FIFTY YEARS

Col and I celebrated our Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary on Friday. It began in - I guess appropriately - a crumbly way.  Col had a blood test, and I spent the first hour of the morning chasing up my elusive and still missing arthritis medicine.  But we went to The Arun View for lunch and treated ourselves from the fish menu - sea bass for him, a whole plaice for me - along with drinks and a coffee afterwards.  Plus I walked all the way there and back. Which would have been nothing a few years ago, but now felt like climbing Everest.

It was a beautiful sunny day - as I hope you can see from the photos Col took - and very very hot.

But, from the vantage point of Saturday morning, the walk was a bridge too far, even though we had plenty of stops on the way, as I was in quite a lot of pain and barely able to hobble about. However, at least it reassured me that I am not being a wimp when I can only last 30 mins on the door to door work.  Any more, and I cripple myself.

Col had to spend ages on the phone on Saturday morning trying to find out why the current credit card statement makes no sense,  and I had to ring and leave messages with Hospital and Supplier to point out that in spite of all the promises and interminable phone calls, I still have neither my medication, nor a delivery date for it.

The Suppliers say the hospital has told them they cannot send the prescription until I have a blood test that was requested on the 22nd.  I keep telling them that I had the blood test on the 19th and the hospital appointment on the 22nd which confirmed that the test was OK and I could continue with the medicine.

I can only suppose that I have been confused with another patient, or else someone has ticked the wrong box on a form somewhere. But it is hard for me to sort it out.

Things are falling apart.  Jehovah has allowed 6,000 years to pass since the loss of Eden, while we, the human family, tried to do things our way.  Surely that is time enough for us to realise the truth of the warning in the Hebrew Scriptures that "it does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step". (Jeremiah 10:23)

We had a violent thunderstorm on Saturday afternoon, which provided some much needed rain.  There were flood warnings in some parts of the country.  Which is another thing - we need a government that can perfectly control the immense forces of the weather. And that can only be the heavenly one.