I believe I’ve fallen either four or five times in this yard.  The other day I was going to weed whack the lawn’s edges, and had on runners and not the usual flip flops, so you’d think I’d be extra safe.  However mom always called me a bull in a China shop, and it’s quite true, I do seem to be good at ramming into things.

Luke was getting his useless car ready for sale, and I was shouting over my shoulder at him I wanted that thing out of the garage as soon as possible.  In this moment of ire I tumbled over my own feet and fell right down, slamming my knee, hand and chin into the ground.

Luke ran over saying “mom are you okay?” and I stood up, bleeding from three areas, and said “yeah, I’m fine, but can you continue the weed whacking?” and went into the house to bandage the various areas.  Soon after I was back out, killing myself working in the yard.

It’s a strange obsession, and I’m quite surprised at the hours per day I put into it now that I’m retired.  I suppose I’m still getting the hang of being retired, too, so can’t believe my good fortune in having all of every minute of every day to myself.

Well nearly.  I do have to tend to mom who had a terrible cold but was given antibiotics by the doctor to ward off pneumonia.  She’s now okay, and I went to Osoyoos for Mother’s Day and made a nice lunch for us.  A family friend came too, and I made chocolate bread pudding for dessert which we all wolfed with manic delight.

And I did spend time with helping Jan look for a new job, but luckily she’s very employable and it took less than three days for her to find one.  She’s been cooking for a very long time and wanted to get into a new line of work, and has just been hired by the Coast Capri as a room attendant.

I took her to the interview, and the head housekeeper said as much as she appreciated me coming along, she wanted to see if she could understand Jan, and if Jan could understand her.  I said “consider me invisible.  I won’t speak.”  I then proceeded to observe the interview which was going along quite well.

Then the woman said to Jan, “would you mind being cross trained in both laundry and house keeping?”  I saw the wheels turning in Jan’s head.  She must’ve wondered what a lot of that meant, and hesitated, but finally said wherever they want her to work, that’s where she’ll work.

I’m often reminded of Manuel, the waiter in the old British TV show called Fawlty Towers.  He couldn’t understand a word of English and it was hilarious.  Please Google it and watch a few episodes if you’ve never seen it.

When Beverly was here for her recent visit with her pug she kindly helped me weed some of the so-called gout weed out of my beds.  We decided if I do this for one hour each day, someday I’ll be rid of that menace.

I foolishly planted it 20 years ago when it looked so nice around the base of a neighbour’s tree.  Little did I know it’d escape and take over every single square inch of my flower beds.  So it’s a good thing I’m now retired, isn’t it?