Staying Home: Day 62

We stayed up later than normal last night watching the first two episodes of Unorthodox on Netflix, a drama about an ultra-orthodox young Jewish woman who leaves her husband and New York community for a new life in Berlin, based (extremely loosely) on a true story. I then couldn't get to sleep, so ended up sleeping late this morning. Once up, we all moved on from last night's slightly acrimonious attempt to do online kitchen shopping, and ended up planning a general reorganisation of the kitchen and a revamp of the bathroom - H has decided that once she finishes her uni course at the beginning of June she needs a project, so is going to tackle the reorganising and redecorating.

I read a bit more of the William Morris biography, then spent an hour or so outside in the hammock sewing and listening to podcasts. While I was doing that, an ice cream van came round and M bought himself an ice cream. H and I don't eat dairy, and TG decided she didn't fancy one. Lots of the neighbours also went out, but being outdoors social distancing was easy enough. For today's walk we took a circular route through our end of town, walking down to the park next to the parish church which replaced the old medieval church in the 19th century - it was needed to sever the new town which was growing up around the station, while the old church was over a mile away in the middle of nowhere. The park was fairly busy, with one family playing on some of the exercise equipment which had "lost" the tape blocking it off from public use.

From there we walked round to the pub-cum-makeshift grocery stall to stock up on  a few bits and pieces, mainly bread flour, fruit and salad vegetables. They still had their VE Day bunting up, with "Keep Calm and Carry On" signs in the windows.

When we got back I ordered the slightly eclectic selection of kitchen and bathroom items we had decided we needed, spread over three orders from two shops. I ordered lots of plastic storage baskets and a couple of other items from Dunelm (a large homeware chain) which were only available through "click and collect" at a nearby town. The store itself isn't open, but they seem to have worked out a good system for collecting an order while socially distancing - we will go over later in the week to pick them up, which at 10 miles or so will be the longest drive we have done since March. I then ordered various other items from Dunelm which were only available for delivery, including wallpaper for the bathroom, and also put in an order with Argos. Once everything arrives H should have plenty of scope for her organising blitz!

The enthusiasm for decluttering and organising also got to TG, who cleared out her bookcase, weeding out a lot of outgrown children's books and others she inherited from the other girls but isn't likely to read (TG is not an enthusiastic reader, I'm afraid). She didn't do any exercise today, but H did strength training. She has been running 5K two or three times a week, and has decided it has given her shin splints, apparently quite a common problem for inexperienced runners. 

We watched the first part of HP and the Half Blood Prince, and H and I (mostly H) made a roast chicken dinner. There was a minor disaster when I went to put the chicken in and discovered that it hadn't defrosted properly. In the end rather than risk undercooked poultry I drove H down to the convenience store to buy another one. I try only to buy free range, ethically sourced chicken, but today it was a case of settling for what we could get. The semi-defrosted chicken will now be tomorrow's dinner. After dinner M and I watched the last two episodes of Unorthodox, while the girls did their own thing. I finished the second sleeve of the jumper I have been knitting for TG and started sewing it together. I should get it finished next week, though now the weather is getting warmer it won't be much use until the autumn.