Socially Distanced Band Practice

I have a long way to go when it comes to digital minimalism. I tried to find a couple of photos for this blog, only to discover they hadn't transferred from my phone to my laptop because the poor laptop was so clogged with the accumulated junk of the past few years that it had no storage left. I have just spent 20 minutes deleting files, and still have a very long way to go. And there was I naively thinking that I stored most things in the cloud. Apparently not. 

On Sunday afternoon we had our first indoor band rehearsal since March. As we are now a registered charity we are allowed to run rehearsals for more than the normal limit of six people, so long as everything is properly risk assessed and we follow Covid-safe guidelines. This means we have to be spaced at least 2 metres apart, keep doors and windows open for ventilation (layers and warm clothing are needed!), have bell covers on our instruments, and wear masks when not playing. Fortunately we have been able to hire a school hall which gives us space for up to 30 people, where our normal rather cramped rehearsal venue would only take about six. The rules seem to be constantly changing, but it works for now and feels safe and well managed.

As the days get shorter and life gets busier it has got harder to fit in our 3 mile walks and we have tended to cut them shorter and stay closer to home. The colder, wetter weather doesn't help either. There is a 2 mile route round our local woodland that is our current default walk. I noticed today that a new signpost has appeared, that I'm sure wasn't there a few days ago.  It was also much muddier today that it has been for a while, thanks to all the recent rain. Hard to believe that just a week ago it was hot enough to lie in the hammock in the garden wearing light summer clothes. 

With TG back at school and dancing four evenings a week we have four car journeys each day to drop her off or collect her. None are long journeys, but it means we have to live by the clock much more than we have done over the past six months. Her friend's mum used to take her in the morning and we used to bring both girls home, but now car sharing is discouraged so I have taken on the morning school run. This is a good thing as it makes sure I get up, showered and dressed nice and promptly in the mornings - I am not a morning person so having a deadline forces me to get moving. Even though the local schools are all staggering start and finish times, the traffic is as bad as ever in the morning and last week seemed to be worse each day. This week I am trying a different route, which is longer in miles but when we tested it on Monday was quicker as it circles round the town and avoids all the traffic. It also means TG gets dropped at the school entrance, rather than a few minutes walk away. On Tuesdays and Thursdays she goes in earlier as she is doing "early morning French" as an extra subject. The school allows students to take GCSE French as an additional option if they are prepared to get to school for 7.55 instead of 8.45 twice a week for extra lessons. It is very much to the credit of both the school and the modern languages department that they have over 50 students in TG's year who take up this opportunity. At least the early start means we get a nice clear run through town before the traffic starts to clog up. 

Fashionopolis

While we were away in the Isle of Wight at the beginning of September I read Fashionopolis: the Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes by Dana Thomas. I knew I needed to be better informed about the human and environmental cost of what we wear, in this age of fast fashion, pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap clothes retailers. I found this an excellent book, not just because it was well researched and informative about the damage caused by the west's mania for fashion, but because it also gave positive examples of how clothes production can change and adapt to become more sustainable and ethical. 

While I am no fashion-conscious shopaholic, I admit I have got slightly sucked in by three daughters who all enjoy clothes and clothes-shopping and I both have and buy far more than I need. I see looking back at this blog that over three years ago I was writing that I hoped could get to the stage of having a capsule wardrobe but I am no further forward now than I was then. It is still an aspiration, and I followed up Fashionopolis with a short book by Sarah Eliza Louderbeck, Secrets of a Capsule Wardrobe. I also recently read Project 333 by Courtney Carver, which explains her minimalist clothing challenge, in which the aim is to wear just 33 items over period of three months. 

Over the last year or two I have used a couple of wardrobe apps to help me keep track of what I have, to try to pare items down to what I "need" (which I am sure is more than I actually need!), and to experiment with combinations that could make a capsule. After reading these three books, fiddling around with my current app (Stylebook), and sorting out my wardrobe (and the storage boxes under the bed!) I have come to various clothing conclusions. The first is that Project 333 just won't work for me. Our weather is too unpredictable and needs too many layers of different thicknesses. Also if I have more clothes that I actually like for a season than the challenge allows, it seems kind of wasteful to put them away and not use them just to meet a self-imposed target number. 

