Weather Extremes & Afternoon Tea

This week has been very much a game of two halves as far as the weather is concerned. Monday and Tuesday were hot, and the forecast temperature was so high on Wednesday that we decided to set off early for a walk while it was still relatively cool. We visited a stretch of the Grand Union canal we had never walked before, starting at Cosgrove in Northamptonshire, walking down to Wolverton at the northern extreme of Milton Keynes and back. We parked up at Cosgrove and were slightly startled to find that our route to the canal towpath went under the canal through this tunnel. It was built to be wide enough for horses, so not as narrow as it looks in the picture - we were glad we were not tall though!  

The canal is carried over the river by a short aqueduct. The "Iron Trunk Aqueduct" was built in 1811 after the previous brick aqueduct collapsed, and was a pioneering piece of engineering at the time. Lovely views, particularly on a sunny day. 

We got as far as the derelict buildings which were once a huge railway works before turning round and adding in a loop round by the River Ouse back to the aqueduct. This pool where the river widened looked as though it could be good for wild swimming - nice and clear, though I don't know what the depth would be like.  I have a friend who goes swimming in the river a bit further upstream, but I'm not sure I am brave enough! 

By Wednesday evening it was both very hot and very humid, with a sticky night making it difficult to sleep. We bought a fan for TG's room as we could only find one - an old one disintegrated last year and I thought we had replaced it, but apparently not. Thursday was cooler with some rain, then Friday was chilly with heavy rain all day. Hard to believe it had been so warm only two days earlier! 

R had given us a voucher last Christmas for afternoon tea at the Luton Hoo Hotel, which we had booked for Friday. Built as a country house by the Earl of Bute in the 18th century, it is now a 5 star luxury hotel. M had been once before, but this was my first visit. I had the vegan tea and M the standard one with slightly tweaked sandwiches (he doesn't eat ham or cheese). There were four sandwiches each, two scones with jam and cream, and four little cakes, and of course plenty of tea! We were too full to eat all the cakes, so brought the leftovers home for TG. When we finished it was raining fairly heavily. As the car park is a few minutes walk from the hotel, the doorman offered us a lift to our car in the hotel taxi, which was driven round and we were courteously ushered into it under the protection of a golf umbrella - definitely the luxury touch. We are not used to chauffeurs and uniformed doormen treating us like royalty! Getting back to the car dry was definitely a bonus. 

Today has been mostly dry, but it is still cold enough to have needed extra layers. We managed a short walk this morning without getting rained on, and this evening M is working. TG is studying hard as she has exams at school all next week. The school are calling them mock (practice) GCSEs, though I suppose in reality they are pre-mocks as she will have another set in the winter before sitting the actual exams next spring. I think she is mostly bogged down in science, as she is taking physics, chemistry and biology as separate subjects and each has lots to remember.  

Out to Lunch and an Unexpected Purchase

I went shopping. Twice. Once planned and once unplanned. On Friday I went to collect my violin from its service. With its rehaired bow, new strings, bridge and tail piece, it looked as good as new. It sounds good too - at least, it does when allowances are made for the limitations of the player! 

As a teenager and young adult I used to play the viola, but eventually decided I preferred the violin and sold my viola in order to buy a better violin. Over the last few years I had started to miss playing the viola. For a while pre-pandemic I played in a small string group which desperately needed a viola player, so I played on a borrowed viola to fill the gap and realised I would really like one of my own again. However, I didn't have a budget for one, and it had stayed as an unrealised aspiration. When I collected my violin, I decided to ask about violas, thinking a reasonably playable one might be manageable in the not too far distant future. I asked. It turned out that he had one for sale that was both playable and so affordable I bought it on the spot! It is a Romanian factory made viola with slight cracking to the varnish, but it makes a surprisingly reasonable sound and came with a bow, a case and even a set of spare strings. The only thing I need to get for it is a shoulder rest - trying to play without one is painful, and my violin shoulder rest is only barely better than nothing! I think I will have a lot of fun with it, although it will take a while to build up stamina due to the size and weight of it. 

Saturday's shopping trip was pre-planned. It is TG's birthday on 8th June and she didn't have anything specific she wanted as a gift apart from some oddments, so we decided I would take her to an outlet mall in the town where M works so she could choose something. As it is a holiday weekend I thought it would be a good idea to get there reasonable early. I was right! We walked straight in at 10.30. By the time we left three hours later the entire ground floor of one of the car parks was full of people queueing! It probably wasn't quite as bad as it looked as the queue was spread out to allow for social distancing, but we were very glad indeed we weren't in it! 

After looking around various shops TG chose a small bag and a pair of earrings. We enjoyed Japanese style rice bowls from Itsu for lunch - Japanese food is her favourite - and iced coffees before we headed home. 

