More Water

After another day of rainy-snow and snowy-rain yesterday (we stayed in, it was horrid!) for our exercise today we walked the canal / woods loop and the water meadows were the wettest I have seen them. At least they are doing their job and (mostly) containing the flooding to the open area. There is a footpath under this somewhere! 

This is where overflow from the canal drains into a sluice and then down to the river. The overflow has overflowed.

And nobody will be going through this gate which accesses a path through the water meadows for some time! At least the canal towpath next to it was still dry. 

It has mostly been a lazy weekend. We ordered in pizza last night for our takeaway evening, then H cooked a roast again tonight. Her boyfriend (who I am going to call G as his initial has already been taken)  has moved back in as he did during the first lockdown, which will be better for them. He is also working from home and has not seen anyone outside his family, so it seems a low risk which significantly boosts their wellbeing. Hopefully within the next few weeks they will be moving into their new home. Tonight we had a Zoom call with our neighbours and former neighbours. It was good to catch up, though Zoom conversations are never as easy and natural as seeing people in person. Hopefully it will not be too long before we can all meet up again, even if it is just outside in the garden. Yesterday was a record breaking day for vaccinations, which is good news. 

Water Everywhere

As neither of us were working today M and I originally planned to go for a walk at the country park again, but this morning it was raining again and I had some finance stuff I needed to do ahead of a trustee meeting for the brass band tonight. It brightened up by lunch time, but in the end I just couldn't face paddling through mud and puddles again, so we went for an afternoon walk into the town centre, sticking to paved paths. There is a slightly complex water system running through the town: the canal, which often features in my photos as we walk along the towpath a lot; a fairly small river which runs more or less parallel with the canal, though it wriggles about quite a bit; and a series of flood plain water meadows. In dry weather the river tops up the canal, in wet weather the canal drains into the river, and in very wet weather it all overflows into the water meadows. However, we have had so much rain recently that the overflow is encroaching into places it shouldn't be, and it is getting harder and harder to find places to walk that aren't under water. Today we planned to circle round through a riverside walk and back into town, but half way along the path turned into this ... 

Path? What path! We diverted, and cut along a dry section back to the road! Both the canal and the river are looking very brown and muddy, and the river was flowing much faster than usual. It isn't a pretty river at the best of times, and it looked very unappealing today.  More snow is forecast for tomorrow, which I for one very much prefer to the rain. 

I have made myself a small bucket list of ten things I am looking forward to doing again when the pandemic restrictions are eased. They are all things I would have taken for granted until last year, and don't include any of the big stuff like trips abroad. In no particular order:

1.  Go to the cinema

2.  Attend a live theatre performance

3.  Visit the Thomas Becket exhibition at the British Museum (supposed to be starting in the spring)

4.  Spend a day working at the British Library

5.  Go to work! 

6.  Spend an evening with one of my closest group of friends who I haven't seen since last March. 

7.  Play in an orchestra

8.  Go to Stonehenge (I almost managed that one in December!)

9.  Have a drink in a pub with friends

10.  Go swimming

I'm sure there are plenty more things I could think of, but if I manage to do all - or even most of - those this year I will be very happy. 

Small Plastic Free Steps

So ... two days of freelance work over and that is my work finished for the week. After I finished this afternoon I went to M & S Food as my menu plan had got in a muddle and I needed something for dinner. I had been avoiding shops because of the high Covid rates and leaving it to the younger and vaccinated members of the family, but the Covid rate locally has now come down a lot and I was getting a bit stir crazy so a trip to the supermarket was a minor excitement in my week. My 21 day yoga challenge fizzled on day 18 and I missed both yesterday and today, partly because I was tired (yesterday) and partly because the day ran away with me (today). I had Zoom band last night and we had a long FaceTime chat with R tonight, and I just didn't manage to make time for it. Yesterday should have been a flow class and today should have been pilates - I guess I'll have to do them next week instead. I am signed up for live classes tomorrow and Saturday, so should at least finish with a burst of effort! 

