Reflecting on my week #131

For a short work week, last week was a long week. But, isn’t that so often the case? As well as the bank holiday, I had some additional time off - and taking leave right now, is still weird, but then again, who wants to be left with plenty of leave to take in winter - not me! I knew that only working two days ahead of a week off would make for long days, but the lure of a week off would make it bearable. It’s also reassuring that MOH also encounters the same before taking leave too, but I think being at home exacerbates this, as you don’t see and regulate your own behaviour, and hours, against colleagues.

This week we were supposed to be in a holiday cottage in the Lake District, following my brother’s wedding in Yorkshire over the weekend, which you’ll not be surprised to know didn’t happen either, though we did still celebrate the day. We’ve also delayed our Lake District visit, and our plans are now for June 2021, but even as someone who likes a plan, we’re usually not advance bookers for holidays. So in some ways it feels odd, in others entirely normal and we were both certain that delaying, rather than cancelling completely, was the right thing to do.

That was a decision needed at the start of May, and at the start of June although some lockdown restrictions are changing, travelling from London to the Lakes for a holiday, still isn’t the most sensible thing to do.

It has been a week of deliveries, including online shopping and a vegetable delivery and some birthday presents and plants. I ordered some squash and courgette plants as I was too late to start my own from seed, and some lettuce as we’re currently ‘eating Salad for England’ and our local supermarket majors in bags of leaves, which we’re already tiring of.

They were joined by a selection of chilli plug plants - the chef’s collection, some chillies of the week and a padron pepper plant from World of Chillies. I’ve not used them before, and wasn’t aware of them before either, but have been impressed by their speed, the selection and importantly their plants. I hadn’t had any luck germinating my own seeds, so these are another welcome addition, though I am fast running out of space in the greenhouse.

For the first time I think ever, MOH made me a birthday cake so he’s finally joined the lockdown baking gang, with a very good Victoria Sponge, which is quite often my cake of choice on our National Trust cafe visits. And well timed, as our cherry flapjacks are coming to an end.

There were birthday deliveries too, a bottle of rum with a note that rum is the new gin and an accompanying spice pack, which smells divine (and useful to test that it seems I’m Covid-19 free) and some cabbages.

The porcelain sort. Finally.

Usually when I’m pondering new crockery MOH is the voice of reason asking if we really need it, and where it would go. Not this time though, possibly because he’s a fan of the cabbage range, or because he’s spent too much time looking at cabbage crockery in shops which haven’t been fruitful (or cabbage-ful), or because there’d been some extensive cabbage research in advance, I’m not sure.

He definitely remembers the time in Portugal where I’d chosen which piece I wanted and our plan was to head back to buy it the next day to avoid carrying it around all day. Only to find the shop closed when we returned, and using Google translate discovered it wouldn’t reopen for the rest of our stay. So, so close to my first purchase!

But cabbages arrived, were admired and were quickly found homes on the dresser. You can see the cabbage plate, behind the domed cabbage cheeseboard (which is huge) in pride of place, and it’s fair to say the cabbage collection is well and truly started.

There is, it seems, a lot of cabbage porcelain out there. Both the plate and cheeseboard are by Bordallo Pinheiro and are from Arket and Divertimenti respectively. I also looked at a flat plate, from Liberty (and reasonably priced considering), a cabbage tureen (less reasonably priced!) and plenty more. Marks & Spencer have some cabbage salad bowls, two sizes both less than twenty quid, but weren’t quite what I was after, at least just yet.

We’ve also had a bit of a family week, with a fiftieth birthday (the second this month), a baby announcement - I’m going to be a great aunt, and an online ring ceremony to replace the postponed wedding. For the latter our usual video conferencing higgedly-piggledy setup was enhanced with some relatively healthy snacks, and a bottle of fizz.

As only fitting for the occasion, we donned hats - a flat cap for MOH, and a straw sunhat for me - and washi taped roses from the garden to our t-shirts, as buttonholes. We wore shorts of course, as did the unofficial bride and groom - I suspect none of us will be wearing shorts for the ceremony proper next April!

There is one final delivery that can’t go unmentioned, and that’s the poppadums which arrived as part of our online shop.

