Right now I feel that I could start every post exclaiming what a week, and each is more of a week than previous. I’m now sat here in front of the tv typing this post and learning that Boris has been moved into intensive care. Everything right now seems on its head; the coronavirus situation, social distancing, lockdown, our new normal, our political landscape (though to be fair, that’s been incredibly bonkers since the middle of 2016, hasn’t it?) Whatever your political views, let’s hope for a speedy recovery.
My week has involved lost photos, working until almost midnight, finally venturing out, picking my crochet up again, some gardening and getting my sourdough back on. I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the posts on social media about learning a new skill, or a new language while we’re in lockdown, and to be quite frank this is absolute tosh. My working days are actually far harder, and longer, than if I was in the office. What our team has noticed, apart from the increased workload that all comms teams are experiencing right now, is just how much we share just by being co-located, and so building that into our remote working days takes effort.
And when a process hiccup materialises as a technical oversight and out of office hours, it makes for a long night, for a lot of people. It was fixed, but not without a fair bit of angst all round. Ironically that day I’d had the morning off in recognition of the hours I’d worked. What’s more, I missed the virtual bar with friends and our online shopping delivery happened the same evening too. Overall it was quite a busy evening in this household.
I have though been making good progress with my Vintage Hearts crocheted blanket too. Above are most of the Granny Marion squares, which give a hint of just how colourful this blanket will be. I think there’s something about the rhythm and repetitiveness that’s calming, the concentration and the constant colour changes also help - though I’m currently ignoring just how many ends there will be to sew in.
We’ve been trying to make a real effort for our weekends to be different to our working week days, which isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially when MOH worked on Saturday too (it was planned, he didn’t forget what day it was). The weather helped and we spent most of Sunday in the garden, though there too the current situation is tempering just how much we do. Usually we’d be cutting back as many of our bushes as we can, and while we’d still like to do that, it doesn’t make sense to overload the council services. We’re composting what we can, though much of the woody stems and weeds which we’re currently disposing of aren’t suitable for that.
It’s good to see the garden coming back to life. The potted rhubarb’s bright pink stems were a very pleasing sight, as was the blossom on the cherry tree. The pear tree which we pruned quite heavily last year has also sprung back into life and is looking a much better shape for its haircut.
The insects too are out and about and keeping busy. I managed to snap the bee above as it made the best use of our flowering berberis; I tried, and failed, to capture an orange butterfly which kept threatening to land on our new barbecue which MOH was building. Our garden furniture is now uncovered and the barbecue is built, with just one piece left over.
Sunday night saw us lighting the fire pit and trying some star gazing. The skies above London are noticeably clearer - this photo was taken just before 8.30pm - and while not many stars are showing, it was great to be able to sit outside instead of in front of the TV, even though if it was a little more smoke-filled than usual. Let’s hope there’s more warmer weather to come, but also that people manage to stick within the social distancing rules - if you’ve been following my Instagram stories you’ll know my feelings on this.
This post is a day later than usual, that’s partly because of a self-imposed break from looking at my screen, but also because we took the day off. We didn’t achieve much, and didn’t really go anywhere - other than finally timing it right to pick up my prescription from the local chemist, but we sat with a different view, ate well and generally pottered around. Him cleaning his bike and me getting my sourdough back on. It’s been a while, but bread is the least of my grocery worries, which in case you’re wondering are fresh vegetables and dairy.
We’re doing ok getting both, the green grocers in our local parade of shops is well stocked and we’ve had a delivery from the Very Green Grocer too, and we’re using our local M&S to top up our usual monthly Ocado shop. I am a bit peeved with Ocado though, I know they’re busy and their delivery people are great, in fact our delivery on Thursday came almost two hours early, but I disagree with their latest position. On their website they’ve prioritised some customers, including the most vulnerable and those shielding (which is fair enough), but also some of “our longest-standing, most loyal customers”.
Now I’ve no idea of the criteria they’ve used here, but having been a customer for easily fifteen years, maybe more, I’m a bit peeved. People have been asked not to over-shop, and I haven’t, but now that I can’t even login to the website I’m wondering and reassessing where we do our regular. monthly shop. I’m also pretty sure, we won’t go hungry, so while I’m peeved I can’t really get too aerated about it, or where I choose to shop in future.
Though one other observation about this lockdown, is the amount of times the dishwasher is going on! Clearly it’s not that often that we eat three meals a day at home. What are you noticing most about being ‘locked down’?
Oh, and those lost photos? They’re now found and have prompted me to reevaluate how I’m using iCloud for my photo storage. I’ve no idea what happened to my photos from our holiday to Portugal last June, but I was very glad to find them on my old iPhone.