Spring Flowers and Cake

We enjoyed our visit to Ascott House yesterday. Looking back at old blog posts it looks as though the last time we went was in July, when it was warm, sunny and very green. The best that could be said about yesterday is that it was dry!

There were areas which will soon be completely carpeted with daffodils. Some are already in flower, but they haven't yet reached their full effect - another couple of weeks and it will look spectacular. 

After our walk round the grounds we enjoyed drinks and cake at the cafe, which was open for takeaway. Our order got a bit mixed up, so M ended up eating my slice of lime and coconut cake and I had coffee and walnut which they gave him instead of his Victoria sponge. No complaints, though, as it was very good. Then in the evening, H bought us all a takeaway from Nandos. As M was working this afternoon, we had a big brunch this morning before he left, then TG and I took advantage of his absence to have pizza (which M doesn't eat) delivered for dinner. Very lazy having two takeaways in a row! I am intending to get back into healthy eating habits after Easter, so it won't become a habit. 

TG and I have decided to go back to watching regular movies together, so this afternoon we watched The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. We are building up a list of things we want to watch or rewatch. Part of the plan is to tackle the Marvel movies. We have only seen a couple of the Avengers movies and one (or maybe two?) of the Guardians of the Galaxy series. 

Isn't this colourful planter full of spring flowers gorgeous! Makes me wish I didn't have black thumbs and could achieve beautiful things like this. At least I have managed to keep two pot plants alive which for me is a huge achievement!

Over Thursday and Friday I wasn't feeling great, with a sore throat and tight chest - nothing awful, just a slight cold, but enough not to want to do too much so I skipped my yoga "splits challenge" classes. I did at least manage a shortish walk on Thursday and the walk round Ascott yesterday. I didn't have any Covid symptoms and my vaccine should be giving me at least some immunity by now, but I used one of M's lateral flow tests just to be sure. I know they are not particularly reliable, but a negative test is still reassuring. I'm feeling much better today, so did a yoga stretch class and went into town with M this morning to run a couple of errands. 

The vaccine rollout passed a milestone yesterday, with half of UK adults now having had at least one dose. Most will only have had that single dose, as the decision was taken to allow up to 12 weeks between doses so that more people would get at least some level of protection more quickly, but the data so far is looking as though that was a good call. Death rates and hospitalisations are falling fast, although the drop in cases is slowing down. Sadly across most of mainland Europe cases are rising and many countries are heading into a third wave. I hope they can catch up with their vaccination programme and that it won't be too long before they can turn things around. 

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. 

Deer Spotting

It is R's birthday on Monday (26! how did that happen?) so after M got home from work we met her at Woburn for a walk and to deliver her birthday presents. The deer in the Duke of Bedford's park were out in force today, with some large groups in the area where we were walking. 

TG's first day back at school yesterday went OK. She was happy to see her friends, but found having to wear a mask in all her lessons uncomfortable - last term the rule was masks in corridors and a break time, but not during lessons - and complained that an extended tutor time first thing meant missing PE. Her latest growth spurt has meant she has overtaken a couple of friends who were always much taller than her, rather to their annoyance! I rather enjoyed the novelty of getting up and driving her there in the morning. It was nice to have a little bit of normal back. 

A steady stream of packages are arriving for H as she gathers up stuff for her new home. They are now working towards a moving date of 31st March, which works out quite well as she doesn't have any work commitments that day, and will have the long Easter weekend to sort things out and get settled in. 

I am doing a three week yoga "splits challenge", which is a mix of live and recorded classes. The idea is not so much to seriously aim at achieving the splits, but to loosen tight muscles and increase mobility. Last night's stretching class left me stiff and achy today, so I decided to have today as a rest day instead of tomorrow. No pain, no gain? 