I’d ordered two packs, as we’d run out and they’d been particularly hard to source and were out of stock for our last online shop. Two packs, each containing ten packs of most likely at least ten poppadums arrived, so safe to say they’ll last us a while, and it could explain they’re unavailability!

Poppadum anyone?

Reflecting on my week #130

I’m having a slow and relaxing to the start of the week, with a bank holiday weekend and additional leave thrown in too, and it’s been great. MOH also took the day off yesterday, but he’s back to work today at the dining room table while I have another day off. It’s been nice to spend some time away from the screen, and while I planned to catch up with myself, sometimes I think you just have to go with the flow and not feel guilty about it at all (well hardly at all)

For me, screen time, has been the most challenging part about working from home and it’s taken a while to fathom out why. I mean, in usual times I spend a lot of time online at both home and work, but I’ve realised recently that these are punctuated by commuting breaks, which of course isn’t happening now. Instead the two screen activities - work and blogging - have merged into one, with work hours tipping over into time I used to blog in. And that’s where the pressure has built up, there’s not enough time to do both, and it’s been here that’s happened less. I’m ok with that for short periods of time, but it’s not something I want to perpetuate for longer than it needs to. The break helps, but also doesn’t, as that doesn’t get blog posts written, or read, either. But recognising where the pinch is, helps I think.

And so does our monthly delivery of gin. With a longer weekend than usual, some lovely weather then gin - this one is Gin Aux Agrumes and garnished with juniper berries and orange, is the latest offering from the gin box, and is from the only distillery in Monte Carlo. I’ve a feeling this one won’t hang around for long - and that’s potentially a good thing as our drinks trolley is looking a little full right now.

We’ve been spending more time in the garden and slowly the flowers have turned from their spring yellows and blues to pinks. There’s still lots to do, but part of that is always to enjoy the peonies - which this year seem to be growing horizontally - and the self-seeded aquilegias. Another pink to add to the list is the Gertrude Jeckyll rose, which is adding pink pops to the trellis on the patio.

Our cherries are coming along, and the pigeons have left us some. Hopefully we’ll win the race against them for at least the cherries we can reach - wish us luck!

In more celebratory news, I finally managed to thread the needle on the sewing machine. I’d tried and tried, and the tried to make the automatic needle threader work, but with no joy. Inspiration struck though, and with my contact lenses out, I had success. So with the needle threaded I was able to make great headway (no pun intended) with the masks I cut out a week or so before.

The diddy iron also helped - it’s an early birthday present (thanks mum and dad) and will, I think, encourage me to sew more. I know that’s an odd sentence, but as a reluctant sewer and and even more reluctant ironer, anything that makes this harder - like having to move between floors, or moving the iron to another floor - means very little sewing. Now the diddy iron can live in the same room as the sewing machine, and I’ll have removed one of the excuses I have for sewing.

I’m pleased with the masks - well as pleased as you can be about masks - they fit us, haven’t fallen apart and the actual sewing part looks good. They’re made from old shirts which I’d kept for many years, nominally for patchwork, but they work for this too. They are on the dark side, and therefore warm when the weather is as warm as it has been, so I will make some in lighter colours too.

Mum had sent a lighter coloured shaped version which is great, and I’m planning to make some of those too. Without much evidence, or actual use yet, I think my preference will be for those that tie rather than the elastic version, as I’m already struggling with having too much hair growing around my ears, and while I’m hacking that back as best I can, I think I’ll fiddle less with the tie behind my head.

It’s also hard to know how many masks we’ll need. I mean, they should only be worn once before washing, and if they need to be worn to and from work, that’s at least two a day (not that we know when office-based work will resume) and let’s face it my washing isn’t always that prompt either, so I’ve a feeling we’ll need more than we think. I think though that I’ll keep making a few every now and then, just so we have some.

The hardest lockdown thing for MOH is knowing his mum is on her own, especially following a recent health scare. We all know that video calls and phone calls don’t make up for seeing people in real life, even when that’s socially distanced. So after much debate he cycled down to check on his mum in person, and had planned to get the train back (it’s forty miles away) The train thing didn’t really sit well with either of us, so I got in my car for the first time since the lockdown started and drove to pick him up. While he finished cutting the grass and mending some trellis, I amused myself and took some photos of her garden, and it was so nice to have something different to photograph. And it was weird to be driving again.

