Another Year, Another Blogging Reboot

And just like that, it is 2022. Happy New Year! 

It seems I can only keep up with regular updates on one social media platform at a time. I got hopelessly distracted by my 100 day dress challenge, which led me to a lovely community of 'woollies' and what I suppose would be called microblogging on Instagram. If you would like to follow me there my account is wearingladygrey - it is set to private to weed out strange men / bots / scammers or whatever they are! I am now on day 87 of the challenge and have found it surprisingly easy. I now have lots of half-formed thoughts about style and capsule wardrobes which I am hoping will turn into something fully-formed before too long. 

What has been happening since I last wrote? December meant lots of carol playing with the brass band. Indoor concerts didn't seem wise, especially with the arrival of omicron, but we played at the airport (large, ventilated space!), outside supermarkets and as small groups of wandering carollers. Christmas this year was particularly good - last year we were heading into lockdown and saw nobody outside our immediate household, which made us extra appreciative of the opportunity to spend time with family and friends this time. There have been walks outside, games inside, lots of good food and general enjoying of each other's company. Sadly though we did have to cancel a planned visit from M's family. With assorted nieces, nephews, partners and family friends there would have been 17 of us from 9 different households, which simply wouldn't have been sensible. We also postponed a short break in Edinburgh before Christmas, because we decided 6 hours on a train with omicron running riot was also too risky. All being well we will go in February instead. 

We are all now fully vaccinated and boostered. We managed to get TG booked in for her second jab the first day she was eligible - the government here has been ultra cautious about vaccinating healthy children to be sure the benefits outweighed the risks. After retiring from his job with NHS 111 M wanted to do some voluntary work so has been doing shifts helping out our local pharmacy with their vaccination clinic. It is a tiny place, so it is just him checking people in and out, and someone giving the vaccines. He loves it as it gives him lots of opportunity to indulge in his favourite hobby of talking to people! 

TG has been working hard at school, with mock (practice) exams in the week and a half before she finished for Christmas. She is due to take GCSE exams (General Certificate of Secondary Education) in the summer, but her age group are being given lots of in school testing in case the GCSEs end up being cancelled for the third year running due to the pandemic and grades have to be awarded by teachers. She has also been thinking hard about what subjects to choose to study for her last two years of school. Most students take three subjects at A (Advanced) level. Her school recommend starting four, then dropping one after a month or so when they have had a chance to test them out. After some dithering she has picked biology, chemistry, psychology and maths, with maths being the subject she expects to drop. However, she has the option to do a lower level (AS) maths course as an extra, and thinks she will do that as it is likely to be helpful to her when she goes to university. Her current plan is to study biological science in some shape or form. She thinks neuroscience sounds interesting, but is also tempted by zoology. 

I have thoughts about the new year, changes I want to make and habits I want to improve, but I'll save them for later. I hope not too much later!

Ups and Downs

Yesterday was another good day. M and I went for a late morning walk around the village where my father and his family came from (on both sides, from at least the early 19th century). To avoid the dreaded mud we mostly stuck to the main road. It is a long, straggling village, so we started in the middle, walked to the south end and back, and then towards the north end, turning round when it started to rain. I think we walked about 2 1/2 miles altogether. The house below was once the Red Lion Inn, and is where my 10 year old great-grandfather at the time of the 1881 census. 

The next photo is of what is thought to be the oldest house in the village, dating back to the 16th century.  I'd love to see what it looks like inside! After we got home from our walk we warmed up with turkey soup which I had made the night before. In the afternoon we played games - Banangrams, Mind the Gap (a card game similar to Uno but based on London Underground stations and lines) and Mega Monopoly, which in our opinion is much the best Monopoly version. Then M and I watched Hidden Figures, which we saw at the cinema when it was first released. It is an excellent film and well worth watching again. Even though it was just the four of us, we had our usual Boxing Day buffet for dinner. Last year we went to R's for Boxing Day, but obviously that wasn't a possibility this year.  