It seems as though life has suddenly taken off, with lots of things on the calendar. Pre-pandemic it would probably have been a fairly normal level of activity, but after doing so little for so long it is both enjoyable and exciting, but also strange and tiring. Yesterday we went out for lunch, to use a gift voucher R had given M for his birthday. The voucher was for the Marco Pierre White chain of restaurants, and the nearest is part of a hotel which is inside the football stadium at Milton Keynes. We are so used to everything be shut or cancelled that we were quite surprised to find that there was an event on in the stadium. As we left the restaurant we peered through some glass doors and it seemed to be some sort of strong man competition. The audience was obviously just.a limited number and they were seated in socially distanced groups, but they were loud and enthusiastic. I just googled and it seems it was the semi-finals of the UK's Strongest Man contest - the final was taking place in the same place today. 

The three of us all enjoyed our lunch. It was the first time we had been to a MPW restaurant and we would definitely go back. They do a Sunday lunch menu with two or three course meals including a roast - TG and I had roast chicken (I very rarely eat it when I am out as I don't want to eat intensively farmed chicken, but this was advertised as free range) and M had beef. M and I had smoked salmon as a starter and TG had calamari, then we all had different desserts - mine was sticky toffee pudding with butterscotch sauce. One consequence of the pandemic is that I have gone back to eating pretty much anything after leaning quite heavily towards a vegan diet. Being more of an omnivore made it so much easier for the four of us to eat together, and cooking and eating was something we all enjoyed as a family. I would like to switch back to eating mostly plant-based again, as I think it makes me feel fitter and more energetic as well as being more environmentally friendly. but eating differently to M an TG is an added complication to life that I'm not ready to tackle at the moment.  

This morning M got up early to go swimming - I opted out of an 8am start on a Bank Holiday - they later in the morning we went for a 3 mile walk. The boatyard where they rent out canal boats was almost empty, with just one solitary boat left moored. I'm not surprised they are getting lots of bookings, as a hiring a narrow boat must be about as Covid-safe a holiday as it is possible to get. Our friend B, who is a music teacher, came over for lunch, then she and I played duets for a while - violin / violin and violin / viola. It was good to give the viola a test drive, and I managed to play for quite a while without my arms giving up on me despite the size and weight of the instrument. Neither of us has played much (if at all!) since the pandemic started, so we were decidedly rusty, but it was good to get started again. 

It has been a busy working week as I was back in the office again on Tuesday and Wednesday and we had a freelance job which took up most of Thursday and Friday. I am enjoying being back working-at-work alternate weeks instead of working from home, but this week I found the screen on the computer I was using awful to read - I have been spoiled using my retina display laptop at home - and spent most of Wednesday with a nasty headache as a result. Next time I am in I am going to try using the middle distance glasses that I have for music and see if that helps. My varifocals definitely weren't cutting it. I had expected having to wear a mask for much of the day would be hard, but so far I'm not finding it too bad. Fortunately we only have to wear them when we have members of the public in, not around the other people in our work "bubble". Our little team of four have all had at least one vaccine dose, and two of us are due our second within the next couple of weeks (the UK decided to leave a 12 week gap between doses, to ensure that people in the high risk groups were able to get at least some immunity as quickly as possible) so the risk should be minimal.

I am really enjoying trying out Hello Fresh meal kits. After using R's voucher to get a free box last week, I decided to experiment with using it for our weekday meals during May. So far, definitely so good! Each meal comes with everything you need in a paper bag, except for meat and dairy products which are packaged separately with cool packs. Each meal comes with a recipe sheet with detailed and easy to follow instructions, and all the ingredients are pre-measured for three portions.  For some reason the neatness of this gives me a ridiculous amount of satisfaction! I am a reasonably competent cook, but have been feeding a family for nearly 30 years and it is lovely to have something that adds a bit of novelty both to the meals I am making and to how I cook them. The picture above is yesterday's Thai-style beef with peppers, green beans and fluffy rice. Very tasty and enjoyed by all of us - even M who is less enthusiastic about spicy food than TG and myself. I'm trying to push the boundaries a bit to find new and interesting things that we are all happy to eat and so far, apart from one meal which was a bit too far out of M's comfort zone and a bit too rich for TG, everything has been a success. I'm keeping a careful watch on our spending to see how much, if at all, it affects our food budget for the month. So far I think for us it may be either neutral or only slightly more expensive, which is a pleasant surprise. 

Today M was working an early shift at 111, so TG and I had arranged to meet up with H to go shopping for plants at a garden centre in MK. We did consider postponing it as the weather forecast was grim - it has stayed cold all week, though mostly dry until today when it was miserably wet; fortunately it is supposed to get warmer and drier tomorrow. In the end we decided to ignore the weather and go anyway. The incentive to get TG out of the house early on a Saturday (she is on a teenage late rising schedule when she doesn't have school!) was a takeaway breakfast from Tim Horton's, which is quite near H's new house. They have a long-running offer of a breakfast sandwich or wrap, a hash brown and a hot drink for £1.99, which is ridiculously cheap. So cheap that last time TG and H went there was a 45 minute queue for the drive through. Today we decided it would be quicker to queue in person rather than do the drive through, but it still took a while. We got breakfasts to take for H and M2 as well as for ourselves, then after we had eaten we went to Dobbies garden centre. I bought the plant in the picture above to put outside our front door and some bedding plants to go into pots in the back garden; H bought a couple of plants in pots to put outside her front door (they fortunately survived falling over in the boot of her car on the way home!) and TG bought an orchid for her bedroom. Now I just have to find time over the next few days to transplant the little plants and hope that my black thumbs don't kill them! 

