can you feel the drops as it starts to rain

Yesterday morning, I slept until 10, quite without meaning to. Jan and Jack were at a doctor’s appointment where Jan was getting her blood test results back. (She’s been feeling really run down and strengthless since a few days after the surgery, and they don’t know why.)

They arrived home just as I was thinking of breakfast, so since Jan hadn’t had any yet, I made porridge for all of us. Porridge made with whole milk with real brown sugar in it is awfully nice.

After that I played on their wii fit for a while, and then they left for Jan to go get a chest x-ray because the doctor wanted to make sure that she didn’t have an embolism. [She doesn’t.]

It had been raining, but it seemed to have stopped, and I wanted to do something, so I got out the bicycle and took off. I wanted to go somewhere different, so I went down Gote Lane and turned left at the end of it, which I hadn’t done before. I went down there for a while, then decided that I wanted to north to where I had gone before. Of course, I actually had my directions completely backward, since I had gone north down Gote Lane, but regardless, when I came upon a “public footpath,” I turned down it. My thoughts upon turning into this muddy unpaved lane were,

“This isn’t exactly the smartest thing you’ve ever done. You’re going to get stuck or something.”

“Ah well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

But I didn’t get stuck – it wasn’t even that difficult to pedal along – and I rather enjoyed being on grass and mud instead of pavement.

The lane ran into Honeyhill Road – the main road that St. Mark’s Lane (Jan and Jack’s street) is off of. I certainly wasn’t ready to go back yet, and since there was a paved lane straight across it, I looked both ways and went on across.

A little while down that lane, another lane, Black Drove, turned off to the right. It looked interesting, so I turned that way.

It was after this that things started to be strange. It was a chilly day, and biking kept me just warm enough to be in capris and a t-shirt without a jacket. The sky was overcast, making everything fairly dark. Slight sprinkles of rain came down occasionally, and it was a little bit windy. Apart from the wind, it was very quiet, except when birds would suddenly make a great racket. Everything seemed to be set up for the first scene in a ghost story, or some other mysterious tale. Everything seemed to be waiting for something to happen.

This feeling came to its greatest intensity when I reached a house with a label at the gate that said “Hundredacre Farm.” (Whether that is a reference to Winnie-the-Pooh, I do not know.) It had a fairly large garden, surrounded by a low brick wall. Inside were purple and yellow flowers, a couple of trees, bushes around the edges, and a very green very well-kept lawn.

The garden seemed like it was the place where something should happen. It seemed like the centre, the place where the story would take place.

I stopped, of course. And I took pictures. But what else was I to do? Knock on the door and say,

“Excuse me, I think there’s a story that’s supposed to happen in your garden. May I come wander around it to see if I’m the main character and if anything happens?”

It would have been convenient if it had suddenly started pouring down rain with thunder and lightning, or if I had fallen off the bike and sprained my ankle, but nothing of the kind happened, and I went on.

Nothing else that’s interesting to describe happened on the bike ride, except that I stopped at a church. It’s not in use any more, but it’s pretty.

I also found this at someone's front yard, and it charmed me:

When I got back home, Jan and Jack were still gone. I was very hungry, so I had a bowl of cereal and then toast and cheese, and read Great Expectations.

At four o’clock Jack called to tell me that when Jan had been going for her chest x-ray, she had complained of a pain in her chest, and of course was thence immediately ambulanced to the main hospital at Kings Lynn, just in case.

So who knew when they’d be back. Once you go to a hospital – especially the ER – you can be there forever. It’s like a black hole of time-warp-ness. Especially if they don’t really know what’s wrong with you.

So I kept reading Great Expectations. I didn’t really feel like doing anything.

At about six o’clock I feel asleep, curled into the corner of the couch like a little kid. And I woke again at about seven, and it was nearly dark, and it was raining again, and they weren’t back, and I was feeling mildly freaked out about Jan.

So I had peanut butter and nutella on bread, and read more Great Expectations, and did foot and ankle strengthening exercises, and stretched.

At about nine o’clock, Jan called, much to my relief, and said they’d left the hospital and would be home in about half an hour.

And when they came, I made tea, and Jack made fried eggs on toast, and we ate supper and then went to bed.

And that was yesterday. Although it was a fairly exciting day to me, it did not make much to write about.