Normality

Our little semi-detached house in the suburbs this afternoon

In the past six days, three winter storms have rolled in from The Atlantic: Dudley, Eunice and Franklin. When the next storms arrive, they will be Gladys, Herman and Imani. We never used to name our winter storms but current thinking is that by giving storms names , the general public will be less blasé about responding to them. There's a certain anthropomorphism going on. 

Living here in Yorkshire on the eastern flank of The Pennines, we rarely feel the full force of Atlantic storms. By the time they reach us they have usually dissipated somewhat. The worst seems to be reserved for the south west of England, southern Wales and the north west of Scotland.

On Saturday night, I thought I might have contracted COVID for the first time because I had cold symptoms and  suspected it might have been connected with my football match attendance last Tuesday. However, a lateral flow test yesterday morning was negative. Down in London our son Ian tested positive last week and remained in home quarantine for five days. At first he felt quite poorly and took to his bed.

I made it up to "The Hammer and Pincers" last night for the Sunday quiz. My team won. It was helpful that I knew that the North American name for coriander is cilantro. We also knew that Axl Rose chose his stage name because it is an anagram of "oral sex". We won six beer tokens and £12 in cash and felt happy even as Storm Franklin was lashing about outside.

Earlier I had made yet another family Sunday dinner which was of course attended by our darling Phoebe. No longer does she grab our faces, threatening to pull them off. Instead she likes to walk us round the house as she holds on to our hands for stability. Kitchen to hallway, into the study then right past the downstairs shower room and back into the kitchen. It is a route I have now travelled dozens of times. Round and round like a teddy bear.

It seems that my younger brother Simon (aged 65) will have to have one of his kidneys removed before spring arrives. There's a tumour  but we don't yet know if it is benign.  He lives alone in a terrace of cottages not fifty yards from the bedroom in which he and I were both born in the middle of Yorkshire's East Riding.

I have already offered to bring him back to Sheffield for his recuperation period - assuming of course that the removal process is straightforward with no complications caused by possible malignancy. 

We never considered such things when we climbed trees, played football and larked about down by the canal.  And we came home to Mum and Dad, Paul and Robin and to Oscar our cat and later we laid in bed listening to the wind in the sycamores where  coal-black rooks had built their jumbled rookery.  No we never thought of kidneys or cancer, cholesterol or catastrophe as we entered sleep's gates. I whispered, "Are you awake Simon?" but there was no reply.

Hallam Towers - a new apartment block in Broomhill 

- seen from our top decking this afternoon