Riverside Walk and Donuts

This morning I needed to take a swimsuit back to Next in Milton Keynes - I had ordered two different sizes to try - and decided to combine that with a walk. M suggested going somewhere we hadn't walked before so we went to Stony Stratford. Milton Keynes is a new town built over the past 50 years, which incorporated four existing towns, including Stony Stratford, and several villages. The river runs around the town and there is some lovely open parkland and river walks. We did about 2.5 miles altogether, so not a particularly long walk, but a very enjoyable one. The bright blue sky is a bit deceptive. It was a beautiful day, but there had been a frost overnight and it was still a little on the chilly side. 

After our walk we went to a donut shop that R and H had both recommended and bought donuts to take home for an afternoon treat - Biscoff for TG, chocolate orange for me (although in the end we shared them and had half each), and cinnamon sugar for M who has plainer tastes. TG definitely deserved a treat as she had French, physics and English tests this morning, in three consecutive lessons. She says she thinks they went OK. In the car on the way to school we chatted about assessments and exams, which led to talking about learning styles. Like me, she is a visual learner and finds it hard to keep focused for a whole day of listening to teachers talking. This is why school at home with online lessons suited her, as there was less talking and more time to work by herself. We both think she will enjoy Sixth Form (the last two years of school) as she will have free study time during the day, which will give her a change to refocus. 

My second day back at work yesterday went more smoothly. I was in our searchroom supervising researchers, and the computer in there was mostly working pretty well. I had to learn various new procedures but they are all pretty straightforward. As background work I was trying to reformat a large batch of photos to use for an online exhibition; it was a bit fiddly and occasionally the computer went on a go-slow, but after Monday's tech frustrations it was still a big improvement. Spending a whole day with different people was not as strange as it was on Monday, though it does seem odd having our already small group of staff split into two and never seeing the people on the other team. 

In good pandemic news, 95% of over 50s in the UK have now had at least one vaccine dose, which is quite an extraordinary figure. Another really encouraging figure is that of over 74000 patients admitted to hospital with covid between September and March, there were only 32 who had received their first vaccine dose more than three weeks earlier. What an extraordinary scientific achievement these vaccines are! 

Back to Work

Yesterday I went back to work for the first time since March last year. At the time I expected to be home for three months. For it to be over a year was beyond anything I could have imagined. It was good to be back, but I found it ridiculously tiring - I think mostly because the prospect (and the reality!) of sorting out the administrative side of going back was stressful, and also because being out and with other people for a long stretch of time was so unfamiliar. It was good to see colleagues again, though there are only four of us on the team I am part of - we have two teams working in the office alternate weeks, to keep the number in the office at any time as low as possible. One thing I had not missed was the 1960s brutalist concrete building. I now have to park across the road as the office car park is being used part of the time as a drive-in Covid testing centre. I took this photo as I walked across and can't believe there are no cars as this is a busy main road. 

I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to collect a new parking pass (mine needed updating as it still had the registration number for our old car) and get my swipe card reactivated very quickly and easily. Things then fell apart when I tried to log on to my usual computer, which gave me an error message I had never seen before. I phoned IT for help, only to find the computer had been decommissioned automatically as it had not been used for so long. It will need "rebuilding" (oh dear!) which is likely to take a couple of days, so I had to hunt for something else to use. At the fifth attempt I finally found one that actually worked properly; the third one I tried seemed to work, but turned out to have no internal memory left so it persistently refused to open things. By lunch time it felt as though all I had achieved was fight losing battles with technology! I will be working again tomorrow, this time supervising researchers. We are only allowing one person in at a time to look at pre-ordered items, so it should be quite straightforward. I'm just hoping the computer in the searchroom behaves itself and I don't have another "computer says no" day! 

We went swimming again this morning. I am definitely getting the hang of swimming freestyle for longer distances, and did a total of 30 lengths without feeling quite as exhausted afterwards as I did last week. We have now taken out membership with the leisure centre which makes swimming sessions much cheaper. This afternoon we had a Zoom meeting about a training session we have been asked to provide for a client in the Caribbean in the summer. This is the first time we have done any international freelance work, and it is a one off that isn't likely set a trend! It was a lovely spring day today, so after the meeting I spent a couple of hours out in the garden. I have also been busy meal planning. Over the last year R has regularly used Hello Fresh, a company which sells meal kits online. She sent me a voucher for a free box of three meals, so I have ordered that for next week. Assuming we like what we are sent, I'm planning to order from them through May to see if it is a good fit for us. I like the idea of trying out new recipes and that you are sent exactly what you need so there is no waste; M is prepared to be a bit more adventurous in what he eats, so long as there is no pork, seafood, cheese or curry, and TG has never been a picky eater and has quite adult tastes. I'm quite excited to give it a try. 

