What day is it?

A couple of days ago my 98-year-old neighbour Pat rang me, asked if I was okay. I assured him I was. He said he’d been worried because I hadn’t come round with the post. He has home help who come in every day, but I’m the one who collects and delivers his post. These days I only bother to go to the boxes once a week on Wednesdays, the day the local paper is delivered. I told Pat it was Tuesday. He told me I was wrong. I thought about it for a second, realised he was right and apologised, said I’d collect the post the next day, which I did.

At two o’clock yesterday afternoon, while I was still in my bathrobe (what with binge watching Picard the night before), there was a knock on my door, which threw me completely. Nobody ever turns up unexpectedly to visit me. Opened the door to find my mate Joe and his dog Lexi outside. Going for a walk with them on Friday afternoons has become a regular thing. He’s introduced me to a number of trails on the island I’ve never used before. Tomorrow I was going to show him a trail he didn’t know near my place. He looked at me, looked at the bathrobe, asked if I was ill. Did I want to postpone our walk? I reminded him the plan was to go for a walk on Friday. He just looked at me without any sign of comprehension. I told him it was Thursday. He told me it was Friday, then he thought about it for a couple of seconds and realised it was indeed Thursday. So, not just me. He’s coming back today.

In an email yesterday a friend in the UK said: “Meanwhile the terminally stupid have been burning 5G telecom masts because they believe it’s a Chinese plot to spread the virus. No doubt there will be a push-back against the lockdown as a direct result of the idiots in the US.”

Jesus is my vaccine? Good grief.

As I said to him in my reply, I cannot adequately express how grateful I am for the general sanity of Canadians.