Staying Home: Day 45

I meant to post a picture of yesterday's delicious prawn massaman curry but forgot, so here it is a bit late ...

Dinner today was beef and mushroom pie from the freezer, with mashed potato, a few left over green beans, sweetcorn and gravy - one of two pies H cooked  a couple of weeks ago. 

Again, we all worked this morning. H and TG went to Tesco Express before they started to top up basics like bread, fruit, milk and soya milk. For the first time in a while I didn't go out at all today. This afternoon it was very wet and miserable, the sort of whether that never does my chest good, so I left M to go for a walk on his own. He took a pair of socks I had knitted round to my brother, who only lives a couple of streets away, as a lockdown gift. They had a socially distanced chat while M stood at the end of the drive in the rain. T is on his own, but seems in fairly good spirits; he has bought himself a bike and is enjoying using that for exercise. M got home very damp and needed a hot bath to warm up. He is feeling fine now, but H is a bit under the weather. No Covid symptoms, mainly feeling more tired than usual - she seems to be generally more tired than she should be, and has a couple of other symptoms that make me think she may be anaemic. Once the lockdown is eased and non-urgent blood tests are available again I think a trip to the doctor is in order. 

I'm making progress on my William Morris strawberry thief bookmark. You can see one strawberry left of centre, and the outline of a bird is beginning to emerge. It is going to be quite a large bookmark, I think! It has reminded me that I wanted to know more about William Morris, so I have started reading a biography. Written by Fiona McCarthy, it won the Wolfson History Prize and has been described as "one of the finest biographies ever published". At 800 pages it may take me a while to finish! Today I sewed while we watched Maleficent and a couple of TV programmes. I also knitted part of the sleeve of a jumper (sweater) I am knitting for TG. I've been working on it for a while but keep getting distracted by other projects. The sleeves are just stocking stitch so easy to knit while I read. 

It's raining again as I type. Since Sunday it has gone from summer back to winter and we have turned the heating back on. Even I - a non-gardener and a sun lover - can admit that we needed some rain, but I'm glad it is forecast to brighten up again tomorrow. 

Finally, we remembered to go outside at 8pm to join in the general applause for our health and care workers. The "Clap for the NHS" on Thursday evenings seems to get louder and more enthusiastic each week. I love that this came about thanks to a single person putting a suggestion out on social media during the first week of lockdown. 

Staying Home: Day 44

I have been working and studying at home for years, but while I always used to work at a desk in the days when we just had a PC, since having a laptop I have drifted into working downstairs on the sofa or upstairs with my feet up on the bed. With more people around during the day I now use the bedroom both as my workspace and my need-to-be-somewhere-quiet space, and after six weeks I have realised slouching on the bed for several hours a day is not ideal. (Sometimes it takes a while for things to sink in!)  Last night I decided I would organise myself a pop-up mini office, using a small folding tray table and a desk chair which was TG's during her pink phase but was had ended up in the garage waiting for us to find a new home for it. The colour scheme is a bit interesting, but this is now my workspace ...

Both M and H came in while I was working this morning and laughed at me for looking as though I was working at a child's table, but I was actually perfectly comfortable and although the table is small it has plenty of space for my laptop. The chair is a cheap and cheerful IKEA plastic one, but the shape and height is pretty good, and with a cushion behind my back my work position is actually better than when I'm at my desk at work! I have ordered another similar table from Argos which should arrive tomorrow, then this one can go back downstairs as M and TG both like to use it for TV dinners. There is a corner in the bedroom where I think the new table will fit when folded, and when work is done I wheel the chair through and park it in the study. 

M's workspace is the smallest bedroom, which after R moved out got turned into a study. He finds this chair ideal for his back (he suffers from scoliosis) and has all his stuff set up on the iMac. As well as working in there he uses it to watch catch-up TV while we are watching Disney films downstairs (not his thing!) and for Zoom chats. As lockdown has gone on the study has pretty much become his man cave. 

Meanwhile, the girls like to work together in the dining room. They both prefer having company, and often have music on while they work. We are very lucky to have enough space to spread out during our working hours, and that we each have a laptop or PC we can use to work on.

As you can see, the morning was industrious all round. M got started on a new job which came in yesterday, while I finished the last one. H is now on the last push with her uni work, which will be finished by early June. TG spent the morning working on geography, French and maths, then did the last two colours of the rainbow for her photography project this afternoon. We had a discussion about how she feels school at home compares to actual school - she says in a lot of ways the learning isn't much different, except that there is no group work and no immediate feedback from the teacher when people ask questions. She has noticed that the amount of work required has kicked up a notch this week with the start of her new courses. However, TG is exactly the right sort of child to thrive learning remotely - she is quite self-disciplined about getting the work done, bright enough to understand what she is doing without needing extra input, and when she does have questions there are people around to answer them. I'm sure there are many children who will be finding this far harder.

The weather was miserable again today. H went for a run first thing this morning, before it started to rain, and M and I went for a short, slightly damp walk this afternoon. We watched Nightmare Before Christmas - a bit out of season, but we wanted something short as I had a band committee meeting by Zoom at 7pm, and H needed time to cook dinner (prawn massaman curry - delicious!). I have to say I don't do well with Zoom meetings. I find it is great for quizzes, where most people are muted most of the time, and I can cope with small group chats, but once it goes over 3 or 4 people I find it overwhelming and either tune out or miss cues and start interrupting everyone. Fortunately I don't need to do it very often.

Staying Home: Day 43

Another industrious morning with all of us settled down working nice and early, except M who was between jobs. A new one came in this afternoon but he is not sure yet whether he will have all the material he needs to start it tomorrow. Meanwhile I am finishing off the previous job. Our method of working is that he writes the exam questions, then I edit them and get the final versions into whatever format they need to be in for submission - that means I am always working a bit behind him.

