An ACE day

Our handyman friend Mike from our church has been here today painting the insides of a few windows for us. 

Not long after he’d started this morning, a fairly new member of our church was passing our house, and she stopped and waved madly just as I was walking through the hall. Seeing her waving, and thinking she was waving at me, but not knowing who she was, I waved back and went to the front door and opened it. However, it turned out she was actually waving at Mike, who was at the open window on the floor above me, and was calling out a greeting to him! 

I introduced myself to her, explaining that we also used to attend the church but are now unable to do so because Smithers is unwell, which means that we watch the services online these days. She then amazed me by telling me that she’s an ex-GP and that she had suffered a nervous breakdown herself some years ago, when she was hospitalised for many months. She was immensely sympathetic to Smithers’ situation, and so I invited her in for a chat. I introduced her to Smithers and we all got on like a house on fire.

One of the things she told us which I found very helpful was that it’s a good plan, when you’re feeling low or anxious, to try and do these three things each day – Achieve something, Connect with someone and Enjoy something. An easy acronym to remember. Smithers was very encouraged by meeting her, and all in all I think today was an ACE day.

Oh, and I snapped these catkins when I walked to our GP surgery to take Smithers’ blood pressure readings chart in for review. I just adore fluffy yellow catkins!