The second conclusion is that a capsule wardrobe is still my ultimate aim, and after reading Secrets of a Capsule Wardrobe I have a better idea of how I might get there. I liked that she did not make up any rules about numbers of items. She did however come up with some colour rules, which I had not thought of but which make sense. She suggested choosing three neutrals and three highlight colours and sticking to those, and distinguishes between bases (trousers, skirts and dresses) and tops. The idea is that once you pick up a neutral base item, pretty much any top will work with it. The neutrals should also include only one out of black, navy and dark brown, which makes sense - I realise I tend to end up with unnecessary duplication by having essentially the same items in both black and navy, which don't work together. I can see that when I buy clothes randomly, I often end up with items I like but which don't really go with anything else, and that by limiting myself to certain colours it would be much easier to work towards a smaller capsule wardrobe. 

The third is that I really want to buy less but better, so that I end up with a capsule wardrobe made up as far as possible with sustainably produced and better quality items. I have started actively looking for affordable options to fill some wardrobe gaps, with the benefit of much greater knowledge of how to read the small print and assess whether things genuinely are more ethical and sustainable or whether it is marketing hype. 

The photos above show the colour combinations that a bit of wardrobe shuffling threw up for winter clothes - my summer colours will be a bit different. Once I looked properly, the colour choices were surprisingly obvious and I didn't have to take out much to get to this. 

A Windy Walk at Stowe

Yesterday we paid a visit to Stowe Gardens, probably our favourite local National Trust property. The gardens are described on the National Trust website as "one of the most remarkable legacies of Georgian England", and are not flower gardens but 250 acres of parkland designed to illustrate various aspects of early 18th century politics and morality, with carefully placed statues, follies, temples, bridges and landscape features. I don't think we have ever seen everything in one visit - yesterday we probably walked about 4 miles and didn't cover the whole estate.

The weather has been quite miserable since the it changed so dramatically from summer to autumn on Tuesday, but yesterday was better with at least some glimpses of blue sky. It was also very windy - just the sort of bracing autumn day I like, so long as I am wearing enough layers!  The building below is rented out by the Landmark Trust as a holiday home - I was curious so had a look at the details here. It is mostly one big open space with circular bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom in the corners.

While the gardens belong to the National Trust, the house is a very expensive public (meaning private!) school- it is the sort of school that has its own golf course. This is one of a pair of stone lions guarding the main entrance to the house from the gardens and enjoying an extraordinary view across the park. After our  walk we had lunch at the cafe. The menu is more limited than in non-Covid times, and it only has outdoor seating, so we warmed up with hot pasties (my vegan spiced cauliflower pasty was exceptionally tasty). I was fascinated by a dog whose owners were seated at the next table - he was a black and white border collie, with one light blue and one dark brown eye. I had never seen a dog with different coloured eyes before, but I discovered later that it is not too uncommon in certain breeds and is known as heterochromia.

H spent the day at her office for the first time yesterday. She had been interviewed at one of their big city offices, so it was the first time she had seen the inside of the building. Some others on the grad scheme were in too, and she enjoyed getting the chance to chat in person rather than online. She is still flying through the courses for her first two exams at 100 miles an hour, but seems to be getting to grips with the content. Next week is another college / study week, then she starts some technical training. As the government is now recommending that people work at home where they can, I don't know how much - if at all - she will be going in over the winter. We had three friends over in the evening and ordered a "click and collect" fish and chip takeaway. H was out so we we just nicely within the six person limit. We were all a bit tired and M had an early start this morning, so they didn't stay late. The way the seating is arranged in our sitting room is quite spaced out, so we were all able to keep our distance quite comfortably. 

While M was out at work today I did sorted out an online grocery order, did some laundry, had a soak in the bath, read a bit, and did some reorganising of my wardrobe, switching out some summer clothes for winter ones and clearing out a bag of things I don't wear any more for the clothes bank. I'm not one of those people who is constantly clothes shopping, and yet I always seem to have far more than I need. I aspire to a more minimalist wardrobe and have been doing some thinking about how to achieve this, and also about clothing and sustainability. I still have quite some way to go, I'm afraid. After lunch TG and I watched the live version of Aladdin on Disney Plus. By the time that finished M was home so we went out for a short walk as we were both feeling tired and it was drizzling slightly, then spent some time trying to  unravel some wonky figures on his payslips - something went haywire and ended up with an underpayment that he is trying to get sorted out.