TG started her day by doing her catering task, which she photographed and then ate for breakfast (waffles, beautifully presented with blueberries and chocolate-hazelnut spread). This is definitely her idea of how schoolwork should be! She also started making salt crystals as a chemistry activity. H finished writing her dissertation conclusion. In the afternoon TG carried on with her photography project and took yellow, green and blue photographs. H did some more work, and M made a cake. He and I went out for a short walk in the rain after lunch, TG did a dance class, and H did strength training.

I spent most of my morning doing virtual archaeology, researching the Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon history of a local village to add to the archives website. A significant amount of new housing is now being built in and around this particular village, which means there has been a lot of recent archaeological excavation done - in the UK substantial developments have to be preceded by an archaeological survey of the area before it gets buried under buildings. Most of the information we put up on our website is based on the documents we hold in the archives, but they don't go back that far so I had to rely on other sources. We already have a very large site which is a fantastic resource for local history, and also helps to point people at particular documents and collections. These days we don't get much opportunity to add to it and rely largely on contributions from volunteers, but it is something constructive to work on while I am at home without direct access to the archives.

I am delighted to report that M's "cold" has virtually disappeared - with a bit of help from some antihistamines! It seems he may be starting to suffer from unexpected allergies after all. My guess is that it may be a combination of the warm weather leading to both a high pollen count and to him spending far more time than normal outdoors. It is reassuring that it now seems unlikely that he caught a virus, even if it was only the common cold variety.

Our movie of the day was the recent Disney version of the Jungle Book. We are getting close to running out of what the girls describe as "proper" Disney movies. I think the plan is that next week we will move on to watching all the Harry Potter movies, spreading each of them over two days as they are a bit too long for our usual late afternoon movie slot.  H made dinner, which was IKEA style meatballs and gravy (they released the recipe), with mashed potatoes and broccoli. After dinner we watched Beat the Chasers, a new quiz show spin off from The Chase.

Staying Home: Day 42

Whew! Six weeks already. On the one hand it doesn't seem that long, but then it seems an age since "normal". I remember the last weekend before we started to move into shut down mode felt surreal. We went out for a family meal at a Turkish restaurant to celebrate M and R's birthdays (both in March) knowing it was likely to be the last time eating out together would be possible for some time. The restaurant was busy, everything felt normal, yet everyone knew that it wasn't. I can't help thinking that it reflected how people must have felt before the outbreak of both the world wars - living their lives and having fun, while trying to ignore the knowledge that life as they knew it was about to end, and underneath fear and uncertainty about what was to come.

M has a cold. Nothing that looks like covid symptoms, just sneezing and stuffed up, but we have no idea how he could have caught it as we are being very careful, only going out for a daily walk, socially distancing and wiping down things that come into the house. Although the pollen count has been high he doesn't think it is likely to be allergies, as he has never suffered from them before. My post-viral thing seems to be fighting back again too, though I'm still a lot better than I was. Much more tired today though and my throat is a bit sore. I may have overdone it yesterday with the longer walk - so hard to know how far I can push myself.

TG has enjoyed her school work today as she was given tasks for her GCSE options subjects. For photography she has to take a series of still life picture in each of the colours of the rainbow. She did red and orange today and would happily have worked through all seven, but felt she ought to spread it out as the deadline is not until next Monday. For catering she has to cook anything she wants, but see how beautifully she can present it. So far her school work since the shutdown has all been reading, writing and computer based, so having some hands on tasks is a nice change. In the afternoon she had a dance class.

H is still ploughing on with her uni work and has baked more pret-style chocolate and almond cookies, though she accidentally added peanut butter instead of almond butter. Still excellent though! She was tired and decided she couldn't summon up the energy to exercise. We watched the recent, live version of Cinderella and then an episode of The Chase (quiz show), and the girls finished the jigsaw while I did cross stitch. Dinner was haddock coated in seasoned flour and shallow fried, sweet potato fries, courgette and peas.

Staying Home: Day 41

Again, I really appreciated the luxury of a weekend where neither M nor I were working. It was a beautiful sunny day - the last for a while as the weather is forecast to turn rainy next week - so we decided to go for our walk in the late morning before it got too warm. We took a completely different route, walking down to a waterside park for a change of scenery. The lake was originally a disused sand pit (sand extraction has always been an important industry here) but is now both a local leisure amenity and a nature reserve.

On the way down we spotted a stall outside a local pub where they were selling groceries, including flour. Result! We bought plain, self-raising and bread flour, which we left with them and collected on our way back. When the lockdown started they began by sourcing and delivering groceries for people unable to go out shopping; then they added extra and started selling from the stall on Thursdays and Sundays. They are also doing take-away roast dinners on Sundays, and take-away fish and chips on Thursdays. Like the fish and chips we had yesterday, the meals have to be pre-ordered and collected. I love finding small businesses which are managing to both fill local needs and keep at least some income coming in while they can't operate their core business.

It really was a lovely walk, the longest we have done yet at nearly 4 miles, and a perfect spring day for it. There were geese, ducks and a moorhen on the lake, and a dog having a swim. We decided against doing a circuit round the lake, and instead walked through the avenue of poplar trees below to a bridge over the canal.

The photo below was taken from the bridge. The Grand Union Canal was built before the coming of the railways to take goods between London and the Midlands. It was still taking local sand to London in the earlier part of the 20th century, but now the canal is just used for leisure and living - there are quite a number of moored canal boats used as permanent residences. I couldn't help wondering as we walked past some what life on a boat would be like during lockdown.

On the opposite side of the canal, where the path from the bridge loops back to join the canal towpath, is an open area with a few picnic tables. It was cleared a number of years ago and given this sign declaring it Peace Meadow, marking it as the site where in 906 the Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Elder agreed a peace treaty with the Danes. I wrote a bit about it on my history blog a few years ago.

The two girls and I spent most of the afternoon in the garden enjoying the sun. I read, H did some uni work, and TG listened to music before going inside and doing some English homework. It was creative writing which she hates - her logical maths and science brain really does not like being presented with a blank page and no facts! Afternoon tea turned into afternoon Pimms with some of TG's lemon and poppy seed cake. We then watched Pocahontas with occasional breaks as H and I cooked a roast chicken dinner; M stayed upstairs in the study and had a Zoom chat with some friends from his synagogue. He as now learned the lesson that when on Zoom you need to be aware of what is behind you. A drying rack full of underwear is not the ideal backdrop!  

