Day 70 - Sunday

20 February 2022

Wake up. No hangover. My injection skills are growing in confidence. This morning I will attempt the injection blindfolded. It is Sunday. We are meters from the Vatican. Jesus will guide my hand true.

Obviously, I didn’t mention this to Shell. It was another seamless injection. Eyes open. Jesus not required.

More improvement on Shell’s finger. We may have the infection under control.

Breakfast and then head out for coffee. Our regular is closed. We find a place on a busy street. Looks like rain. We chat, take our time. Tomorrow night we see the hand surgeon and we will know where we are heading. More time in Rome? North to Florence and on to Croatia? Something else entirely? I don’t mind not knowing. I am just happy spending time here with Shell.

“Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough

Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades

Forever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

As though to breathe were life!”

― Alfred Tennyson

We stroll back and grab some cheap pasta for lunch. No wine today. Head to the groceries for dinner. Slow-cooked braised beef and polenta. It is so good having our little kitchen.

We make some calls. Talk to Barry which is always good. Head down and prepare dinner. Colour the beef in a pan, chop the vegetables, celery, leeks, carrot, and garlic. Into a pot with a bottle of Chianti and a tin of crushed tomatoes. Cook low for about four hours.

Lay about for the afternoon. Eat dinner. Delicious. No wine.

“There is, following an ample meal, a sort of pause in time, filled with a gentle slackening of thought and energy, when to sit doing nothing gives us a sense of life's richness and a feeling that the least effort would be intolerable.” ― Marcel Proust

Another injection. More painful. Am I losing my touch? It occurred to me this is the first evening injection sober. Lesson learned.

Read. Bed.

Tomorrow we see the surgeon. We will soon know what the next few weeks will bring.