Feet Up, Knitting

The last few days have looked a lot like this ...

The medication sorted out my chest infection but it has left me with absolutely no energy. At least it has moved on from feeling as though I have been hit by a bus to just feeling as though I am made out of soggy spaghetti. I'm still not up to going back to work, so this is likely to be another week with a lot of time spent on the sofa knitting, reading and watching TV. I did at least manage to finish a pair of socks - I'm trying to get ahead on gift knitting for Christmas. Normally I try to match the stripe colours to make an identical pair when I knit socks with self-striping yarn, but my brain is mush and I didn't even realise I had forgotten until I was halfway through the foot of the second sock. Ah well. They are funky stripes. I have now moved on to baby knitting - a cute little yellow cardigan for our former neighbours' new granddaughter, born last Tuesday. Tiny Summer weighed in at just 5lbs 7oz, so I'm knitting the smallest size. Our formerly-petite TG weighed an ounce less and I remember that as a baby TG would grow into each size at around the age she was supposed to grow out of it, so 0-3 month baby clothes only began to fit her when she hit 3 months. Based on that I'm working on the smallest size of this Alouette pattern and assuming it will fit through the winter. In fact, the same rule held true for TG until she hit her teens and a late and spectacular growth spurt, confounding our assumptions that she had inherited petite genes - having always been one of the smallest in her class at school, she is now 5 foot 6 and apparently still growing! 

I hadn't left the house for a week, apart from a 10 minute walk on Friday, but on Saturday I had to go into town as TG had an appointment for an eye test and M was working. Fortunately most of the trip involved sitting down! TG is getting more short sighted, but teenage vanity has kicked in and she is reluctant to wear her glasses so is going to try contact lenses. She now has a new optical prescription, new glasses on order, and an appointment booked for a contact lens teaching session in early November. I also ordered new glasses. I had my eye test done back in August, but hadn't got round to choosing frames - my current ones are breaking, so I really needed to do it sooner rather than later. 

After we had finished at Specsavers we went to the Italian cafe where H used to work for lunch. TG had a craving for spaghetti carbonara, which we can't make properly at home as we don't have bacon or other pig products in the house. Lunch out seemed a good plan as this cafe does the best carbonara, and it meant I didn't have to worry about cooking a proper meal later. I opted for smashed avocado on sourdough with poached egg and pancetta. We picked up pizzas from Waitrose for the evening, so once we got home I could flop back on the sofa and not need to move much for the rest of the day. I did pay for it a bit with feeling overtired yesterday, but it was good to get out for while. Also it allowed me to assess whether I would be fit enough for a full day at work today - answer, no! In the evening I was supposed to be going over to a friend's house for a girls' night, but that would have been way beyond my energy levels so I joined them on Zoom, along with another friend who is still trying to get mobile after a bad ankle break. Blended in-person / Zoom worked pretty well. Yesterday, I flopped! 

Knitting Frenzy

During the first lockdown last year I had an urge to do cross stitch projects. This time around it has been a knitting and crocheting frenzy. I have been working on a cotton jumper for myself, which I finished on Sunday. I see from my Ravelry project that it took me five weeks and a day from start to finish, which I am quite certain is by far the quickest I have ever knit an adult size jumper. I am really pleased with the way it came out - it fits well and is soft and comfortable. The next project is a summer cardigan with a lace and cables pattern, using a cotton / bamboo mix yarn.

The stiffness eased up and I did my splits challenge yoga sessions on Sunday and Monday. I took yesterday and today as rest days as I am feeling a little under the weather (mild cold) and learned the hard way last year not to push myself if I'm not feeling 100%. Back to it tomorrow, I hope. I'm sure the extra stretching is doing me good. 

It rained this morning but cleared this afternoon and was nice and bright when we went out for our walk. Daffodils in spring always brighten my mood, and I am appreciating the longer, lighter days, even though the weather is a bit variable. I missed Zoom band this evening so that I could attend a Zoom talk with the local history society - I am giving one in April and wanted to see what the format was like and how it worked, plus I was interested in the topic. It was about the Rothschild family, who at one point owned no less than seven country houses in this area. Coincidentally our nearest National Trust property is a Rothschild house which reopened this week (gardens only), and we have booked to visit on Friday. It is only two miles away so counts as staying local, and it will feel like a small step back towards normality. 

More Domestic Disaster

The domestic disasters have continued. Yesterday the boiler went out and refused to relight. We have heating insurance with British Gas so called them - the first date they can send someone out is February 23rd. However, they authorised us to find a local heating engineer and said they would reimburse the cost. Following recommendations on a community website we phoned an engineer who came round later in the afternoon to take a look. Initially he thought it just needed something cleaning out, but when he got the boiler restarted he realised the fan was faulty. It also has a corroded heat exchanger and the total to repair both would be over £1000. He felt it was unlikely that British Gas would authorise that level of expenditure without looking at the boiler themselves, so we now have to sit it out and wait. We are half expecting them to say that the boiler is not worth repairing and needs replacing (which would have been the engineer's recommendation if it wasn't for the insurance cover), but while there is a chance we can get it fixed it is worth being patient and hoping that they are prepared to sign off on repair (covered) rather than replacement (not covered). 