Back to work-at-home tomorrow, feeling nicely refreshed by the weekend.

Staying Home: Day 40

A curious upside to the lockdown for us is that we are enjoying the luxury of proper weekends. M normally works most weekends with NHS 111; I usually work Mondays and Tuesdays at the archives, then fit freelance work around that. We usually try to keep Thursdays work free so we can have a day off together, but sometimes we have weeks where one or other of us is working every day. Now I am spreading my work more evenly over Monday to Friday and M is not able to go into work, so there is a proper distinction between weekdays and weekends. 

I enjoyed a lazy morning listening to a podcast and then watching a couple of BBC programmes about medieval history on iPlayer. The first was about the Mappa Mundi, a 13th century world map which belongs to Hereford Cathedral, and the second was about Julian of Norwich. While I watched I did some more stitching on the William Morris bookmark. Before lunch I did some yoga - I hadn't done any for a few days and this has turned out to be one of my under-par days, so I struggled and cut  it short. 

The girls walked down to Tesco Express this morning in search of flour (no luck!) and were startled by a deer running past them. We have seen them in the woods, and they can be a menace on some of the country roads, but none of us have ever seen one in a built up area before. I presume the lack of traffic on the roads had allowed it to wander further than it should, and it then got lost. H managed to get a photo. Is is a muntjac deer - they aren't native to the UK, but the Duke of Bedford imported them to his estate at Woburn in Bedfordshire in the early 20th century and since then escapees have built up into a substantial wild population. 

In the afternoon M and I went for our walk. H did some uni work and TG did a dance masterclass. Her dance school is trying to arrange a different bonus class each week; this time it was with two former pupils, a brother and sister who are now professional performers but are back home while everything is shut down. They took the kids through the routine at the beginning of this clip. 

 

Once she had cooled down TG baked a lemon and poppyseed cake, then we watched last night's episode of Friday Night Dinner and today's Disney movie, Christopher Robin. A local cafe is doing limited takeaways at weekends, which have to be ordered and paid for in advance and collected at a reserved time. We had an order in for four portions of cod and chips, so after the movie H and I went to collect them. Delicious! 

Staying Home: Day 39

Not very much to report today. I switched my work round this morning as we had a freelance job due out today and I wanted to get that finished, so ended up working on the archives website until midway through the afternoon. TG seemed to have quite a lot of schoolwork today, as she carried on working after lunch - she usually gets it all done in the morning. H went to Tesco and did a large supermarket shop. She walked down, then M went and collected her and the shopping. 

Everybody exercised - M and I went for our usual walk, TG did a dance class, and H did strength training (as well as walking to Tesco). We all spent a bit of time in the garden enjoying the sun. Disney movie of the day was Lilo and Stitch. The girls and I all had pizza for dinner (M fended for himself as he doesn't eat it). H bought ready made pizza bases, then she and I made vegan pizzas with lots of veggies and vegan mozzarella style cheese, while TG put real cheese, chicken and veggies on hers. 

After dinner we spent some time working on our jigsaw, while M attended a Zoom synagogue service. 

Staying Home: Day 38

It still faintly startles me that working at home takes up as much time as working out of the home. Quite why I was expecting 15 hours of archive work at home to be shorter then 15 hours in the office, I have no idea! We were all productive this morning, with all four of settled down working by 9.30. We are very lucky that TG is self-motivated and just gets up and gets on with her work without us needing to nudge her.

Today has been a day for battling with technology. This morning the web editor I use for the archives was being uncooperative and I had to get a colleague who has been redeployed to authorise something as it refused to let me do it. Then this afternoon H's coffee machine ground to a halt and we had to give ourselves a crash course in coffee machine maintenance. It turned out the problem was a tiny pin-sized hole where the coffee is supposed to come through which had got blocked up. Online instruction manuals are a boon!

At least we were able to sort that problem. I forgot to mention that last week we pulled the fridge-freezer out to clean behind it, dislodged the pipe to the water and ice dispenser slightly, and caused a leak from the water filter. I think it may just need the filter replacing, but we don't have a spare and in any case we always struggle to fit them. In the end we just turned the water off at the tap and decided to give up on the water dispenser. It is the ice we will miss, particularly while the weather stays warm, but it can't be helped. We have decided that the time has come to replace the fridge once the current restrictions are eased. It is quite old, various bits are dropping off, parts feel much hotter than they should, and I think its fuel efficiency is pretty dire. The leak possibly did us a favour by pushing us into making the decision that it is time for a replacement.

Today's walk was only two miles but with some quite steep bits. Being able to walk to the point where my leg muscles start to feel a bit sore afterwards is wonderful - it feels as though I am finally doing proper exercise. The bluebells are still looking beautiful. We had run out of tea time treats this afternoon, so I had some of yesterday's home-made bread with chocolate-hazelnut spread. Despite the loaf looking flat, the bread was actually pretty good. I think H is planning to make the Pret chocolate-almond cookies again tomorrow.

Disney movie of the day was Inside Out. Dinner was lamb steaks and baby potatoes roasted in the oven, griddled green beans, and courgettes, cooked by H. After dinner we made a start on one of the jigsaws which arrived today, until H went off to do a Zoom quiz with some of her friends.

Staying Home: Day 37

I have converted my two full days at the archives into four mornings at home, which definitely makes for a better routine. This week my archive mornings will be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, so I spent this morning getting on with two current freelance exam-setting jobs.

