Tuesday: Carrot Cake

I was up and had started work by soon after 9 this morning, so finished work at 12.30 and did some yoga before lunch. The efficiency drifted away after lunch and I spent a chunk of the afternoon in idle news and Twitter browsing, though I did read for a while before we went for our walk - three and a half miles today, including a section through the water meadows where the grasses are getting quite tall.

TG did her school work and then made her carrot cake this afternoon. In the end she served it by putting a stripe of yoghurt across the plate, with the cake on top and a sprinkling of orange zest. I should have taken a photograph but didn't think until after I had eaten it. The vanilla yoghurt went extremely well with the cake, which was delicious - even members of the family who are not normally fans of carrot cake wanted a second helping. She had to analyse what went right and what went wrong as part of her write up for her teacher, and I struggled to think of anything she could have improved.

H was also in cooking mood and made dinner - potatoes sautéed in butter and salmon cooked in a griddle pan, with peas and courgettes. She always gets seasonings just right. Earlier on she had sorted out all the stuff she brought back from uni. M has booked a slot to take some unwanted stuff to the tip on Friday, and the rest has gone into the garage to keep until she is able to get a home of her own (hopefully next year).

Monday: Starting Slow

A slow start to the day. I stayed up again watching Glastonbury highlights - David Bowie (how I wish I could have seen him live!) and Ed Sheeran, though we gave up half way through his set because we were just too sleepy. I woke at a reasonable time, but spent a while in bed listening to podcasts before I got up. Once I did get moving, there were distractions. TG has to cook a healthy dessert for her catering course and had left deciding what to make until the last minute - it needs to be done tomorrow, and I had to make any changes to tomorrow's grocery order this morning. After some dithering she settled on a healthy version of carrot cake, served with dairy free yoghurt and orange slices instead of using frosting (cream cheese frosting doesn't work for the three of us who are either dairy free or hate cheese). Then H wanted sympathy for a nastily bruised arm. She managed to tip herself over the end of her bed last night and bashed herself in the process. The pornstar martinis she was drinking with her friends yesterday (handy to have a friend with bartending experience!) may have had something to do with it. On the other hand, she has sadly inherited my clumsiness and ability to fall over things, so it may not.

By the time carrot cake had been decided on, injury updates had been received, and morning smoothie made and drunk, it was after 10 before I finally got started on work. I worked for a couple of hours, took a long lunch break to exercise and eat lunch, then worked for another couple of hours this afternoon. No question writing work at the moment, so no incentive to get finished early. After I finished M and I went for a three mile walk. The weather was dry but windy, with the sort of clouds that looked as though it could rain anytime, regardless of the weather forecast insisted that no rain was likely. Nothing particularly exciting on our walk, apart from spotting some odd fungi and noticing that the crops in a couple of the fields we walk through regularly have grown considerably and are turning out to be corn - a relatively unusual crop here, where it is mostly wheat or barley, and occasionally rape (which has garish yellow flowers which smell horrid!).

A lazy evening, with ready meal dinners - unusual for us since lockdown, but H had been to Marks and Spencers last week and bought some vegan dirty fries and not-chicken kiev for the two of us (M & S vegan dirty fries are amazing!) and their giant filled yorkshire puddings for the other three. We watched an episode of The Chase and the second half of The Empire Strikes Back with the iconic "I am your father" scene.

Partying Pandemic Style

Our 120th / double-60th birthday party yesterday was a lot of fun. The weather was horrible in the morning but by the afternoon it had mostly cleared to sunny intervals with wind. We got away with just one shower, when we sheltered in the garage with the door open - plenty of air so we decided it could just about count as outdoors. I confess we did break the rules in that at times there were 7 or 8 of us rather than the prescribed 6, but we had plenty of room to spread out and apart from sharing cake all took our own food. H had made Oreo, lemon drizzle and Pimms cupcakes, and someone had made a carrot cake and iced it with birthday greetings.  Most of us had seen each other when we got to together to do some socially distanced two weeks ago, but it was lovely just to socialise with good friends - lots of laughter and quite a bit of wine and beer! 

After we got home we stayed up late watching old Glastonbury performances from Adele and Coldplay. As the Glastonbury Festival has been cancelled this year, the BBC is showing highlights from past festivals all weekend. Tonight we want to watch David Bowie and Ed Sheeran, though might not manage two late night's in a row! Between the party and the music it was a truly enjoyable day - we have noticed that living with restrictions this year has definitely made us much more appreciative of small things.

