Third Time Lucky?

Yesterday was another wet and miserable day, so I didn't venture outside at all. I sorted out a few things online, including updating my shopping order and rearranging a cancelled flight back from Paris. We moved our planned trip to Disneyland from February to September, then EasyJet conveniently cancelled our flight so we were able to change the date to September at no cost. This was originally a flight booked to come back from a trip to Italy in July - the plan was to take the train out with a stop in Turin on the way to Lake Garda, then fly home. Fingers crossed it is third time lucky! 

H went to the gym in the morning. After exercising at home since she came home from uni she decided to  rejoin. It looks as though the government has decided that the measures gyms are taking to keep people safe are working, and that the benefit of exercise is greater than the risk in keeping them open. When she got home she baked sausage rolls. These are made with chicken sausage-meat, stuffing and cranberry sauce. She also makes a vegetarian version and both are very, very good. During the afternoon I read a bit of Jan Morris's Europe, knitted a good chunk of the second sock of a pair, and did a bit of writing. H was in cooking mode and made roast beef, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and all the trimmings for dinner. Definitely going to miss her roasts when she moves out, but she has promised to invite us over for dinner regularly! In the evening we did a Zoom quiz organised by a colleague from work. She has run it on three occasions, asking participants for donations for a charity which runs food banks, and has raised over £1000. 

Today was back to work. H was out doing a stock count. M worked on our last freelance job before Christmas, and I did a mix of archive and freelance work. We managed to squeeze in a 40 minute walk in between lunch and M going out to collect TG, when I spotted this rather unusual Christmas decoration! I cooked salmon from the fish box with new potatoes and broccoli for dinner and now have a slightly sore hand from an oil splash. Totally my own fault! 

Winter Picnic

The current coronavirus restrictions mean that we are only allowed to meet people outdoors, so we arranged to meet three friends for a lunchtime picnic in the park. We originally planned it for tomorrow, but the forecast was for rain all day, while today was supposed to be dry, so we rearranged. Yes, it rained. It did at least stop by the time we got to the park, but the picnic benches were very wet. After eating our lunch either standing or sitting, according to how brave or well-protected we were feeling, we went for a walk through town and along the riverside walk and canal tow path. Despite the weather, it was good to see people we don't live with (much as we love our family). I am now finding that the isolation is beginning to get to me. I am the only person in the household who doesn't go to either work or school, and my interaction with colleagues is limited to a 20 minute Teams staff meeting with no video on Monday mornings and occasional emails, with no plans for me to go back to the office any time soon. I know it is going to be a long winter, and suspect that we will be back in lock down again in January, so I am just going to have to deal with it - at least I know now that there is an end in sight, though I don't expect things to improve significantly until the spring. 

Over the past few days I have started to get back into writing and research. A couple of years ago I stumbled across a couple of sisters with local connections who served as ambulance drivers and orderlies in the First World War. The more I found out about them, the more interested I became. Once I began to research in detail I discovered one of the sisters had a lifelong friendship and partnership with another woman who was a very unusual character, and who very conveniently had written a detailed account of her war service. The more I dug, the more I found, and I am now trying to write a book about the three women and their families. I have hardly touched it this year, but I am really hoping I can be more disciplined next year and start to put in the time it needs. I have no idea whether the end result will be publishable, but I would like to finish even if it is just for my own satisfaction. I also have another book to put together, editing some documents for the local record society and writing a commentary. That one I know will be published (unless I make a complete hash of it!), though the market is pretty limited and it is definitely a labour of love, not for money - it is hardly a candidate for the Amazon best seller list! Both have a very long way to go, but I suspect the idea that I will have more time in the future is a mirage, and I should stop using time as an excuse and get on with them. Something to focus on over what looks like being a long, lonely winter can only be a good thing. 