This evening H went out for a meal with friends and I cooked stir fry for the rest of us - chicken for M and TG, and vegan "chicken" chunks for myself as I am want to try to cut out meat, dairy and eggs again as much as possible for a while. I'm often feeling quite stiff and achy, and when I switched to a vegan diet a couple of years ago it made a noticeable difference to how I felt. I want to see if it will help again. I'm going to carry on eating fish, for now at least. 

Six Month Blues

I have been feeling unusually down and anxious this week. It is unusual for me, and I put down to a combination of the prospect of a winter with rising Covid cases and tighter restrictions, worrying (probably unnecessarily) about the workload and exam stress H has taken on, the darker evenings and an unusually busy work week. Oh, and starting the week feeling under the weather (much better now, I'm glad to say). However, a friend reposted on Facebook a series of tweets from a doctor experienced in working in crisis areas. She has learned to expect that six months into a long crisis will be a difficult time and is the point at which it is natural to hit a wall. Her recommendation is to take care and be gentle with ourselves, look after our physical and mental health, accept that just managing the things that need to be done is an achievement, and ride out the slump, which in her experience normally lasts a few weeks but then resolves itself. Her advice is not to fight the wall and just trust that it will pass. I found this incredibly reassuring, as it seems to explain how I am feeling. I'm just going to try to sit back and ride it out. 

On the positive side, TG has got over her cold and is feeling pretty much back to normal. I'm also feeling much better and had more energy today. M and I went for a two mile walk after lunch, which was the only time we could fit it in. I had to get back for a work Teams meeting so we didn't have time for our usual three miles. H is still slogging away, but has learned a phenomenal amount about how to compile accounts in just four days. This evening R and her partner came over to visit for a while. They are going to Turkey tomorrow night for a week's holiday - they had originally booked to go to Lanzarote, but switched as it would have meant two weeks of quarantine after they got home. She was her usual cheerful, upbeat self. I have finished work for the week, and now have a three day weekend to look forward to. I'm determined that we will manage one day a week when neither M nor myself are working - that will be tomorrow, then he will be working over the weekend but I won't. It has meant a bit of a struggle to get everything I needed to do finished in four days, but it was manageable and tomorrow will be payback. 

I woke up early (for me) this morning as I had to take TG to school early for a French class., and I am now too sleepy to look for a photograph to add to this post. 

Autumn has Arrived

A quick note this evening as my laptop has only 4% left on the battery and I don't want to go and hunt for the charger. 

Summer ended yesterday in the space of around two hours. It went from unseasonably warm and sunny to cool, grey and damp, and today has been thoroughly miserable ending in heavy rain. The very worst sort of autumn day. I love crisp, cool autumn days, but not this! It should be better by Friday, but still very much cooler than it has been. Strange that the change of season should happen so abruptly on the autumn equinox. 

TG's cold is much better and she went back to school today, though missed dance again in the evening because we didn't think they would appreciate the tail end of her sniffles in the current climate. H had a routine medical appointment this morning which went well, and has spent the rest of the day buried in her studies. M and I were both busy working this morning, and I spent the afternoon on archives before Zoom band this evening. It seems that the latest tightening of restrictions will not affect our band's plans for more live playing. We recently got charity status, and that means that so long as we carry out a comprehensive risk assessment and have all the recommended Covid safety measure in place we can still meet in a larger group indoors.  All the players have to be spaced out by 2 metres, but we have been able to hire a large school hall where that will be feasible. 

Battery is going. Just time to add an autumnal picture from last year. 

The Earth Keeps Moving

The earthquake two weeks ago has left a trail of aftershocks in its wake. There was one last week, but at night and we slept through it. Today there were two more - a 3.0 magnitude tremor this morning, which shook the house but not as violently as the first, then a 2.1 magnitude this afternoon, which was more of a slight wobble. That makes quakes / tremors of 3.5, 2.1, 3.0 and 2.1 over the course of two weeks, in an area which is most definitely not prone to them. All four had epicentres within a mile or two of our house. Various suggestions of man-made triggers are being made on social media, but as there isn't any fracking, drilling or history of mining here it seems far more likely that they are just the result of geological blip causing something to shift in the earth's crust slightly south and east of the UK's usual earthquake zone, which runs from the south-west up through the west midlands and north of England to Scotland.  When I say "earthquake zone", it is only prone to what elsewhere would be considered negligible tremors - they are still rather startling to us, though. "Oh, it's just another earthquake" is not a phrase I expected to hear myself saying in the Home Counties of England! 