Pancake Day

The weather forecast was right and it is now very much warmer. Today I even went out for a walk with a jacket rather than a winter coat. There are noticeable signs of spring now, and the birds are definitely getting noisier. My back is still being a pain (literally!) although it is definitely feeling better than it did. Yesterday and today I managed slightly longer walks. Yesterday I grumbled a lot as walking hurt, but today it was easier. I am trying to be patient and to make sure that my back is well supported when I sit. Another improvement was that last night it was easier to find a comfortable position lying down, so I sleep much better than I had the previous couple of nights. 

It is TG's half term week, and usually we would go on at least one trip out somewhere. Mid-lockdown that is not an option, so today we used Uber Eats to order lunch from Subway - a favourite of hers - as a half-term treat. Last time we ordered through Uber Eats the delivery driver came by motorbike, today it was a large taxi van - slightly over the top for four sandwiches! Taxis must be struggling for custom with all the Covid restrictions, so I suppose delivering at least gives them some business. 

We have always given the girls small rewards when they have good school reports (usually either £5 or their choice of edible treats), but this time TG's report was so exceptionally good we decided it would be good to let her choose something a bit bigger. We were thinking clothes, but she had just done some online clothes shopping and said she would really like a galaxy light for her room. We ordered one for her which arrived this afternoon and she is thrilled with it. She has been doing quite a bit of primping of her room lately at her own expense but a light would have been beyond her limited budget.  

Today is Shrove Tuesday which is better known as Pancake Day in the UK, so dinner was pancakes (crepes) with various combinations of strawberries, chocolate hazelnut spread, Biscoff, golden syrup, ice cream, sugar and lemon, according to taste. The girls have a Biscoff obsession, I went for strawberries and chocolate spread, and M only ever has sugar and lemon with pancakes. The origin of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday is supposed to be it allowed people to use up eggs and milk before Lent, but it is a tradition which has stuck. 

Pretty Food Day

Another working day - I am finding that doing two full days of archive work is working out well as far as time management goes, though I'm not convinced I get as much done as it is hard not to slow down in the afternoon. We went for a 30 minute walk at lunchtime, which it very much a good thing as it gives my eyes a rest from the laptop screen, my brain a bit of down time, and getting out into daylight helps my mood. TG, on the other hand, has turned into a troglodyte and rarely leaves the house - it's a good thing she has her Zoom dance classes, so she is at least getting a decent amount of exercise. She wanted an avocado today for a task for her catering course, so we insisted she go out and get it herself, though she managed to get M to drive her down to the shop rather than walk through the icy slush. The task was about presentation, and she wanted to make this avocado, cucumber and smoked salmon starter she found on Pinterest. Slightly to her surprise it came out looking very impressive. It tasted good too! 

After I finished work I prepared the dinner and then gave M instructions on what to put into the oven and when, so that I could do a live yoga class between 6 and 7pm and dinner would be ready when I finished. Today was fish box day and I hit lucky as it had salmon, which was what I was hoping for as I wanted to roast it with new potatoes. We also had other roast veg (courgettes, mushrooms and tomatoes) and the leftovers of some red cabbage I cooked on Sunday. After dinner we ate some of this chocolate box from my Hotel Chocolat trawl. It was half price as it was left over from Christmas stock. The chocolates were so pretty it almost seemed a shame to eat them.  

Covid news is mixed. The UK death toll hit 100,000 today, and there are still many, many people in hospital so it is not going to improve for a while yet. However, case numbers are falling steadily and vaccination numbers are rising - over 10% of the population have now had their first vaccination. Our local vaccination service is almost up to 5,000 jabs given, but I think is now waiting for more vaccine to arrive. Things are now definitely going in the right direction, it is just going to take a long time to arrive at the destination. 

Bacon Butty Day

Two days off have just zoomed past. Although I am sometimes fed up of lockdown, at least I am not bored! Yesterday morning we decided to repeat the woodland walk we did a week ago with our friends. The first track was very much muddier, which we soon realised was due to trucks driving up and down. A lot of trees had been cut down in a week. This part of the country park is a commercial pine plantation, with trees planted after the Second World War. The conservation trust which runs the area has decided to take down the spruce trees, leaving just native trees and some of the better fir specimens, hoping that once the land is more open it will revert to heather-covered heathland. Apparently heathland is quite rare as it depends on a particular type of soil, and the native heath was destroyed when commercial woodland was first planted in the 19th century. Walking past it smelled very strongly of pine resin! 

