Thursday 25 March 2021

Looking Forward to New Beginnings

Thursday? Already? How did that happen! After a quiet spell we have some more freelance work this week so my working week is longer. Even after just a morning's work the rest of the day seems to fly by so quickly. 

Everywhere is looking more and more springlike on our daily (mostly!) walks. This year April and Easter feels very much the time for new beginnings. H will be moving out on 31st March, and our lockdown rules will be easing on 29th March and again on 12th April. I should be going back to the archives for the first time in over a year in April, and will start working in the office alternate weeks. We have been vaccinated (first dose only for me so far, but covid immunity should be building), and M and I are planning to make a real effort to eat more healthily. I feel as though I am reaching the end of a long winter hibernation. 

My subconscious is clearly anxious about H's house move, as I have had a couple of slightly chaotic dreams about it. One snippet I remember is that for some inexplicable reason she was increasing her mortgage by £5000 in order to buy a fridge-freezer, and wouldn't listen to me when I argued that this was a really bad plan! I really don't have any reason to be worrying, as she has everything very well organised, Sofas are being delivered the day after they move in, and dining chairs and a sofa bed for the spare bedroom should follow within a few days. The only hiccup so far is a bed frame which is delayed in transit somewhere - fortunately the mattress has already arrived and is in the garage, so it won't mean sleeping on the floor. I jokingly suggested the bed may be stuck in the queue of ships waiting to get through the Suez Canal after a giant container ship ran aground yesterday. At least, I hope I was joking!  

TG had an appointment with the orthodontist this afternoon. She had braces on her top teeth for a while when she was 10 or 11 to straighten a very crooked front incisor, but the rest of her orthodontic treatment has been on hold waiting for all her baby teeth to fall out. They have finally all gone, and the plan is now for her to get full braces in June when a couple of adult teeth have come through a bit more. Fortunately her treatment is the most straightforward of all three girls. R had an underbite which meant wearing nasty block braces for a while, and H needed four teeth removing before getting braces. I'm very thankful indeed that all their orthodontic work has been free under the NHS! 

I am in a scattered reading phase, having more-or-less by accident started a number of books at once. I am more than half way through Watching the English, an anthropologist's analysis of English behaviour - easy to read and interesting but also long, so it is taking me a while. I am working through the local history / archaeology book I picked up from the library at the weekend on the go, which is a large, heavy hardback,  not easy just to pick up and put down. Then I discovered this week that the library has switched to a new digital platform for e-books and audio books, so I downloaded the new app and borrowed a couple of books. I also put a hold on Matt Haig's The Midnight Library, which I have been wanting to read, and that landed on my digital "shelf" today. A blogging friend mentioned a book about Julian of Norwich, who has always been a favourite of mine, so I bought that for my Kindle and have started reading. Meanwhile I also have an audio book on the go. My focus hasn't been great since last year's months of brain fog. I think I need to consciously work on improving it - something else for April's new start! 

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