Today I did a dumbbell class to get myself back on track with my exercise schedule - I had ended last week one class short - and this afternoon M and I walked down to collect our car which we had left outside our friends' house yesterday. We needed to take folding chairs and cakes, so had needed to drive there, but as we had been drinking we walked back.  

I spent yesterday morning and parts of today doing genealogy research for my former neighbour. I researched one side of his family a while ago - mainly to see if he was entitled to an EU passport (he wasn't) - and now I am looking at the other side. I love doing genealogy so this has kept me happily busy, but he may get rather more detail that he expected! H and her BF drove up to Yorkshire yesterday to collect her remaining things from her student house, so that phase of her life is now officially over. Today she cooked one of her excellent roasts for lunch, then went to meet up with her three best girlfriends in someone's garden. TG has, I think, done very little all weekend! 

Squirrels, Sun and Socialising

No work to do today so the first day of a long weekend. The forecast was for the weather to break with storms today, but it has been hot and dry again. I sat in the garden this morning supposedly doing a bit of writing and research, but actually mostly procrastinating. I also did some yoga and used an aubergine that came in the veg box to make babaganoush for lunch. I added chilli powder and it came out a bit on the spicy side.

In the afternoon we visited our former neighbours (and TG's godparents) who now live about 30 minutes ago when they are in the UK (they also have a home in Spain). We had a Zoom dinner party with them in April, but haven't seen them in person since before the lockdown. We had been worried it might rain, but in fact it was more of a struggle to keep cool in their garden, and definitely not worries about getting wet!

We had ordered fish and chips for dinner, which was lovely but with hindsight a bit too heavy for a very hot day when I had spent a bit too much time in the sun, and my stomach is now complaining that I have eaten too much. We decided to try to walk some of the food off, and did a 3 mile circuit round the canal. This plump squirrel on the edge of the tow path was much too interested in his food to bother moving very far or fast, so I was able to get a decent photo of him with my phone.

H kept herself happily occupied today making cupcakes for M and I to take to a (small, outdoor and socially distanced) birthday party tomorrow. Myself and one of our band friends are both celebrating 60th birthdays this year so had planned a joint 120th birthday party - she has already had her birthday, mined is later in the year. We had hired a canal boat for the day, but have had to postpone that as we would not be able to socially distance on a boat; a bring-your-own-food picnic in a garden will let us celebrate more safely. 

Still Writing

So, I'm still writing, but have decided to stop counting Staying Home days as we are now going out so much more. I didn't take any photos today, so have posted some more from Stowe yesterday.

I started today by exercising along side H, who agreed to do the 25 minute class on my weekly schedule rather than the 40 minute one she had planned. She breezed through it with dumbbells twice the weight of mine, while I felt half dead by the end. The heat didn't help, and I hadn't slept well last night. My legs ached, particularly one thigh muscle, and I couldn't settle so ended up moving downstairs to the sofa. I'm not sure whether the leg aches were a result of yesterday's walk or because I was a bit dehydrated - I certainly hadn't drunk enough to make up for yesterday's heat, so had only myself to blame. Today I have made a point of drinking more.

After I exercised I made smoothies for myself and H while she showered, then went to shower myself. It didn't go well. One foot slipped out from under me and I crunched my shin on the shower tray. No major damage, but a minor cut and what promises to be an impressive bruise even by my standards - I bruise very easily, something I inherited from my mother.

Once I recovered from the mishap and had showered I took my laptop out into the garden to work, and did a couple of hours in the morning and another couple in the afternoon. It was another scorchingly hot day. H spent time in the sun again - she is about to go back onto medication for her skin which means she will have to stay out of the sun, so is enjoying it while she can. M had a bright idea and remembered there was a sun shade in the garage that came with our table and chairs set, so we set that up so that people could eat lunch at the table without melting. We bought a black glass table with six chairs and a sunshade in the autumn sale at B & Q two or three years ago for a ridiculous price - I think £80 for the lot. We had spent a summer trying and failing to find garden furniture we liked after our old set reached the end of its useful days, then spotted these being sold off and bought them to tide us over until we found something better. As it turned out, they meet our needs pretty well, so we have given up the idea of upgrading for now. With the two cheap sunbeds I bought from Argos at the beginning of lockdown, the hammock and an IKEA beach style deckchair, we now have lots of options for sitting and lounging outside, and I think we paid about £200 for the whole lot.