Further on in our walk we passed the ancient woodland, which is believed to have been there for many thousands of years. You can really see the difference between the native woodland and the plantation in these two photographs. The woodland has been "farmed" for centuries, with trees pollarded and coppiced to supply sustainable timber, while keeping the wood from becoming overgrown and overshadowed. The conservation trust now carries out this sort of work again in order to keep the wood healthy. The National Trust has a good explanation of coppicing and woodland management here. 

As usual there were a lot of water birds on the lake. I think this duck may be an accidental crossbreed involving some sort of crested duck. We timed our walk so that we could stop for a takeaway lunch again - bacon roll and coffee for me. I try to avoid eating meat when I don't know that it is ethically sourced, but I'm afraid my principles just evaporate when faced with the prospect of a hot bacon roll outdoors on a cold day. I justified it on the grounds that exceptions can be made under the pressure of a pandemic, and it is better to try and fail sometimes than not to try at all. I suspect Fridays could become bacon butty day as a lockdown treat.

Although it was a lovely morning, you can see just how wet it has been, from this path masquerading as a puddle and stream. There was also mud. After we got home I spent quite a lot of the afternoon trying to disentangle genealogical mysteries, with a certain amount of success. I cooked a slightly experimental dinner with some sea bass that came in last week's fish box, which came with a recipe for teriyaki sea bass with noodles. I suspected it would not be as easy as it looked, or as tasty - I am delighted to report that I was wrong! I will definitely cook fish this way again. 

This morning I cut M's hair for the first time as H has got bored of the job after nearly a year! It took me a while to fathom out how to use the clippers, but the end result was surprisingly good. Put it this way, he looks normal! I also did a few more necessary tasks - packaged up some jeans to return (I ordered three pairs to try, and needed to return the two I didn't want to keep), updated the supermarket order for next week, and so on. M went out and dropped off the parcel at a collection point and bought a few bits at M & S Food. He is now the designated shopper - as he has had his vaccine (1st dose, at least), there doesn't seem any point in putting myself at unnecessary risk while virus levels are still high. This afternoon we walked round one of our standard three mile circuits,  through the local woods and along the canal. 

No cooking today as it was our takeaway evening. I had an Uber Eats discount code so ordered in from a local fish and chip shop and we ate while watching the Masked Singer. M and I have also watched a couple more episodes of The English Game on Netflix, a historical drama about a football team from Blackburn which was the first professional team to win the FA Cup. It was this series which started me on my genealogy kick, as my adopted "aunt" and "uncle" (who were my grandparents in all but name) both came from Blackburn, and I remember being told that Auntie's father won an FA Cup medal - I haven't found any evidence this was true, though.  

Socks and a Failed Coup

I am still in a sock knitting frenzy. I finished this pair for myself at the weekend - the wavy cable pattern doesn't show up well in the picture, unfortunately. I love this red and green stripy yarn, which is West Yorkshire Spinners Holly Berry. Now I am working on a pair for M, and I am already past the heel of the first sock, despite having to unravel three inches of leg when I realised I had made a mistake in the pattern. The sock knitting should slow down a bit as one of my Christmas presents was the yarn for Attic 24's new blanket crochet-a-long which starts tomorrow. I love crocheting blankets in winter. It just feels cosy! 

This morning we all worked, or in TG's case did school-at-home. The school is providing a fuller  programme this time round, with more online lessons and working to their normal timetable. H is about to start her first audit busy season. Over the next couple of months she is likely to be working very long hours - perhaps not so bad at the moment when there are so many restrictions on what she can do outside of work! M is waiting to hear when he will be expected to return to work, post-vaccination. We expect it to be over the next week or two. 

Before starting work I caught up on the news from the US about Trump's attempted coup. It seems to me it deserves the name "coup" as he was clearly trying to encourage his supporters to use force in an attempt to overturn the election result. I have a high enough opinion of American democracy to think that it was bound to fail, as indeed it did, but it does show the amount of damage he has done in peddling his myth of a fraudulent election to people who want to believe him. However, I think it has done more than anything else could to alienate many of the Republican politicians who have enabled Trump over the past four years, and that may well put paid to any attempt by him to win a second term in 2024. 

It was cold and murky today, and we couldn't face more mud, so just did a couple of miles around the local streets for our walk. I did spot this impressive fungus on an old tree stump. I ordered some grass-fed meat from a different source to my usual one to try - this company has a regular subscription option that I think might work for us. I am still trying to buy ethically produced meat as much as possible, despite it being more expensive. Apparently in the UK we tend to buy cheap food rather than good quality food, whereas elsewhere in Europe the balance is the other way round. I am trying to re-educate myself. I used a portion of diced chicken to make a chicken and mushroom pie, with mashed potatoes, roasted squash and broccoli for dinner. 

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. 

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. 

Third Time Lucky?

Yesterday was another wet and miserable day, so I didn't venture outside at all. I sorted out a few things online, including updating my shopping order and rearranging a cancelled flight back from Paris. We moved our planned trip to Disneyland from February to September, then EasyJet conveniently cancelled our flight so we were able to change the date to September at no cost. This was originally a flight booked to come back from a trip to Italy in July - the plan was to take the train out with a stop in Turin on the way to Lake Garda, then fly home. Fingers crossed it is third time lucky! 