So, we are now expecting to spend most of February without central heating or hot water. Lovely friends and neighbours have lent us heaters, H has a fan heater she had at uni, and we bought another one this morning. We have managed to keep the house quite warm today, although there was a hiccup this morning when running too many heaters plus the tumble dryer tripped a fuse on the main socket circuit. Water is a whole different matter! Cold showers in winter are definitely bracing. At least I have now replaced the shower head so it is a cold shower rather than hosing down with cold water! M and I can handle living with cold showers. TG is also very stoically managing, even coping with washing her long hair in cold water. H was determined she would manage a hot, or at least warm, bath. It took her 15 kettles of boiling water. Of course, as we have no heating, the temperatures outside a plunging and we are in for a week where it isn't forecast to get much above freezing at any point. When I last looked out of the window it was hovering between rain and snow, and it is expected to turn to snow overnight. 

We have mostly been sticking to local pavement walks of a couple of miles to avoid the mud, though we did go to the country park yesterday. As we walked back up the path towards the car we passed an elderly couple who were putting out nuts for the birds and squirrels and I was able to get close enough to this robin to get a decent photo with my phone - it can't handle taking pictures of small birds at any sort of distance. After we got back from the walk I spent the afternoon swapping between boiler issues and cooking as we had invited a couple of friends to a virtual dinner party - we dropped of their meal and then ate "together" on Zoom. By the time we had done what we could about the boiler and resigned ourselves to a chilly month we were very ready for a social distraction and a bottle of wine! 

I have been busy this week knitting hats. I fell in love with a pattern that looks like winter fir trees and knitted it for myself. I cannibalised an old hat that I never wear (it was an emergency buy in Primark for £2 before going ice skating on a cold day a few years ago) for the furry pom-pom on the top. Then M's hat developed a hole so I knit him a quick replacement using some leftover chunky yarn I found. I can see from my Ravelry projects that the last hat lasted him ten years, so I can hardly begrudge him a new one! Now the hats are done I have started on a soft cotton jumper for spring/summer. I spent quite a bit of today reading and have finished The Secret Chapter, the sixth book in the Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman. These are light, fun fantasy and I have enjoyed all of them. Somehow I missed this one, which was published in 2019, so I still have the most recent book in the series left to read. 

Socks and a Failed Coup

I am still in a sock knitting frenzy. I finished this pair for myself at the weekend - the wavy cable pattern doesn't show up well in the picture, unfortunately. I love this red and green stripy yarn, which is West Yorkshire Spinners Holly Berry. Now I am working on a pair for M, and I am already past the heel of the first sock, despite having to unravel three inches of leg when I realised I had made a mistake in the pattern. The sock knitting should slow down a bit as one of my Christmas presents was the yarn for Attic 24's new blanket crochet-a-long which starts tomorrow. I love crocheting blankets in winter. It just feels cosy! 

This morning we all worked, or in TG's case did school-at-home. The school is providing a fuller  programme this time round, with more online lessons and working to their normal timetable. H is about to start her first audit busy season. Over the next couple of months she is likely to be working very long hours - perhaps not so bad at the moment when there are so many restrictions on what she can do outside of work! M is waiting to hear when he will be expected to return to work, post-vaccination. We expect it to be over the next week or two. 

Before starting work I caught up on the news from the US about Trump's attempted coup. It seems to me it deserves the name "coup" as he was clearly trying to encourage his supporters to use force in an attempt to overturn the election result. I have a high enough opinion of American democracy to think that it was bound to fail, as indeed it did, but it does show the amount of damage he has done in peddling his myth of a fraudulent election to people who want to believe him. However, I think it has done more than anything else could to alienate many of the Republican politicians who have enabled Trump over the past four years, and that may well put paid to any attempt by him to win a second term in 2024. 

It was cold and murky today, and we couldn't face more mud, so just did a couple of miles around the local streets for our walk. I did spot this impressive fungus on an old tree stump. I ordered some grass-fed meat from a different source to my usual one to try - this company has a regular subscription option that I think might work for us. I am still trying to buy ethically produced meat as much as possible, despite it being more expensive. Apparently in the UK we tend to buy cheap food rather than good quality food, whereas elsewhere in Europe the balance is the other way round. I am trying to re-educate myself. I used a portion of diced chicken to make a chicken and mushroom pie, with mashed potatoes, roasted squash and broccoli for dinner. 

Baking Day

Today was thoroughly wet and miserable, so we went for a short walk first thing when it was just drizzly, before the rain really set in. I should have gone to Stonehenge on Monday to see the winter solstice there, but obviously couldn't because of the new Covid restrictions, and we should have gone to Waddesdon Manor today, but that was also cancelled. Given that the weather both days turned out to be miserable, at least it hasn't felt as though we missed out too much! That is the problem with British weather. It is so unpredictable that planning anything outdoors is always a risk, at any time of year.  

After the walk I did another batch of wrapping, and now just have stocking fillers (small and fiddly!) to do tomorrow. We have gifts for R and her boyfriend, H's boyfriend and my brother all in bags ready to be delivered by "Santa" (also known as H) tomorrow. Or, at least, that was the plan. R is waiting for a Covid test result - she doesn't have any standard Covid symptoms, but had a persistent headache so thought she would get a test as a precaution. If she gets a negative result tomorrow, H will still go over and do a gift swap, but they rightly thought it sensible to wait until R knows for sure whether she is in the clear. While I I was wrapping, H was baking a spectacular donut cake for her boyfriend's sister's birthday tomorrow. 