Another minor challenge I have given myself is to make small changes to avoid single use plastic in toiletries, even if it is only for myself - I am not managing to convert the rest of the family (apart from TG who has joined me in using Wild deodorant), but anything is better than nothing. Before Christmas I tried Ben & Ann's natural whitening toothpaste, which comes in a glass jar with a little wooden spatula to scoop it onto the brush. I really like this! The peppermint taste is lovely and fresh, and the couple of times I have used "normal" toothpaste since switching it has tasted chemical-ish and too much like chewing gum. They also do an activated charcoal version, but I can't get my head around the idea of brushing my teeth with something black to turn them white. 

I had various things I needed to order from Boots (lots of plastic for everyone else, but it is as it is!) so decided to try a new shampoo bar. I have been using shampoo bars for a few months, switching between bars from Lush and Faith in Nature bars, but haven't really found one I am totally happy with. I picked this one by Garnier as it was on offer, not realising that the offer also included a free tin in the same shape as the bar. It smells good and I like the tin; let's hope the shampoo matches up to the first impression. I also rarely use shower gel now, and have switched that out for nice moisturising soaps from the Body Shop. Another plastic free item I love are Hydrophil bamboo interdental brushes, which I actually find much better to use than the plastic ones - they seem a bit more robust. I haven't moved to a plastic free toothbrush - yet? - as I use an electric one on the dentist's advice. 

I am very much enjoying my current book - Sightlines by Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie. I read her most recent book, Surfacing, last year and loved it. Both are collections of essays, with those in Sightlines generally shorter. She writes beautifully and descriptively, travelling slowly and taking the time to see deep into things. So far in this book I have seen the aurora in Greenland through her eyes, been on a 1970s dig at a Neolithic henge, and visited a Shetland gannetry, a pathology lab, and a hall full of whale skeletons in Norway. 

Pretty Food Day

Another working day - I am finding that doing two full days of archive work is working out well as far as time management goes, though I'm not convinced I get as much done as it is hard not to slow down in the afternoon. We went for a 30 minute walk at lunchtime, which it very much a good thing as it gives my eyes a rest from the laptop screen, my brain a bit of down time, and getting out into daylight helps my mood. TG, on the other hand, has turned into a troglodyte and rarely leaves the house - it's a good thing she has her Zoom dance classes, so she is at least getting a decent amount of exercise. She wanted an avocado today for a task for her catering course, so we insisted she go out and get it herself, though she managed to get M to drive her down to the shop rather than walk through the icy slush. The task was about presentation, and she wanted to make this avocado, cucumber and smoked salmon starter she found on Pinterest. Slightly to her surprise it came out looking very impressive. It tasted good too! 

After I finished work I prepared the dinner and then gave M instructions on what to put into the oven and when, so that I could do a live yoga class between 6 and 7pm and dinner would be ready when I finished. Today was fish box day and I hit lucky as it had salmon, which was what I was hoping for as I wanted to roast it with new potatoes. We also had other roast veg (courgettes, mushrooms and tomatoes) and the leftovers of some red cabbage I cooked on Sunday. After dinner we ate some of this chocolate box from my Hotel Chocolat trawl. It was half price as it was left over from Christmas stock. The chocolates were so pretty it almost seemed a shame to eat them.  

Covid news is mixed. The UK death toll hit 100,000 today, and there are still many, many people in hospital so it is not going to improve for a while yet. However, case numbers are falling steadily and vaccination numbers are rising - over 10% of the population have now had their first vaccination. Our local vaccination service is almost up to 5,000 jabs given, but I think is now waiting for more vaccine to arrive. Things are now definitely going in the right direction, it is just going to take a long time to arrive at the destination. 