This week's fishbox had two packets of smoked salmon so lunch was a smoked salmon sandwich with some salad. I then finished off one of the sets of questions and attempted to make some bread. I only had wholemeal plain flour and didn't have the right size tin, so made what turned into a rather flat round loaf. Hopefully it will be edible and tide us over until H goes to the supermarket on Friday. Today's walk was a circuit round the woods, shorter and flatter than yesterday's exhausting effort - though as H (who is trying to improve her running) complains, there aren't any flat routes here. After the walk I spent a bit of time in the hammock in the garden reading. then we watched Alice Through the Looking Glass and I made a start on a new cross stitch kit which arrived this morning - a book mark with the William Morris strawberry their design. Jemima Puddleduck, who is proving to be something of a pain, has gone on the back burner.

We had confirmation from her school that TG has got places on all her first choice GCSE courses. From next week she will drop all other subjects and concentrate on her GCSE options. Usually the school has the Year 9s (equivalent to 8th Grade in the US) start their GCSE courses in June, so that they have a few weeks to ease into them before the end of the school year; due to the school closure they decided it would make sense to transition them into GCSE work a bit earlier. I imagine they are hoping partly to compensate for any missed work, and also to motivate the kids while they are studying at home by giving them a new focus. TG will be taking ten GCSEs altogether: English Language, English Literature, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, French, Photography, and Hospitality & Catering (this last one is a vocational course rather than a GCSE, with lots of hands on cooking). Apart from dropping history (apparently the history gene is not hereditary!) it is a good mix, with a good spread of academic subjects, but also the photography and catering which are practical things that she enjoys.

Dinner tonight was ready meals from Marks and Spencers - yorkshire puddings filled with roast meat, potatoes and veg for M and TG, and vegan kievs with dirty fries for me and H. Lazy but tasty. After dinner we played Pictionary and scattergories for a while. I'm slightly bemused by how quickly the days are passing. There always seems to be more I want to do than I have time for. I feel I could easily fill several more hours in a day!

Staying Home: Day 36

Possibly stupidly, I decided to challenge myself with another 3 mile walk today, but one with quite a climb during the last mile. By the time I got to the top of the hill I was hot and exhausted, and I struggled through the last half mile at a snail's pace. Encouragingly, I recovered quite quickly once I got home and tanked up on water and sugar - one of TG's lemon-blueberry muffins, a berry oat bar, and a chocolate biscuit. The biscuit may have been overkill. Tomorrow I will be doing a shorter, gentler walk.

I worked a bit longer than I needed to on my archive work this morning. I was putting a long contribution from a volunteer onto our website and wanted to get it finished. It needed splitting into several separate pages and links added, so took quite a while to do. After lunch I spent an hour doing freelance work before going for our walk. For the first time since the lockdown we walked along the canal towpath. We had been avoiding it because it is relatively narrow, but people are being very good about distancing so we decided to go that way for a change.

The girls wanted chicken katsu for dinner, so H made some for them while I cooked fish pie for myself and M. I slightly misjudged the quantity and what I thought was two portions should really have been three - I try to exercise reasonable portion control, so this was a complete fail! We watched Alice in Wonderland before and after dinner, then spent an hour on Zoom doing a quiz organised by members of Michael's synagogue. We managed a reasonable score - not close to winning, but nowhere near the wooden spoon.

Staying Home: Day 35

Back to work today. I think it will take another day or two to properly nail down a workday routine again, but it went reasonably well today. I got started just after 8.30, worked until 10, took a break to make smoothies for myself and H for breakfast, then worked again until about 12.30. I added noodles to the chicken soup I made yesterday and left it to cook while I did a 15 minute yoga session. After lunch (and a bit of procrastination) I spent an hour or so checking some exam questions and finished just before three.

The week off has done me a lot of good. Not only do I feel rested, but my energy is coming back properly. Whether that is due to the rest, to following the doctor's instructions to take vitamins, or just to the working of time, I don't know. I do know I am very grateful to be feeling pretty much back to normal. I found working tiring today, but I think that is just through being out of routine.

M and I went for our longest walk yet this afternoon, a three mile circular route through an area that is now on the edge of town but was once a small separate hamlet, then up a footpath across fields and back round to the top of our housing estate. It was a perfect April day; bright sun, a slight breeze, and comfortably warm for walking without a coat. Spring at its best.

The girls also got back to work again today. TG started back at "school" so they both studied together this morning. After lunch they baked. H made cinnamon rolls and TG made lemon and blueberry muffins. Both were delicious. Then H did strength training in the garden and TG had an online dance class. TG's school sent out a letter setting out their expectations for the new term and with various updates. They have come up with their own scheme to supply supermarket vouchers to families whose children are entitled to free school meals; the government promised to provide these vouchers when they first announced schools were to close but apparently the government sponsored scheme is a shambles. The design and technology teachers have been hard at work making protective visors for key workers and have produced over 1500 so far.

Disney movie of the day was Toy Story 3, which I think is the best of the series. I now wish we hadn't watched Toy Story 4 out of order! Dinner was stir fry with Linda McCartney vegan shredded "duck", which we all like except TG who grumbles at most vegan food.

Staying Home: Day 34

This morning I caught up on the news and read various articles about the coronavirus crisis. The Sunday Times published an excoriating article detailing the failure of the UK government to adequately prepare for the pandemic, both in the short term and the longer term. A 2016 exercise to test the UK's response to a future pandemic showed up disastrous shortcomings, but the recommendations made were not acted on because the government was distracted by preparing for a no deal Brexit. Then in February Boris Johnson was distracted by his domestic circumstances and failed to attend the first five COBRA (crisis) meetings, apparently blithely assuming there was no crisis. On a more cheerful note, I watched clips of a TV interview with an Oxford scientist who is working on a vaccine which is expected to start trials next week. She came across as extremely competent and knowledgeable, and is optimistic both that the vaccine will be effective and that it could be available for public use as early as September.

We varied our routine today and had a proper Sunday roast at lunch time. I cooked the chicken and made a rhubarb and apple crumble for dessert, while H - who is the roast potato queen - cooked the vegetables. I then used the chicken carcass to make stock so we can have some good immune system boosting chicken soup for lunch tomorrow. I sat in the garden for a while enjoying the sun, then went for a walk through the woods. For no particular reason I decided to photograph the trunks of various trees and learn to identify them by their bark. I think I have identified them all correctly.