We had a family movie afternoon, watching Matilda for the umpteenth time - R used to love Matilda so much that at one point we almost knew the entire script by heart! - followed by Klaus on Netflix. TG baked brownies, and then she and H cut and decorated them as Christmas trees. I haven't done any Christmas baking so far this year and have left it all to the girls, but will probably make some mince pies tomorrow.

There was some talk about playing board games this evening, but in the end TG wanted a soak in the bath, H decided on an early night, and I have tucked myself up in bed early to read, knit and write for a couple of hours. I am so enjoying the extra leisure time this week. 

An Early Christmas Gift

Today has been a very much better day - on a personal level, at least, although between mutant fast transmitting Covid, blocked ports, flight bans and Brexit the national news is grim. This morning TG's Covid test result came back negative, as we hoped and expected given that it was just a precautionary test. However, the best and most extraordinary thing is that M is getting his first dose of the vaccine tomorrow! Health service workers who are vulnerable due to medical conditions are considered a top priority group so he was authorised this evening to book in for vaccination. Amazingly he was able to get an appointment at the local hospital tomorrow morning. We had expected he would not have to wait too long - my guess was early January - but to get his first dose as an early Christmas present? What a gift! As you can imagine, it is a big boost to our spirits. 

My energy levels slumped a bit again today, but I still managed a 2 mile walk, so that is good. This morning I read for a bit and then spent some time wrapping gifts. Usually I try to wrap as I buy, but this year it didn't happen. We have a family tradition of me buying the girls quite a lot of smaller gifts and stocking fillers - it started because we have so few relatives that when they were small they often only got gifts from us and from my mother. Somehow the tradition has stuck - habit, I think! - even though there isn't the need for it any more. It means wrapping takes me a while. While I wrapped I listened to the first book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy on Audible. I have read the books, but a long time ago. I have been enjoying watching the BBC adaptation and decided it was time to read (or listen to) them again. 

This month I have knitted two pairs of socks as gifts for friends - same pattern but different colours and sizes - and finished a cross-stitch badger for our neighbour who often gets an entire family of badgers in her garden at night. Sometimes I get into a sock-knitting frenzy. I find them relaxing to knit, and can knit while I read or watch TV so I can get through them quickly. I am now knitting a pair for myself, while also working on a cardigan and trying to finish a Mickey Mouse cross-stitch bookmark for one of the girls for Christmas. 

After we got back from our walk this afternoon TG wanted to watch the old Jim Carrey version of the Grinch, so we watched together while I cross-stitched. H was working, and was out for part of the day. This evening's treats were my advent calendar gin, which I used to make a gin hot toddy with honey and lemon as it suggested, an episode of Only Connect in which I failed hopelessly to solve any of the questions, and a Christmas episode of Upstart Crow with Will Shakespeare locked down in London during an outbreak of plague and ranting to good effect about people failing to wear plague beaks and hoarding moss for the privy! Altogether a very much better day. 

Staying Home Part 2: Day 24

Only three more days of this "lockdown", although really compared to the spring it is only a partial one, and the "end of lockdown" on Wednesday for most people only means the lifting of some of the current restrictions, and not a return even to what we were able to do before this second shutdown started. More restrictions will mean more people getting through the winter alive and well, but it will also mean more businesses struggling and more people unemployed, particularly in hospitality and entertainment, and more people suffering from the impact of isolation and anxiety. There are no easy answers. 

My good intentions regarding getting to sleep earlier sort of worked last night. I did get to sleep a bit earlier, but then woke too early this morning with a nasty headache which has slowed me down all day and is only now beginning to clear. Despite the headache M and I went out this afternoon to do some "shopping", which was mostly collecting pre-ordered items.  N and I had both ordered things from Next as Christmas presents using their Click and Collect service, and I had other items waiting for collection from M & S (we only have a food store, but they have a collection point for other online orders). We drove over to Next in Milton Keynes, where there were quite a few people queueing for the collection point, then back here to M & S, where we did a bit of food shopping as well as collecting the packages. Again, there was a long queue of people waiting to get into the store - much like the spring lockdown. H and I were going to have curry tonight, but I had a very hot chinese dish last night and didn't feel like more spice, so I bought a pizza deal - 2 pizzas and 2 sides for £10. They do an excellent vegan pizza and vegan dirty fries for the two of us who don't eat dairy, TG had a cheese pizza and we got chicken wings as the second side. M doesn't eat pizza as he doesn't like cheese (dairy or non-dairy!), so he fended for himself, though he did have a few of the chicken wings. 

While we were out H went to the Post Office then out for a walk with her BF, and TF stayed home and baked some mince pies. I bought home takeaway coffee for myself and a hot chocolate for TG, and enjoyed a mince pie with the coffee. I had a bit of work to do after that - I usually avoid working at weekends, but it was just cutting and pasting material into an app, which is a bit slow and tedious but can be done while watching a video or TV.  I decided not to watch Strictly as I didn't think my headache would enjoy it, so I came upstairs and finished off a pair of socks while watching quieter things on my laptop.

