TeamChallis: Week 55

Monday was a bank holiday. Mark went down to make breakfast. He had a go at making Eggs Benedict. Only problem was that I nipped in the shower at the wrong moment, so the sauce curdled a little while he was waiting for me to come down. It was still really yummy and is one of my favourite breakfasts.

I went off to the garden center to pick up some compost. It was flipping freezing! It started to sleet while I was on my way home.

I had a very small garden job to do, but then after that I just wanted to read. I was sat up to start with, but after a while my head started to nod. I was surprised how comfy I was able to get laying down on the small sofa by the back door. I drifted off a while and woke when Mark was putting a blanket over me.

The day was changeable, frenzied even. I lay back on the sofa watching the sky change from thick cloud to bright blue. The wind stirred the cherry tree branches so their blossom shimmered in the changing light. It was beautiful but also unsettling.

The day had the atmosphere of the film Black Narcissus....though with fewer crazed nuns 😄.

It was also, I suppose, an extra heightened Sunday eve blues feeling after 4 days of lovely long weekend.

Tuesday was back to work for Mark and I and the start of the Easter holidays proper for the girls. One benefit of the girls being off is that I can use the time in the morning for what exercise I want to do. Having said that, it was still a little dictated to by Bunnykins' needs as she wanted to decorate the Easter cake she had made the day before and we were missing a few key ingredients. I ran around the park and then down to Sainsbury's local. I picked up some icing, green food colouring and poki sticks, then walked home.

At lunch time we all got out for a walk and a visit to the hatch. Woo had been mocking us all for getting hats and warm layers on, only for it to start snowing as we walked around the park!

Though the snow clearly wasn't going to stop the ice cream van.

At tea time we had a sudden and heavy hail shower. I had been out trying to get a bit of vine out from between the pergola vanes before closing them, and then it was just belting down.

Bunnykins got on with decorating her cake in the afternoon.

Mark had the afternoon off but couldn't really convince the girls to do anything given how cold the weather was, so he decided to get on with one of the garden projects which is to add a bench to this bed.

After a tiring day, I finished and joined everyone else for tea. I had a good catch up with John around 7pm.

On Wednesday morning I had a good brisk walk around the park first thing.

I was going to have the afternoon off, so I set-up at the desk in the workshop. Bunnykins came in and out a little in the morning. She was already on with construction tasks for her dolls house - she wanted to make a standing desk for her Lotties.

In the afternoon, Woo joined me and we worked on her caravan. She was making lots of tiny little items: little pans (called inexplicably a "panikini"), a tiny tea caddy, photo frames, books, a blackboard and then a wall cupboard and the bed.

Thursday morning I went and did an interval training sort of thing. Hum, well that makes it sound a bit grand - I was running (and trying to go a bit faster than usual), then walking. Meanwhile back home, the morning got off to an inauspicious start - Mark put the kettle on and fortunately noticed a strange smell. He turned off the socket and tried to unplug it, but one of the pins stayed welded inside the wall housing! We were clearly very lucky to avoid a fire, but it did leave us without a kettle for the day.

Mark had the afternoon off and managed to encourage the girls to join him in the garden. They planted some seeds and then Woo helped a little while with another bed construction project.

For me, it was a pretty awful day work wise. I don't even know why so much, but at one point I ended up on a call trying to conceal that I was crying. I got through the day to the perfect antidote - a meeting with the mummies.

We had been planning to meet in the park from 5:30pm. First off Sally had got her weeks muddled up and couldn't join us - there was then the usual around-the-houses business of trying to find an alternate day - which of course never works at short notice. So we were going ahead with 4 of us even with the bracing cold. It started raining about 4ish. I suggested that if it were just the 4 of us, we should fit under the pergola. It was a lot more sheltered than out in the park. I don't think it would work for 5 trying to socially distance.

It was so lovely to see them all and catch up.

