Week 19 - Libraries, Garden Crafting, Earache and Walking

Week 19 - Libraries, Garden Crafting, Earache and Walking.

Monday

Went for my run. It was pouring down with rain, but I thought I would go anyway. I didn't mind the rain, but I was struggling with the run in general.


It was Karen's birthday today. I was checking on facebook for the timing of her zoom class and saw the memories from her 40th birthday. She ran a marathon around the park to raise money for Beat and we had a party on the front drives. People joined her for laps (including the girls 😀 ).

Bunnykins joined me in the workroom. She wanted to make yoga mats for her Lotties. I remembered I had some foam sheets which worked out perfectly. They are sticky back so she decided to add on a fabric backing.

We talked about what else the Lottie house could do with and I suggested a garden. Bunnykins was enthused about what she could make and we had a little wander around looking for materials.


I joined Karen's class at 10:15. It was on zoom but from Winterbourne where she was doing a live class. It was a lovely atmosphere. Bunnykins joined me which I just loved. We chat all the way through - we make up silly descriptions for the moves - there was one that Bunnykins described as being in a shop changing room and pulling back the curtains to say "what do you think?" she had a huge smiley silly face on her and it was fantastic.


I grabbed a shower, then headed off to Hannam library where I was to pick up some books for Bunnykins and a Summer Reading Challenge kit. I had known Ben would be on duty, it was lovely to see him to pick up the things and we arranged to grab some lunch.

There wasn't really anywhere open on the high street. I was parked in the library car park and it was raining on and off. We walked up to the Lidl and bought a few things to eat then sat in the car. Ben sat on the tailgate and I curled up on the back seat. It was really nice and we were fortunate that it didn't rain too hard for the duration.

Back home I asked the girls to help me with the cleaning. They were great. Woo did the hoovering and Bunnykins helped clean the sinks and put the towels in the wash. I did the loos, front door furniture and then cleaned the shower which was in need of a really good scrub. I then got on with the mopping.


Bunnykins was crafting furiously. She had made herself a tree for the garden and was busy fixing it in place.  I mopped around her as she had enough resources that she didn't need to move a while. I did my 10 minute yoga and then came back to chat about the progress of the garden.

We watched loads of videos about how to make dolls house garden furniture. Main conclusion is we could do with a glue gun 😂.


I got tea ready and afterwards had a short sit down and read. I thought I might give the portrait thing a go. I decided to use the computer webcam rather than a mirror which seemed an interesting reflection on our lockdown and zoom society.

I then fancied having a bit more of a play. So took a couple of pictures with the webcam and thought I would try sketching over them.

That was kind of fun and easy, so I also traced what I had sketched over the top. Not sure what I will do with this. I am hoping to get the girls to finish theirs tomorrow so I might mess around a bit more with it.

I was feeling pretty knackered after that really. It was a beautiful evening. The sky and all the trees were lit up golden for a while. As I went to say goodnight to the girls, Woo's bedroom curtains were open. We both lay on her bed a while looking at the colour on the trees and having a cuddle. 

Tuesday

 Did my walking workout and my yoga. Bunnykins was already getting going with her crafting.

We were booked in for a library pick up slot at the Staple Hill library for 10.15am. Both girls walked up with me. We then had a walk to visit the charity shops on the high street.  I was interested to ask about donations and Woo wanted to look for a cup to plant up her final succulent in. Each shop was doing things a little differently. The Red Cross shop had a maximum of two allowed in the shop. There was a dedicated station for dropping off donations. I asked about it and they were only taking clothes, shoes and handbags - no bric or brack. Then the St James Hospice had no maximum, was still as packed as ever with clothes tbh it was mad in there. But that is where we found a cup for Woo, so we did buy that. But I wouldn't go back in that one in a hurry. Then the PDSA, which has always been a large and spacious shop anyway was best I think. They had a max of 8, there was a foot operated hand sanitiser station for when you come in and an assistant dedicated to making sure you understood the rules. We bought a couple of DVDs.