TG has been off school again with her cold, but seems better this evening. I had a virtual archives meeting this morning, and between that and trying to finish a question writing job it has been a full day of work. H is two days into her accountancy course and trying to clamber up a very steep learning curve full of concepts that are completely new to her - not easy! A few new minor anti-Covid measures have been introduced, but the government has clearly decided to try to tough it out and hope that enough people take the risk seriously and change their behaviour accordingly to stop the number of positive tests increasing exponentially. Between work, Covid, and a mild version of TG's cold, I'm feeling a bit demoralised. On the positive side, a new series of Great British Bake Off started tonight, which is always cheering. In honour of the Bake Off I'm posting a picture of a cake H baked for her BF's neighbour's birthday in the summer. 

A Guided Tour and a New Fridge

A week or so ago I walked through the centre of town to visit friends. It was a beautiful sunny, Sunday evening, with few people around so I took the opportunity to take a few photos. 

I liked this picture I took in the High Street with the pub sign and the lamp post standing out against the blue sky. The Swan used to be a hotel, but lived too long on former glories - you can get a glimpse of them in the portico and the balcony railings - and became unviable. These days it is a Wetherspoons (pub/restaurant chain). 

Looking across from the Swan to the market cross. It was built in the 15th century, probably by Alice Chaucer, Duchess of Suffolk, (granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer) who held the town manor at the time, and who was a wealthy and powerful woman in her own right. Both the buildings behind were previously inns or pubs. The one to the left with Allders Opticians on the ground floor was once the Eagle and Child - the same name as the Oxford pub frequented by C. S. Lewis, Tolkien and the Inklings. The Eagle and Child was the badge of the Earls of Derby in the middle ages, and it is possible that an older inn of the same name was used by the retinue of the earl of Derby while he was taking part in a tournament at nearby Dunstable in the 14th century. To the right of the cross is the what used to be the Cross Keys public house. The original pub burned down in 1899 and was replaced by this much larger, relatively "modern" building, which is now a bank. If you zoom in you may just be able to see the Cross Keys over the door. 

To the right of the former Cross Keys is the old Town Hall, a Victorian replacement for the original timber framed Market Hall. It later became a fire station, then was mostly used by the town council for storing market stalls. It was restored about 10 years ago and turned into a pizza restaurant which has an old hand-cart fire engine on display.

A bit further up, almost hidden in a corner at the entrance to an alley way is yet another former pub, The Peacock, now a Thai restaurant. Parts of the building probably date to the early 15th century, making it the oldest building in the town apart from the 13th century parish church. 

And finally, another lovely old building - 16th century this time - as I headed out of the town centre. 

We have all been back at work again today except TG, who woke up sneezing and sniffling and full of cold - fortunately it clearly is just a cold, which I'm afraid she has passed on to me as I am also now feeling sniffly and under the weather. Colds are an asthma trigger for me and can easily turn into chest infections, so I'm using my inhaler regularly - if I start doing this quickly enough I can usually keep it under control. TG stayed home from school today, and thinks it is 50:50 whether she will be well enough to go tomorrow. 

The day's main excitement was the arrival of a new fridge-freezer. We had a large American style one, but the connection to the water and ice dispenser sprang a leak early in lockdown and as it was also running alarmingly hot (externally, not internally), had various cracked and broken drawers, and was generally the worse for wear so we decided to replace it rather than get it repaired. At the time, however, it wasn't possible to get a large fridge delivered and we have only just got round to sorting it out. The new fridge is a straight replacement for the old one - same make and equivalent model, but updated and more efficient. From tomorrow we will have ice again, just in time for the spell of warm weather we have been enjoying to break on Wednesday!  

Habits and Exploring

For the 100 days of lockdown (or thereabouts) I got into the habit of writing this blog every night. I would come upstairs and write in bed, while M would stay downstairs and watch TV for a while. The quiet time writing helped me to relax and wind down, and - mostly - I slept better and more regular hours. Over the last couple of months I have got out of the habit, and my sleeping patterns have gone downhill. Maybe I should try getting back into the habit of daily blogging again. 

We have managed another week of new normal, with M working two 111 shifts and writing exam questions, TG having a full week of school and dance classes, H busy with her induction week, and me getting on with my archive work and checking M's questions. We have one job to finish and another to do over the next two weeks, which will be quite time consuming. I'm hoping to get my work done over four days this coming week, and to take Wednesday off so that M and I have a day when neither of us are working - this takes more planning now that he is back to working shifts most weekends. H starts her accountancy course (online) tomorrow, and has an intensive few weeks of studying to look forward to before her first exams in October and November. 