Today has felt quite flat and lethargic. I woke with a headache which wouldn't shift, and H is feeling at a loose end as she has next week off work but with nothing to do - can't see her BF except for walks, can't go to the gym, can't visit any friends, can't go and do any shopping for things for their new house. It feels a waste of holiday time, especially as she knows that when she wants time off later it will be the busy season and she won't be able to get it. M and I did manage to go out for a walk locally this morning, and H and TG went out for a short walk this afternoon but came back complaining of wet feet. The weather has been truly awful this week. We are on high ground, but there have been floods in the town where I work, and yesterday I was going to meet a friend for a walk but she had to cancel as they needed to go and rescue her elderly mother whose flat was in danger of flooding. Between plague and floods it all feels very apocalyptic. I keep reminding myself that things will get better, hopefully quite quickly once the vaccination programme gets up to full speed. 

Merry Christmas

This was a different Christmas, with faces missing from our table, but most importantly everyone is safe and well and - God willing - we will all be back together next Christmas. With our youngest daughter now 14 Christmas starts a little later, though both girls were sitting on our bed opening stockings by 8am. (We always managed to avoid ridiculously early starts, as we imposed a "no waking us or opening anything before 7" rule which stuck!) Next year we will be down to just one stocking, with only TG left at home. And she is growing up fast! She has always been petite, but this year she has grown rapidly and is now 5 feet 5 inches tall - the same height as me, and almost as tall as her sisters. M and I still get a shock when we look at her and see the young lady who has suddenly replaced the child she was last year.

After opening stockings some of us got dressed and some of us sorted presents into piles for each person, then we opened gifts with occasional breaks to make breakfast and get the turkey in the oven. R received a negative result for her Covid test, so H and TG met up with her midway between her house and ours to swap presents. When they got back we set up a FaceTime call through the TV and watched each other open packages. In the slightly blurry picture (photo of TV screen) below you can see a very excited dog enjoying his stuffed toy pheasant. After that M took a bag of packages around to my brother and H and I did stuff in the kitchen. 

H was chief cook this year, leaving me to do a bit of vegetable chopping, to make the gravy, and to prepare an apple crumble for dessert. We had a minor catalogue of messy disasters, though none affected the quality of the final meal. H opened a jar of goose fat to use for potatoes which had been left out of the fridge and liquified, some spilled onto the black pepper grinder which had to be thrown out. Then something liquid (soy sauce? balsamic vinegar?) managed to spill itself in a cupboard, and while cleaning that up I dropped a full jar of wholegrain mustard which smashed on the floor. Just as we finished cleaning that up TG knocked my drink over. After that all went smoothly, and the end result was delicious. While we were dishing up, M took a large portion of everything round to my brother so he didn't miss out on Christmas dinner. 

After the main course we were so full we took a short break and played bananagrams (one of our new Christmas games) before eating the apple crumble. Then we slumped on sofas and watched TV for a while - the second half of Coco (one of our  favourite Disney movies), the Queen's Christmas message, and highlights from Strictly. I confess I may have dozed off for a while! Most of us didn't want much else to eat - TG had cheese and biscuits, M and I had small smoked salmon rolls, and H I think had chocolate! We played The Really Nasty Horse Racing Game (highly recommend this board game - fun and not too hard to learn), then the girls went upstairs while M and I watched the Call the Midwife Christmas special, which given the way this year has been felt even more of a treat than usual and may have required a tissue or two! Christmas this year may have been different, but it was still good. 

Christmas Eve

This morning we drove over to the nearby village of Wing to drop off a Christmas card to friends. After standing at the end of their drive for a socially distanced chat we went for a walk through the village, past the church and through the fields beyond. At this point it stopped being a walk and became a squelch over mud and waterlogged ground. In the end we walked back along a road rather than battle more mud and water in more fields, doing a circuit of 3.5 miles. 

Wing Church is truly special, one of the most important surviving Anglo-Saxon churches in the country, with much of it dating back to the 10th century. The village was given by King Edgar to a kinswoman, Aelfgifu, who rebuilt what was probably originally a 7th or 8th century building.  It is thought that the crypt held relics which made it a place of pilgrimage. It would also have been a minster church, acting as a centre for a wider area than just the village. The picture below shows the apse, with rounded Anglo-Saxon arches and a much later window cut into the wall. Below the window you can see the top of an arched entrance leading to the crypt.  