Snow Days

It snowed yesterday! We usually get snow that settles at least once in a year, though often it is very short-lived. Yesterday we had our first (and possibly only!) snow of the winter, with about two inches settling. At 14 TG has decided that staying snuggled up in the warm is where it's at and playing in the snow is now no longer appealing. M and I went out for a walk in the afternoon, by which time the snow on the footpaths had mostly been trampled into ice or slush. We ended up doing Saturday's walk in reverse, along the canal and back up through the woods. There was a little more snow in the evening and today has been cold so it hasn't yet melted. I don't think it will last past tomorrow though. 

By the time I got back from yesterday's walk I was exhausted. I think two weeks of daily yoga that I am not used to, together with 3 mile walks on three consecutive days, was more than my body needed. It seems I still need to pace myself a bit after last year's post viral slump. In the end I missed yesterday's yoga, although I wanted to do it as it was only a wind-down stretch. I am having issues with playing on-demand classes, which I think may be down to the yoga studio's system as I have tried everything I can think of to make it work, and when I checked our download speeds they seemed fine. Tonight I gave up and did a Yoga with Adrienne class on You Tube. I also didn't go for a walk. M had arranged to meet up with a friend for a walk while I worked this afternoon so he still got some exercise. I must admit I was glad of the rest! 

I am finding even days when I am not working are full, despite lockdown. I finished the book on Endell Street hospital I was reading yesterday and used its bibliography to pad out the list of things I want to read as background for the story of my adventurous women. I also have quite a list of archives and libraries I want to visit once it becomes feasible again. H cooked roast chicken for dinner yesterday and I was hoping there would be enough leftovers to make a chicken pie this evening. There weren't so we ended up having brunch for dinner - hash browns, scrambled eggs, baked beans and vegan sausages. 

H suggested that we spend an hour playing a board game yesterday evening before a Face Time chat she had arranged with her friends, so we played Mega Monopoly. We definitely prefer this to the standard Monopoly - it has extra properties, an extra dice, and skyscrapers as well as hotels. It sounds as though it would make the game take longer, but it actually speeds it up and makes it more interesting. TG won, making it two out of the last three games for her. She is a cautious hoarder of money and it seems to be paying off! 

One small task I did over the weekend was to download the NHS (National Health Service) app onto my phone. I hadn't realised it existed until I read a reference to it somewhere and wasn't sure quite what it would do. It turned out that it logs in through the government web portal, which means having to go through various steps to prove identity including facial matching with photo ID, but it only took me about ten minutes to get it done. I can now book medical appointments, order repeat prescriptions and view my medical records through the app, which makes things very easy. I did think about data security, but reckoned that the iPhone data is probably more secure than the NHS system, and as my data is on that already it wouldn't make much difference. 

While I remember ... we have an owl in the neighbourhood. I have been hearing it at night a lot over the last few weeks. For some illogical reason I assumed it was a barn owl even though there are no barns or similar buildings nearby, but when I listened to owl calls online I realised it is a tawny owl, which makes much more sense.    

Bacon Butty Day

Two days off have just zoomed past. Although I am sometimes fed up of lockdown, at least I am not bored! Yesterday morning we decided to repeat the woodland walk we did a week ago with our friends. The first track was very much muddier, which we soon realised was due to trucks driving up and down. A lot of trees had been cut down in a week. This part of the country park is a commercial pine plantation, with trees planted after the Second World War. The conservation trust which runs the area has decided to take down the spruce trees, leaving just native trees and some of the better fir specimens, hoping that once the land is more open it will revert to heather-covered heathland. Apparently heathland is quite rare as it depends on a particular type of soil, and the native heath was destroyed when commercial woodland was first planted in the 19th century. Walking past it smelled very strongly of pine resin! 

Further on in our walk we passed the ancient woodland, which is believed to have been there for many thousands of years. You can really see the difference between the native woodland and the plantation in these two photographs. The woodland has been "farmed" for centuries, with trees pollarded and coppiced to supply sustainable timber, while keeping the wood from becoming overgrown and overshadowed. The conservation trust now carries out this sort of work again in order to keep the wood healthy. The National Trust has a good explanation of coppicing and woodland management here. 