We wandered back and then Bunnykins carried on with crafting while Woo went back to her Maths work.

After lunch we had the coconut Mark had bought this week. He often gets them now when he sees them, particularly as the girls love smashing them so much.

After lunch Woo joined us in the craft room. She was finishing off her art club portrait of Mark and then starting a new dream catcher. Bunnykins and I were working on her garden. I had a brief break to make some earrings. But the things were too damn heavy. I need to source some lighter weight hoops or make my own I guess.

 Woo potted up her succulent.

I love the fountain Bunnykins made. We had scoured all our plastic waste to find the right combination. Then used some clear plastic sheet (from more packaging in the recycling), cut out circles and then swirled glue on to make it look like water. This is the video inspiration we were using.

The crafting was so intense and long lasting that Mark ended up making the tea 😂.


Just before tea, I went rooting through my old letters. I was looking for a picture Mark had drawn for me when he was living in Chicago.


Mark is one of those people who would always have said "I'm no good at art" - he's a natural born engineer/scientist that whole technical, logical, rational stereotype. But then he met me at university and I very much had a mantra that anyone can draw - the important thing is to really look and see what you want draw. I would sketch alot. I encouraged him to try sometimes - and to his credit - he gave it a go. He would be adamant that it wasn't his thing. Anyway, he went to work in America and he was somewhere really cold for a while - thick snow - significant minus numbers and he found he didn't have that much to entertain himself in the evenings. So he would sketch. He sent me this picture of a small glass bird reflected in a glass (I think). It was all done in pencil. It was beautiful. It spoke entirely of this long slow quiet time he had spent all alone. I think it is still in the letter i received with it. I wanted to find it and frame it.


I did find one of his sketches. I love how recognisably him it is, while still being simple. I can imagine him whiling away a bored few hours doing this in some far off place he had gone to work, somewhere where he lived in a one room set-up with no TV and no friends or family locally. It has a sadness to it, but I find it beautiful.

7pm is my call with John. I hadn't called him from the workshop before so gave him a tour. We talked about Moomins, reading, gardening, politics, sociology, feminism and a TV series on iplayer "Mrs America". Oh and then we finished with talking about Buffy (which my mum used to love) and what all the actors were doing now. John knows this stuff as he likes to check these things out.  I love that sense of inquiry in him. I always enjoy these talks.

Wednesday

Went for a run but concluded I am completely rubbish. I never seem to get any better. I have to keep walking. At the moment I have earache - just another excuse for why I can't do it.


Bunnykins wanted to make an egg chair for her garden. We decided to use two old plastic bottles. We struggled a bit with the type of glue to attach them. Bunnykins made a table from some of the leftovers (for the doll's sports room).

I left her to it for a while in order to do my yoga. I got a new mat - so that Mark and I can both do yoga together. I love the colour and it is a natural rubber and latex one - which is cool...but it does stink.

Bunnykins had been making a wire support for her egg chair, but was frustrated with the lack of balance. I figured that it needed to be more closely held to the structure. Bunnykins had the great idea of adding decorative lace to do that job.

Lottie waiting patiently in her garden.

After lunch we went out to the park to meet A of HAM and her brother J, plus her brother's best friend J. Bunnykins is good friends with the boys too, so they were all happy to run around. While the two big sisters and the mums sat around and chatted. J's little brother was also there and quite a bit of all the kid's time was spent running around with him. The older girls did quite a bit of that running around. I was quite happy to sit and chat.

After tea Mark and I wanted to play Luxor again, but the girls weren't up for it. So in the end Bunnykins, Mark and I played 7s for a while, which was really nice.

Mark and I then had a go at some yoga together. We tried the energising sequence.