I'm short of photos today, so here is another of my Christmas bauble collection. This one came from one of the Christmas markets in Vienna when we visited last year. Travelling so freely seems hard to imagine now. Once we are eventually able to travel again, it will no longer be as Europeans, it will be as Little Englanders, thanks to Brexit. No European health insurance cards, no fast EU citizen passport queues, restrictions on how long we can stay in European countries, and in another year, the need for a visa to travel to continental Europe. This makes me unutterable sad. So much lost, and so afar as I can see to no benefit. On top of Covid, whatever happens in the current negotiations between our useless government and the EU, we are almost certainly looking at considerable trade disruption in January after the transition period ends on December 31st. I am most worried about the possibility that there may be issues with importing medication, as I am very reliant on an asthma inhaler. Nothing I can do except hope that it doesn't take too long to sort out the initial chaos. The negotiations for a free trade agreement are not going well, with reports that PM Johnson made a hash of a visit to Brussels this week, and there are unpleasant mutterings about using the navy to chase away European fishermen in January if there is no deal. What.a mess. 

Vaccinations are Happening

This week seems to have gone by surprisingly fast without very much of note happening. The weather has still been mostly gloomy, though we have managed to walk most days. M is on the busy week of his shift rota, working Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday evenings, and then an early shift today. We both had yesterday free so went into town in the morning to run a couple of errands. As we were there we stopped at Caffe Nero for coffee and a mince pie (me) and tea and an apricot croissant (M), then went for a walk along the canal. 

When not working I have mostly been knitting, reading and watching Christmas movies with the girls. Yesterday evening we had a "live" band rehearsal, and we have one more lined up before Christmas, and we are back to driving TG to and from dance classes four evenings a week. This year the timetable has everything spread out, another year she could do the same number of classes but only go two evenings - it is very much pot luck. 

The best news of the week is that on Tuesday the Covid vaccination programme in the UK started. Priority is being given to the over 80s, health workers and care home staff and patients. A friend who works for a local hospital says it all seems very efficiently organised. Not such good news is that there were a couple of allergic reactions to the vaccination on the first day, and they are currently not giving it to anyone with a history of severe reactions to medicines, food or vaccinations. Unfortunately I had a severe reaction to my pre-school booster jabs as a child, so may not be able to have that particular Covid vaccine (Pfizer). I have been having flu vaccinations for the past few years without any problems, so hopefully there will be a vaccine option that will work for me. M came home from work at the weekend with his lateral flow testing kit, and did his first home test on Tuesday. He was a bit unsure about the instructions, and I think he was almost as pleased that the test didn't show up as a failed test as he was that it was negative. In more depressing news, case numbers in our area have gone up quite a bit over the last week, bouncing back as soon as the semi-lockdown was eased. 

I am not normally a big drinker, but I must admit I am still enjoying my gin advent calendar every day, and having fun with different mixers. This one was a gin fizz cocktail, for which I made my own sugar syrup. Today was a lime flavoured gin with soda water and lime juice. These days my digestive system seems to like gin more than lime. I also proved to myself conclusively on Tuesday what I already knew, which is that it really doesn't like dairy! I went into M & S Food while TG was at dance and bought us both discounted desserts made with clotted cream, deciding to risk it for once. They were very nice, but had more cream than I expected, and my stomach was not at all happy as a result. It is funny how these things develop - I ate dairy without any problems for over 50 years. Fortunately there are so many good non-dairy options these days that I rarely miss it. 

A final piece of good news is that H and her boyfriend exchanged contracts on their house today, which means both they and the builder are now committed to the purchase as soon as the house is completed. Next year should be an exciting one for them! 

A Weekend of Two Halves

This first photo was from our walk along the canal yesterday morning ....

And the one below is from this morning's walk through the Duke of Bedford's park at Woburn. We met up with R, her partner and dog and walked through fog, which hasn't really lifted all day. You can easily guess which day the two lower photos were taken. 