It feels as though we are hovering on a precipice again with Covid. Cases are now increasing exponentially again, and it is clear something is going to have to be done. Large parts of the country are already under tighter restrictions, with no mixing between households allowed, and it seems likely this and other measures will be extended to the whole country sometime next week. The theory is that a short period of semi-lockdown will act as a circuit breaker and get the case numbers back down again. We have to hope it will. The government lurches from one plan to another, promising great things and failing utterly to live up to them. Testing is now a mess, with overloaded labs and test centres not able to offer appointments. Track and trace has never worked as intended and is limping along. With typical hyperbole Boris Johnson promised a "world beating" system; we would settle for a working system. Although we are (so far) in a part of the country which is not too badly affected I'm feeling generally pessimistic about the next few months. A combination of Covid, Brexit and incompetence makes it hard to be anything else. 

The best thing about lockdown was that my days were calmer and more rhythmic. With life for all of us getting busier I need to find a way to recreate that rhythm, with a more consistent daily routine and building in time to relax - to read, write and craft.  I am aware I need a good combination of healthy eating, exercise, and regular sleep if I want to feel better and more positive in myself, whatever is going on in the world around me. I also need to avoid letting myself spiral into a negative Twitter / news vortex, which is far too easy to do. So ... good habits are needed! 

At least I am still doing well with exercise. We walk around 3 miles most days, and I am doing reasonably regular yoga using the Fiit app. Our notable walk this last week was in the Northamptonshire town of Towcester (pronounced "Toaster", in a bit of English place name oddity) We plan to downsize and move to a slightly cheaper area once TG finishes school, and on paper Towcester ticks a lot of our boxes so we decided to explore. We walked about four miles round the town and the water meadows on its eastern edge, trying to get a good feel for the area. It is a very ancient town, with evidence of continuous settlement since the Stone Age, and became an important garrison town on Watling Street under the Romans. It also had a Norman Castle, though all that remains now is the motte (or mound) in the picture above. These days it is a moderately sized market town, with decent facilities and lots of green space for walking. We came away feeling it was somewhere we could happily live.

Life Got Busy!

No more craziness this week since Tuesday's earthquake, I'm glad to say. Life is getting increasingly busy as we settle into the new normal. M and I have quite a bit of freelance work on and I am back to my archives work after my two weeks off. We are still managing to fit in our walk most days, though. H had a quiet start to her job, but had some online learning to do and various online meetings and social events in the second half of the week. She also collected her car on Wednesday, which she has been looking forward to for months. It is leased through her BF's work scheme (he works for a large car manufacturer) at a heavily discounted rate, and although she could express preferences the exact choice of car was down to the company - which allocated her a top of the range version of the her preferred model, which comes with lots of extras and a very up market feel. She is a very happy bunny! 

TG went back to school on Thursday. They are all expected to stay in their year bubbles, but as her "bubble" includes about 320 students, I'm not sure how useful this is. Each year group has been allocated its own zone within the school to avoid mixing, although they have to visit other areas for some specialist subjects so they can use equipment (in TG's case, photography and catering). Although the school has done its best to put safety measures in place, with the numbers involved it can't be perfect; unfortunately, just at the time when it is most needed the testing system seems to be breaking down, with people sometimes being sent long distances to get a test because none are available locally. This issue seems to be down to a shortage of lab capacity to process tests, rather than to lack of the actual tests or capacity to administer them. Without being able to easily test any children or teachers with system, it will be harder to keep any minor outbreaks under control, or to release anyone with symptoms from quarantine. Goodness knows how this is all going to pan out, but I have decided there is no point in worrying about it. 

