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First thing this morning, I had to head up to the ICA again, this time to pick up Freya’s prescription. After grabbing a few things in the supermarket first, I popped into the Apotek and pressed the pad for a ticket. Coincidentally, I was once more number 3. Also, coincidentally, the person who had claimed number 1 was having a long chat with the guy behind the counter. This meant another wait, longer than necessary.
Number 2 ticket was held by the weird guy who wears far too many clothes, a bucket hat, scarf and always with a backpack on his back. This made me wonder why eccentricity often means wearing far too many clothes. It made me sad that I could never join the ranks of the truly weird.
While I thought the weird guy might take too long as well, I was wrong. Clearly, part of his weirdness was to not take too long when being served. He was in and out in less than ten minutes. As was I. Very soon I was on my way back to the house.
And today, Freya was not as buoyant as she was yesterday. She is now down to having half a pill every two days and I think she is less active on the days without which further makes me realise that it’s the pills rather than her making progress.
I’m not saying that’s good or bad, I’m just conjecturing. In fact, she improved over the day which leads me to believe that she is getting better. Slowly but surely. She was quite spry when we went for our lunchtime walk.
Then, tonight, Nicoline came over for dinner. And I made böreği while she dead headed the flowers on the deck table.
It was my second time making the Turkish meal. I first had it in Istanbul with John in 2024 and I then made it at home shortly afterwards. Of course, given my understandable recent obsession with French food preparation and cooking, other nationalities have had to take a back seat. But, not tonight.
And, can I just say, it was perfect. It took me right back to the little local café where John and I had one each for breakfast with some amazing Turkish coffee on one of our morning sojourns.
I made the roasted aubergine in thyme to go with it as well as a few cheeky new potatoes in butter. I should add that it wasn’t just me waxing lyrical about my own cooking; Nicoline enjoyed it as well.
We had a lovely chat on the deck as the day slowly slipped away then Nicoline went home, because, of course, it was time for the France v Morocco game, and I’m 100% certain that watching it would be anathema to her somewhat worse than simply reading about it.
I should add here that Mirinda called at the beginning of the second half, most of which I watched with the mute on while listening to her relate her day. Which sounded delightful and a lot less full than yesterday. It included a boat ride, something we both dearly love.
Tomorrow she is off to Aarhus, a place she’s never visited. Not the Danish one, anyway.
Speaking of boats, The Bob’s engine has been fixed. So we may be back on the Baltic next week. Hopefully without any rowing from me.
But, heading off to America…Back to 1907, France conquered Morocco, making it a French protectorate which, of course, is a nice way of describing colonialisation. I am pretty sure there was no football played between the warring factions back then but there certainly was tonight. They were playing in a massive stadium in Boston and it looked packed to the rafters, of which there were none.
Nicoline can stop reading now
From the kick-off, it was obvious that France was easily the better team. After only ten minutes, they had already notched up 12 attempts at goal, five of which were on target. This was in stark contrast to the Moroccan figures of zero and zero.
And so the game continued, with both teams threatening but only one making it through the defence. That team, obviously was France.
One moment of joy for Morocco was when French striker Kylian Mbappé took a penalty which their goalie saved, but that was it, really. A lot of the time during the game, when the camera swung around from the action, the fans looked a bit morose.
On the other, on the blue side of the divide, the French fans were delighted with their team as they struck twice to win 2-0. Of course, there was the usual over-abundance of falling about, rolling on the floor with fatal injuries which magically disappeared once the referee awarded a free kick, but generally, the game was played with great skill and lots of passing play.
In fact, the game was most enjoyable except for the Moroccans, I guess.
Tomorrow night, it’s Spain (the beaters of Portugal) v Belgium (the slayers of America), a game that should be a little more equal than tonight’s offering. And it even has an early kick-off time of 9pm. That’ll be well worth watching.
Oh, and before I finish, sadly, Bonnie Tyler (Total Eclipse of the Heart) died yesterday aged 75 following an illness. The radio was full of her big hits all day today so I couldn’t really miss the fact that she had died.