Horse chestnut

Beech

Sycamore

Ash

Birch

Our Disney marathon continued with Toy Story 2. We only have about twelve films left on our list to watch. They we will have to move on to something else - maybe a Harry Potter marathon? I would like to try to watch the Marvel movies, but I'm not sure anyone else will want to watch them with me. Possibly TG would as she enjoyed Avengers Infinity War and Endgame. I'm feeling a bit despondent that our long planned and anticipated trip to Disneyworld will probably have to be postponed. A very small problem in the scheme of things, I know, but I find the general uncertainty about what the future holds unsettling so can easily get things out of proportion. It doesn't help that I never do well with uncertainty. I'm sure learning to live with not knowing how the next few months (or years) will work out is a good lesson for me.

Staying Home: Day 33

I woke this morning to the sound of pouring rain, the first we have had for quite some time. It should be back to dry and sunny again tomorrow, though not as warm as it was last week. I stayed in bed for a while and listened to a couple of podcasts, including one about the possible economic effects of the pandemic, where three experts with differing views were interviewed by the presenter and then answered questions from a live audience (presumably a virtual one!). One point that struck me was the comment that the history of previous epidemics shows that they tend to accelerate changes that were already taking place, and I can see a lot of truth in that. For example, I can see the pandemic leading to long term, major changes in the way people work. 

The family barista kindly brought me a cappuccino. I cannot recommend highly enough making sure you have someone with serious coffee making skills on hand during a lockdown.

I watched TV on my laptop for a while and did a bit more stitching. I'm pleased to say Jemima Puddleduck is now making better progress. Earlier in the week I cleared out a large fabric box which held old craft projects and got rid of some UFOs (unfinished objects) which were clearly never going to get completed. All my current works in progress are now tucked up in the box instead of scattered round the sitting room.

We kept to pavements for our walk today in case the rain had made the woodland paths muddy and stopped for a chat with the Waitrose delivery driver who normally delivers our groceries. As we have H able to shop for us, we are deliberately not ordering deliveries to keep slots free for those who really need them. He told us that the workload is huge, but people are almost without exception extremely grateful for the service. I feel in a strange, neutral position at the moment - neither a helper, nor someone requiring help. For now it looks as though I will not be redeployed to help my colleagues who are now working with the Council's community hub, due to a combination of the persistent fatigue (which I think is now finally easing) and lack of the right tech. Whether this will change over the next week or two remains to be seen.

I did more sewing while watching Toy Story - I must have seen it before, but couldn't remember the plot at all! - and also made a bit more progress on my weather scarf. Unless I am working on a very complicated pattern I can knit and read at the same time, so I read a bit more of my current book (The Rowan, by Anne McCaffrey).

The afternoons and evenings seems to have evolved into a very pleasant eating, drinking and viewing pattern. Afternoon tea with a sweet treat and a drink (giant choc chip shortbread from M & S Food today, which are probably a gazillion calories but are irresistible) before we start watching our movie of the day. M goes upstairs and watches something more to his taste on the computer, then emerges an hour or two later and makes a pre-dinner drink with something on the side. Gin and tonic is my usual preference - I highly recommend Aldi's rhubarb and pink grapefruit gin -  with either olives or a savoury snack. H picked up some jalapeño flavoured giant corn yesterday which went very well with toy drink today. Dinner is some time after the movie, usually around seven; today we had salmon in a asian style marinade with sesame seeds, sweet potato fries and spring greens. I don't think we have ever eaten as well at home as we are doing while on lockdown. Partly because we have more time, but also partly because we no longer have to cater for young children with limited tastes and can be a bit more adventurous. After dinner we either drift off and do our own thing, watch something together as a family, or play a game - scattergories again tonight.

Staying Home: Day 32

This morning I reactivated a long ignored blog that I set up four years ago to write about local history, which then morphed into genealogy before I ran out of steam and stopped writing a few months later. I turned the research I had done on our old family friend into a post, which if you are interested you can read at History Roundabout. Over the weekend I am hoping to write a follow up post about her 19th century ancestors who, rather to my surprise, lived only 15 miles away from here.

M and I went for a morning walk as there was some rain forecast for this afternoon. H went for a run and came back feeling pleased with herself for running 4K in 27 minutes. She is not a natural runner and has been gradually working up her distance and speed. TG didn't do any exercise and spent most of the day on her laptop either watching Netflix or playing Sims. She did do a bit of outstanding schoolwork so she is all caught up for when school starts again on Tuesday.

After lunch I drove H to the Marks and Spencers Food store, both to do some shopping and to collect a couple of packages with items I had ordered from the main Marks and Spencer website - a replacement frying pan after the non-stick coating on our old one lost an unfortunate battle with a scourer, and a couple of comfy bras (let's face it, who needs underwires during lockdown!). When we got back H was notified that her university graduation has been officially postponed to some unspecified future date, so I cancelled the hotel booking I had made for the night before. Having to cancel things that are still over three months away is a dispiriting reminder of how long it is likely to be before life returns to a semblance of normal.

We watched Pirates of the Caribbean while I carried on with my Jemima Puddleduck cross stitch kit. It didn't go well. Jemima is white. The fabric is white. White on white is not easy, especially when the lighting isn't great and the stitcher can't be bothered to move to the chair which has a convenient lamp. I sewed. I unpicked. I sewed some more. I unpicked some more. Eventually I moved to the well-lit armchair and made a bit of progress, but then ended with another mistake where I got the crosses on a number of stitches the wrong way round. At that point I decided to give up and hope tomorrow is better. I am following the instructions regarding the direction of the crosses, but I think I must normally make mine the other way round as I keep instinctively doing them wrong. Unfortunately I have got too far into Jemima to change it now.

Dinner was home made beef and mushroom pie with mashed potato and broccoli, cooked by H. She made two pies, one for tonight and one for the freezer. We then watched the Masterchef final - I thought H had said it was last night, but apparently it was just the final week.  

