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?