Back to School

Even after a year of being almost entirely at home, it still surprises me how quickly time passes. I have mostly settled in to working two full days at my archive job. Occasionally I will have a day when I just can't get into what I am doing, or spend too long on one thing, and then it can drag, but fortunately that isn't happening too often. Although M went back to work last week he had the weekend off and will not be working again until Saturday. H has a week of (remote) college this week, and TG has been doing online school but is back to school in person tomorrow. We had to do an emergency order for a new pair of school trousers as she had outgrown her previous pair, and rather a lot of mud had to be got off her trainers. I am very grateful that her school's uniform rules allow black leather trainers (sports shoes) as they are comfortable, practical and robust. In fact, her uniform generally is comfortable and practical - burgundy cotton jumper, white polo shirt and plain black trousers (not jeans or leggings). No faffing with ties or blazers.   

I am usually managing to squeeze a walk into my working day and we managed to get out on both Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday was wet and nasty, so I stayed in, though M decided to walk down to Tesco to get a few bits. I did drive to M & S Food in the afternoon, also to get a few oddments, but mainly to pick up a click and collect order. I got the oddments but completely forgot about the order until M asked about it this morning. Oops! He then kindly went and got it for me. This afternoon he also went to Waitrose to pick up a John Lewis click and collect order. Our vacuum died at the weekend; it was a cordless one and refused to recharge. Fortunately it was still under warranty, and as the John Lewis stores are closed we were told to send it back via a courier and given a refund. We ordered a replacement which has a five year guarantee - given the speed we seem to get through vacuums this is a very good thing! After he got back from collecting the vacuum we set it up and tested it. The last one was a Bosch; this one is a Shark and on first impressions we like it a lot better, so the unexpected demise of its predecessor has turned out to be a good thing. We then went out for a short walk before cooking dinner. 

Covid rates are still falling steadily, though a bit more slowly. Our local council issues a Covid report every week, and today's really showed the effect of vaccinations on older people working through into falling cases. The graphic on the left is all cases in our area since the start of the pandemic, and the one on the right the last week, with no cases at all in the over 70s and none in women over 60. Very encouraging! Here's hoping that things don't start to go downhill again now the schools are back. 

A Busy Weekend

Although it was only two days ago Friday has already receded into the mists of time and I can't remember much about it, except that we ordered fish and chips for dinner. In times of lockdown even small things like a takeaway provide some excitement in a day. Ah, yes ... M also took TG in to school for her pre-return Covid test. He had emailed in a copy of the consent form, and gave her the hard copy to take in just in case. The email had gone astray and TG forgot the form, so she had to come back out to the car and get him to fill in another one. Shades of past frustrations when we have sent various daughters to school with forms, letters and so on which they have then failed to hand in. Something about school bags apparently causes them to grab pieces of paper and refuse to release them - I used to periodically ransack their bags for "forgotten" letters home, fortunately now I can usually just check the school website! 

Yesterday we went for our longest walk in months, coming in at over 5 miles according to my watch, with a long stretch along the canal. The new lock gates are now in and working. There was a boat going through as we passed. There hawthorn bush we saw beginning to bloom last week had more flowers, and I noticed a few others flowering. After the canal we walked round the lake, which looked beautifully blue in the sun. On the way back home we ran into someone we know but hadn't seen for a long time, so stopped for a (socially distanced) chat. 

Our holiday plans have evolved some more, and we decided to add in a trip to Greece at the beginning of August. Greece is supposedly planning to accept British tourists from May onwards if they have either been fully vaccinated (M and I) or have a negative Covid test (TG, we hope!). Their record on Covid has been pretty good, and we think it is likely that if the British government allows us to go abroad Greece is one of the most likely countries for a travel corridor. We are usually independent travellers, but this time we booked through a large travel company as it has good policies in place for refunds and alterations if necessary and we wanted that security. Whether it will happen or not, I don't know, but now we have been vaccinated, we are comfortable with the idea of flying again. TG says she misses airports! If it happens, it will be our first holiday on the Greek mainland rather than an island - we have booked to go to Parga, on the western coast opposite the Ionian islands. 

Yesterday was a big day for H and her BF as they were able to go inside of their house for the first time so they could take some measurements. It is now all done except for flooring and turf in the garden. Apparently the NHBC inspection needs to be done before they put the flooring in. That should take place at the beginning of next week and everything should be finished soon after. Then it just needs the final paperwork doing and the money transferring, and the house will be theirs. Very exciting for them! 

