Staying Home Part 2: Day 9

A much less busy day today, with just some bits of work to finish up this morning. H had her last exam this afternoon with an immediate result - another strong pass making it 5/5. Well deserved pay off for two months of very hard work. TG came home from school with a glowing progress report (they can't do parent-teacher evenings this term because of the pandemic) so we are having a proud parents day. 

We did another three mile walk today, this time a short drive away. We did a circular walk through woods and fields to a nearby village, then back through the woodland again. Loved this birdhouse in a garden we passed - or maybe I should call it a bird mansion! 

The pub was closed today because of the lockdown. The village is on a hill and the ground drops away steeply behind the pub, where there is a beer garden with an impressive view across to Milton Keynes. I love autumn walks, despite the mud. At least there was less of it today than yesterday, though we walked across another very soggy, desolate, unhealthy looking large field 

This has been a good week for news. Following on the heels of Trump's defeat, Boris Johnson's svengali Dominic Cummings has left his job with immediate effect, hot on the heels of another Vote Leave crony. I don't know who will replace them, but hopefully there will be at least some improvement after what has been an atrocious year of poor decision making, U-turns, lies and half-truths under their regime. Their main policy has been to break things - supposedly to build up better, but as they didn't appear to be capable of managing their way out of a paper bag, it didn't go well, especially during a pandemic. They lied with impunity, and the government's attempt to justify Cummings' trip from London to Durham while he and his wife were suffering from Covid pretty much broke the last lockdown. Few people will be sorry to see him go. 

H went for a takeaway coffee after her exam and brought cakes back for us. I cooked halibut from the fish box for dinner, which was delicious. We (myself and the girls, not M!) are in Christmas movie mode, so we watched Arthur Christmas, which I had never seen before. Then M and I watched the first episode of Queen's Gambit on Netflix. I don't normally watch a lot of TV, but since the pandemic started have watched far more than usual. I think it is partly because I have more free time, partly because I got into the habit during our Disney binge in the first lockdown, and partly because I have been in crafting mood - I like to half-watch, half-listen while I knit or do cross stitch. I have a few things I want to make as Christmas gifts and started one today - a cross stitched coaster with a badger picture for a neighbour who has a family of badgers which regularly visit her garden. I am also knitting the first of a pair of socks for my brother. I had not used this pattern before and the heel section is either odd or wrong. I tried following the pattern but ended up unravelling my first attempt at the heel and re-doing it using my usual method.