On Saturday H, TG and I went on a shopping expedition to an outlet mall. We wanted to get H a graduation present, especially as she missed her actual graduation due to Covid, and she decided she would like a nice bag. She intends to use it for work, so wanted to wait until she got her work laptop so that she would know what size to get. As I have been alternating between a folding nylon rucksack and an old bag that H didn't want any more which has a dodgy zip, I decided I would also like a new bag for my birthday next month, so it became a major and successful bag-shopping expedition. H found one in a store that we expected to be massively beyond our price range, but it was substantially discounted from the already much reduced outlet price and she fell in love so we splurged. It is a plain shopper style bag in a beautiful soft leather and the sort of quality that will last a lifetime. I'm pleased we managed to find something special to celebrate her graduation, as she had worked so hard through her four years at university. I found a bag I liked too (from a rather less extravagant store!) which has been put away for my birthday, and I also bought a small crossbody bag which I will get a lot of use out of. TG bought herself a t-shirt and a card wallet, and I bought her a pair of earrings, so we all came home very happy with our purchases. This sort of shopping trip is a rare extravagance - the last time we went was four years ago, to buy H a coat for her 18th birthday. 

Yesterday (Sunday) was also busy, with a live brass band rehearsal - outdoors, but with nearly a full band - and an evening with some band friends which was enlivened by a very riotous game of croquet, partly by torchlight as it got dark half way through. There may also have been quite a bit of prosecco drunk! Unfortunately M couldn't join us as he was working. Today I met a former work colleague and dear friend for a long and leisurely brunch. We hadn't seen each other since before lockdown, so it was lovely to catch up in person. This evening there was even more catching up, when our former neighbours came over for a visit. We are having some lovely late summer / early autumn weather, so we were able to have Chinese food delivered and then sit outside in the garden to eat it. Again, it was lovely to see them and catch up. Much as I have enjoyed this busy and social few days, I'm quite glad the next couple of weeks look much quieter. I am definitely not used to having so much going on in such a short space of time! 

New Car ... and an Earthquake!

Just to prove that 2020 is a peculiarly perverse year, we can now add earthquake to the list of things it has thrown at us.

 The UK is not exactly known for seismic activity, and anything more than a tiny tremor is rare - so much so that I have never noticed one before. This morning I was sitting at my nice, new desk working when there was a cracking sound, the room shook, and the floor jolted and felt as though someone had hit it from below with a gigantic sledgehammer. I thought at first that something heavy must have fallen somewhere (though couldn't imagine how!), but soon realised there was no damage and that it might have been an earthquake. It was enough to wake a sleeping teenager(!) and I was quite relieved when she said her friend who lives about half a mile away had texted to ask what had happened - clearly it wasn't just us and our house wasn't doing inexplicable things all on its own! M was downstairs taking in a delivery and completely missed it - we think he shut the door just as it happened. 

Various neighbours went outside to see what was going on, and we all concluded it was either an earthquake, or a shock from a very large explosion somewhere. Within a few minutes it was showing up on various earthquake websites. Apparently it was 3.3 magnitude, 10km deep, with its epicentre only a mile or so from us. Tiny in global terms, but quite large for the UK and very unexpected! According to the British Geological Survey the last earthquake of this size in this area was one near Oxford in 1764. Our earthquake even made the main BBC news programme - the last time our town made the news was an unusual bit of local drama a few years ago when some bungling thieves tried to prise a cash machine out of the wall of a bank with a fork lift truck and ended up reversing it into the building behind before running off empty handed. 

Yesterday's comparatively sedate excitement was a trip to Peterborough to collect our new car. We love it! It felt a slightly brave decision to go electric, but 24 hours in we already can't imagine going back. Easy to drive, easy (and cheap) to recharge, and with some very nifty bits of tech. On the way home yesterday I tried out Pro Pilot, which describes itself as "hand on assisted driving" (or something along those lines), but is actually pretty much self-drive for fast roads. It adjusts speed, slowing down if there is a car in front, and keeps the car centred in the lane. Feeling the steering wheel drive itself is a bit disconcerting, but I think once used to it long distance driving will be much easier. There is also a phone app which can do  things like checking the charge level of the car and switching the heat on in advance on cold mornings. So different to our old car, which reached the technical heights of having a USB socket! We are also pleased with the Pod Point charger, which is as easy to use as plugging a phone in to charge. 

Work Space

It has been a mixed bag of a weekend. For me yesterday was busy, today was quiet. M has been working the lunchtime to early evening shift; H has been in and out; TG has barely moved off the sofa. 