 

Staying Home Part 2: Day 16

I forgot to pre-heat the car this morning and TG and I really noticed the difference. Of course, it would have to be the coldest morning we have had for a while! I have now set a timer so it should pre-heat every weekday morning ready for the school run. I then spent the morning doing archive work while M and H also worked. I had some freelance work to do this afternoon - a new job came in with a fairly tight deadline - but my eyes and brain both decided they had had enough so apart from a bit of prep work I left it to do on Monday. Next week will be busy.  

It was wet again this afternoon so I didn't go out at all and had a lazy afternoon and evening watching TV and knitting. I finished the fingerless gloves I have been working on as a Christmas present for H - the yarn is a merino and silk mix and beautifully soft and warm. I watched the Crown with M and Santa Clause with the girls this evening, as well as more documentaries about Orkney and Shetland. I honestly think I have watched as much TV this year as in the last five years put together - for some reason it just seems to be the right sort of escapism for me this year, perhaps because it took less effort than reading when my energy levels were low, and now I have got into the habit. 

Staying Home Part 2: Day 12

I got up a bit earlier than normal this morning, then because I thought I had plenty of time I moved slower and distracted myself so that I was barely ready on time to take TG to school. This is a typical pattern for me - if time is tight, I focus and move fast and am just about ready on time; if I give myself lots of time, I slow down and end up ready no quicker than if I rush, and sometimes even end up later. When I got back, i just had time to make myself porridge for breakfast before our 9am weekly staff meeting. One colleague is having problems with band width, so we are now doing audio only (no video) to help her. That meant I could shamelessly eat my porridge during the meeting. 

I did a longer than necessary stint on my archive work, which means I can do a bit less tomorrow and finish off the current question writing job. I did part of that this afternoon and finished work just as M went to collect TG from school. By that time it was very dull and unappealing outside, so I decided to be lazy and opt out of going for a walk. Today's photos are pictures I took a couple of weeks ago on a much nicer afternoon when we walked into town for coffee, but didn't get round to posting at the time. Above is the 15th century market cross, and below is the old town hall, later used as a fire station, and now a Pizza Express restaurant. 

I decided that the fingerless mitt I almost finished yesterday had come out a bit small. I am using a pattern meant for aran / worsted yarn with sock yarn. I though knitting a large size might compensate enough but it didn't, so I unravelled almost the entire mitt back to a decrease round at the cuff and decreased less to give myself five extra stitches. I think that should be just right. I have now redone the wrist section and am about to start increasing stitches for the thumb. While knitting I watched the remaining episode of Michael Palin's Himalaya with M, then an episode of the Mandalorian. I have also been reading more of the Ancient History of Britain. I am finding the sections about the mesolithic and neolithic periods fascinating, as I knew so very little about them, even though I have always enjoyed visiting ancient sites like Stonehenge. 

Dinner was frozen potato wedges with whiting from the last fishbox, squeezed in between TG finishing her dance class and H starting an online quiz night with her work colleagues. M and I watched tonight's Only Connect quiz, and then I spent a while sorting out his phone for him. It had somehow stuck in dark mode, which he never uses and doesn't like, and I ended up having to reset all the phone settings, then reset things like Face ID and Apple Pay. Hopefully it is all working properly again now. 

Staying Home Part 2: Day 11

The day started with a torrential downpour and swirling winds - apparently quite a few fences locally came down. By late morning it had cleared so we were able to go out for walks in the early afternoon. H went out for a walk down the canal with her BF and came back with glowing red, sore little toes from wearing new(ish) trainers which rubbed. M and I went for a walk round the local streets, where even some of the pavements were squelchy and muddy; we went into Tesco Express on the way back for bread and soya milk, and I bought some sausage roll flavoured crisps to try. TG was only barely functional today after last night's virtual sleepover, which meant not enough sleep happened. 

I didn't take any photos today, but my phone chose this one for me. It was taken exactly a year ago in Milton Keynes shopping centre - we must have gone to do some Christmas shopping and to see the decorations. Since the latest iOS update the photos app has started selecting a few photos each day and showing them on a widget on my home screen. It is also making "Memories" videos from a selection of photos from a particular date or event, or a series of portraits of an individual - some of these have been lovely, like the Disneyland Paris firework display it put together for me yesterday. 

I caught up on a few jobs this morning, including phoning Disney to change the date of our trip to Disneyland Paris next year. We had booked for February, but that was looking less and less feasible thanks to Covid, and in any case clashes with H's busy season at work. We have now switched it to early September, just before TG goes back to school. I was on the phone for quite a while, not because it was complicated, but because I ended up having a nice conversation with the lady in Florida who dealt with the booking - we ended up drifting off into chatting about our families, our travel plans (cancelled and future), and how Covid was affecting our lives. Although the call switches through to the US it is directed via a local number so no nasty phone charges to worry about! 

H is enjoying having time to do some cooking again, so she cooked roast lamb for dinner. M and I watched the first episode of the new series of the Crown, then H gave him a haircut. She and I spent a bit of time going through paperwork for her house purchase which came through yesterday. After dinner I read for a while and we watched a bit more TV (Strictly results show and another episode of Michael Palin's journey through the Himalayas). I did quite a bit of knitting during the afternoon and evening and almost managed a whole fingerless glove - just a few rows of the hand and the thumb left to do. I'm a very unfocused crafter and currently have three knitting projects and three cross stitch projects on the go simultaneously. Four out of the six are Christmas presents, but it doesn't matter what order I do them in; so long as I keep making progress I can just pick up whichever suits the mood of the moment.

