Scooting and gaming

View from Funchal botanic gardens, November 2022

Coming back to collect the car after my trip to Madeira I helped mum to make her first excursion on the mobility scooter, down at the park at the bottom of the road. She has since made further forays and reports that so far she is not enjoying the experience at all. The pavements in the neighbourhood are not well maintained and  the hill is steep so she constantly feels as though she will tip off. Nevertheless she is persisting and I hope it will become easier with practice.

Back at home UJ's residence permit arrived, and she has returned (via Lisbon) to Kyiv where her parents still live - I think she has been missing friends and family a great deal. She wants to persuade her parents to move to Poland where they have access to an apartment for the winter, given the harsh conditions that a Ukrainian winter without reliable electricity will bring.

Then I went to Mr MXF's Christmas party. Despite doing very little for him in a highly sporadic and unreliable manner, I was still invited to lunch at a very nice pub followed by board games at a Games Café, where there was much merriment and where Mr MXF's daughter won everything there was to be won, although she had an advantage as she had played most of the games before. Mr MXF has since reassured me that what I've been doing has actually been very profitable...

Somehow time has become a scarce commodity as it's been a week since I returned from a long weekend in Budapest and nothing written beyond brief notes. I've been turned away from a blood donor session because apparently Madeira presents a risk of tropical infection that requires a 28-day wait before donation can be accepted, so I've rebooked for just after Christmas. But I even skipped badminton last night because I just needed to go to bed early, so the account of Budapest will have to wait until next time.

Orchids growing wild in Madeira