Visit by sister: part I

Travel restrictions have been lifted, and I could finally received international visitors again! I had already been in the Netherlands a, but another thing that was due to happen was my sister visiting me. She had last been here in 2019. It is easy to see why 2020 and 2021 didn't feature any visits! 

She was due to appear in April, but she contacted Covid herself just before travelling, so we postponed her visit again. And shortly before she would appear in May, I was a bit scared I had now got the virus given that I was having usually serious headaches, but some testing revealed I didn't. The headache was probably just due to the dissertation presentations…

On the day she was due I went to the station to pick her up from the train. She didn't emerge! She had one train later than I expected. Are then there she was!

We went home and had some lunch first; she hadn't had much to eat all day. And I by the time we were done with lunch there wasn’t time for a particularly long walk, so we just walked one of my normal running routes. But that was okay! And then we went home to cook dinner. It's always good to have my sister involved with that; she is a better cook than I am. But I put my new naan-baking skills to good use.

Sister selfie

Naan

I had also assumed a bit that as soon as she would walk into the door, she would throw herself onto the cat and ignore me. That has been an exaggeration! She was glad to see the cat welcomed her, and she did agree she is cute, but it was not as if there was no attention left for me. From either the cat or the sister!

Given that my sister lives two time zones away, and she had had to get up extra early to get here, she was very tired in what in Wales was only the early evening. So she wanted to go to bed, and sleep undisturbed. And there was one complication with that; she prefers the downstairs bedroom, but that is the one with the catflap in it. And it is a noisy catflap! So the cat was banned from it. She wasn't pleased with that; she really wanted to go out, but this just wasn't her lucky day. I've just works out like that sometimes! I hoped that my circadian rhythm and that of my sister would align a bit more; when I go to bed, the cat does too, so then the catflap is not in use until the next morning. But we would have to see!

We knew we could do some more substantial walks on all of the following days, but for now it has just been good to see each other again, and catch up on things, especially the sort of things that are best discussed in person, and without any time pressure. And festooned by the consumption of liberal amounts of tea!