H went to the gym in the morning. After exercising at home since she came home from uni she decided to  rejoin. It looks as though the government has decided that the measures gyms are taking to keep people safe are working, and that the benefit of exercise is greater than the risk in keeping them open. When she got home she baked sausage rolls. These are made with chicken sausage-meat, stuffing and cranberry sauce. She also makes a vegetarian version and both are very, very good. During the afternoon I read a bit of Jan Morris's Europe, knitted a good chunk of the second sock of a pair, and did a bit of writing. H was in cooking mode and made roast beef, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and all the trimmings for dinner. Definitely going to miss her roasts when she moves out, but she has promised to invite us over for dinner regularly! In the evening we did a Zoom quiz organised by a colleague from work. She has run it on three occasions, asking participants for donations for a charity which runs food banks, and has raised over £1000. 

Today was back to work. H was out doing a stock count. M worked on our last freelance job before Christmas, and I did a mix of archive and freelance work. We managed to squeeze in a 40 minute walk in between lunch and M going out to collect TG, when I spotted this rather unusual Christmas decoration! I cooked salmon from the fish box with new potatoes and broccoli for dinner and now have a slightly sore hand from an oil splash. Totally my own fault! 

Staying Home Part 2: Day 24

Only three more days of this "lockdown", although really compared to the spring it is only a partial one, and the "end of lockdown" on Wednesday for most people only means the lifting of some of the current restrictions, and not a return even to what we were able to do before this second shutdown started. More restrictions will mean more people getting through the winter alive and well, but it will also mean more businesses struggling and more people unemployed, particularly in hospitality and entertainment, and more people suffering from the impact of isolation and anxiety. There are no easy answers. 

My good intentions regarding getting to sleep earlier sort of worked last night. I did get to sleep a bit earlier, but then woke too early this morning with a nasty headache which has slowed me down all day and is only now beginning to clear. Despite the headache M and I went out this afternoon to do some "shopping", which was mostly collecting pre-ordered items.  N and I had both ordered things from Next as Christmas presents using their Click and Collect service, and I had other items waiting for collection from M & S (we only have a food store, but they have a collection point for other online orders). We drove over to Next in Milton Keynes, where there were quite a few people queueing for the collection point, then back here to M & S, where we did a bit of food shopping as well as collecting the packages. Again, there was a long queue of people waiting to get into the store - much like the spring lockdown. H and I were going to have curry tonight, but I had a very hot chinese dish last night and didn't feel like more spice, so I bought a pizza deal - 2 pizzas and 2 sides for £10. They do an excellent vegan pizza and vegan dirty fries for the two of us who don't eat dairy, TG had a cheese pizza and we got chicken wings as the second side. M doesn't eat pizza as he doesn't like cheese (dairy or non-dairy!), so he fended for himself, though he did have a few of the chicken wings. 

While we were out H went to the Post Office then out for a walk with her BF, and TF stayed home and baked some mince pies. I bought home takeaway coffee for myself and a hot chocolate for TG, and enjoyed a mince pie with the coffee. I had a bit of work to do after that - I usually avoid working at weekends, but it was just cutting and pasting material into an app, which is a bit slow and tedious but can be done while watching a video or TV.  I decided not to watch Strictly as I didn't think my headache would enjoy it, so I came upstairs and finished off a pair of socks while watching quieter things on my laptop.

 

Staying Home Part 2: Day 13

Quite a routine day today. After I finished my archive work M and I walked into town to buy sandwiches for lunch from Caffe Nero for a change - mainly because it was dull and drizzly and I needed an incentive to get me out of the house! H and I both had sourdough panini with vegan "turkey", stuffing and cranberry sauce from their festive menu; M was going to have tuna but they had run out and there wasn't anything else he fancied so he made himself eggs when we got home. 

The bit of question writing work I needed to do this afternoon didn't take long, so we watched a couple more episodes of the Crown and I caught up on the Mandalorian while M was collecting TG from school. More knitting happened. 

The photos are of a sculpture we pass on the way into town commemorating the production locally of Vimy aircraft during the First World War - the site where the factory stood is now occupied by a supermarket and its car park. 

I made a chicken and mushroom pie with suet crust pastry, mashed potatoes and veg for dinner, which took longer than I expected so we ate late. After dinner it was the semi-final of Great British Bake Off. It had been filmed during a heatwave in the summer and they kept having issues because of the high temperatures. Hard to remember during the miserable November damp that there was ever such a thing as summer! 

Staying Home Part 2: Day 1

As our new sort-of-lockdown has started today, I'm going to try to do daily blogging again as I did for 100 days during the first lockdown. I enjoyed the routine of writing each day and although I am still blogging far more regularly than I have done for many years, it has got a bit erratic. 