Our garden is making the most of the nice weather and continues to grow. We aim to bring it back into control bit by bit, and often our intended jobs get thrown off track a bit, and that was the case this past week. The plan was to tidy up the forsythia and trim the lilac, now that both have finished flowering. The forsythia is done and is looking as we wanted, but what we didn’t realise was that it was also supporting a hefty chunk of one of next door’s tree, or bush. Either way, our plan changed and so that’s now tackled too, instead of the lilac. It’s one of those plants that have a lot of branches, and while the law says we can cut what overhangs and return the cuttings, like many neighbours our unwritten agreement is more practical than that, making use of each other’s green bins as appropriate.

The lilac will need to wait for another day, along with finishing cutting the euonymus and another hedge-like bush, which I always call the slopey bush (because of its shape), which we are waiting to flower. There’s plenty of other jobs to do too, and hopefully we’ll be able to tackle most of these - green bin space permitting - in our week off next week.

I know I’ll have a busy couple of days at work making sure everything’s done - or as done as it can be - before that week, but in the meantime I also know that you have to enjoy yourself (and your garden) too.

A mojito made with rum from our trip to Barbados and home grown mint, seems just the thing.

Lockdown learnings #1

I mentioned earlier in the week that there’s plenty of time right now for reflecting, and I’m no different. I’m a bit of a list lover (ok a lot) and so I’ve been doing what I do best, and making a list. They are my observations and our experiences, yours may of course be completely different, and that’s ok. I’ve pondered about sharing these, how to categorise, should they be funny or serious and whether to share at all. I don’t have the answers to many of those and have decided it’s important to me to record these, and that simple is often best, so that’s what I’m doing.

A natural grouping happened as I reread the list, and so, I’m starting with food, and food related things. Which, is never a bad place to start is it?

As this crisis started, things started to be in short supply - including, bizarrely toilet roll (why?), something I never thought could cause so much angst for so many, though obviously if you haven’t got any it’s easy to see why.

1 Sourdough breakthrough

Yes, let’s get the lockdown cliches out of the way first. Everyone seems to be making sourdough, and while I’ve been making it on and off for years, often teasing my starter out of semi-retirement in the process, I’ve upped my sourdough game.

The trouble is, as I’ve said before, homemade bread doesn’t hang around for long, it’s too bloomin’ tasty! And in the past few weeks I’ve made some of my best loaves in a while. I’ve discovered, quite by chance, that if I leave my starter wetter, it makes a better loaf.

It also seems to make for a more active starter, as it’s burst out of its ice cream container home a couple of times too. Which in a full fridge isn’t always welcome…

2 A baking cliche too, banana bread

Yes, I’ve made banana bread too, probably in week 1 of lockdown (it’s the end of week 9 as I write this post). It seems to be the cake of choice, and it’s a very good choice too. I am one of those people that’s quite fussy about my bananas, there’s an optimum ripeness for eating, and anything before or after that isn’t enjoyable.

So once they’re past this stage, bananas are either destined to be eaten by MOH, banana bread, breakfast muffins or the freezer (I peel and store in takeaway containers) ready for use another day.

And so far, we’ve done all of these. Some of the frozen bananas have even made it out of the freezer too.

3 In short supply

It’s probably all the baking going on, but here we’ve struggled to buy flour and sugar. Bread flour arrived with our supermarket shop, which was good news and recently we were able to buy some self-raising flour on a local shopping trip too, so it’s ok. I’m not much of a ‘fine and precise’ baker, but my cakes are edible and some flour is better than none.

At one point though I was quite concerned about eggs, or being able to get some, though that was thankfully just a bit of a blip. Butcher’s bacon was more of a disappointment for MOH, but that too is now back to normal, and still much tastier than anything a supermarket sells.

4 We drink a lot of tea

That’s mostly because during the working day MOH makes a lot of tea! I’m not really complaining of course, but I’ve never drunk so much. I think partly because my working day used to involve me running between meetings for most of the day, so cups of tea didn’t happen. Sometimes I’d remember to take a water bottle along, and even sometimes remember to drink it.

MOH was also clearly perplexed by my work day drinking habits, or lack of them, and quite seriously asked if I had a Butler at work to make tea for me. I don’t, but have asked him if he’d consider the position when office life resumes. He wasn’t keen.

