Staying Home: Day 21

Back to work this morning. My "office" is mostly my bedroom, sitting on the bed with my laptop, as it is somewhere I can be quiet. As TG is on her school break, she and H are no longer settling down in the dining room to study, so I suppose I could go there, but I have kind of got used to my bedroom-office. We do have a study, but it is where M normally works. He doesn't have any freelance work so far this week (and I'm guessing there won't be until after Easter, maybe longer) so again, I could work in there now, but I don't have everything set up on the iMac in there the way I do on my laptop. Also the chair in there is comfortable for his back, but doesn't suit me at all.

H and M got an early start and he ran her down to Tesco, waiting in the car while she shopped. We needed flour and eggs, which still seem to be hard to find. She managed to get one of the last three bags of plain flour and some eggs, so mission accomplished. H and I used up the homemade wild garlic pesto for lunch; then TG made choc chip cookie dough, which she has left to chill and intends to bake tomorrow. I had ordered some meat - grass fed / free range as I am trying really hard to buy ethically sourced and environmentally friendly food wherever I can - which arrived today, so I unpacked and froze that. I sat in the garden for a while (or rather, lay in the hammock!), had a phone conversation with a colleague and read a bit, then made a beef stew and left it to cook slowly. We all went for walks, but I didn't do any yoga today. I'm not quite sure yet how to fit it into my working day routine.

Our lovely neighbour had been to Costco to stock up, and dropped a box of pastries off for us - pain aux raisins and chocolate twists - as a contribution to our afternoon tea. The wave through window, dump on doorstep and retreat to a safe distance for a brief chat routine works well! Sadly her elderly mother-in-law died last week. Not unexpected and not, so far as we know, of Covid, but because of the quarantine they had been unable to visit, and funeral arrangements will be difficult.

After our Disney movie - Up, one of my favourites - a small group of us tried to record a brass version of Mamma Mia using Zoom. We tried using phone audio in an attempt to avoid feedback and delays, but it didn't work, so we ended up having to record our parts separately. Our techie expert is now going to try to combine all the tracks - it will be interesting to hear the end result! This was only the third time I have played my trombone since before Christmas. Due to my viral thingy I only made two rehearsals this year before we had to stop. It is quite a heavy instrument and just takes more energy and puff than I have had available. I have now left it out on a stand, intending to pick it up and practice for a few minutes at a time.

Dinner was beef stew with dumplings, with blueberries H bought this morning and dairy-free yoghurt for dessert. I'm hoping my pacing has been OK today, as I didn't have as much energy as I did yesterday. A short walk, cooking dinner, half an hour with a trombone and a few small jobs shouldn't be overdoing it, but I have reached the point of being very wary of the effects of any exertion - if I do too much, I end up paying for it later, and "too much" is currently a pretty low bar.

I'm feeling shocked this evening by the news that the Prime Minister is now in intensive care with Covid. I'm not a fan politically, but desperately hope that he pulls through this. Ironically I had told M on our walk today that I was worried about him. I suspected that the information being given about his health was playing his illness down, as he was clearly not recovering on the expected timescale for someone with "mild" symptoms, but hoped that I was wrong. What an awful situation for his family, especially his pregnant partner.