This time the lockdown is a limited one, with M going to work and TG still at school. H is working from home, but will be going into college to take her next batch of exams. The first one is tomorrow, so hoping all her long hours of studying pay off. Non-essential shops, pubs and restaurants, gyms and museums are all closed. The archive is shut again, and it looks as though I will be working from home for the foreseeable future. When I came home in March I was expecting it to be for three months, and here I still am over 7 months later and will certainly not be back this year. 

I took yesterday as my morning off from archives work so that we could make the most of a lovely bright morning and go out for lunch while we still could. We are in a relatively low Covid area and the cafe we went to is very well organised and meets all the Covid-safe guidelines, so I don't think we were taking too much of a risk. Case numbers here are still climbing however (though at a slower rate than they were), so hopefully the semi-lockdown will put that into reverse. We went to Woburn and walked through the Duke of Bedford's deer park. If you look closely at the photograph above, you can see a beautiful stag near the tree. I couldn't get quite close enough to him to get a clear picture with my phone. 

My energy levels are low at the moment - possibly I haven't been sleeping enough this week, as I have been going to sleep too late then being woken by the alarm to take TG to school, possibly because my system is still dealing with the after effects of the flu vaccine. It seems to take very little to knock me back into the post-viral fatigue and brain fog loop I spend the first few months of the year stuck in. It isn't awful, but annoying. Yesterday I wilted and ran out of steam part way through our walk, and had to stop for a short while to get my breath back and my muscles co-operating again. I must remember to take a snack with me when we walk, in case I need an energy boost. I was very glad to reach the cafe and have something to eat and drink. We both had fish and chips, which were excellent. I occasionally meet a friend there, but it was M's first visit. We decided we would definitely be back once it reopens. 

In the evening we had our final live band rehearsal for the time being. I say rehearsal, but we actually spent most of the time recording Christmas music as we have had a couple of Christmas videos commissioned and will be doing a pre-recorded digital "concert" with a choir in December. I managed to get myself into a time squeeze, between trying to sort out some paperwork to do with the band's charity registration and cooking and eating dinner after TG's last dance class in the studio. Both her dance classes and band rehearsals will go back to Zoom for the next month. Due to being in a rush I managed to forget my mask - obviously we can't play in masks, but we have to wear them the rest of the time - so had to cover my face as best I could with a combination of my polo neck sweater and a woolly scarf. It was rather warm, despite being in a school hall on a cold night with the doors open for ventilation! 

Thursdays are an early-morning French day for TG, so we leave for school at 7.35am. It was a foggy morning and as I drove home the sun was glowing through the clouds. It was so atmospheric that I stopped the car just before I got home to take a couple of photographs. The fog soon cleared and it has been another cold but bright day. After a quiet spell we have some question writing work with a tight deadline, so I worked on archives this morning and checked M's questions this afternoon. I took a long lunch break though and we went for a walk in the woods. We knew it would be muddy after all the rain, but even so it was worse than we anticipated. Our walking boots are caked and will need a good clean before we use them again. I think we will avoid the woods for a while until they have dried out a bit from all the rain of the last few weeks. 

I just realised I forgot to mention the US presidential election. I have been following it closely, but it has been stuck in limbo for over 24 hours waiting for results. It looks as though Joe Biden has is going to win it - thankfully! - but also that Trump is going to try to game the results with tendentious lawsuits and it may be a while before there is a firm result. I hope for the sake of America and democracy that there will be a peaceful transfer of power, assuming that Biden is indeed the president-elect. 

[A note about photos ... Since Blogger updated itself recently the pre-set photo sizes have changed and the size I liked best has disappeared. I now seem to have a choice between a bit too small and a bit too big. I'm going to try the larger size - if the photos are overwhelming, please tell me in the comments.]

November and a New Lockdown

After insisting that another lockdown was not on the cards, and being highly critical of the Leader of the Opposition for insisting over the last few weeks a short, circuit breaker lockdown was needed, this weekend the government announced that England would indeed be entering another national lockdown of sorts. This time it will be less intense than it was in the spring, with people who cannot work at home still allowed to go to work, and with schools and universities staying open (I suspect this is a mistake, at least for older kids). Non-essential shops, restaurants, pubs, gyms, museums and so on are to close, and everyone is being told to stay home as much as possible (fortunately outdoor walks are still allowed). The lockdown is to start on Thursday and last until December 2nd - whether that will be long enough for it to be effective in the worse affected areas remains to be seen. 

The weather is as glum as the news. We went out for a short walk this morning, and as you can see it was very grey, although it mostly stayed dry while we were out. This afternoon and evening have been pretty windy. Not a very cheerful way to start November. 

We didn't do anything for Halloween this year. Usually we carve pumpkins, but I didn't think to buy any and nobody mentioned it. I did notice a few pumpkins and other Halloween decorations while we were out walking. 