TG spent most of the day doing school work. She tends to start quite late, depending on the time of any online classes (todays was geography at 10.15), then take an hour or so lunch break, and then do some more work in the afternoon. After she finished she had a dance class. M spent some time cleaning down some grimy paintwork this morning, and then chilled for the rest of the day. H went out mid-afternoon to Marks and Spencer to buy some food - they do a few things we either can't get anywhere else or are much nicer than the alternatives. She and her BF then went round to his parents for dinner. M and I went for a short walk (too hot!) and then ate leftover shepherdess pie, and TG had a Marks and Spencer ready meal - roast beef, potatoes and veggies inside a giant yorkshire pudding, which is a big favourite of hers. After dinner M and I watched the first episode of a drama about the Salisbury poisonings, where a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent. Although it was big news at the time, I hadn't registered just what a huge risk there was to public health and what a difficult exercise the clean up was.

Staying Home: Day 100

One hundred days. When I started keeping this lockdown diary, I thought it would be over around now. I suppose in some ways it is. Restrictions are easing, with significantly more opening up to come next week. We can see other people, shops are open, many people are going back to work - though I am still working from home and likely to be doing so for a while yet I think. The risk of catching Covid is massively lower than it was three months ago, and things are gradually moving into a new normal. For us, the last 100 days have been mostly good, but I know we are very fortunate - we have our health, our family, a comfortable home and financial security. I am grateful and am aware of just how lucky we are. I was thinking I would stop keeping this diary after this milestone, but I have got into the habit of writing so will keep going, though maybe not every day (100 consecutive days of blogging is something I never thought I would achieve!). I wonder how things will look in another 100 days? 

Today was the hottest day of the year so far. I took my laptop out into the garden and sat with my feet up in the shade while I worked this morning. H joined me after a while, and I think spent most of the day on a sunbed. After lunch M and I went to Stowe Gardens, our National Trust trip for this week. Again, it was a lovely touch of normal. The "house" at Stowe is rarely open - it is a very expensive boarding school, and although there are sometimes tours during school holidays, we have never been inside. The grounds are huge. Although we walked nearly 4 miles we still didn't get round everything. 

Stowe isn't a cultivated garden in the modern sense; it is a whole landscape, carefully designed in the 18th century with temples, statues, follies, a Grecian valley, a Palladian bridge, columns, a rotunda ... it is really quite extraordinary and it would be hard to get bored of visiting. According to the National Trust website everything was designed with a specific meaning, to fit into three paths - Vice, Virtue and Liberty. M and I both agreed that it is our favourite National Trust property to visit. Hopefully we will be able to get tickets again before too long. 

By the time we finished our walk we were hot and tired. The visitor centre and cafe are closed, but there was a van selling drinks and snacks, so we each had a cookie or cake and a cold drink. The only thing wrong with my iced coffee was that I could easily have drunk three of them! 

Full of confidence after yesterday's success, we lit the BBQ again tonight - and ended up eating nearly an hour late! H's theory was that because we were having fish, it would cook quickly and would not need as much heat, so she used less charcoal. It seems there is a minimum amount of charcoal below which it doesn't get hot enough. We don't know what the minimum is, but it is more than she used. In the end we added some extra and waited more or less patiently until it reached a cooking temperature. We used up some corn from yesterday, added some courgettes, mushrooms and red onions, and grilled mackerel fillets from the fish box. On the side we also had homemade potato salad and coleslaw made with carrots and kohlrabi from the veg box. After dinner we started Episode V of Star Wars. 

Staying Home: Day 99

A rather backwards day, as gardeners were coming this afternoon to cut the out of control hedge round our garden. I think when our estate was built, the gardens were given low wire fences and hedges were planted instead of rather than the tall wooden fences that have mostly replaced them. Our garden now has a wooden fence on two sides, but still has most of the original hedge - some of the flowering beech bushes (at least, I think that is what they are) have died, so there are some gaps and some other shrubs. In the spring the bushes grow pretty quickly and get out of control. We used to cut them ourselves, then my brother used to do it with help from M, but it has now got beyond us and for the last year or so we have paid someone to come and cut it for us. The bushes must reduce the size of the garden considerably, but as we don't have any other plants except grass - I really cannot overstate our horticultural incompetence - I appreciate having something leafy there.