Staying Home: Day 31

A month into this stay-at-home life already! I can honestly say there is very little that I am missing. I genuinely enjoy being at home, spending time with my family, and not having to rush anywhere. Once this is all over I hope I can find a better balance, living at a slower pace with less outside commitments.

This morning I wrote up the genealogy research I have been doing, while M started our latest freelance job. H did some exercise out in the garden and TG did an online dance class. Today was another sunny, warm day so this afternoon I spent time in the garden with my Kindle before we went back to the woods to enjoy the bluebells. H's magnificent cookies were even better today than yesterday - perfect chewiness, whereas yesterday the chocolate was still slightly melty. Life doesn't come much better than bluebell woods, followed by home baking, a mug of good coffee, and a family movie while I worked on some cross stitch (Brave was the Disney movie of the day).

This evening we ordered a Chinese takeaway on Just Eat, which M and I washed down with beer, then spent an hour or so playing a family game of Scattergories before H disappeared to watch the final of Masterchef and I did a couple of online tasks - I needed to order printer paper, and register to complete a self assessment tax form online.

I feel as though this week of rest and relaxation without any archive or freelance work is doing me good. My energy levels are better, and I am beginning to hope I may finally be shaking off the fatigue. I guess I'll find out when I start back to work-at-home next week.

Staying Home: Day 30

Often I start my day listening to either an audio book or a podcast and doing a jigsaw puzzle on my iPad before I get out of bed (I am not a morning person and need some time to ease slowly into the day!). This morning I finished listening to The New Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan. I haven't read his history of the silk roads, to which this is a follow up, but it works as a standalone book. Rather than history this book is about the present and the future, explaining how a new world order is being built along the old silk roads. Fascinating stuff.

I spent some more time puttering around on Ancestry this morning, doing a bit more research. After lunch H baked dark chocolate and almond butter cookies, using a recipe Pret posted online for anyone suffering withdrawal from these amazing vegan cookies (that would be us!). Hers were equally amazing. When M and I went for our walk we ran into our former neighbours' daughter walking her dog, and a set of current neighbours also on their daily walk, so we stopped for socially distanced chats with both. When we got back the girls and I watched Ratatouille, TG's favourite ever Disney movie, while M baked a madeira cake (his favourite).

The brass band is replacing Wednesday rehearsals with a themed Whats App "concert", where as many people as possible record themselves playing a piece and share it. This week's theme was Disney, so I recorded myself playing A Whole New World on the trombone. Actually having the energy to get my trombone out and blow it is progress. Then I spent half an hour or so lying outside in the hammock with a glass of prosecco and my Kindle. It was cold enough to need a blanket, but I'm loving being able to spend time outdoors after being stuck inside for so long during January and February. Dinner was chilli with baked sweet potatoes or rice according to preference.

We finished the day with a Zoom quiz with a group of band friends, which all four of us took part in. I read an article this morning about the extraordinary growth of Zoom over the past few weeks as so many people around the world have found themselves in lockdown. It certainly seems to have become the go-to app for virtual socialising. The quiz was a fun way to do something with our whole group, and we plan to do it again.

Staying Home: Day 29

An early start today (considering I am on holiday-at-home for the week) as I was the chauffeur for H's trip to the supermarket this morning and she wanted to get there before it got too busy. She went to Waitrose, which was very quiet and had most of what she was looking for. We are being very organised, planning our main meals a week ahead. With four of us home full time we seem to be getting through an enormous amount of food. In normal times there are often only three of us, TG gets lunch at school, and we occasionally eat out. Also we have more time than usual to cook and bake. After we got back with the shopping, had wiped it down and put it away, M and I had a session of bickering and grouching at each other (keeping it real here!), but managed to talk it out and deal with the issue.

I used up the last of last week's veg box by making Jerusalem artichoke soup for lunch for M and myself. TG had boiled eggs and Doritos - bit of an odd combination, but as it is still Passover we don't have any bread - and H cooked herself hash browns, baked beans and scrambled eggs. Mostly we fend for ourselves at lunchtime, though sometimes a couple of us will have the same thing. H and TG went for a walk, then H exercised in the garden with weights and TG had an online ballet class. Her ballet shoes are still at the dance studio, but I had a pair I ordered for her in February. I had intended to return them as they were slightly small, but never got round to it and then the lockdown happened. I fished them out for her as better than nothing - hopefully they will stretch a bit with use and be OK for the time being. M and I went for a walk round the estate today as we have been to the woods for several days in a row and fancied a change of scenery. The blue sky in the picture above is deceptive - it was sunny but quite cold.

Disney movie of the day was Moana. I'm flitting between crafts according to mood and started on a small cross stitch kit I found yesterday, a picture of Jemima Puddleduck.  It is a very old kit, one I think I may have inherited from my Mum, who used to do a lot of cross stitch. I have a bookmark kit on order and will start that when it arrives, so whether Jemima will ever get finished I have no idea. We have mostly been eating the same thing for dinner, but today H made chicken katsu curry for herself and TG, I made a fish curry for myself with a jar of sauce and some smoked coley that came in the Fishbox a while ago and hadn't got eaten (I am the only one who really likes smoked fish), and M ate up leftover roast lamb from Sunday.

After dinner we all watched an episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and then played a rather riotous family game of Uno.

Staying Home: Day 28

I woke in the early hours and spiralled into anxiety about how we will ever escape from Covid lockdowns, shut downs and economic depression. Fortunately the logical side of my brain managed to remind the stressed side that things always look worse in the middle of the night, and I distracted myself by thinking of quiz questions We are planning a Zoom quiz night with some band friends on Wednesday, each writing a set of 10 questions on a subject of our own choice. I picked history, then realised just how hard it is to pitch the level when you know more than most about the topic. Hopefully what I have come up with will work - favouring those with some historical knowledge, but still allowing the clueless to make a reasonable guess!

