not just the tips. However, now that I come to think about it, that was 20 years ago. A lot has changed since them.

These days I have to put my feet up on a step (just a low one, as they don’t lift so far, as previously mentioned) to allow me to reach. Some exercises are probably called for. Unfortunately my poor memory means I will write that today and won’t remember it until next week, when it vaguely drifts through my mind. I may have to start writing things down to remind myself.

Currently, the house is full of the smell of mushrooms. As soon as I finish here, it will be filled with the sound of fast-revving electrical machinery. Yes, it’s mushroom soup for tea again. Wednesday soup is becoming a habit. It’s a good, healthy habit, so I’m hoping it takes root. That way I don’t actually need to remember it, I just do it. In 20 years time the staff in the care home will probably be puzzled as to why I wander into the kitchen and pick up a hand blender every Wednesday . . .

We have cream tonight, which I bought for the bread pudding and quiche I didn’t make. Julia used it for making cream and strawberry scones yesterday and we will pour some on the fruit flan tonight, so I may put a drop in the soup too.  After all, I wouldn’t want to get too healthy too soon. It was a bit of a luxury, as I can make quiche and bread pudding without cream, but I don’t want to cave in to the cost of living crisis and live like a pauper.

Home made Mushroom Soup with an olive roll and a scatter of pumpkin seeds and spring onion