To avoid the hedge cutting I decided to work this afternoon instead of this morning, as our bedroom is as far away from the noise and pollen as possible. I spent a bit of time outside reading, while we waited for our grocery delivery, then M and I went for a walk round a nearby lake. It is walkable, but we didn't have time to walk there and back as well as round the lake, so we drove down and then did three circuits. It is a man-made lake. This area is sandy and sand extraction has been one of the largest industries here. The lake is a worked out sand pit which has been filled with water and turned into a country park. I had never noticed before that on one side of the lake there are some dead trees sticking out of the water.

The gardeners turned up early, while M and I were still out, but it took them quite a time to cut the hedges. H was most put out as she had planned to spend the day in the garden and couldn't settle to anything else. She did eventually get to lie in the sun for a while after they left, before she and her BF went out for a walk. The Prime Minister has announced more easing of the coronavirus restrictions from next week, including opening pubs, restaurants and hotels. We are also going to be allowed to meet people indoors as well as outdoors, though only people from one other household at a time. That means that H and her BF will be allowed to move freely between each other's houses when he decides to go home - probably in a couple of weeks when he is going to start working in the office at least some of the time. It also means we can go into R's house and vice versa, and won't be dependant on dry weather so we can sit outside. 

We had a much more successful attempt at BBQing tonight. Our neighbours had passed on some lighter cubes they didn't need, and we managed to light it properly and get it to the right temperature for cooking. I had ordered some ready made meat kebabs with the grocery order, and we had those with corn on the cob, baked potatoes, and coleslaw, followed by apple pie. 

Staying Home: Day 98

Today in brief: work this morning, exercise class and lunch, a bit more work, time in the garden reading, making shepherd's pie / shepherdess pie (vegetarian) for dinner / three mile walk / an episode of the Chase on TV. Even after three months I am still faintly surprised how fast the days pass, and how there never seems to be time to do everything I would like to do.

We walked down the canal tow path and met the swan family - the cygnets are getting noticeably larger each time I see them. It was a warm afternoon but still pleasant for walking. The next few days are promising a heatwave, so we may need to take later walks or shorter strolls.

TG had  Teams lessons today for English and French. This afternoon we got a letter from her school to say they have arranged for all the Year 9s to go in for one morning to touch base before the end of this term. It all sounds very well planned. They have been put into groups of 12. Each group will spend the morning in a single classroom and have three lessons - English, Maths and Science - with the teachers coming to their room while the kids stay put. They will have a short break where they can socialise (at a distance) within their own bubble of 12, but not with anyone from another group. On the days the Year 9s go in, no other pupils will be in school, so that they can keep the numbers on site low.  I think they probably want more than anything to give them all an opportunity to experience  the new normal of socially distanced school before next term, although by then it seems likely that the rules will be relaxed so that more kids can go in and for longer days. TG has been given July 3rd as her date for her half day in school. Attendance isn't compulsory, but as coronavirus levels are now pretty low in our area we feel comfortable with her going.

M had a health and safety assessment form through for his NHS job. They are scoring everyone for their Covid risk, to check who can safely work and who can't. His score put him into the "amber" range, where he is judged safe to work in an area that isn't a Covid hot spot, but will probably need an occupational health assessment first. This - fit for work, but with caution - is exactly what we would have expected, so their scoring system seems quite accurate. Although I don't work for the NHS I scored myself out of interest and came in one point lower, putting me into the green zone but also requiring an occupational health assessment because of my asthma - again, much what I would have expected. I will turn 60 in October, which would add a point and put me into the amber zone. So, caution is still the order of the day for both of us! 

Staying Home: Day 97

Lesson of the day ... trying to light a BBQ with firelighters made out of newspaper doesn't work! We planned a late BBQ lunch today, but by the time we had failed abysmally at lighting it and gone to Plan B, it was a much later lunch than we intended. As we didn't have any proper firelighters, Plan B (thanks to Google) turned out to be to use a candle broken into pieces. It worked, but we ended up cooking part of the food on the hob as we were too hungry to wait for the BBQ to be properly ready. The charcoal we were using seemed to be quite slow burning, which didn't help. The weather is supposed to be hot and sunny all next week and we are planning a couple more BBQ meals, so hopefully with a bit more practice we will get better at lighting and timing it! 