Even without any work to do the days seem to go by quite fast, and I am enjoying a slow and leisurely start without feeling there is something I ought to be doing. I got back to my short yoga sessions again today with 15 minutes of flexibility this morning. H made blueberry muffins with the last egg and some frozen blueberries. TG took an online jazz dance class on Zoom. Her dance school are planning to start a full timetable of online classes next week, and are offering a few free classes this week as a trial, so that both teachers and kids can get used to the technology. There will be some adult dance and fitness classes too, and if I had more energy I might have opted in to the fitness classes. Not an option currently.

We watched Cars, which I remember watching with R and H in the onboard cinema on a car ferry to Normandy - H was 7, so this must have been over 14 years ago. Not surprisingly I couldn't remember anything about the plot, and she didn't remember it at all. I had low expectations but rather liked it. I watched an episode of Our Girl (drama about a female soldier-medic in Afghanistan) with M, and another episode of The Imagineers with H. I added a little more to the weather scarf, and crocheted some more flowers. The weather was cold but dry, so fine for our walk but not a day for sitting in the garden. Dinner was mackerel with mashed garlicky butternut squash, kale and potato wedges. We now have a Great Fruit Shortage, having eaten every piece of fruit in the house except for some green bananas which was all TG could find at Tesco Express. H is going to do a supermarket shop tomorrow, so hopefully we will be able to stock up. We all tend to eat a lot of fruit, and TG is going through apple withdrawal (she is rationed to no more than two a day or I am afraid she would eat them by the bag full!)

The pictures are from yesterday's walk. The mossy tree roots and the large fungus just above the bluebells both caught my attention. 

Staying Home: Day 27

Happy Easter!

Although the temperature is due to drop 10 degrees (C) overnight, the warm spring weather has lasted for Easter - in fact, the temperatures this weekend would be warm for summer. I watched a streamed Easter Vigil service from Blackfriars, Oxford, but found it difficult to engage. We swapped chocolate Easter eggs, ate too much chocolate, and H (with TG as sous-chef) cooked an Easter dinner of roast lamb, roast potatoes, carrots, peas, leeks, and Yorkshire puddings. She is such a good cook! Her flavouring always comes out better than mine. 

This morning I coloured my hair and H cut it. I suggested beforehand it might be a good idea to watch a couple of YouTube videos, but filled with confidence from her success cutting M's hair a couple of weeks ago she decided that wasn't necessary. I have short hair with is very thick and fine, and not easy to deal with, but it had been left far too long since I last cut it and was thoroughly irritating me. We reckoned that if her hairdressing went wrong, at least there would be time for it to grow out before many people would see me! Her first attempt was a thorough pudding basin cut, which reduced us both to hysterical laughter. She then tackled trying to give it some layers and texture, and after passing through an Edna Mode from the Incredibles stage, it has actually ended up looking quite decent. Definitely better than it was before. (No, I'm not going to post a picture! I am not a good selfie taker.)

M and I made it to the old Bluebell Wood today, which is looking beautiful. Perfect for Easter. When we got back we had a family FaceTime chat with our eldest daughter R, who seems in very good spirits. She has been furloughed from work and has decided to take advantage of the time off to start a marketing course, as she is in the process of an internal transfer from recruitment to marketing (she should have started on 1st April but it has been postponed until things are up and running again). Meanwhile she has bought a cheap Kindle on eBay and has been enjoying soaking up the sun in the garden and reading, and has been doing quite a bit of baking. 

Disney movie of the day was vintage Bambi, and we all watched tonight's episode of Race Across the World, with teams of two are racing from Mexico to the tip of South America via a series of checkpoints. Satisfying our travel cravings vicariously! 

Staying Home: Day 26

I was feeling in better spirits today, possibly because I felt less tired. Really, I have so much to be grateful for, including that I enjoy spending time at home and I am not finding the lockdown a hardship. I finished a book today, Bluestockings by Jane Robinson, which is a history of women and university education before 1939. This reminded me of an old family friend, who was a student at Oxford University during the first world war and died in 1992 in her mid-90s. I realised that I knew nothing about her background and how she came to be at Oxford, so this morning put my genealogy skills to use and did some research on Ancestry. I discovered that she spent her childhood in Birmingham, where her father was a chartered accountant. Her older brother studied at the University of London and spent time in the Royal Flying Corps during the Great War; he later became a professor of education at Nottingham University and then in Egypt. I knew she had travelled, spending time in Italy and elsewhere, and found her on passenger lists of ships going to and from Canada in the 1920s. In 1939 she was teaching in Shrewsbury, before settling down as lecturer at a teacher training college near Liverpool where she was one of my mother's tutors. I wonder whether her father was one of those enlightened men for his time who valued education for women, or whether she was like Vera Brittain and had to plead to be allowed to follow her brother to university. 

I chose a different route for our walk today, meaning to go through the ancient woodland rather than the newer part, but took a wrong turning. H said later that she got into the old wood by mistake and there were lots of bluebells out, so tomorrow we will go hunting bluebells in Bluebell Wood. I did spot this little robin and just managed to get close enough to take a photo of him with my phone. 

When we got back I made scones for afternoon tea. No clotted cream, or cream of any sort, but they were still good.

After tea we watched Finding Dory and I started to crochet flowers for my spring garland using the left over yarn from my blanket. Now I have got to grips with the pattern I think they will be very satisfying to make.

H cooked a keema curry for the two of us for dinner, while M and TG had chicken and chips. The girls wanted to play a board game, so we played Mega Monopoly. We have found that thanks to a third dice and extra properties, the Mega version is actually quicker to play than the standard version, and more interesting. TG has planned a virtual sleepover tonight with two friends. Apparently they are going to use Netflix Party, which allows them to watch the same thing at the same time and chat while they watch it. I can hear her chattering away to them upstairs.