They left about 8ish and I brought everything in and had some tea. Woo was busy working on her embroidery.

Having mastered the French Knot. 👏

On Friday I just went for a walk first thing.

It was another battle of a work day, with people asking me for things that, for my sanity and the sake of the work I had already committed to, I had to say no to.

I broke off for the Friday analyst get-together where we played a game called Skribbl for half an hour, which was a lot of fun...Peter attempting to draw "spinach":

Meanwhile, Mark had taken the girls across to meet Marian and the twins near Chepstow. They went for a walk through a newly opened tunnel.

They took presents from Christmas with them, and brought back Christmas presents for us which we opened on Saturday morning.

I took a while to get going, but I was also trying to figure out how to book swimming sessions. The pools are opening back next week and Woo has been really keen to get back to water. I figured it out and got a family lane session booked and also some individual sessions for the girls.

I went in to tell Woo who was taking it easy. Her room is very relaxing. I joined her for a while. It was really peaceful. But I also just wanted to take that moment in of looking at my beautiful girl and being able to be there quietly with her.

I eventually had to move, and went out to the garden where Mark had been finishing off the edging of the raised bed.

I then got on with planting in the new bed. I had been receiving various plants over the last few weeks and it was time to make a start even though not everything had arrived.

We had lunch and then I went up to help my other beautiful girl, who has been struggling with her messy, not so calming bedroom for a few weeks. I have let her to it - after her wishes, but it was getting to the point of crazy making. The issue was that she had cleared more shelves for dolls house stuff and also wanted to clear under her bed to make a reading area. She does take a lot of initiative, so I am keen to let her run with that and not interfere. But it had got to the point of not being able to get in the room there was so much stuff that had been turned off the shelves and out from under the bed - but having no home to go to.

We spent only half an hour but made some good progress. There is still quite a lot to do - her desk and side cupboard are still covered in layers of stuff. But we had cleared her chair and quite a bit of the floor.

Now this was the finished result... not great I'll grant you. Though to be fair the stuff on the floor was all going to go back into the blue box which had a home on the top of the wardrobe. And anyway, this was a lot better than it had been!

It was good to work with her a while anyway. She is good fun, I do love her company.

I wanted to take some pictures of what was happening on the extra shelf that had been cleared. A few weeks back when we moved the downstairs to the summer layout, Bunnykins had found and taken in some of my old Flower Fairies. She had wanted to create a nice garden space for them to recuperate and get to know the Lotties and the Sullvanians...

It is certainly enjoyed by all.

The Fairy under the purple blanket has a bad leg.

I love how caring Bunnykins has been towards my old toys. She has a truly humanitarian instinct. 😍

Downstairs, Mark had decided to make a quiche for tea. I went down to read and got shown the finished article which certainly looked good. It tasted very good too.

On Sunday, Mark made us breakfast then he and Woo went off to frisbee.

I did a bit of gardening in the back and then tidied the kitchen and made lunch. After lunch Mark helped me with a bit of work in the front garden. I had ordered some plants for the back, but hadn't realised they were quite toxic and wasn't happy with that given where they would have been. Mark suggested a space in the front garden which shouldn't cause harm to anyone and will be lovely to look at.

While he got digging, I checked out my various tulips. I love tulips!

I also did a bit of clearing of the old heads of daisies. I noticed this seed head and loved how packed the seeds are with their hexagonal pattern.

I then nipped over to Ben's to drop off a rhubarb crown and a hellebore that I had dug up. He wants to make more of his back garden. I had a look around and we spent a while chatting trying to identify some of the shrubs and talking about what he could do with the garden.

I couldn't help myself but make a plan for his garden.

And of course it has been the main subject on my mind most of the evening; another bit of the world to make sense of and organise. I could hang back and not bother - not give myself more things to do. But the appeal of making a patch of the world a bit better is great, and more than that, making my good friend happy and making his world a bit nicer is an irresistible thought.