Week 7. VE day celebrations
Monday 4th May we had spoken to John in the evening. He had an impressive mustache at the time but had pointed out that just a few days earlier it had been an even more impressive Mexican bandit mustache. He promised to send a picture that he had taken at the time. We were not disappointed... 😄
The street WhatsApp group has been sharing pictures, this does make our road look rather more sloped than it is, but lovely to see some of the original details like railings and such.
This one is from just round the corner - the tram depo that is now a building called WDM and is a base for council road maintenance.
Bunnykins continued into the week with her crafting. She wanted to make some more trophies for her trophy stand. And some notebooks and also some lovely little cotton bobbins (cotton bobbins - what a beautiful pair of words 😀)
On Tuesday lunchtime we had an idea to do something a little different. We normally take the opportunity to sit outside and get some vitamin D. But it was a little grey. I made packed lunches for us all with crisps and fruit and snack bars and a bagel sandwich each. Then we gathered to take a register before starting on our field trip...
...to the front room! To watch a documentary about the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Tate Modern that had opened just before lockdown - only to close again. They let the BBC in to film before properly turning off the lights. It was a really nice change, we had a chat about the artworks, enjoyed our lunch in a different setting and agreed we would do it again next week.
Bear was a star pupil in terms of being attentive and well behaved😁.
In the afternoon, Bunnykins had a go at making a hammock.
We got a whole bunch made and decided to leave it until Thursday for construction.
A peaceful moment out in the garden:
On Thursday afternoon, I helped Bunnykins with her VE day school project which was to bake something based on a war time recipe. It was interesting to note that alot of the war time recipes were about how you could substitute things like eggs, but they weren't short of flour. Flour is currently the hard to get item. It's all about the packaging. At the moment, none of the catering outlets are purchasing ingredients - everything really is being sold into the domestic market via the supermarkets. So there is flour to be had...if you buy it in 16kg bags! Morrisons have been on this and have been selling flour in brown paper bags....very war time like. We managed to start getting bread flour with our veg box, but self raising flour is even harder to come by. Anyway, we went for a wartime oaty biscuit https://the1940sexperiment.com/2017/07/15/oaty-biscuits-recipe-no-163/ Bunnykins suggested that we grind up some porridge oats to get flour (which we did try) and then we also used a mix of gram flour (chickpeas) and bread flour. Anyway - they were really lovely.
Woo has decided that she wants to get better at running. She is naturally athletic but has no driving sense of competition, so her participation in sport has often been quite short lived and lacking enthusiasm. Being pushed by us just speeds up that process. She realised that the Bournemouth marathon festival might actually happen and this year she was going to run the 5k. So she asked Mark to help with a training plan. They have been going out to run in the late evening and she loves it. She loves off road stuff - a budding trail runner.
On Wednesday we had skyped Deirdre and Tim. They had talked about how Mark's great grandfather was a salvager who in his many jobs had been in charge of the salvage operation for the boat that the film whiskey galore is based on. They send through a picture; he is the chap in the middle:
Friday morning (8th May) was VE day. The normal early May day bank holiday had been moved to this Friday to celebrate. Earlier on in the lockdown, neighbors had set up a street WhatsApp group. I had suggested on there that we have an isolation street party. So, we all were going to decorate our houses and at 3pm come out to sit in our front gardens with an afternoon tea or whatever we each planned. I was going to bluetooth onto Karen's zumba speaker to play some VE day tunes https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4RG9g1SUfwts5qDHY6RtvM?si=lJhS_-FzTNqT779L5NguGQ and then at 4pm our neighbour Lee from the massively successful ACDC tribute band Hells Bells, was going to perform.
I'm not kidding - this was quite a treat! These guys are big. https://www.hellsbells.info/. Lee had promised to choose an appropriate set list - though it wasn't going to be 40s hits. Anyway, the whole idea was minimal organisation. Just message all with the plan and at 3pm get out there.