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. 

November and a New Lockdown

After insisting that another lockdown was not on the cards, and being highly critical of the Leader of the Opposition for insisting over the last few weeks a short, circuit breaker lockdown was needed, this weekend the government announced that England would indeed be entering another national lockdown of sorts. This time it will be less intense than it was in the spring, with people who cannot work at home still allowed to go to work, and with schools and universities staying open (I suspect this is a mistake, at least for older kids). Non-essential shops, restaurants, pubs, gyms, museums and so on are to close, and everyone is being told to stay home as much as possible (fortunately outdoor walks are still allowed). The lockdown is to start on Thursday and last until December 2nd - whether that will be long enough for it to be effective in the worse affected areas remains to be seen. 

The weather is as glum as the news. We went out for a short walk this morning, and as you can see it was very grey, although it mostly stayed dry while we were out. This afternoon and evening have been pretty windy. Not a very cheerful way to start November. 

We didn't do anything for Halloween this year. Usually we carve pumpkins, but I didn't think to buy any and nobody mentioned it. I did notice a few pumpkins and other Halloween decorations while we were out walking. 

I am in a bit of a knitting frenzy, whizzing through things at speed. I finished the scarf for my brother and this pair of socks for myself. I have almost finished a hat for myself too. I bought some Shetland wool yarn intending it for a scarf, but when it arrived realised that I had forgotten to check the size of the balls and only had half the quantity I needed, so decided on a beanie-style hat. Not elegant, but practical. With tightly knitted 100% wool, I think it will keep out not only the cold, but probably also light rain. I would have finished, but half way through the first attempt I decided it was coming out too small, so I pulled it out and started again with a larger size. It should be done tomorrow. Then I plan to start on a cardigan for myself, though I am still dithering over what pattern to use. I also want to go into the yarn shop in town tomorrow to get some more sock yarn. I have ideas for Christmas gifts, and could use another pair of socks myself. I have had a couple of pairs wear out. 

I have done a bit of reading and quite a lot of TV binging over the weekend while knitting. I am currently in a history reading moody and have just started A History of Ancient Britain by Neil Oliver. M and I are working our way through Michael Palin's various travel series. We have watched Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole and Full Circle (around the rim of the Pacific) and are now into his journey around the Sahara. We ended out taking out a Britbox subscription so we could stream them all, although oddly it doesn't have Sahara. The first two episodes are available on BBC iPlayer, but not the 3rd and 4th. Annoying! 

This afternoon I went with the girls to Wagamamas for a meal. We had planned to go anyway, but we particularly appreciated it knowing that eating out won't be possible again for a while. We started with bao buns, TG had ramen, H had duck donburi, and I had a vegan kokoro bowl with bbq glazed seitan, brown rice, various veggies amai sauce and an "egg" made with coconut and sriracha sauce. Although I am not vegan, I love plant based food and Wagamamas have a great vegan menu. We went to the branch at Milton Keynes shopping centre rather than a slightly closer one as H needed to look in Primark for something and I wanted to get some bar shampoo from Lush and soap from the Body Shop (trying to stick to toiletries without plastic packaging where I can). We got there just before the shops closed, so it was quiet enough, but apparently it had been crazily busy earlier in the day, presumably because lots of people wanted to go before the lockdown starts. We are fortunate in that our area has relatively low rates of Covid (about half the national average) so going out still feels reasonably safe. Rates have been going up quite fast though, so even here a spell of tight restrictions seems sensible. Hopefully it will put us in a much better position by December. 

Being Crafty

I have been enjoying indulging in birthday treats. When we got back from our trip away H and TG presented me with a birthday cake. As is always the case when H bakes, it was a beauty. 

It was also large! M isn't a fan of chocolate cake, and there was no way the other three of us could get through it all, so I cut the second half of it into two large chunks and froze them to eat later.

Tonight I started drinking some birthday gin. I am not a big drinker, but my current favourite evening tipple is a gin and tonic, I think because it is not too sweet. H bought me a box with a selection of small bottles of different flavoured gins and mixers, and I sampled the first one this evening - raspberry gin with mediterranean tonic. And very nice it was too! 

I spent much of the summer in a cross stitching mood, and have been working on two Disney bookmarks to go into Christmas stockings for Disney-loving daughters. I finished one, and am about half way through the second. I was confused as to why I came excruciatingly close to running out of a couple of colours - I am quite an economical stitcher, and kits usually have far more than I need - until I realised that instead of stitching two different pictures I was repeating the first one! I am too far on with it to unpick and start again, and I think I can just about make the thread last, so long as I give it a different border colour. I can't believe how long it too me to realise what I was doing! 

Partly because I was annoyed with myself for messing up, and partly because colder weather always makes me want to knit, I have given up on the cross stitch for a while in favour of knitting. I finally finished a jumper (sweater) I started for TG last February, but which had been left in my craft box because I was procrastinating over sewing it up. I knitted a pair of socks as a Christmas present for my brother, who loves handmade socks, and I am now on the second sock of a pair for myself. I love this zig-zag pattern (Jaywalker on Ravelry) in self-striping yarn - I think this is the third time I have knitted it. 