It was also a weekend of two halves for busyness. After our walk yesterday H and I cooked a roast chicken with roast potatoes, parsnips, carrots and broccoli for lunch. Then later in the afternoon I went back to the Apple Store to pick up the laptop I ordered in the morning, and stopped off at Tesco on the way to buy wrapping paper and a couple of other items. Then in the evening we had a Zoom virtual Christmas concert with the brass band and a local choir - over 200 household's logged in, so probably a total attendance of well over 300. I also managed to get the new laptop set up. Not that it takes much doing as most things just downloaded themselves from iCloud, though I did have to fiddle around a bit to get the Dropbox and Google Drive accounts that I use for work added. M had his first post-lockdown shift yesterday evening, and came home with a box full of lateral flow tests. Their accuracy seems to be questionable and they are reported to give a lot of false negatives, but if they pick up even half of asymptomatic cases that has got to be better than nothing.  

Today was a much quieter, relatively lazy day. This afternoon the girls and I watched Santa Clause 2, TG did some homework, and then we played Cluedo (which I think is Clue in the US?). Astonishingly neither girl had played before! Their older sister obviously had, as I recognised her writing on one of the clue sheets. M went to work again, so the rest of us had curry (which M doesn't like) for dinner.  

It was good to catch up with R and her partner today, as we probably won't see them again now until Christmas. She has just been offered a new job, to start in the new year, and is excited about it. It will be something a bit different - a mix of internal comms and company promotion. It will use and develop skills she already has from her current job, but also give her the chance to make media content. From what she said, it sounds almost tailor made for her. H seems to be settling in well to her job now the initial exam stress is over. She is helping to plan a virtual Christmas event, and has been delighted to discover that instead of her being the lone extreme planner, for accountants planning with spreadsheets is the norm!

Christmas Shopping

Both M and I had a day off work today, but the weather was too miserable to want to go anywhere outdoors. The forecasted snow didn't arrive, but it was cold with a persistent icy drizzle. Definitely indoor weather. I have come to the conclusion that now might be the right time to trade in my laptop - the one I am using is 6 years old and in good condition, but as I am working two jobs on it I don't want to wait until it starts to become unreliable. I did a bit of research and discovered it has a significantly higher second hand value than I expected, which makes a new one affordable. With this in mind we decided a trip to the Apple store to look at laptops would be a good (indoor!) plan. It turned out to be not as good a plan as we thought; the store was so busy that they were only letting people in with a booked time slot, and the only time available would have stopped us getting back in time to collect TG after school so we had to give it a miss. We did get to see the Christmas lights in the shopping centre, which were cheerful and festive. 

It was still a worthwhile trip, as I was able to get some small stocking fillers and oddments that would not have been worth ordering online, and M and I went to Nandos for lunch. That also involved a virtual queue, where we had to check into the queue online, and then got a text about 40 minutes later to say they had a table ready. Ordering was also digital, with a QR code on the table to direct us to the ordering site. We wondered whether this will continue to be an option or not once the pandemic is over, rather than having to stand in a queue to order. The other shopping success was that I managed to buy two tubs of orange flavoured hot chocolate from Whittards, which made the girls very happy. It was pretty busy, with significant queues for some shops. I dread to think what it will be like at the weekend.

After we got home, M and I watched some more of the excellent Queen's Gambit. I think we have just one episode left to watch now. The girls and I made homemade pizza for dinner, using a packet of gluten free pizza mix from a food hamper which was part of the instagram giveaway H won last month. It took a while for the dough to rise enough, but the end result was very good. While we ate pizza we watched Home Alone. 

Back to Not-Normal

We officially moved into Tier 2 today, with lots of restrictions but a lot less of them than we had yesterday.  We also woke up to the news that the medical authorities have officially approved the Pfizer vaccine for use in the UK, and vaccinations are likely to begin next week. The original plan was to vaccinate care home residents and staff first, but because of the cold storage conditions required for the this particular vaccine it is unlikely to be possible to distribute it to care homes. The initial vaccinations will take place at hospitals, with over 80s, care and health workers getting priority. As M's role is considered front line (although he doesn't see patients in person), there is a real possibility that he could get vaccinated before Christmas. What a gift that would be. 