We had a lovely, slow start to the day, and I spent a while soaking in the bath with a Body Shop bath bomb / bubble thing. My brother joined us for lunch. He lives locally and we have seen him a few times and had quick chats at a distance, but this was the first time he had been over since the lockdown started. Lunch was steak (or veggie burger), corn on the cob, and salads, washed down with beer. After my brother left out neighbours came round and we drank Pimms and ate cupcakes - H had been baking again this morning and made Biscoff cupcakes (she has a bit of a Biscoff obsession at the moment!).

While we were chatting in the garden to the neighbours, H and her BF drove a few miles to some woods for a walk. After they got back and the neighbours left, M and I went for a two mile walk round our local woods. We both decided we were tired and needed a shorter walk today.

This evening I watched the last two episodes of Staged, a short TV series filmed in lockdown with actors Michael Sheen and David Tennant playing themselves supposedly rehearsing a play via Zoom - very clever and very entertaining. It even had a cameo role for the wonderful Judi Dench. I finished my day with a yin yoga class and am now feeling very relaxed. Back to work-at-home tomorrow.

Staying Home: Day 96

Today has been a particularly enjoyable day. I started with the last class of the first week of my six week Fiit exercise programme, a nice full body yoga stretch. Then H made a mountain of pancakes for a late breakfast, and we all sat round the dining table eating pancakes and chatting. H opened her hair dressing salon and cut both mine and M's hair. I like short hair - my hair is very fine but extremely thick and it had got long enough to be feeling too hot on my neck. H did a good job on it. She takes quite a while over it, snipping away a little at a time very carefully, but taking it slowly pays off. This time she was a bit braver about layers and thinning out the bottom and sides.

R texted yesterday to suggest meeting for a walk this afternoon. H's boyfriend had gone for a kick around with friends in the park, so H and TG both came with us. Doing something with all five of us, and just the five of us, doesn't happen that often - either there is someone missing, or we have one or both of the boyfriends with us (which is lovely, I'm not complaining about that!). We met halfway and went for a walk through the Duke of Bedford's deer park at Woburn. The house - Woburn Abbey (built on the site of a medieval abbey, but never one itself except in name) - was a bit distant. Next time we go we will take the footpath that leads past it and I'll get some better photos. Same with the
deer, which I just managed to picture in the distance, behind the bronze statue of a horse.

We circled round back into the village where we had parked and went in search of coffee - the girls had spotted someone in the car park with a takeaway cup, so guessed something must be open. We tracked the source of the coffee down to a cafe which was selling not just drinks, but also ice creams. Four out of five us decided that ice cream was the most appealing option! We all decided the afternoon had a real holiday feel to it, with the nice scenic walk followed by ice cream. The cafe also kindly supplied a large cup of water for R's dog, who was rather thirsty after all his walking and attempts to roll in "nice" smells (he had managed a successful roll in fresh fox poo yesterday, much to R's disgust, and she was determined to avoid a repeat performance!) 

H went off to collect her BF from the park and they then went to his parents' house for a BBQ - it makes such a difference when the weather is better and we can eat and socialise outdoors. I am hoping it won't be too long before the rules change and we can socialise indoors as well, but for now it is outside only. The remaining three of us had a lazy evening mostly watching TV, though I did put in an online order for groceries for the week after next - there are delivery slots but they still need booking well ahead - and sorted out a few financial bits and pieces.

Staying Home: Day 95

I have had my most physical day in months and have climbed into bed exhausted and with aching legs. No work today, as I have already done four mornings of archive work this week and don't have any freelance work, so I started the day with a Fiit class using dumbbells. I then helped H to wallpaper one of the bathroom walls - a particularly fiddly wall as we had to get round a radiator / towel rail (I don't have the skill to take it off the wall first), and a shaver point. She had never papered before, and in any case the tricky bits were a two person job.

We got to a stage where she could manage on her own just in time for me to jump in the shower and get changed into clothes not covered in wallpaper paste so that we could leave for another trip to a National Trust property. This time we had a booking for Hughenden Manor, the home of 19th century prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, with an arrival time between 1pm and 1.30pm. We drove through quite a bit of rain, but it stopped just as we got there.

We meandered around the grounds - or rather we meandered around the correct socially distanced one-way circuit! - then took a three mile walk up to the Disraeli monument and back to the house through Hughenden Park, a rather lovely public park which joins on to the National Trust estate. There were some quite hilly bits, which my legs complained about (quite a few of the leg complaints also came out of my mouth!).