After we got back from our walk it was time for a late lunch. H went out for a walk and to deliver presents to her boyfriend and his family, while I made some mince pies. A friend dropped round to bring us some home made sweets, so we had a socially distanced chat with her from the door step. We watched Paddington 2 on TV, then played a Christmas Eve board game (literally, The Christmas Eve Game). M an I went outside with the intention of singing carols with neighbours - our town usually has carol singing in the town centre on Christmas Eve which is attended by thousands, and this year the plan was to broadcast carols so that people could sing along on their doorstep. However, we couldn't make the music work so we ended up chatting outside for a while, with Christmas music on the car radio instead.  

After that we prepared vegetables ready for tomorrow and cooked pizzas, then watched Love Actually, which has become our traditional Christmas Eve movie. Altogether a good Christmas Eve. 

Baking Day

Today was thoroughly wet and miserable, so we went for a short walk first thing when it was just drizzly, before the rain really set in. I should have gone to Stonehenge on Monday to see the winter solstice there, but obviously couldn't because of the new Covid restrictions, and we should have gone to Waddesdon Manor today, but that was also cancelled. Given that the weather both days turned out to be miserable, at least it hasn't felt as though we missed out too much! That is the problem with British weather. It is so unpredictable that planning anything outdoors is always a risk, at any time of year.  

After the walk I did another batch of wrapping, and now just have stocking fillers (small and fiddly!) to do tomorrow. We have gifts for R and her boyfriend, H's boyfriend and my brother all in bags ready to be delivered by "Santa" (also known as H) tomorrow. Or, at least, that was the plan. R is waiting for a Covid test result - she doesn't have any standard Covid symptoms, but had a persistent headache so thought she would get a test as a precaution. If she gets a negative result tomorrow, H will still go over and do a gift swap, but they rightly thought it sensible to wait until R knows for sure whether she is in the clear. While I I was wrapping, H was baking a spectacular donut cake for her boyfriend's sister's birthday tomorrow. 

We had a family movie afternoon, watching Matilda for the umpteenth time - R used to love Matilda so much that at one point we almost knew the entire script by heart! - followed by Klaus on Netflix. TG baked brownies, and then she and H cut and decorated them as Christmas trees. I haven't done any Christmas baking so far this year and have left it all to the girls, but will probably make some mince pies tomorrow.

There was some talk about playing board games this evening, but in the end TG wanted a soak in the bath, H decided on an early night, and I have tucked myself up in bed early to read, knit and write for a couple of hours. I am so enjoying the extra leisure time this week. 

Vaccines and Errands

M received his first vaccine dose this morning, and reports a sore arm (similar to flu vaccine) but no other issues. There were a few stages to go through - registration, questionnaire, sign off by a doctor, vaccine, and then waiting time to check he had no reaction - but it all went smoothly. He said the people being vaccinated were a mix of about 60% elderly people and 40% NHS staff. I see there are reports that vaccine distribution is uneven and that some hospital trusts have yet to receive supplies, but in this area the system seems to be working well. The doctor M saw seemed to think the vaccination programme should be completed sometime between Easter and the summer. 

I went to M & S Food to pick up a few items, hoping it would not be too manic at lunchtime, and was pleasantly surprised to find only a short queue to get in. I also went into the pet store next door to buy a toy for R's dog for Christmas. He adores new toys but destroys them very quickly so any addition to the toy box is always welcome! The plan is that H will go over to R's on Christmas Eve to drop off and collect gifts and go for a walk with her sister while she is there. Then on Christmas Day we will have a virtual present opening by FaceTime or Zoom. I also did a bit more gift wrapping. I spotted these boxes in Tesco last week and got one each for TG and H. I have filled them with treats to have while we watch a movie and play games on Christmas Eve, and to snack on over the holidays. I'm working on the principle that this year anything that might add a bit of extra Christmas cheer goes! 