 Thursday

I did a longer, boosted walking workout, then got my yoga in early followed by a shower. I had a few chores to run around with, but I had a firm plan for the day. I knew earlier in the week (particularly after talking to Mush on Sunday) that I was being very timid when it came to encouraging the girls out of the house. We had been on our surf day out, but tbh since lockdown began in March - that was it. I do get anxious, everything feels such an un-known at the moment. I don't want to go somewhere and it be really busy. I had kept seeing Claire posting on Facebook about days out at National Trust places and we have National Trust membership so I thought I would look that up (this was on Wednesday). It turns out that National Trust places are open now (generally with the houses and indoor spaces closed) and they have a booking system in place to limit numbers. This sounded entirely reassuring and also a really pleasant way to visit. Even before Covid-19 - I would get anxious if we were turning up at Tyntsfield to find the car-park nearly full. It would just make my skin crawl to think how near to people we would be all the time - usually I would relax and have a great day tbh, but that feeling is often there. Anyway, so there was a slot available at Lacock for Thursday. We had to arrive between 12 and 12:30pm. Some of the places have time limits, i.e. that you can only stay for 3 hours. But there was no limit at Lacock.


While I was sorting out washing and watering my plants, Bunnykins was putting the finishing touches to her garden. I am really impressed with it. I love the fountain.

I had decided to do us a brunch before we went. Early in lockdown we were struggling to get any quorn for Bunnykins. On one of Mark's shopping trips I gave him the instruction of "buy any quorn based meat substitute thing you find, in any form". He returned with some vegan bacon. It looked horrendous and went into the freezer. Anyway, I saw it while rooting around for some garlic bread or something. About 10:30 I fried it up and we had it with bagels.

What was hilarious was watching each person try it (even after seeing the previous reactions) and be entirely stunned at how it actually tasted: rather good and rather like real bacon.

We set off at 11:30. It was supposed to only take 35 minutes, but I think we must have faffed too much as it was 12:20 by the time we were at the car park - so I was in a flap that we'd miss our slot. We signed in and then were able to nip to the cafe to grab a drink and cake. It was lovely inside. There was a one-way route mapped out, but you could stop and stay as long as you liked at any point. The girls rather marched around the walled garden and orchard in order to find a spot to have the cakes. We found a great spot by the rose garden. The girls were being really lovely to each other and it was just such a nice temperature.

We carried on walking round.

There was a ha-ha or a hee hee or whatever you call it. I didn't realise that beyond it was out of the bounds of the official Lacock site. Woo spied a lake and jumped down to investigate. Bunnykins and I were rather more cautious.

Still we decided it would be nice to sit under the shade of a tree and sketch a while. So we all climbed down over the wall.

We sat for about half an hour. Bunnykins was doodling. Woo sketched the tower. It was really calm and lovely.

We then all wandered over to see the lake. There were a load of people going in on a beach covered in cow pats! That didn't look appealing. We found a quieter spot and Woo really wanted to go in, but Bunnykins and I were unconvinced.

We came back and managed to climb back up the wall - but I then felt like we looked like no-good trespassers. The field with the lake could be accessed by a right of way - so clearly wasn't part of the grounds.


We wandered the rest of the route. It wasn't really very long. As National Trust members it was free for us to book, but otherwise it was £10 each which would have been rather steep for such a short trail - pretty as it was.

It was quiet as we were on our way out, so we ducked back into the walled garden, slightly violating the one-way system ...bad to the bone we are...


Woo wasn't bothered and wanted to jump in the ditches. I expressed a wish for her to be careful and not to shout too loudly if she broke a leg and then Bunnykins and I wandered around. It was much quieter than it had been before.

We got home and I nipped out to the pharmacy to pick up more hayfever medication and to have a chat with the pharmacist about my ear. He said it sounded like an infection. He said I should get a doctors appointment or call 111. He said if I was delayed in that, that I should be taking ibruprofen 3 times a day (even if I felt better) and that he had an ear spray that might help in the mean time. He is a lovely jolly guy. He has a thick Eastern European accent, and he chats alot. He makes me smile when we go there for our flue jabs. He was so lovely and concerned that I almost felt like having a little blub and hugging him... but resisted both impulses.


