Riverside Walk and Donuts

This morning I needed to take a swimsuit back to Next in Milton Keynes - I had ordered two different sizes to try - and decided to combine that with a walk. M suggested going somewhere we hadn't walked before so we went to Stony Stratford. Milton Keynes is a new town built over the past 50 years, which incorporated four existing towns, including Stony Stratford, and several villages. The river runs around the town and there is some lovely open parkland and river walks. We did about 2.5 miles altogether, so not a particularly long walk, but a very enjoyable one. The bright blue sky is a bit deceptive. It was a beautiful day, but there had been a frost overnight and it was still a little on the chilly side. 

After our walk we went to a donut shop that R and H had both recommended and bought donuts to take home for an afternoon treat - Biscoff for TG, chocolate orange for me (although in the end we shared them and had half each), and cinnamon sugar for M who has plainer tastes. TG definitely deserved a treat as she had French, physics and English tests this morning, in three consecutive lessons. She says she thinks they went OK. In the car on the way to school we chatted about assessments and exams, which led to talking about learning styles. Like me, she is a visual learner and finds it hard to keep focused for a whole day of listening to teachers talking. This is why school at home with online lessons suited her, as there was less talking and more time to work by herself. We both think she will enjoy Sixth Form (the last two years of school) as she will have free study time during the day, which will give her a change to refocus. 

My second day back at work yesterday went more smoothly. I was in our searchroom supervising researchers, and the computer in there was mostly working pretty well. I had to learn various new procedures but they are all pretty straightforward. As background work I was trying to reformat a large batch of photos to use for an online exhibition; it was a bit fiddly and occasionally the computer went on a go-slow, but after Monday's tech frustrations it was still a big improvement. Spending a whole day with different people was not as strange as it was on Monday, though it does seem odd having our already small group of staff split into two and never seeing the people on the other team. 

In good pandemic news, 95% of over 50s in the UK have now had at least one vaccine dose, which is quite an extraordinary figure. Another really encouraging figure is that of over 74000 patients admitted to hospital with covid between September and March, there were only 32 who had received their first vaccine dose more than three weeks earlier. What an extraordinary scientific achievement these vaccines are! 

Back to Work

Yesterday I went back to work for the first time since March last year. At the time I expected to be home for three months. For it to be over a year was beyond anything I could have imagined. It was good to be back, but I found it ridiculously tiring - I think mostly because the prospect (and the reality!) of sorting out the administrative side of going back was stressful, and also because being out and with other people for a long stretch of time was so unfamiliar. It was good to see colleagues again, though there are only four of us on the team I am part of - we have two teams working in the office alternate weeks, to keep the number in the office at any time as low as possible. One thing I had not missed was the 1960s brutalist concrete building. I now have to park across the road as the office car park is being used part of the time as a drive-in Covid testing centre. I took this photo as I walked across and can't believe there are no cars as this is a busy main road. 

I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to collect a new parking pass (mine needed updating as it still had the registration number for our old car) and get my swipe card reactivated very quickly and easily. Things then fell apart when I tried to log on to my usual computer, which gave me an error message I had never seen before. I phoned IT for help, only to find the computer had been decommissioned automatically as it had not been used for so long. It will need "rebuilding" (oh dear!) which is likely to take a couple of days, so I had to hunt for something else to use. At the fifth attempt I finally found one that actually worked properly; the third one I tried seemed to work, but turned out to have no internal memory left so it persistently refused to open things. By lunch time it felt as though all I had achieved was fight losing battles with technology! I will be working again tomorrow, this time supervising researchers. We are only allowing one person in at a time to look at pre-ordered items, so it should be quite straightforward. I'm just hoping the computer in the searchroom behaves itself and I don't have another "computer says no" day! 

We went swimming again this morning. I am definitely getting the hang of swimming freestyle for longer distances, and did a total of 30 lengths without feeling quite as exhausted afterwards as I did last week. We have now taken out membership with the leisure centre which makes swimming sessions much cheaper. This afternoon we had a Zoom meeting about a training session we have been asked to provide for a client in the Caribbean in the summer. This is the first time we have done any international freelance work, and it is a one off that isn't likely set a trend! It was a lovely spring day today, so after the meeting I spent a couple of hours out in the garden. I have also been busy meal planning. Over the last year R has regularly used Hello Fresh, a company which sells meal kits online. She sent me a voucher for a free box of three meals, so I have ordered that for next week. Assuming we like what we are sent, I'm planning to order from them through May to see if it is a good fit for us. I like the idea of trying out new recipes and that you are sent exactly what you need so there is no waste; M is prepared to be a bit more adventurous in what he eats, so long as there is no pork, seafood, cheese or curry, and TG has never been a picky eater and has quite adult tastes. I'm quite excited to give it a try. 

