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.