Staying Home: Day 55

We ran out of bread today so I was super efficient this morning and baked some myself. I have an old bread machine which I now very rarely use, and this morning I mixed and kneaded the dough by hand. As I told H, when she wanted to know why I wasn't using the machine, it was both quicker and more therapeutic. The end result was pretty good, and was finished in time for lunch, though we had to eat it still hot.  

While the bread dough was proving, M and I walked down to a local pub to buy some flour and eggs. They usually have a stall outside on Sundays, but because it was a windy day they had moved it into the bar area, with a serving table just inside the door. It was the first time I had been into a "shop" since the lockdown in March.

A lot of people have decorated their houses with rainbows, notes of thanks to our National Health Service workers, and now bunting and flags for Friday's VE Day commemoration. I loved this "Heart NHS" with a rainbow made out of Lego - making it must have kept somebody out of mischief for a while! Almost without exception here there is a deep affection for the NHS as an institution and gratitude to everyone who works for it. 

This house had gorgeous red, white and blue bunting. It looked homemade, and I wondered whether it had been made during lockdown or whether they already had it from some other occasion.  

The oddest sight during our walk was this postbox, which is waiting for an engineer! Quite how a postbox can break down, we couldn't decide. My best guess is either a broken / jammed lock, or a lost key. I wonder if postbox engineering is counted as an essential service? (Having said that, the PM announced tonight that anyone unable to work from home should go back to work if possible, so presumably postboxes can now be fixed even if they aren't considered essential.)

This afternoon I read for a while, then we watched the rest of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I worked on a crochet project and H finished our jigsaw (I forgot to take a photo - it was a picture of a cockerpoo dog. Pretty dog but fiddly jigsaw). For dinner we made little roasted potatoes with veggies; everyone else had lamb steaks, and I had a veggie burger. Over the last two or three years I have often eaten solely or mostly plant based, and while at the moment I am eating meat I tend to eat less than the rest of the family. I also still avoid dairy - something non-vegan doesn't agree with me, and I think I have narrowed it down to dairy. H has been dairy free for a few years and M has always disliked cheese, so it is pretty easy - we get dairy milk and butter for M (who isn't keen on plant milks) and cheese for TG (who prefers plant milks but loves cheddar), but always cook and bake dairy free.

Yesterday and today I have found walking more tiring and have had less energy, and today the off-and-on sore throat has come back. Hopefully I just overdid things with two longer walks during the hot weather. I'm definitely feeling much better than I was a month ago; possibly I stopped pacing myself a bit too soon.