I also got a few other jobs done, including sorting out phone contracts for TG and M, which I had been procrastinating over. We have had SIM only contracts with Three for at least ten years and their customer service has been consistently excellent, but it always takes time to deal with upgrades and changes so I am inclined to put it off. I also needed to start the process of transferring H's contract into her own name - we carried on paying it for her while she was a student, but now she is working it's time to hand it over. M being decidedly non-technical, I have always dealt with all the phone contracts. 

This evening it was my turn to make dinner - haddock, sweet potato wedges and peas - then we watched Four Christmases, which was definitely not one of the better Christmas films I have seen! The All Creatures Great and Small Christmas special which I watched with M later on was much more enjoyable. 

 

Christmas Shopping

Both M and I had a day off work today, but the weather was too miserable to want to go anywhere outdoors. The forecasted snow didn't arrive, but it was cold with a persistent icy drizzle. Definitely indoor weather. I have come to the conclusion that now might be the right time to trade in my laptop - the one I am using is 6 years old and in good condition, but as I am working two jobs on it I don't want to wait until it starts to become unreliable. I did a bit of research and discovered it has a significantly higher second hand value than I expected, which makes a new one affordable. With this in mind we decided a trip to the Apple store to look at laptops would be a good (indoor!) plan. It turned out to be not as good a plan as we thought; the store was so busy that they were only letting people in with a booked time slot, and the only time available would have stopped us getting back in time to collect TG after school so we had to give it a miss. We did get to see the Christmas lights in the shopping centre, which were cheerful and festive. 

It was still a worthwhile trip, as I was able to get some small stocking fillers and oddments that would not have been worth ordering online, and M and I went to Nandos for lunch. That also involved a virtual queue, where we had to check into the queue online, and then got a text about 40 minutes later to say they had a table ready. Ordering was also digital, with a QR code on the table to direct us to the ordering site. We wondered whether this will continue to be an option or not once the pandemic is over, rather than having to stand in a queue to order. The other shopping success was that I managed to buy two tubs of orange flavoured hot chocolate from Whittards, which made the girls very happy. It was pretty busy, with significant queues for some shops. I dread to think what it will be like at the weekend.

After we got home, M and I watched some more of the excellent Queen's Gambit. I think we have just one episode left to watch now. The girls and I made homemade pizza for dinner, using a packet of gluten free pizza mix from a food hamper which was part of the instagram giveaway H won last month. It took a while for the dough to rise enough, but the end result was very good. While we ate pizza we watched Home Alone. 

Staying Home Part 2: Day 26

A couple of years ago I started collecting Christmas ornaments from places we visit. This year has obviously not been a good one for the bauble collection, but I did manage to get one in the Isle of Wight, where we discovered a Christmas shop on the last morning of our holiday. We decided we liked this one with a combination of Santa's sleigh with beach huts! 

This elephant was added when we visited Waddesdon Manor just after Christmas last December. They have an extraordinary elephant musical box on display inside the house, so he seemed an appropriate choice. There is a long walk from the car park to the house, and although there is the option of a shuttle bus, we normally enjoy the walk. Last year, I started to feel ill as we walked uphill to the house, and had to sit down on a bench outside the gift shop to recover. With hindsight, this was probably the start of whatever virus laid me low for the first part of the year, although it was another day or two before I started to feel feverish. It was almost certainly too early to be Covid, but as viruses go it was both nasty and persistent. We have tickets to visit Waddesdon again this December, just before Christmas this time and only the grounds are open, but it will be nice to keep the family tradition going despite the pandemic. 

Today has been a very routine Monday. I only needed to work this morning, which made a nice change after being busy last week. The weather was foggy and murky again, with added damp. Really not very nice, but M and I did manage to go out for a walk for half an hour after he collected TG from school. I checked the weather forecast tonight and it is forecasting snow on Friday morning. We don't usually get much snow, so whether it will materialise or not remains to be seen - it only takes a rise of a degree or two in the temperature and the snow will just be very cold rain. Good news on the Covid front is that cases have fallen significantly over the past month. Whether they are falling enough to improve things in more than the short term remains to be seen, but at least we are going in the right direction.