Community Connections in Summer

How do you stay connected to your community during the summer months and what role do they play? Well I think the summer allows you to do things in the garden more with family and friends And COVID was a typical example, not COVID itself, but post-COVID when we were still like distancing a little from people. So I live very locally and I worked here for a long time. I worked as a midwife here. I worked with midwives who still live locally and some of them had been, they're older, they had been a little protected during the COVID time, and they were beginning to come out a little bit. So I'd send them a little invite to come for afternoon tea, but we were still doing a little bit separate. So what I do like at home is nice teapots and crockery in China. So everyone would have their own tea tray with their own, they could choose a teapot and a teacup and saucer, and then they would have a tray. And then we had a few tables around the garden where we weren't sitting totally next to each other, but we could chat to each other. And that was, that went down very well. That was good fun because they loved the idea of choosing their own teapot. And they're very simple, nothing fancy, but they could choose their own teapot and cup and saucer where they wanted to sit in the garden. So, you know, I don't know what else. I mean, it's never, it doesn't faze me. And if all else fails, we can have sandwiches or we can do something like that. I don't mind that sort of thing. And in the next summer, are there any particularly, particular health goals that you want to keep up? I'm trying to keep my weight down because if I want my knee operation, so I'm, that's my responsibility. And it works, occasionally it seems to go off the scale, But then the thing about waiting to have knee surgery, this is the second time, I had so many pre-ops. So you go to the hospital, you have your pre-op, they weigh you, they take your blood, and then about three times, if not four, they cancel my operation the day before my operation. That did my head in. I mean, that was really difficult. Not helped by the fact that when they offered, We did offer one appointment and I couldn't go because my spine was so bad, I couldn't sit down. I hadn't sat down for a year before I had my spinal surgery. I could stand or go to bed. I mean literally, it was horrendous. But I was still on the list to have my knee done or even to have my spine done. And in fact that got cancelled and in the end I went as an emergency to Queen Square in London. I woke up one Saturday morning just in such screaming pain. I just phoned 111 because they'd cancelled my operation. The new appointment had come two months away and I just thought there's no way I can do every day for another two months. Just said that on the phone to the 111 caller, said I can't do this every day for another two months. She went, stay there, stay there and an ambulance came for me, took me to Watford and then by tea time I was in Queen Square having my surgery the next morning. So, and that's, you know, it's not what I expected. I was disappointed that they postponed it, but they postponed it because my bloods weren't normal. I wasn't doing anything abnormal. So it's that frustration. So worrying about my diet was the least of my worries. Does that make sense? That I knew that people would shop for me, or maybe actually neighbors who live, we all live locally. A couple of neighbors, a couple, They cooked full dinner for me every Saturday and Sunday for about nine months till I had my spinal surgery. They would just turn up on a Saturday and Sunday with a whole plate of dinner and dessert. They were amazing. They just heard that. I knew his mum very well. She was a midwife older than me, retired, and they just started turning up with my dinner. So I didn't worry about what I could eat or not eat. They were just so amazing. And in a way I tried to help people back in that way, you know, my friends that aren't so well. So does it change? I don't know. I don't think, you know, I'm not too worried about the seasons obviously the shops are just that what they're selling so you go with some of that you can still make things I can still make things that I want you know sounds like you've got a lovely community