Yesterday I braved IKEA in search of a desk. Before lockdown I used to do my freelance work either sitting on the bed or on the sofa downstairs if there weren't too many people around. With hindsight, neither was ideal! We use our smallest bedroom as a study, but the desk in there is M's workspace - I could share it as he doesn't spend that long in there, but the iMac is set up for him and I prefer using my laptop, and the desk chair is very comfortable for him but too soft and unsupportive for me. After lockdown started in March and I added in 15 hours a week of archive work at home I realised I needed some sort of proper work space, so I came up with this little pop-up office in our bedroom. It has evolved slightly since, in that I bought another folding table (light wood and very slightly larger and taller) and now usually set it up at the end of the bed rather than between the bed and the window. The pink chair is more comfortable than it looks, but after working from home for nearly six months my mini desk is beginning to feel rather cramped.

During the earlier part of lock down H and TG studied together downstairs at the dining table, but the wifi isn't great there and they were having to use the wifi extender TG normally has in her bedroom, where wifi is non-existent without it. H decided that taking video calls while working from home would be easier upstairs, and so has decided to use her bedroom as her workspace. Last Saturday she went to IKEA to buy herself a desk and chair for when she starts work tomorrow, and that inspired me to rethink my work set up. After searching the internet for tiny desks I could squeeze into the bedroom, where there is very little spare space, H pointed out that if I cleared a cluttered corner of the study there would be room for me to put another desk in there. Why this obvious solution had not occurred to me, I have no idea! 

When H and TG went to IKEA last week they struggled to find a parking space and had to queue for 40 minutes to get into the store (they are limiting numbers). I got there very soon after the store opened which was much better, with only a ten minute queue. After some dithering I settled on this corner desk ... 

It took me two and a half hours to assemble it yesterday afternoon, not helped by a mistake which meant having to prise the back off one of the shelving units, but I am really pleased with the way it looks. I am intending to order a new chair, but the pink one will do for now. Many years of academia and homeschooling mean I always think of September as the start of a new year, so it feels just the right time to have a new place to work. 

Isle of Wight

My blog silence is because we have been away for another few days, this time to the Isle of Wight, just off the south coast of England. When I was a child we often went there for our summer holiday and coincidentally, so did M. Apart from a day trip with TG, the last time we stayed there was twenty years ago. We like islands - there is something especially holiday-ish about somewhere that can only be reached by boat - and decided a visit was well overdue. We were supposed to get an early afternoon car ferry from Southampton, but the company had discovered a fault on one of their ferries during routine servicing and had to take it out of service for a few days. That meant our sailing time was put back until 5pm, so we didn't have time to do anything on the island on Monday. 

We realised this holiday was probably the end of an era - the last time we would take this sort of trip as a family of four with H in the back seat of the car with TG. H starts work next week, so will only have limited time off and will be less able to tag along. I'm sure there will be other family holidays - we would love to do something like last year's trip to Greece again - but the dynamics will be different.

We used AirBnB and found a very nice bungalow between Sandown and Shanklin on the east side of the island. Our two main activities were walking and eating. I'm not sure we managed to walk enough to burn off all the food, though! Our longest walk was on Tuesday, when we climbed up from the coast to Bonchurch Downs via the Devil's Chimney, a narrow cleft in the rocks which leads to a set of stairs - there were plenty of steps before this, and then quite a climb up to the Downs afterwards, so very good exercise. The girls zipped up, while M and I staggered behind, in my case coughing and puffing as my asthmatic lungs don't seem to do very well with climbing. It was well worth the effort for the views. After a slightly precarious walk back down we went through the town of Ventnor and back to the sea, before walking along the coast back to the car.  

The next day we went across to the other side of the island and spent some time sitting on the beach at Totland Bay. We ate lunch at a restaurant overlooking the sea, then walked across some heathland to the spot above where there is a good view of the Needles (the rocks sticking out into the sea from the western tip of the island). After the previous day's climb we decided to skip the steps down to the beach at Alum Bay (or rather, to skip the climb back up!) and turned back after taking some photographs. The weather was not so good on Thursday, although it cleared after lunch; also our legs were tired, and the teenager made it clear she had done enough walking, so we visited a monkey sanctuary and then took a gentle stroll along the esplanade at Ryde. 

On Friday we spent the morning at Shanklin. We had intended to visit Shanklin Chine - a gorge running up from the sea to Old Shanklin which is illuminated in the evenings - but on Tuesday and Thursday we were too tired, and on Wednesday it was raining, so we didn't make it. The weather had brightened up, so we spent some time exploring, sat on the beach enjoying the sun, and ate lunch at a sea front inn before heading back for the ferry home. From next week life will be heading into another phase of the "new normal", with H starting work (initially from home - her company laptop was delivered today) and TG going back to school on Thursday.