Then I distracted myself mid-sock when a yarn order arrived and started knitting this scarf, also a Christmas gift for my brother. I knitted him one years ago, I think with the same pattern, and he has worn it almost to destruction - it is now very thin and limp, so I decided he could do with another. It is 100% wool so will be toasty warm. I particularly like this pattern because it is reversible. I have just finished the first skein of two. It only took me two days, so I should get the whole scarf finished over the weekend. 

Fortunately the annoying flu jab fatigue wore off after 48 hours and M and I managed to get out for a walk on Dunstable Downs yesterday afternoon while the weather was reasonable. It has been alternating between wet and miserable and damp and miserable for most of the week. In the evening I went to a friend's for a meeting about a brass band issue with the two of us, plus two others via Zoom. She had collected a new kitten that afternoon - eight weeks old and the cutest grey and white colouring. 

She was a tiny little thing but extraordinarily confident, keen to explore and happy to climb up for a cuddle. When I left she was doing battle with a fly. I think the fly was winning because her paws were too small to do it much damage and she hadn't really got the hang of pouncing.  

Staying Home: Day 45

I meant to post a picture of yesterday's delicious prawn massaman curry but forgot, so here it is a bit late ...

Dinner today was beef and mushroom pie from the freezer, with mashed potato, a few left over green beans, sweetcorn and gravy - one of two pies H cooked  a couple of weeks ago. 

Again, we all worked this morning. H and TG went to Tesco Express before they started to top up basics like bread, fruit, milk and soya milk. For the first time in a while I didn't go out at all today. This afternoon it was very wet and miserable, the sort of whether that never does my chest good, so I left M to go for a walk on his own. He took a pair of socks I had knitted round to my brother, who only lives a couple of streets away, as a lockdown gift. They had a socially distanced chat while M stood at the end of the drive in the rain. T is on his own, but seems in fairly good spirits; he has bought himself a bike and is enjoying using that for exercise. M got home very damp and needed a hot bath to warm up. He is feeling fine now, but H is a bit under the weather. No Covid symptoms, mainly feeling more tired than usual - she seems to be generally more tired than she should be, and has a couple of other symptoms that make me think she may be anaemic. Once the lockdown is eased and non-urgent blood tests are available again I think a trip to the doctor is in order. 

I'm making progress on my William Morris strawberry thief bookmark. You can see one strawberry left of centre, and the outline of a bird is beginning to emerge. It is going to be quite a large bookmark, I think! It has reminded me that I wanted to know more about William Morris, so I have started reading a biography. Written by Fiona McCarthy, it won the Wolfson History Prize and has been described as "one of the finest biographies ever published". At 800 pages it may take me a while to finish! Today I sewed while we watched Maleficent and a couple of TV programmes. I also knitted part of the sleeve of a jumper (sweater) I am knitting for TG. I've been working on it for a while but keep getting distracted by other projects. The sleeves are just stocking stitch so easy to knit while I read. 

It's raining again as I type. Since Sunday it has gone from summer back to winter and we have turned the heating back on. Even I - a non-gardener and a sun lover - can admit that we needed some rain, but I'm glad it is forecast to brighten up again tomorrow. 

Finally, we remembered to go outside at 8pm to join in the general applause for our health and care workers. The "Clap for the NHS" on Thursday evenings seems to get louder and more enthusiastic each week. I love that this came about thanks to a single person putting a suggestion out on social media during the first week of lockdown. 

Staying Home: Day 37

I have converted my two full days at the archives into four mornings at home, which definitely makes for a better routine. This week my archive mornings will be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, so I spent this morning getting on with two current freelance exam-setting jobs.

This week's fishbox had two packets of smoked salmon so lunch was a smoked salmon sandwich with some salad. I then finished off one of the sets of questions and attempted to make some bread. I only had wholemeal plain flour and didn't have the right size tin, so made what turned into a rather flat round loaf. Hopefully it will be edible and tide us over until H goes to the supermarket on Friday. Today's walk was a circuit round the woods, shorter and flatter than yesterday's exhausting effort - though as H (who is trying to improve her running) complains, there aren't any flat routes here. After the walk I spent a bit of time in the hammock in the garden reading. then we watched Alice Through the Looking Glass and I made a start on a new cross stitch kit which arrived this morning - a book mark with the William Morris strawberry their design. Jemima Puddleduck, who is proving to be something of a pain, has gone on the back burner.

We had confirmation from her school that TG has got places on all her first choice GCSE courses. From next week she will drop all other subjects and concentrate on her GCSE options. Usually the school has the Year 9s (equivalent to 8th Grade in the US) start their GCSE courses in June, so that they have a few weeks to ease into them before the end of the school year; due to the school closure they decided it would make sense to transition them into GCSE work a bit earlier. I imagine they are hoping partly to compensate for any missed work, and also to motivate the kids while they are studying at home by giving them a new focus. TG will be taking ten GCSEs altogether: English Language, English Literature, Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, French, Photography, and Hospitality & Catering (this last one is a vocational course rather than a GCSE, with lots of hands on cooking). Apart from dropping history (apparently the history gene is not hereditary!) it is a good mix, with a good spread of academic subjects, but also the photography and catering which are practical things that she enjoys.