We wandered round the walled garden, then went back to the car to eat slices of TG's lemon and poppyseed cake which M had thoughtfully packed for us. Since we got home I have barely moved off the chair as my legs are now too stiff. Mostly when I moved it was to find snacks, as even after eating pasta for dinner I kept feeling hungry. According to my Apple Watch I used over 950 active calories today, which is close to a record for me. I'm sure it must have done me good, though it may take a day or two to recover.

H got her provisional mark for her dissertation today - a very satisfactory one which means she has well and truly earned a first class degree, without having to rely on the safety net put in place to ensure students aren't disadvantaged by having to finish their year working remotely due to coronavirus. She now has first class overall marks for both her 2nd and final years (1st year marks don't count towards final grades). A fantastic achievement, and one she has worked hard for and thoroughly deserves. It is a shame her graduation ceremony in July has been cancelled. They are planning to run one when circumstances allow, but it may not be easy for her to get time off work for it.

TG was mildly grumpy that she had a maths lesson set up on Teams for 1pm, which she thought an irritating time, neither one thing nor the other and clashing with lunch. She didn't get up until late, but she didn't have much work left for this week, so it wasn't a problem. Later in the afternoon she went out for a walk with a friend who lives nearby, then had an evening dance class. The letter from her school sent out today suggested that her year group may be invited to go into school at some point before the end of this term - whether as a one off catch up, or on a more regular basis wasn't clear, as the school are waiting for more information from the government before making a decision.

Staying Home: Day 94

It has surprised me just how busy I am with my archive work, even working from home with no access to documents. If I worked full time it might be different, but fifteen hours a week is very easy to fill and my work time flies by. Today I answered an email enquiry, noticed that this is Refugee Week and found some themed display posters which I made a few years ago to post on social media, made some edits to our website, and worked on an interactive map illustrating various aspects of life in the county during the Second World War. 

After lunch M and I watched TV for a while, then as the rain had stopped went for a walk. We passed one giant puddle where a drain had presumably overloaded, with some kids in wellies enjoying a paddle. The canal was looking beautiful today after all the rain, which had left the water looking much clearer.

On the way back we spotted a rabbit in a hedge by the roadside. It tried rather unsuccessfully to hide in a shallow hole in the ground, so I was able  to get a picture of it. I have seen them before on our walks but never close enough to photograph.

H and her BF treated us to a takeaway from a local Turkish restaurant tonight, so we all ended up feeling very full! TG baked a lemon and poppyseed cake this afternoon, but we didn't have room for dessert so we have that to look forward to tomorrow. After dinner we played a Catchphrase card game M was given for his birthday. We then had a discussion about H and work - she would really like something to do over the next couple of months before she starts her permanent job in September and has been asked if she would work at the cafe as usual over the summer once it reopens, but in the end we all decided that for various reasons it was probably a bit too much of an unnecessary risk.

Staying Home: Day 93

We had a spectacular storm this afternoon with thunder and lightening and torrential rain turning the road into a river. After it cleared M and I went for a short walk to collect some photographs destined for the archives from someone who lives nearby.

Mostly we are managing to keep the living room pretty tidy, especially considering that there are five of us living here. Today there were two sets of dumbbells lying around, as H did a strength Fiit class this morning (a live one in which she earned more Fit points than anyone else - turns out she is as competitive as her elder sister!) and I did one before lunch. TG had a dance class later on, and M went out for an extra walk this morning while I was working. I'm very impressed with how much exercise we are all getting - the girls are good normally, but it is a notable improvement for M and I.

H cooked dinner (chicken curry and naan bread), then we took part in a quiz with other brass band members. M had been volunteered as quiz master and did a very good job of it. The Zoom meeting was hosted by someone who was able to set up breakout rooms, so that the quiz teams could include people from different households - an excellent idea as it meant that the families of four did not have an advantage over singles, and we all got to chat a bit in our subgroups without the overwhelm of a large Zoom meeting. I ended up on the winning team, which had absolutely nothing to with being married to the quiz master!

Staying Home: Day 92

Not much to say about today. Most of us worked this morning, while H started redecorating the bathroom. She has decided to find herself projects to keep busy over the next two and a half months before she starts her job in September. Normally she would have put in some shifts at the cafe where she has worked for over five years, but they are still closed and are unlikely to need extra staff when they reopen. There aren't many temporary jobs around, and she doesn't want to take on anything that might increase our risk, so she is having to keep herself occupied at home. Today she stripped off the old wallpaper (only one wall is papered) and painted the ceiling.