We now have a new tea regime, which involves drinking ‘funny tea’ as MOH calls it in the afternoons. ‘Funny tea’ is anything that doesn’t come out of the usual tea bag container, and includes rooiboos, chai, green, mint etc.

We’ve even threatened to break open the tea pot and loose leaf tea, but haven’t reached that stage quite just yet. Or not least, during the working day.

5 A pretty plate helps

We used to take lunch to work two or three days a week, and grab something on the other days. Now lunches are a bit more planned, as grabbing something is no longer an option. I’ll admit though, planning lunches and dinner is dull, and I’m the person who likes a plan. But it helps avoid those ‘we’re hungry, what shall we eat’ conversations, when quite frankly no one is at their best.

Some days/weeks I’m more resourceful than others, cooking some extra pasta the night before for pasta salad for lunch; some leftover potatoes for a Niçoise salad, or finally opening some tinned fish which had been labelled as ‘too smelly’ for the office, but actually wasn’t and was rather tasty.

And yes, a pretty plate helps. So does being able to eat lunch in the garden.

6 Husbands and pulses don’t mix

However, a word of caution. It may just be our household, but overloading one of us with too many pulses isn’t a recipe for success.

Just saying. Lesson learnt.

7 The dishwasher is having a fantastic workout

With all this eating at home, our dishwasher is having a better workout than me! Seriously.

There’s another upside to this lockdown that I don’t want to overlook, and that’s we seem to be making a breakthrough in where things go in the dishwasher. I still occasionally have a slight rearrange, for old times sake, but goodness, it’s only taken almost twenty years.

Apparently I’m exaggerating, it’s only 17 1/2 years, and anyway, sometimes the plates, dishes, mugs fancy a change….!

8 More Margot than Barbara

My vegetable growing is off to a slow start this year, only two (late planted) broad beans have shown up, and to repeat what I think I’ve said here before, this year might be the year for broad beans with Christmas lunch at this rate.

My tomatoes are also slow starters, and way behind where I’d hoped they would be, so they will be receiving some attention this weekend. My spinach is just starting to get going, and some turnips which I’d sown after remembering how well they grew on the allotment, and how pretty they were, have been a little munched.

Munching, or selective munching has also happened in the greenhouse with basil, marigolds and one half of the lettuce seed tray left as stalks. I’ve still to work out if it’s the spicy lettuce mix, or the softer farmer’s market mix that’s gone. I bet it’s the latter, as that’s the one I was most looking forward to. I’ve sown more of each, and taking better precautions, so hope to find out relatively soon.

So I’m definitely not feeling very Barbara, I’ll share why I’m feeling more Margot in a future list. And if that sentence made no sense, it’s a Good Life reference.

9 No weekday chocolate ‘fix’

Often while grabbing lunch, I’d pick up some chocolate too, most likely a Twix or Maltesers, or sometimes the very best cherry flapjacks baked in the cafe on site. The sort that are so sweet that you can feel the sugary-ness coat your teeth. And obviously I’d try and choose the largest one, with the most glacé cherries in - quite a skill, and a big decision.

Well, that’s stopped too. And despite having sweet treats each day, and doing less exercise - I am no longer walking an hour each day to and from work, and don’t make use of my permitted hour of exercise, I’ve needed to ask MOH to add a hole to my belt, as my clothes were too loose.

Certainly food for thought there.

10 Fridge Jenga

Eating more, well all, our meals at home, combined with trying to keep shopping trips to a minimum means more food in the house, and the fridge. Our fridge is currently operating at a Fridge Jenga level usually reserved for Christmas. I have found, and expect to continue to find, MOH peering in wondering i) where things are and ii) what’s safe to move to avoid an avalanche. As that’s entirely possible, I usually rescue him, it’s easier all round, and better than retrieving blueberries from all over the kitchen - they’re pesky little wotsits for escaping.

I also have been know to marvel out loud about how everything fitted in. Of course I have a list of what’s in there, just so I know. And yes, I really do.

Well, that turned into a longer post than I expected, but quite a cathartic one too. There’s plenty more on my list so I’m sure there’ll be further posts, in the meantime what’s on your lockdown learnings list?