Dinner tonight was ready meals from Marks and Spencers - yorkshire puddings filled with roast meat, potatoes and veg for M and TG, and vegan kievs with dirty fries for me and H. Lazy but tasty. After dinner we played Pictionary and scattergories for a while. I'm slightly bemused by how quickly the days are passing. There always seems to be more I want to do than I have time for. I feel I could easily fill several more hours in a day!

Staying Home: Day 32

This morning I reactivated a long ignored blog that I set up four years ago to write about local history, which then morphed into genealogy before I ran out of steam and stopped writing a few months later. I turned the research I had done on our old family friend into a post, which if you are interested you can read at History Roundabout. Over the weekend I am hoping to write a follow up post about her 19th century ancestors who, rather to my surprise, lived only 15 miles away from here.

M and I went for a morning walk as there was some rain forecast for this afternoon. H went for a run and came back feeling pleased with herself for running 4K in 27 minutes. She is not a natural runner and has been gradually working up her distance and speed. TG didn't do any exercise and spent most of the day on her laptop either watching Netflix or playing Sims. She did do a bit of outstanding schoolwork so she is all caught up for when school starts again on Tuesday.

After lunch I drove H to the Marks and Spencers Food store, both to do some shopping and to collect a couple of packages with items I had ordered from the main Marks and Spencer website - a replacement frying pan after the non-stick coating on our old one lost an unfortunate battle with a scourer, and a couple of comfy bras (let's face it, who needs underwires during lockdown!). When we got back H was notified that her university graduation has been officially postponed to some unspecified future date, so I cancelled the hotel booking I had made for the night before. Having to cancel things that are still over three months away is a dispiriting reminder of how long it is likely to be before life returns to a semblance of normal.

We watched Pirates of the Caribbean while I carried on with my Jemima Puddleduck cross stitch kit. It didn't go well. Jemima is white. The fabric is white. White on white is not easy, especially when the lighting isn't great and the stitcher can't be bothered to move to the chair which has a convenient lamp. I sewed. I unpicked. I sewed some more. I unpicked some more. Eventually I moved to the well-lit armchair and made a bit of progress, but then ended with another mistake where I got the crosses on a number of stitches the wrong way round. At that point I decided to give up and hope tomorrow is better. I am following the instructions regarding the direction of the crosses, but I think I must normally make mine the other way round as I keep instinctively doing them wrong. Unfortunately I have got too far into Jemima to change it now.

Dinner was home made beef and mushroom pie with mashed potato and broccoli, cooked by H. She made two pies, one for tonight and one for the freezer. We then watched the Masterchef final - I thought H had said it was last night, but apparently it was just the final week.  

Staying Home: Day 26

I was feeling in better spirits today, possibly because I felt less tired. Really, I have so much to be grateful for, including that I enjoy spending time at home and I am not finding the lockdown a hardship. I finished a book today, Bluestockings by Jane Robinson, which is a history of women and university education before 1939. This reminded me of an old family friend, who was a student at Oxford University during the first world war and died in 1992 in her mid-90s. I realised that I knew nothing about her background and how she came to be at Oxford, so this morning put my genealogy skills to use and did some research on Ancestry. I discovered that she spent her childhood in Birmingham, where her father was a chartered accountant. Her older brother studied at the University of London and spent time in the Royal Flying Corps during the Great War; he later became a professor of education at Nottingham University and then in Egypt. I knew she had travelled, spending time in Italy and elsewhere, and found her on passenger lists of ships going to and from Canada in the 1920s. In 1939 she was teaching in Shrewsbury, before settling down as lecturer at a teacher training college near Liverpool where she was one of my mother's tutors. I wonder whether her father was one of those enlightened men for his time who valued education for women, or whether she was like Vera Brittain and had to plead to be allowed to follow her brother to university. 

I chose a different route for our walk today, meaning to go through the ancient woodland rather than the newer part, but took a wrong turning. H said later that she got into the old wood by mistake and there were lots of bluebells out, so tomorrow we will go hunting bluebells in Bluebell Wood. I did spot this little robin and just managed to get close enough to take a photo of him with my phone. 

When we got back I made scones for afternoon tea. No clotted cream, or cream of any sort, but they were still good.

After tea we watched Finding Dory and I started to crochet flowers for my spring garland using the left over yarn from my blanket. Now I have got to grips with the pattern I think they will be very satisfying to make.

H cooked a keema curry for the two of us for dinner, while M and TG had chicken and chips. The girls wanted to play a board game, so we played Mega Monopoly. We have found that thanks to a third dice and extra properties, the Mega version is actually quicker to play than the standard version, and more interesting. TG has planned a virtual sleepover tonight with two friends. Apparently they are going to use Netflix Party, which allows them to watch the same thing at the same time and chat while they watch it. I can hear her chattering away to them upstairs.

Staying Home: Day 25

I started the day with a doctor's telephone consultation about my fatigue. I went online last night to book an appointment and I have so lost track of time that I actually thought I had booked one for next week, only to realise when I went to put it on the calendar that it was today! In normal circumstances she would have wanted to run blood tests for thyroid function and various vitamin levels, but can't do this now because of Covid (they don't want people coming into the surgery unless it is urgent). The plan for now is to carry on doing gentle exercise, to pump myself full of vitamins, and to rest when my body tells me to, then follow up in four weeks.