Learning Lessons

I only went for a short walk yesterday and none at all today, so no pictures to post today. I am three days in to my 21 day yoga challenge and hoping that this might be the worst day for aches and pains! I have definitely been using muscles that are unaccustomed to exercise. So far I am enjoying it. I like the live classes, knowing that other people are doing the same thing at the same time is companionable, even though I can't see or hear them. I like the teachers, and I like the variety of the challenge with different daily activities and classes, which is definitely motivating me. On the other hand, I don't like the aches and cramps which remind me that at I am at an age where if muscles aren't exercised they get very, very unhappy. I also don't like that I sometimes have to give in and take a rest, but ... slowly, slowly! Charging into it full tilt, overdoing it and giving up is not the way to go. 

I am adjusting to working full days on Mondays and Tuesdays. Yesterday was not good. It was cold and I was tired and wanted to hibernate, so I stayed in pyjamas and worked tucked up under blankets on the bed. Apart from a couple of short breaks I worked for six hours straight, working through lunch which M kindly bought me. Then I showered and dressed and was in a very bad mood. Tired, muzzy headed and thoroughly grumpy. We went for a walk and poor M had to tolerate a ten minute tirade on everything that was WRONG. Then the fresh air cleared my head, I got it out of my system and felt better. I came back and finished the day without further grumpiness, and loved doing my yoga challenge between finishing work and cooking dinner. Today was much better. A little late getting up and showered and ready to start, but I balanced the day much better with a proper lunch break, and another break mid-afternoon to prepare a beef stew and put it in the oven to cook slowly. I finished in time to do a one hour live yoga class at 6, and the dinner was ready to eat as soon as I finished. 

So, lessons learned this week (so far):

• Regular yoga is good, even when it hurts. 
• Working in pyjamas is bad.
• Not taking breaks is bad.
• Exercise to wind down after finishing work is good. 

You would think I would have learned these lessons long ago, but time management and self discipline are not my strong points. 

Not much else has happened over the past couple of days. The Covid news is mixed. Numbers of deaths are horribly high, but the number of cases seems now to be coming down and vaccinations have kicked up a gear. Our local health care trust has now set up a vaccine hub at the rugby club in town, which started operating yesterday. Poor H is suffering from a painful jaw. She doesn't think it is toothache, and may be related to a nasty mouth ulcer. I think she is planning to phone the 111 service tomorrow to see if they can sort out either a medical or dental appointment for her. I suspect she may need antibiotics. 

Mud Glorious Mud

I decided to reshuffle my working week. Since the pandemic started and I switched to working from home I have been spending four mornings a week doing my archive work, instead of the two full days I did in the office. It seemed easier to spread it out over the week and fit better with our spring summer routine. However, when we have freelance work on the go, it sometimes felt as though my supposedly part-time work wasn't being very part time at all! For the new year I have decided to switch back to my old working schedule,  spending Monday and Tuesday on archive work and then fitting any freelance work into the rest of the week. If we don't have any freelance jobs on the go, I will have three full weekdays free.  

The change of working patterns meant that by 5.30pm yesterday I was done with my archive work for the week, and I took today as a free day. I have some freelance work to do, which I hope I will be able to fit into tomorrow and Friday mornings, leaving the afternoons free. I did quite a bit of reading while sock-knitting. I have already finished my first book of the year - The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel, a novel about a French Jewish girl escaping Paris and working in Vichy France as a forger of false documents to save Jewish children and help resistance fighters. This morning I started Coronation Everest by Jan Morris (or James Morris as she was at the time she wrote it), about her experiences as the official Times newspaper correspondent accompanying the expedition that first successfully climbed in Everest in 1953. Amazon had an offer on many of her books on Kindle last week and I bought several. 

 Beside reading and knitting, I did a bit of housework, cooked fish with fondant potatoes and greens for dinner, and had a band practice on Zoom. As I went into the dining room to log into Zoom the top hinge of the door came away from the frame. Fortunately the door did not fall off completely, and I was able to fix it afterwards by using some larger screws. Sometimes hoarding old screws in my toolbox comes in useful! (Note this is *my* toolbox - M would be the first to admit that fixing things is not his strength!)

We also went for a four mile walk this afternoon. Despite realising there would be mud  - there was, and lots of it - we walked down through the woods to the canal and from there across the water meadows. It was quite bleak and wintry, as well as muddy. The worst patch came just after we crossed the river, but by that time we were committed; we decided retracing our steps over all the previous mud was not an option! We then walked back through town, having managed to get the worst of the mud off our boots by wiping them on the grass. It was really the sort of walk that needed wellies (rubber boots) but we don't have any and our hiking boots cope with most things. 

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. 

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.

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.