As usual there were a lot of water birds on the lake. I think this duck may be an accidental crossbreed involving some sort of crested duck. We timed our walk so that we could stop for a takeaway lunch again - bacon roll and coffee for me. I try to avoid eating meat when I don't know that it is ethically sourced, but I'm afraid my principles just evaporate when faced with the prospect of a hot bacon roll outdoors on a cold day. I justified it on the grounds that exceptions can be made under the pressure of a pandemic, and it is better to try and fail sometimes than not to try at all. I suspect Fridays could become bacon butty day as a lockdown treat.

Although it was a lovely morning, you can see just how wet it has been, from this path masquerading as a puddle and stream. There was also mud. After we got home I spent quite a lot of the afternoon trying to disentangle genealogical mysteries, with a certain amount of success. I cooked a slightly experimental dinner with some sea bass that came in last week's fish box, which came with a recipe for teriyaki sea bass with noodles. I suspected it would not be as easy as it looked, or as tasty - I am delighted to report that I was wrong! I will definitely cook fish this way again. 

This morning I cut M's hair for the first time as H has got bored of the job after nearly a year! It took me a while to fathom out how to use the clippers, but the end result was surprisingly good. Put it this way, he looks normal! I also did a few more necessary tasks - packaged up some jeans to return (I ordered three pairs to try, and needed to return the two I didn't want to keep), updated the supermarket order for next week, and so on. M went out and dropped off the parcel at a collection point and bought a few bits at M & S Food. He is now the designated shopper - as he has had his vaccine (1st dose, at least), there doesn't seem any point in putting myself at unnecessary risk while virus levels are still high. This afternoon we walked round one of our standard three mile circuits,  through the local woods and along the canal. 

No cooking today as it was our takeaway evening. I had an Uber Eats discount code so ordered in from a local fish and chip shop and we ate while watching the Masked Singer. M and I have also watched a couple more episodes of The English Game on Netflix, a historical drama about a football team from Blackburn which was the first professional team to win the FA Cup. It was this series which started me on my genealogy kick, as my adopted "aunt" and "uncle" (who were my grandparents in all but name) both came from Blackburn, and I remember being told that Auntie's father won an FA Cup medal - I haven't found any evidence this was true, though.  

A Sunset Walk

I am getting better about being organised with my time and pacing myself, and have got through all my work this week quite efficiently. I now have a three day weekend to look forward to. I have kept up with my yoga challenge and I am now past the half-way point - 12 days done out of 21. The afternoons are starting to get lighter, and today we didn't go out for our walk until 4pm. On our way back I was able to get some good sunset pictures. 

Yesterday afternoon I was feeling generally grumpy about what is beginning to feel like never-ending lockdowns, and realised that in large part it is the lack of anything specific to look forward to. Usually we have a holiday planned and some social events on the calendar, but for now it just isn't worth planning anything. In theory we do have holidays booked but I don't think the chances of them actually happening are very good - two have already been postponed once, and the other was booked before the pandemic. Maybe  our weekend at Disneyland Paris which has  been postponed from February to September will happen. There have already been too many disappointments over the last year to want to line up any more. M suggested that as we can't go out and do anything other than walk, we should look for small treats to cheer me up from the coronavirus blues - so yesterday I ordered some posh chocolate from Hotel Chocolat, and today we did a click and collect order from Caffe Nero for coffees and / or cakes according to everyone's preference. A gingerbread latte while I worked definitely perked up my afternoon. 

I have put together an alternative outline for my book-in-progress, though whether I can make it work, I am not sure. I have also been playing around with some genealogy, researching the families of my adoptive grandparents. I started to do this a few years ago but didn't write much down, so I am effectively starting from scratch. Yesterday evening was Zoom band practice, and I am nearly through my book about a World War I hospital in London that was run entirely by women. All in all quite a productive few days, though I still keep complaining that there isn't enough time in the day to do everything I want to do.