I am in a bit of a knitting frenzy, whizzing through things at speed. I finished the scarf for my brother and this pair of socks for myself. I have almost finished a hat for myself too. I bought some Shetland wool yarn intending it for a scarf, but when it arrived realised that I had forgotten to check the size of the balls and only had half the quantity I needed, so decided on a beanie-style hat. Not elegant, but practical. With tightly knitted 100% wool, I think it will keep out not only the cold, but probably also light rain. I would have finished, but half way through the first attempt I decided it was coming out too small, so I pulled it out and started again with a larger size. It should be done tomorrow. Then I plan to start on a cardigan for myself, though I am still dithering over what pattern to use. I also want to go into the yarn shop in town tomorrow to get some more sock yarn. I have ideas for Christmas gifts, and could use another pair of socks myself. I have had a couple of pairs wear out. 

I have done a bit of reading and quite a lot of TV binging over the weekend while knitting. I am currently in a history reading moody and have just started A History of Ancient Britain by Neil Oliver. M and I are working our way through Michael Palin's various travel series. We have watched Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole and Full Circle (around the rim of the Pacific) and are now into his journey around the Sahara. We ended out taking out a Britbox subscription so we could stream them all, although oddly it doesn't have Sahara. The first two episodes are available on BBC iPlayer, but not the 3rd and 4th. Annoying! 

This afternoon I went with the girls to Wagamamas for a meal. We had planned to go anyway, but we particularly appreciated it knowing that eating out won't be possible again for a while. We started with bao buns, TG had ramen, H had duck donburi, and I had a vegan kokoro bowl with bbq glazed seitan, brown rice, various veggies amai sauce and an "egg" made with coconut and sriracha sauce. Although I am not vegan, I love plant based food and Wagamamas have a great vegan menu. We went to the branch at Milton Keynes shopping centre rather than a slightly closer one as H needed to look in Primark for something and I wanted to get some bar shampoo from Lush and soap from the Body Shop (trying to stick to toiletries without plastic packaging where I can). We got there just before the shops closed, so it was quiet enough, but apparently it had been crazily busy earlier in the day, presumably because lots of people wanted to go before the lockdown starts. We are fortunate in that our area has relatively low rates of Covid (about half the national average) so going out still feels reasonably safe. Rates have been going up quite fast though, so even here a spell of tight restrictions seems sensible. Hopefully it will put us in a much better position by December. 

Being Crafty

I have been enjoying indulging in birthday treats. When we got back from our trip away H and TG presented me with a birthday cake. As is always the case when H bakes, it was a beauty. 

It was also large! M isn't a fan of chocolate cake, and there was no way the other three of us could get through it all, so I cut the second half of it into two large chunks and froze them to eat later.

Tonight I started drinking some birthday gin. I am not a big drinker, but my current favourite evening tipple is a gin and tonic, I think because it is not too sweet. H bought me a box with a selection of small bottles of different flavoured gins and mixers, and I sampled the first one this evening - raspberry gin with mediterranean tonic. And very nice it was too! 

I spent much of the summer in a cross stitching mood, and have been working on two Disney bookmarks to go into Christmas stockings for Disney-loving daughters. I finished one, and am about half way through the second. I was confused as to why I came excruciatingly close to running out of a couple of colours - I am quite an economical stitcher, and kits usually have far more than I need - until I realised that instead of stitching two different pictures I was repeating the first one! I am too far on with it to unpick and start again, and I think I can just about make the thread last, so long as I give it a different border colour. I can't believe how long it too me to realise what I was doing! 

Partly because I was annoyed with myself for messing up, and partly because colder weather always makes me want to knit, I have given up on the cross stitch for a while in favour of knitting. I finally finished a jumper (sweater) I started for TG last February, but which had been left in my craft box because I was procrastinating over sewing it up. I knitted a pair of socks as a Christmas present for my brother, who loves handmade socks, and I am now on the second sock of a pair for myself. I love this zig-zag pattern (Jaywalker on Ravelry) in self-striping yarn - I think this is the third time I have knitted it. 

Then I distracted myself mid-sock when a yarn order arrived and started knitting this scarf, also a Christmas gift for my brother. I knitted him one years ago, I think with the same pattern, and he has worn it almost to destruction - it is now very thin and limp, so I decided he could do with another. It is 100% wool so will be toasty warm. I particularly like this pattern because it is reversible. I have just finished the first skein of two. It only took me two days, so I should get the whole scarf finished over the weekend. 

Fortunately the annoying flu jab fatigue wore off after 48 hours and M and I managed to get out for a walk on Dunstable Downs yesterday afternoon while the weather was reasonable. It has been alternating between wet and miserable and damp and miserable for most of the week. In the evening I went to a friend's for a meeting about a brass band issue with the two of us, plus two others via Zoom. She had collected a new kitten that afternoon - eight weeks old and the cutest grey and white colouring. 

She was a tiny little thing but extraordinarily confident, keen to explore and happy to climb up for a cuddle. When I left she was doing battle with a fly. I think the fly was winning because her paws were too small to do it much damage and she hadn't really got the hang of pouncing.