There was alot of excitement about the day, so by 9am we were out putting up decorations, starting with the petals for peace display.
This was after I had done a walking workout. 45mins covering 3 miles and with quite a pace and intensity. I certainly got a sweat on. I am converted and will add it into my routine for the weekend. I can't fit in 45 mins in the week. But Mark was taking part in a virtual relay race, which meant he was out, so I couldn't get out for an early run.
When Mark was back we carried on with the decorations - getting the bunting out.
Then got myself spruced up. Woo tried out this beautiful short tea dress that we had found at a charity shop - she looked ready to lindy hop - but she felt too self conscious which is a shame, but entirely understandable for her age.
It was lovely to chat to Karen as she set up in her garden. Seeing other people in the flesh - not just on a computer screen. A few other neighbours passed and we chatted, again, such a treat.
We came out just before 3pm and got the music linked up to the speakers. I didn't take any video of the music playing. But it was a relaxing hour. Karen's family were playing scrabble. The girls brought out some playing cards and books.
We started off with some tea and Bunnykin's oaty biscuits. Most of my china is mainly 70s retro, but Stella had got me a hamper of some lovely charity shop items including tea cups, plates, milk jug and a plain t-pot. They did the job nicely.
I loved listening to the tunes, especially a bit of Nat King Cole which was one of my grandma's favourites. She died last year. I always remember, when I became an engineer, finding out that she had been an airplane mechanic in the war. Nothing in her demeanor as my Grandma had suggested it to that point. I was always very proud of her and I do miss her. 💗
Karen had very kindly ordered us an afternoon tea from the community center that her mum is involved with. We didn't know what to expect, but it was marvelous, including in delivery method:
There were sandwiches, mini quiches, goujons, pork pies. Followed by the most delicious cakes and scones!
At 4pm we switched off the Andrew's Sisters and Vera Lynn and settled down for the performance. We had seen Lee setting out his kit and it was impressive. He had warned us earlier that in order to be heard down the street he was going to have to have some pretty meaty volume. Our neighbours that are between us and him did move out of their garden to across the road. So we had front row seats.
It was fantastic! Couldn't believe what a treat it was. Here we were, sat in the shade on our front garden, delicious food and front row to some really great live music. He would normally have a full band (and no keyboards in ACDC), but for his casual solo stuff he plays keyboard with a backing track.
I loved the song choice (as you can possibly tell from my singing along 😂)
Girls loving my singing:
I was up and dancing a number of times. There isn't much video apart from during this Roy Orbison track which doesn't show off the best of my moves ( you should have seen me for carwash 😂!!)
Something which you may detect from these videos is the number of people across the road....
Lee had told us (me and Karen), not to advertise that he was playing. We certainly hadn't, though the rest of the street knew. Maybe Lee had told a few friends. Anyway, just before 4pm people, not from our street, started arriving. They all were sitting on the wall of the park across from us in the shade. Maybe about 40 to 50 people. Alot had brought a drink with them, and as they got into the swing, the social distancing went out of the window. I didn't really feel there was anything I could do about that. We were OK on our drive; the rest of the street were being sensible. Knowing this would happen - would I organise it again? Probably - people who make those kind of decisions are going to make them with or without my help and for everyone on our street it was such an amazing boost that how could I deprive them of that by being some goody-two-shoes. Could I even prevent it? Life is complex, people are complex. I felt really anxious about it in the evening. I didn't want to post anything on Facebook because I felt responsible, but I also felt I would be judged and judged in simplistic terms. "What did you think would happen you idiot? People came and didn't social distance - you shouldn't have done it!" It's easy to judge from that side of the table and hindsight is great. Am I responsible for those people because I suggested this event? Am I sitting in a privileged position just protecting my point of view and saying - it should go ahead because I had a great time? Just because lots of people were happy about it and thanked me? I don't know the answers to any of that yet. I had concerns, life is nuanced like that, not as easily categorized into good and bad as most people would like.