I switched my routine round today to take an early walk while the weather was nice, and we drove to a local country park. A few years ago they opened a larger visitor centre and cafe, with a different entrance and a larger car park, but today we started our walk at the original entrance at the other end of the park. This was always one of our favourite places to visit when the girls were young.

These stones mark the hours for a human sundial. The girls always loved this, though more for clambering on the stones than telling the time. This part of the park was originally the grounds of a country house, with a manmade lake. I was taking photographs of a swan family on the lake when one of the adults kindly did this for me! Shortly afterwards the swans  - all five of them, parents and young adult offspring - got very agitated when an excitable dog ran down to the lakeshore. There was much hissing until the dog backed off. 

The beetle below is one of a number of wooden sculptures in the newer area of the country park. After we got home from our walk I got on with my archive work while M went for a swim. He normally swims once or twice a week, but obviously had to stop when everything shut down in the spring. The pool reopened in the summer, but he never got round to going back. Over the last few weeks he has been getting backache - not at all unusual for him as he suffers from severe scoliosis, but this was a particular muscular ache which he suspected may be down to the lack of swimming exercise. The pool was open again today, so he booked himself a slot for late morning. 

 

I had to work through the afternoon to get everything done, but did manage an hour or so of downtime to read and carry on with the socks I am knitting as a Christmas present for a friend. I also poured myself today's gin to drink while I relaxed. Advent calendar gin number 2 was "moonshot". I just looked it up and it was made with botanicals and moon rock that had been sent into (near) space. What? Really? It seems so! I can't imagine how someone thought that one up. It was good gin, but I would have appreciated it even more if I had discovered its origins before drinking it. 

This evening TG had in-person dance classes, H had a Zoom quiz with her work colleagues and I had Zoom band. We now know that we can go back to in-person rehearsals, under stringent conditions, but the guidance came out too late to organise it for this week. I actually quite enjoy the Zoom band. We use breakout rooms which allow for more direct coaching than we would get normally. I am also lazy enough to appreciate not having to go out in the cold and drive to a rehearsal! 

Staying Home Part 2: Day 27

Today is the last day of the current coronavirus restrictions. From tomorrow all shops and restaurants can open again, and pubs so long as they serve meals, with eating out restricted to household groups. TG's dance classes can take place at the studios again, and we can hold in person band practices again, so long as we stick to the same Covid safe arrangements as before (2m distancing, bell covers, masks when not playing, and so on). 

For the first time in many years (decades?) I have an advent calendar, with a small single measure bottle of gin for each day of the month. Part of me feels a little guilty for succumbing to the commercialisation of Advent, but this year of all years it the rest of me likes the idea of having something a bit fun to look forward to each day, and that part won. I am not a big drinker, but my current preferred indulgence is a gin and tonic in the evening, so I will enjoy working my way through these. 

Today's bottle turned out to be cherry gin, which I have never had before. Neat, it smelled a bit like old-fashioned cherry-flavoured cough medicine, but it tasted good with tonic. I think it would also be a good base for cocktails. While I am on the subject of little luxuries, Whittards are kindly replacing not just the spilled hot chocolate, but the entire box of items. Unfortunately the orange flavoured hot chocolate H and TG were looking forward to is now out of stock, so we are getting cinnamon flavour instead. 

Today was another routine work / school day. The timer on the car climate control is now working well, which makes going out early on cold mornings much more pleasant.  It was a nice, cold but bright day, so M and I did a 2 mile local walk (avoiding mud today!) after he collected TG from school. TG had a catering practical class today and brought home lasagne she had made. As she is the only person who both can and will eat the cheese in it, she ate half of it as a pre-dance "snack" today, and will have the rest tomorrow. She has grown a lot this year and is still getting hung, so maybe the growth spurt isn't over. H had her first trip out of the (home) office for work, to help with a stock count in a cold warehouse about 75 minutes drive away. It didn't take too long and I think she enjoyed the opportunity just to go somewhere and do something!