Staying Home: Day 25

I started the day with a doctor's telephone consultation about my fatigue. I went online last night to book an appointment and I have so lost track of time that I actually thought I had booked one for next week, only to realise when I went to put it on the calendar that it was today! In normal circumstances she would have wanted to run blood tests for thyroid function and various vitamin levels, but can't do this now because of Covid (they don't want people coming into the surgery unless it is urgent). The plan for now is to carry on doing gentle exercise, to pump myself full of vitamins, and to rest when my body tells me to, then follow up in four weeks.

Today has been very unfocused, with a bit of reading, a soak in the bath, ten minutes of yoga, our usual woodland walk, time in the garden, some more knitting and Finding Nemo as Disney movie of the day. I have a habit of reading in the bath, then putting my book down on the closed lid of the toilet before getting out. Unfortunately the toilet is behind the bath, so I have to do this without looking. Even more unfortunately, the closed lid happened to be open. At least the book fell in at a good angle and didn't actually get wet. It has now been well scrubbed down with anti-bacterial wipes so that I can finish it!

The weather scarf is progressing well and April is now done. You can see the change from blues to warmer greens happening, and I'm currently working on a sunny spell at the end of April and beginning of May. I'm feeling the need to start a couple more creative projects for variety. I have yarn left over from my dahlia blanket which I can use for the flowers, and I think I will have enough spare in various shades of green from the weather scarf for lease. I also ordered a couple of 1000 piece jigsaws this morning, which should arrive in a week or so. . I am waiting for a cross stitch kit for a William Morris bookmark to arrive. I had ordered a set of two Mickey/Minnie Mouse bookmarks, but they had gone out of stock so I changed my order. I also want to crochet this spring garland from Attic 24.

Mostly I am managing not to dwell on the whole awfulness of the pandemic, but the grim statistics for deaths in the UK are getting to me this evening, as is the uncertainty of how we move on from this and what the new normal will look like. I don't remember a Good Friday this bleak. I think tomorrow I need to stay away from the news and focus on positive things. I hope Easter will be a turning point.

Staying Home: Day 24

Another day when the fatigue caught up with me and doing anything was a struggle. I tried to push through it with 10 minutes of yoga in the morning and a 25 minute walk in the afternoon - really not sure whether this is the right thing to do or not, but I feel that after three months of doing very little some level of exercise is a must. At least the beautiful weather makes going for a walk a pleasure and not a chore.

I'm now - I hope - on leave from work for a week, so will not be working (at home) again until 20th April. I already had the week booked off as we were supposed to be going to Cornwall for a week on Monday, but that is obviously now not happening and has now been rearranged for next April. I dithered over whether to waste holiday days during the lockdown, but decided I needed the break and as I have a generous leave allowance I would take the time off, rest up and see if that helps with the fatigue. I say "I hope" I am on leave as we have now been told that our whole department is being redeployed to help with the community hub through which the Council is providing services for people who are isolating at home (the archives are a local government service, so we are Council employees). This could be arranging for delivery of medications or food parcels, doing shopping, walking dogs or simply being a chat line for anyone feeling lonely. As my asthma puts me into the "vulnerable" stay-at-home category I will presumably be allocated to one of the telephone services, but can't do anything until I have been given a work laptop with phone technology. My manager has asked the Community Hub organisers to honour my week off for health reasons and pointed out that I don't yet have the right tech anyway, so unless I hear otherwise I assume I won't be starting until later in April.

(Aside: I think I forgot to mention that we were also supposed to be away last weekend. TG should have been on a school trip to Germany, and M and I were going to take advantage of her absence with a break at our favourite hotel in Cumbria. In some ways I'm not sorry it didn't happen, as we normally do lots of walking in the Lakes and Yorkshire Dales, which I just would not have managed this time. We have rearranged for a my birthday weekend in October, by which time I will hopefully be back to normal. On the other hand, a lazy spa break might have done me good. Whatever! It wasn't an option.  We don't know yet what will happen about TG's trip.)

Passover started yesterday, so in the evening we had a seder meal by Zoom with M's sister and brother-in-law (M is Jewish, though the girls and I are not). We usually go to them every year for a seder and obviously couldn't do that in the current circumstances, so rather at the last minute they suggest a Zoom seder. We managed to scratch together pretty much everything we needed and it worked out well. I only lasted until after we had eaten though, then took myself off to bed and left them to do grace after meals and the traditional seder songs without me.

Disney movie of the day: Toy Story 4
Afternoon tea: Banana cake baked by H (not really kosher for passover, but as a household we are keeping it easy this year and just giving up bread)
Dinner: Cold fried fish (a Jewish thing, much nicer than it sounds!), baked potatoes, coleslaw and salad.

Staying Home: Day 23

Today was very much of a repeat of yesterday - same routine, although I got a bit bogged down with my work this morning, so my mid-morning yoga break became a very late-morning yoga break, but I still managed a 15 minute flexibility session. H is procrastinating over her work as she has very little left to do and is a long way ahead of her deadlines. Procrastinating seems to mostly involve online shopping and researching puppies (she wants to get a dog as soon as she gets her own place). I realised I forgot to post a photo of the painting she finished at the weekend, so here (with her permission) is her picture of Boccadasse in Genoa.

M and I went for another walk around the woods this afternoon, taking a similar but slightly longer route. The hawthorn blossom is out everywhere, including this tall boundary hedge.

Although this part of the woodland was only planted relatively recently, it is a historic site. Part of the boundary - although I'm not sure if it includes this hedge or just the previous section - runs along the ancient parish boundary which was set out in a charter dating from 966, when King Edgar gave the land to his brother's widow, Elgiva. This charter also mentions seven burial mounds on the heathland that used to cover this area, but whatever had survived was flattened when the land was ploughed in the late 19th century. Just past the hawthorn hedge I also noticed this section of ditch, which looks to me as though it may also be part of an old boundary.

After watching our Disney Movie - Ralph Wrecks the Internet - we watched the second episode of The Imagineers, a documentary series on Disney Plus about the history of the various Disney Parks. It was my turn to cook dinner today, which was shallow fried fish fillets with spanish style potatoes and purple sprouting broccoli. While we watched Ralph, M had video chats with two sets of friends.