The Challenge of Change

As you get older you have to endeavour to provide your brain with challenges. It’s far too easy to fall into comfortable routines - always brewing a pot of tea at the same time each afternoon, always having a curry on a Monday evening (guilty!), doing the shopping on a particular day, having set places for objects in the house.

So today, with a strong sense of purpose and a little dread, we decided to move the coffee maker. Now I thought this would be simple but I'd reckoned without the impact it would have on the fruit bowls and the radio reception. There was also a knock-on effect on the china chicken. I tried the chicken next to the Christmas Cat on top of the fridge but it looked terribly out of place. The fruit bowl crisis was unforeseen and would have benefited from some forward planning. In moving them to make way for the coffee machine, we had to break up a group of three with the attendant psychological repercussions. This impasse is still unresolved but one of them (the tallest) has now been cast out and, as like as not, will end up in a cupboard, along with the Aussie cheese board, also relegated to a dark place.

That trauma aside, we've now got a pleasing little group of kettle, coffee maker and grinder in one corner and I've found a new place for the radio (which involved moving Mon's tray to join the chicken which is now next to the fridge but not on top of it). The radio is really too close to the door to the microwave – I will need to monitor the situation during the next defrosting exercise. By the way I hope you're all following this as there will be questions later.

Anyway it was all far too exciting and delayed our cup of tea (which we usually have at five-o-clock).

The River Avon flows through our village on it's way to join the River Severn - a restful scene with just a few fisherman contemplating their navels.