Ben came over at 4pm. It was really warm, but lovely in the shade of the tree. We talked alot and played some old songs.

After tea Mark and Woo went out on on their bikes to spend Mark's voucher at Go Outdoors. In total it was 21.5km and included some fairly hairy cycling right by a dual carriageway. Woo did really well.

I got a few things sorted ahead of the weekend and made arrangements for Friday.

Friday

Woke up with even more pain after another night of not being able to sleep on my right side. Decided not to run (also as it was already over 20 degC). Had a shower and got dressed so I would be ready to make a call to the doctors at 8am and go if there was an early appointment. I got through relatively quickly and got a call back arranged. 

I spoke to the on-call paramedic at 10 ish. He wanted to see me in person, so had to make an appointment for the afternoon. Originally the plan was that Marian and the kids were coming over here; I had planned a walk, but the night before - looking at the weather (super hot) we had decided against that and so I was going to take the kids to Marian's in the afternoon. I had a quick chat with Mark. He had already done his hours so said he was happy to take the kids to Marian's instead. They had a great time. 

It took such a weight off my shoulders. I really hate changing plans and disappointing people, but I knew I needed to see the doctor and get this cleared up well before our holiday. I saw the doctor and he said it was an ear infection. He prescribed an antibiotic and steroid ear spray. I got back home and just had to sit reading - which was bliss. 

I found this sheet that Bunnykins had made for the day in school. It was all about the positive side of lockdown - the things she had enjoyed. I love it. It makes me happy to see all the things that she has found positive. 

After tea Claire came over. I haven't seen her properly in such a long time. Last time really was Ben's birthday party in February. 

It had been a scorching day, but then in the afternoon started to get quite windy and felt rather cooler. We sheltered on the deck with Mark providing waiter service. My ear was still quite painful at this point and I found that when I stood up - that was when it was most painful. So that's my excuse anyway! But he looked after us really well. And of course we chatted and talked until it was dark and we could barely see each other. 

So Mark brought us up some lighting

Saturday morning I was up at 7am having a good bowl of porridge. Mark dropped me off in Oldland Common for about 8.15am and Ben and I set off for a walk. 

We ended up with a few deviations, but the route we were following went out past Upton Cheyney (where mine and Mark's 40th had been), out to Keltson round hill, across Landsdown and back. 

It was a beautiful morning starting out. Warm with some cloud cover.

We went out along the Monarchs Way, which is a footpath we have walked before. It covers some beautiful countryside.

After about an hour and a half walking, Kelston round hill came into view. The second walk we did took us up this hill. We were walking from Bath to Keynsham. It is such a special spot. Firstly it is so distinctive on the horizon - just this little round peak with a knoll of trees on top. But the views from there are amazing. When we walked it last, the top was covered in wild grasses and flowers and the breeze was light. We sat for ages just chatting and taking it in.  

As we approached, the weather started to come in. We got rained on, though fortunately the last part of the path to the hill was along a thickly tree lined avenue which saved us from the worst. 

As we went up the hill, the rain was slackening off to nothing and the wind was quickly blowing the thicker and lower clouds away. It was still pretty brisk up there but fortunately the air temperature was very mild.

We found a bench and sat a while. From here you can see right out across Bristol. You can make out the Clifton Suspension bridge, the Wills Memorial Building, church spires, the chimney of the hospital. You can see across to B&Q at Longwell Green, the old Chocolate factory at Keynsham. Saltford and the bend in the river there. As we watched, a small bird of prey was hovering in the air not 50m from us.

It was hardly even 11, but I was peckish so had a go at my lunch, including a lovely little pie Mark had got for me.

We carried on round back towards Landsdown racecourse. As we walked, there were lovely views of the hill. 