Today has been very unfocused, with a bit of reading, a soak in the bath, ten minutes of yoga, our usual woodland walk, time in the garden, some more knitting and Finding Nemo as Disney movie of the day. I have a habit of reading in the bath, then putting my book down on the closed lid of the toilet before getting out. Unfortunately the toilet is behind the bath, so I have to do this without looking. Even more unfortunately, the closed lid happened to be open. At least the book fell in at a good angle and didn't actually get wet. It has now been well scrubbed down with anti-bacterial wipes so that I can finish it!

The weather scarf is progressing well and April is now done. You can see the change from blues to warmer greens happening, and I'm currently working on a sunny spell at the end of April and beginning of May. I'm feeling the need to start a couple more creative projects for variety. I have yarn left over from my dahlia blanket which I can use for the flowers, and I think I will have enough spare in various shades of green from the weather scarf for lease. I also ordered a couple of 1000 piece jigsaws this morning, which should arrive in a week or so. . I am waiting for a cross stitch kit for a William Morris bookmark to arrive. I had ordered a set of two Mickey/Minnie Mouse bookmarks, but they had gone out of stock so I changed my order. I also want to crochet this spring garland from Attic 24.

Mostly I am managing not to dwell on the whole awfulness of the pandemic, but the grim statistics for deaths in the UK are getting to me this evening, as is the uncertainty of how we move on from this and what the new normal will look like. I don't remember a Good Friday this bleak. I think tomorrow I need to stay away from the news and focus on positive things. I hope Easter will be a turning point.

Staying Home: Day 23

Today was very much of a repeat of yesterday - same routine, although I got a bit bogged down with my work this morning, so my mid-morning yoga break became a very late-morning yoga break, but I still managed a 15 minute flexibility session. H is procrastinating over her work as she has very little left to do and is a long way ahead of her deadlines. Procrastinating seems to mostly involve online shopping and researching puppies (she wants to get a dog as soon as she gets her own place). I realised I forgot to post a photo of the painting she finished at the weekend, so here (with her permission) is her picture of Boccadasse in Genoa.

M and I went for another walk around the woods this afternoon, taking a similar but slightly longer route. The hawthorn blossom is out everywhere, including this tall boundary hedge.

Although this part of the woodland was only planted relatively recently, it is a historic site. Part of the boundary - although I'm not sure if it includes this hedge or just the previous section - runs along the ancient parish boundary which was set out in a charter dating from 966, when King Edgar gave the land to his brother's widow, Elgiva. This charter also mentions seven burial mounds on the heathland that used to cover this area, but whatever had survived was flattened when the land was ploughed in the late 19th century. Just past the hawthorn hedge I also noticed this section of ditch, which looks to me as though it may also be part of an old boundary.

After watching our Disney Movie - Ralph Wrecks the Internet - we watched the second episode of The Imagineers, a documentary series on Disney Plus about the history of the various Disney Parks. It was my turn to cook dinner today, which was shallow fried fish fillets with spanish style potatoes and purple sprouting broccoli. While we watched Ralph, M had video chats with two sets of friends.

Staying Home: Day 18

At the moment - and I realise this may well change as time goes on - I am finding quite a few positives in this quieter, stay-at-home life. I am normally terrible with routine, but since getting the balance of my day all wrong on Monday I have slipped into a daily pattern that is actually working well for me. I am getting up, showered and dressed soon after 8, getting started on my work at about 8.30 and working until lunch time or early afternoon, depending on how much I have to do. M & I go for a walk mid-afternoon, then come home and have tea and cake. Late afternoon is Disney movie time, and then we eat dinner about 7pm. The girls also mostly study in the mornings and exercise in the afternoons, and M either works or does jobs around the house or garden if he doesn't have any work to do. Before the shutdown my week was all over the place, with two full days at work out of the house, fitting freelance work in randomly during the rest of the week (sometimes including the weekend), and often spending far too much of the morning doing nothing much before I get into gear then chasing my tail later.  I really hope I am learning the lesson that routine is a good thing for me.

Other positives? Spending time with my family and enjoying their company, instead of all of us whizzing around to different places at different times. More intentional menu planning, with more variety, and mostly all eating the same thing; also sharing the cooking in a more organised way. Not having to rush, and never being late for anything - something of a novelty for me!

H ordered a couple of canvases so she could do some more painting, and has started work on a picture of Genoa, the Italian city where she spent the 2018/19 academic year. I didn't do anything much on my weather scarf today as I got distracted playing Scrabble Go on my phone. I might have been procrastinating because I don't like sewing ends in. My creative effort for the day was to make a lemon cake. Eggs have become hard to find and we are down to just one egg, so I used a vegan recipe. The recipe was for an iced cake, but I decided to turn it into a lemon drizzle on the assumption that any lemon cake could be drizzled. I assumed wrong. It didn't work properly with the texture of the cake, which ended up cakey on the bottom and soggy on the top. At least it still tasted good.

As I didn't knit today, I'm including photos of my last woolly creation - a crocheted blanket using Attic 24's dahlia kit.  I love how bright and happy and cosy it is.

Disney movie of the day: Dumbo (the recent one, new to all of us)
Dinner: salmon, roasted baby potatoes, leeks and peas, cooked by Teen Girl