This past week has been half term, so a break for the children and I. However, it wasn’t a typical holiday as we stayed at home and instead of days out we accompanied Mr S to a lot of medical appointments. He is getting stronger so most appointments were at a surgery or the hospital with only one being a home visit. One of the appointments was to address fatigue and neuro recovery and since then Mr S has been implementing brain breaks a few times a day. I am interested by them and do think perhaps its something we should all be trying, simply sitting still with no distractions for ten minutes, although my fear is that I would too easily fall asleep. We also had a few trips out in the car to see how far he can comfortably travel. On Monday afternoon, we popped to the lovely garden centre in our neighbouring town, this went well, but another trip later in the week to a more distant town, was a little too far. Everything is an experiment at present and we adjust our plans as necessary. As Mr S has had his driving licence suspended until he has a post accident six month medical, I am the nominated driver. This adds a new level of organisation to our weeks, we live in a rural location so every lift, trip has to include me now, my diary has been taken up a level to cope with all the planning.

Half term also brought pancake day and Valentines. I do say it every year but I do need a new pancake pan, the early ones were a bit of a disaster but they did improve over the evening with practice and despite the look were delicious. I am very much a traditionalist, sugar and lemon is the top topping. For a personal reason Mr S and I don’t really do Valentines as the date is a reminder of the saddest time of our lives, even after fifteen years the pain and grief cannot be hidden by soppy cards and flowers, I am always relieved when we get to February 15th. However, our daughter definitely celebrates it and has a rose bear, teddy bear and chocolates from her boyfriend proudly displayed in her bedroom. I did send Mr S a fun message that after months of searching in Aldi, I popped into one on Wednesday and found his favourite veggie battered sausages, that’s amore!

Despite all that’s been happening over the past few months, I felt I needed to get in control again this week and do something productive. Firstly I went and had my car properly valeted. My car was my mobile home when Mr S was seriously ill, I had supplies in case I got stranded on the long daily commutes, > 3 hours daily, an emergency bag in case I needed to stay over, crumbs from the snacking on the said long journeys. It feels so good to have a sparkling, clean car again. We also wanted to do some work on our son’s room. He’s had the same furniture since he was little, and it was looking a little worn so my big job this week was to make up a new chest of drawers and give the room a spring clean. Given the number of appointments we had I did this over a few days but I am chuffed with the result. I did the DIY all in the comfort of the lounge and happily watched the last episodes of the final series of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel. I have really enjoyed this series over the years and along with a great plotline, the costumes were such a highlight. I appreciated the flash forwards in this series so you could see the full careers of Midge and Susie and add together all the other little clues of the fate of characters which were left for fans.

Finally this week, I was shocked to hear of the death of the DJ, Steve Wright. It seems that Steve Wright in the afternoon has been there all my life. He was a real favourite of my mum and I remember her picking me up from school in her little blue and silver fiesta with Steve playing out on the radio. In recent years Serious Jockin was the start of the weekend for me and there was always something warm and reassuring about the programme. I think the things that stands out in all the tributes is his kindness and his absolute passion and devotion to his profession. I listened to Radio 2 on the evening of the announcement and the tears and broken voices from his colleagues only reflected what a special man he was.