We’ve got our Elisa back - In the name of Thiago - Day 139

While I’ve been flying pretty high these last few days – which comes as a blessed relief to Angelica, who is forever chastising me for flying low – I’ve had a trickier time with Elisa. It has been almost impossible to get her out of bed in the mornings. For her to wake from her slumbers before midday is a rarity.

Things came to a head yesterday as I had to shout at her to get to leave the tent in order to just about make a 12.30 cello lesson. And then Angelica had to send her to her room last night for refusing to shower. As she moves into adolescence, I really hope that she does start to take her personal hygiene more seriously very soon.

Today, after that stern dressing down, she seemed to have her mojo back. She’s been working on a school project to come up with a plan to put on a music festival this week. It’s been slow going, partly because half the day is lost most days due to Elisa’s morning habits, which is followed by highly professional levels of procrastination.

However, after a phone call to my designer friend Olly yesterday, Elisa was inspired to get on with the design work for her poster. Initially I'd mistakenly thought that she'd simply outsourced the work to Olly directly. Then she brought her commercial knowhow to the fore. I’m not sure her pricing strategy would have cut it though. For a three-day family music festival she was charging £200 for the ticket, waiting until the tickets were sold to unsuspecting music lovers, before informing them that it would also cost them £250 to pitch a tent!  

Angelica and I wandered up to the communal tennis courts at the top of our road this evening and it was great to see so many people using them. I hate seeing the courts unused and one benefit of the post lockdown period we’ve been in for a week or so now, is that people are flooding to the courts. In a little lull between use, we were able to get Elisa flying round them for half an hour in her roller blades. She’s properly getting the hang of it already and she’s only had three or four goes.

It’s getting on a little now and I’m starting to feel pretty tired. I’ve got another five-hour walk planned tomorrow, got to keep cracking on with these. Speaking of walks, look at these two splendid fellows Jamie Hickey and Captain Haddock aka Nigel, below, enjoying a wonderful socially distanced walk on the Sussex Downs. It’s pictures like these that do make me feel very nostalgic. If I had any money, I reckon I’d be back there now..

Hey-ho, just time for the standard plea if I may. That’s it, this money will not raise itself so please give what you can to my cause of raising £10,000 for Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Royal Stoke University Hospital, the two hospitals that cared for my son Thiago with such extraordinary levels of compassion in his tragically short lifetime.