The finale was "we'll meet again" sang with his daughter Heidi. I had sent out lyrics to the street, so we were all joining in.
Woo wanted another run, and graciously agreed that Bunnykins could join them.
When Woo arrived home she was buzzing. She had realised just how much she loved running. I could tell just how pumped she was. She even said it was an epiphany to realise she could just run and enjoy this thing and see beautiful places. I felt very happy for her, and glad she was taking time to think about what it meant to her. Sometimes she has found it hard to motivate herself to do things, including running. But I know from my own experience that it is important to reflect on moments like that - when before an event you didn't appreciate how you would feel after or what you could achieve. You need to know that you can't always have perfect foresight of how something will be - you just have to trust that you can do your best and try.
Bunnykins was keen to sleep out, so that was all set up:
Bunnykins is a pro at sleeping out now. Didn't hear a peep until about 7.30 am on Saturday when she came in for the bathroom and breakfast.
During the week, Woo and I had had a heart to heart about her art assignments. Apparently her art teacher thinks she's good at art and has high expectations of her because she once drew a bear really well. But Woo is adamant that she isn't any good and as evidence she showed me a set of drawings that even a mother's eye could see was a little lacklustre! I had also sat with her during one of the exercises - we were drawing a pair of teacups. Woo showed signs of great observation on the handle and then got entirely fed up after 15 minutes and walked off. I carried on an completed my cups - it's not my job to drag her to an activity - just support her when she is ready to do it. Woo's complaint to me this week was that she had found out that her work needed to be submitted - shock horror 😮...
We talked about how I agreed with the teacher and that contrary to Woo's protestations - I believed that she had the ability, she just had very little motivation to give it the effort that was needed (as witnessed with the cups). Given this, it wasn't surprising that what she had done was a bit underwhelming. I said, she had two choices as far as I could see - 1) submit what she had done and take what was coming to her on the chin or 2) take at least one of the exercises and re-do it. If we re-did the work, we would set up, she would have to commit to taking some time over it, we would take some breaks, we would chat - but she would stick with it until she had done it. I made it clear that it was very much up to her and option 1 was absolutely fine and character building as far as I was concerned. She decided on option 2, so on Saturday morning we got set up in the work room. The task she chose to repeat was to draw a still life from 5 items from her pencil case. We talked about what she might choose and in the end went with 5 different coloured pencils. I thought it was a good choice - they were recognizable, simple shapes, but there was challenge in capturing the angles and proportions of all the straight lines along with details of the ends and points, shadows and highlights.
Woo chose the soundtrack - it was a 3 hour loop of the last of the Mohican's soundtrack! Pretty driving 😂. Anyway, I was really impressed with how she stuck with it and her attention to detail. It's all about looking - really looking to check angles and proportion and distance.
I had a go too 😊
I did a bit more sewing, but ended up having to unpick it all. Nevermind - I will come back to it and I will get there.
We had got a pineapple in our veg box, so Mark made us all Pinna Colladas (not so virgin ones for Mark and I). Absolutely yummy especially enjoyed with a scone in the garden.
Woo decided she would sleep out...11:15pm she was back in...it's getting longer each time 😀
Sunday was a much drearier day weather wise. After morning yoga with Pippa and a shower I flomped around, before starting the mural painting. I hadn't included MoominPappa as yet because I realised that the spot i had for him was going to be covered by a sink. After scratching my head about how I could raise him up a bit - I had a google search and came up with this fantastic image.
Perfect! I got him sketched in and then started on the leaves of his tree. It's a bit tricky because the paint dries fast onto the white base. But I eventually got into a flow
Still an awful lot to do...
After managing a few square inches of leaves, I joined the Sunday afternoon mummies call. Then Bunnykins had a zoom call (with treasure hunt!) set up with her friends. She seemed to be having a great time, just occasionally racing past us shouting "two spoons! I need two spoons!!!" and the like.
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