M went over to Milton Keynes bright and early this morning for his second vaccine dose, so he is now officially "done". He had the Pfizer vaccine, which has again left him with a very sore arm. No other side effects so far, though he was warned the second dose is often worse than the first. While he was out I did a yoga class - or, rather, attempted a yoga class. I haven't slept well for much of this week, though last night was much better, and that combined with yesterday's long walk had left me overtired and wobbly. My balance is poor at the best of times; today it was atrocious. I stuck it out to the end, though I had to take lots of rests. We went out for a walk again this afternoon, but only a short one. I cooked our Sunday roast today instead of H. She usually likes to do it but had quite a lot she needed to catch up on this weekend and so was short of time. I'm hoping for another good night's sleep before my working "week" starts tomorrow (not sure I can really count two days as a working week!). As I write this our neighbourhood owl is being very noisy - lots of hooting. Do owls get louder in the spring like other birds, I wonder? 

Travel Plans

A couple of unusual photos today. We took a slightly different walking route a few days ago and I spotted these old calculating machines in the window of an accountant's office. The top one I know is a comptometer - I am just old enough to have worked in an office with someone who was originally a comptometer operator, and still had one on her desk as she found it quicker for some types of calculation than an electronic calculator. This was a probably about ten years before PCs became commonplace in offices. 

I felt fine after my vaccine with no side effects at all on Tuesday, then yesterday it hit me with tiredness so that I spent the day blundering around with a foggy brain and general wobbliness. Today I am back to feeling fine again. 

We have been in holiday planning mode lately. We realised that our original plans for this year were not going to work out, but wanted to have something to look forward to so booked a short break at Brighton (one of TG's favourite places) during summer half term at the beginning of June. We have also booked a week by the sea at Tenby in Wales in August. Somehow M and I have never been to Wales together, though we both spent holidays there when we were younger. The last time I went was to an academic conference over twenty years ago, and none of the girls have ever been. It will be nice to visit a different part of the UK.  

Over the last couple of days we have also started developing a plan for next year, by which time we are assuming that international travel will be possible again. We had been hoping to visit Canada sometime over the next couple of years, and we also want to replace our cancelled trip to Disney World. M suggested that maybe we could combine the two, and after much calculating and budgeting it looks as though a combined Canada / US holiday will work. The plan is to fly to Toronto and spend a few days there, followed by a few more days at a lakeside resort a couple of hours away. Then we will fly down to New York for 3 days. After that M will fly home, and TG and I will fly down to Orlando where H will join us for our Disney trip. M thought about coming to Florida with us, but came to the conclusion that he really wouldn't enjoy it enough to be worth the cost. For TG and myself in particular it will be an amazing adventure if it works out. Even just planning and discussing possibilities seems an act of faith that the end of the pandemic is in sight. Here's hoping it really is! 

Celebrating with my Vaccine Recovery Kit!

So, vaccine dose one is done! And I am so very grateful for the scientists and healthcare staff who made it possible. M and I watched an interview with one of the leading vaccinologists working on the Oxford-AstraZeneca back in April last year and she was so clear and calm and confident that there was a high chance that the vaccine they were working on would be viable. It was, and is now being rolled out around the world. What an extraordinary achievement! 

This evening I celebrated with a glass of gin from the "Covid recovery kit" (his description!) that M brought home for me at the weekend - a gift box from from M & S with four small bottles. So far I feel fine, with not even a sore arm. I know a lot of people feel under the weather to various degrees the day after the vaccine, so I am prepared for the possibility of an "off" day tomorrow. 

I started work early this morning and managed to get a full day of archive work in despite the trip out for the vaccine. There was quite a queue, and it took nearly an hour between arriving at the vaccination centre and getting out at the other end. On the way home we stopped at Next to pick up a couple of click and collect orders. After two months of lockdown this was a major excursion!

Apart from the vaccine trip I have been very lazy today and not exercised at all. However yesterday I did my first yoga class in a couple of weeks - my back didn't object, which is great - and followed it with a four mile walk in the afternoon. There was blue sky and some early blossom in a couple of places. Between the beginning of spring and the speed of the vaccine rollout, everything looks so much brighter and more hopeful.