M and I did one of our usual three mile walks, then I spent some time in the hammock in the garden while he went out and put some diesel in the car for the first time in three months. I intended to read, but got distracted by Twitter and playing Scrabble on my phone. Later on we watched the rest of Star Wars Episode IV and an episode of The Chase, and I worked on my cross stitch.  We had intended to BBQ tonight but the weather forecast said it was likely to rain, so we changed plan and had fish from today's fish box instead. In fact there was thunder, but no rain. M baked a madeira cake this afternoon, and H baked some chocolate pampers (swirly chocolate pastries) this evening. I feel as though I have frittered away quite a bit of time today when I could have been reading or doing something else constructive. Ah well!

Staying Home: Day 91

It is now thirteen weeks since I started working from home, just ahead of the official lockdown. I count myself very lucky - as M said to me earlier, we are healthy, happy and solvent, and you can't ask for more than that. There have definitely been positives from the last three months. I have learned that I benefit from a more regular daily routine, with proper down time at the weekends. We have been walking regularly, and since I recovered from the wretched virus that dragged me down for the first few weeks I have started building more exercise into my days, and I am beginning to feel stronger and more energetic. (Was the virus Covid, I wonder? The dates seemed wrong, but it is beginning to look as though it was spreading earlier than was previously thought.) We have enjoyed each other's company as a family, and all being home together has been good. As things have begun to open up and we move to a new normal I am more appreciative of small pleasures - chatting with a neighbour, ordering a takeaway meal, a drink in the garden with a friend. There are certainly things I miss. I'm disappointed we can't go on trips we were looking forward to, especially our long planned holiday to Disney World, but I know we will be able to do these things at some time in the future. I think I miss the possibilities, the knowledge that I could do things if I wanted to, more than I miss actually doing them. All in all, we have had a good lockdown and I am grateful.

I worked this morning but finished at lunchtime and spent a bit of time in the garden reading before we went for the first of what turned out to be two walks today. M and I did our regular three mile woods-canal-town loop. After a bit more time in the garden I made dinner - salmon baked in the oven with roasted potatoes.

R posted a picture of some home made triple chocolate millionaires shortbread on Instagram this afternoon, which looked so appealing we decided to drive over this evening and combine collecting some with going out for a walk with her dog. The weather, which had been nice all day, took a turn for the worse but the rain held off long enough for us to get in a two mile walk and to sit in R's garden for a while drinking coffee and eating shortbread. The village where she lives is good for walking, and it is nice to have a change of scenery.

While we were out H went round to see an old school friend who lives locally and have a drink in her garden, leaving her BF here with his Playstation for company. It has been another good and busy day, and tonight I am counting my blessings.

Staying Home: Day 90

For the first time since the lockdown eased I visited someone else's garden this afternoon to meet up with some band friends. We usually aim to get together once a month or so to play as a small group, so we took our instruments and played for an hour or so spread out round the garden - Brass Bands England guidelines are now that groups of up to six can play outside if they keep a suitable distance between them, so that is what we did. Hopefully the neighbours didn't mind the music! After we finished playing we had a pre-ordered lunch delivered by a local pub - roast dinners all round. Everyone seemed to be doing OK. Nobody - so far as they know - has had Covid. Only one - a nurse not on clinical duties - is still going into work. Most of us are working from home.

This morning I tackled various financial jobs, including organising refunds for flights for what was meant to be a holiday in Italy in July. I hope that next summer it will be possible to travel normally again, but guess that may depend on whether there is a vaccine. I also did an exercise class, which was hard work! TG spent the morning in her room, then did some photography homework this afternoon. H went for a run in the morning, then went for a 6km walk with her BF this afternoon. M went for a walk while I was out this afternoon.

H cooked a roast dinner for everyone, but I was still too full of my late lunch to want anything else to eat. After dinner we watched the first half of Star Wars Episode IV - the original Star Wars. I then had a self-care evening with a relaxing bath followed by a yin yoga class of long, slow stretches.

Staying Home: Day 89

Earlier in the Covid outbreak I alternated between a few days of feeling quite content at home and actively enjoying having less demands on my time, then a day or two for feeling very unsettled by the situation. As the number of cases have fallen and lockdown has begun to ease my mood is generally more even. Occasionally I am frustrated by things we can't do or bothered by the uncertainty of the future and realising that social distancing measures are likely to have to continue for the foreseeable future, but most of the time I'm just living my best life here at home - working, exercising, reading, crafting, watching more TV and movies, enjoying family time. All in all, despite the circumstances, life is pretty good.