Just by the racecourse was a pub called the Blathwayt Arms. I had included this in our route in order to be able to use the facilities, but it was so nice to sit out and enjoy a beer. We figured out the online ordering system and I got Ben an ale thing. I went for a fancy Italian Beer. It was really lovely. I am normally a wine, prosecco or cocktail drinker. I do like ciders and things like ginger beer. Given the time of day and the long walk, the beer felt just right - refreshing, not too sweet and not overwhelmingly alcoholic. 

It reminded me of being in Brugge with Mark. We had found ourselves by this horrible busy tourist corner, I was starting to get panicky so we were just trying to find a way away from people. We came into a park and found a little pub up by the river. All the busyness was the other side of the river. Mark went to buy beers for us. We had had a big breakfast. We never went to find lunch, we just drank the beer (and another) and stayed there watching the world and feeling supremely comfortable and un-rushed. 

Ben and I sat and drank our beers and chatted loads. I felt in no great rush at all. 

But eventually it was necessary to start off again. From here it was all downhill really. The afternoon was warm. It was a delight to walk together. 

Right towards the end, my route went a bit rouge. A path that I had thought would be available - wasn't. We improvised a little and ended up coming back the last bit along the A420 which wasn't the best. But it had still been a lovely day. I walked back along the cycle path. I think I ended up doing 20 to 23km (33,000 steps), so it was a good distance too. 

Tim and Deirdre had arrived by the time I got back. Woo had cleared out her room and re-made the bed.

We had a BBQ outside which was really tasty. It was quite windy, but mild enough to stay outside a good while. Bunnykins lost another tooth too. 

In the morning I set up breakfast outside and Mark made us all pancakes.

Mark and his dad finished off some jobs then we went off on the BS16 craft trail walk. Or rather a few of the Staple Hill and Downend ones. We picked up some local honey, some cards, beeswax based toiletries, some soap and some hairslides.

Tim and Deirdre left before lunch. Mark checked over my bike so that I could cycle down to Easton where there was another group of crafters that I really wanted to visit. 

I managed to get lost getting off and getting on the cycle path, but otherwise it was a great way to get there. I picked up lots of great things, even a few Christmas presents!

Meanwhile Mark and Jason went for a short run along the Frome. 

After tea we enjoyed one of the puddings left by Deirdre (she always comes well supplied with puddings) then watched a film together. 

This photo came up in my Facebook memories. It was 12(!) years ago! We were celebrating that our babies were 1yr old. I don't think we look like we've changed that much. I remember the night really well. It was fantastic. We did go out out in Bristol at least once more - but it took us going to Marbella to really do it!

It's funny, reading back at the posts from the beginning of the week, this has felt like a long week. There has been a lot going on and certainly the last few days of the week were jam packed. I do find this mix of lockdown and not lockdown quite strange. Ben and I were able to social distance fine on our walk as it was quiet and often we were walking across fields or on wide bridleways. Sanitising my hands at each gate or style was new, but otherwise it felt pretty back to normal. Having Tim and Deirdre in the house was strange - I may as well have had my anti-bac' spray attached to my arm - it wasn't relaxing as much as it was nice to see them and they did have a good go at social distancing. But having people in my house and people right up close to look in my ear, going out for the day and seeing my friends so much - it is this whole odd mix of "back to normal!! woohoo!...hey!!! you're not back to normal!!! Step away! Disinfect!!!" It makes my head spin a little, I guess there is reassurance in a thing being definitive - i.e. you're definitely in lockdown - you can not do this thing and this thing. It is clear - I can follow it and I have followed the rules. So much interpretation of rules can be anxiety inducing. I am not saying I would choose not to be able to do all these things - visit National Trust properties and go walking with Ben or have Claire over - certainly not. It is just that being in two states...that ambiguity is not a natural and comfortable place for us as humans. Anyway, I am finishing this off on Monday at the start of another full week, so it will be good to just get it published and crack on! xxx