I am still a bit surprised at how easy it is to fill my time and how quickly the days pass. I would like to fit some decluttering and music practice into my days as a regular thing. I'm sure I can make time by being more disciplined about wasting time on social media, playing online Scrabble and so on, but being self-disciplined is not my strong point, I'm afraid.

More reading would be good too. I finally finished my book today, which I think I started soon after lockdown began. Why I decided an 800 page biography was the right choice as a lockdown read, I'm not sure, but I have persisted with it. I think forcing myself to tackle a book that needed focus and concentration has been good for me. It was a prize winning biography (William Morris: a Life for Our Time by Fiona MacCarthy), and was clearly extremely well researched as well as being well written, so did repay the effort. Over the last few years I have tended to shy away from longer, more difficult books, partly because I not a very fast reader and it takes me real effort to get through them, and I think it was good to commit to one. I did read at least some of it most days, though there were a few when I didn't manage to drag myself away from unfocused online clicking and scrolling. Now the magnum opus is finished, I'm planning some easier reading for a while.

M and I went for a walk this morning, which was both a little longer (4 miles) and a lot tougher (long grass and stiles!) than our regular walks. We drove to a nearby village where my father was born, and where almost all his ancestors came from. The walk was partly through the south end of the village, but mostly across fields to a nearby hamlet and back. We walked past one farm which we concluded was where old tractors go to die!  The village has some lovely old houses and a 12th century church. The stone work around the doorway is beautiful and typically Norman. I got home very tired but still managed to make myself do a yoga session later in the afternoon. I can feel the exercise is doing me good, though my muscles are complaining!

The weather has been much warmer today, so I was able to spend a bit of time back in the comfy hammock in the garden this afternoon. While I relaxed in the garden all the younger members of the family went out. H and her BF went to his parents' house (or rather, garden) for a BBQ, and TG went out with her friend to take photographs. They are both taking photography as one of the their GCSE options at school, and both now have their own cameras. We helped TG to buy an entry level DSLR last year as she had been saving hard for a camera but couldn't afford one which would be good enough to use for GCSE work. It turned out to be a very good decision as she loves it and it gets a lot of use. I am strictly an iPhone photographer and M isn't really a photographer at all, so we didn't have a camera at home that she could borrow.

This evening we watched a couple of travel programmes and I did a bit more cross stitch - one was a railway journey across Finland, and the other a visit to Zimbabwe. As travel lovers, this is the closest we are going to get to the real thing for while.

Staying Home: Day 88

The weather forecast was looking dodgy for this afternoon, so M and I went for a morning walk. We did one of our favourite routes in reverse for a bit of variety. Most days now we are doing three miles, occasionally a bit more or a bit less. We both did a bit of work before and after the walk, finishing at lunchtime. I now have functioning versions or templates of the various digital maps (based on Google maps) I have been working on, so now it is a matter of finishing inputting some data and getting decisions on what direction to take with them next.

I went into complete wind-down mode this afternoon and mostly watched TV and sewed cross stitch. My William Morris bookmark rekindled a cross stitch bug and I am now working on a Charles Rennie Mackintosh rose picture. Before dinner I did a "yoga" class, which in fact was more of a pilates / abs class. Just one more to go and I have finished my two week exercise plan. Next week I am going to start one which mixes workouts of different styles. The exercise is giving me sore muscles, but I am appreciating having the energy to start to rebuild my strength and fitness.

TG did school work off and on during the day, with a live French class this morning. She really isn't a morning person and now H is not studying she is struggling a bit to get started in the mornings. H got up and did an exercise class at 8.30. During the morning she made Biscoff flavour brownies (which we concluded didn't taste much of Biscoff because it got overwhelmed by the chocolate). Then she and her BF drove to the Cotswolds - via McDonalds drive through! - to visit his 91 year old grandmother. Although still fit and active her memory is failing which made social distancing a bit tricky as she kept forgetting about it!

The National Trust puts tickets for next week onto its website on Fridays, so I tried to book to visit the gardens at Stowe next week. It is so popular they were sold out before 7.30am. We settled on Hughenden Manor near High Wycombe instead, and have tickets for next Friday. Zoos are allowed to reopen next week, and a neighbour who tried to book tickets for Whipsnade found herself nearly 9000th in the queue!