Monday was a lovely day. I had a quiet morning and then went across to the park to meet Ben for a coffee and a chat. He was on his way to see his parents who live in Downend. I was glad I had taken umbrellas for us as it was sleeting pretty hard for much of the time. My big umbrella was able to shield us both from the worse of it given the wind direction. It was really cold though and before long it was my shivering that drove us to say goodbye.
After tea we sat around the kitchen table. The back room was nice and warm. We played cards. First poker then blackjack for buttons.
Followed by some 7s. It isn't a game of skill, just concentration and I do enjoy that. I get absorbed in the patterns and the flow of it and find it very relaxing...even with the constant asking of "who's go is it?"
When the girls had gone to bed, Mark made us some cocktails. He tried a martini but our Vermouth is a bit elderly to say the least and I abandoned that quickly. I went for a gin and tonic using the damson gin that Ben had made and given me a little bottle of for Christmas.
I managed to get the main darning finished on my jumper, which I was really pleased with.
She was making a blender for her dolls house. She had a toothpaste lid she had saved for the purpose (after seeing a "how-to" video). She needed a tube of the right diameter to make the body of the blender. I helped her search around, but everything was too narrow or too wide. I then had a flash of inspiration and remembered that in the "gluing and sticking" box on a high shelf there were some old mini glue tubes; the kind that come in craft kits with just enough pva glue in them. The glue was gone/dried up but they were perfect diameter, transparent, and soft/pliable/cut-able tubes. We were both really pleased.
She then carried on with making the lid and finding beads for buttons etc.
After lunch we had a walk around the park. When we got back Bunnykins asked me to print out some pictures of laptop, iPad and phone screens on small scale. She then made little electronic devices for her Lotties including cases out of sticky-back foam. The panda iPad case is too cute.
After tea we played some Mah Jong. It is great that the girls are able to play their own hands now as you need four people for a game.
After a few games, they wanted to play sevens again, which I was happy with.
Then at 7pm I had a chat with John. We had a good long natter and got into some deep subjects.
On Wednesday I spent some more time painting the mural. I got stuck into some of the greenery. All the characters are on there already. 
We had planned to have a call with the Dicksons on New Year's eve. I had sent them a few of the pictures from the quiz Bunnykins did for Christmas day. So we decided to create a few new ones and then we could use the quiz with the Dicksons.
Bunnykins showed me that some of the things she had been crafting were now in place: a new bed, a fish tank, electronics, a new window for astronomy...
Thursday was new year's eve. It was a pretty cold and frosty day as it started. There was a hoar frost. I love hoar frosts; they remind me of growing up by the Humber where we would often have low lying mist combined with hoar frost in cold weather.
I had woken up with the intention of having a run.
The paths were treacherous. So I thought I would run on the grass, which worked really well...until I came to a bit of the park where the grass is waterlogged. There was a cover of ice over the top, but as I started to run on it I broke through and went ankle deep in freezing cold mud 😂. It was still a beautiful morning though and I was glad to have got out.
Bunnykins was still crafting away, this time making cycle helmets out of old toy surprise egg things. And then painting some beads to look like donuts.
I did a bit more painting, I worked on the red flowers which I really enjoyed.
After lunch we went out for a walk. It ended up being about 5k I think.
We walked up to the "sunset spot" up by Rodway Common. Bunnykins was not impressed by this point as she hadn't appreciated how long the walk was going to be.
We walked across Pomphrey Hill and past Claire's house to a fairly unimpressive stone circle. Then headed back (with a little diversion to investigate some ice).
One thing we decided was that the girls could really do with some hiking boots. Their feet have slowed down a lot in growth and for a walk like this they had ended up with very cold wet feet. Also, Woo has signed up for Duke of Edinburgh award this year, so she will need some boots anyway.
Woo regaled us with more Russian folk tales and we played a yodeling soundtrack off Spotify. We were all wrapped up in blankets with lots of cushions. It was lovely.
To add to the atmosphere of the Swiss Alps, a dusting of hale came down followed by a light snow fall. It was serendipitous to be sitting out in it under our shelter. We could hear our neighbours kids running out in excitement for the snow. I know I keep saying "lovely", but it was...bloody lovely!
Mark brought out a chocolate fondu with some strawberries and crunchy white bread in chunks.
It was wonderful to be able to do this. I know it might seem a bit cheesy (pardon the pun) and all #makin'memories but it really was making memories. These times we are spending together are precious to me and I absorb them in through every pore and nerve ending.
On Sunday Mark went for yet another run! I am glad he is getting out and enjoying himself, it does seem like a jolly good thing. This was quite a long one.
On Tuesday I started the morning with some yoga which was good. I then decided to try and make some more progress on the mural. It was a very enjoyable use of my time. Bunnykins joined me in the workshop as she had various crafting projects she wanted to do. She was delightful company, often pretty quiet (listening to her own music), but then a little conversation would spring up about how to solve a particular crafting problem or did I know if we had any of X or Y.
The new Lego film scenes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Clearly:
- Titanic
- Singing in the rain
- Forest Gump
- Pitch Perfect
- Pirates of the Caribbean
I then spent a bit of time adding some small green stiches to my jumper to make it seem like a tree in leaf.
Mark had gone out for his Wednesday night run with the Bristol Trail Runners. This picture under a full moon was pretty cool.
This was my favourite part when we went down to this valley off the cycle track. The cold hadn't lifted at all and the sun hadn't managed to penetrate so the hoar frost was still really thick despite the bright afternoon sky.
We got home and I had a shower and glammed up a little. I still decided to keep to joggers...let's not go crazy...but they were my ruby velvet joggers, so it was definitely in the spirit.
We had tea, then at 6pm went online to see the Dicksons. We did a few quiz things and just chatted really. It was nice to see them.
We finished about 8:30pm ish then went on to speak to Deirdre and Tim for a while. They were due to speak to other family (Deirdre's sisters and brothers) at 10:30pm. By 10:15 I could see that Mark was getting really tired, Bunnykins was in her own little world and Woo was falling asleep. I suggested that we all sing Auld Lang Syne and perhaps we would call it a night.
On Saturday morning we got up fairly promptly and went to Go Outdoors. The shop was really quiet which is what we had hoped. We were able to get the girls each walking boots at a decent price. They're not easy to get shoes for as they have wide feet, high arches and large feet. But it didn't take too long anyway and the assistant was really helpful.
I spent some of the afternoon reading the new book that John got me for Christmas. It's really interesting but was quite harrowing, particularly when the author describes what he thinks would have been his Great-Grandmothers last few moments before death as she arrived at the Treblinka death camp and what would have happened to her. I just sat and cried, it is not often that a book does that to me.
We all went to bed. I was in bed by a little gone 11pm I suppose. I would have liked to stay up, but it just wasn't seeming feasible. I fell off asleep but of course woke up by the almighty noise of fireworks at midnight. The noise was incredible. I lay there in a funny half awake state considering getting up to look but feeling paralyzed. I felt a bit sad, it sounded spectacular but what I really wanted was to be watching it with my TeamChallis, not sneaking up on my own to the window. I was wishing that I had done something better to see out this year, but then also fighting with that thought as I knew it didn't really signify anything and I was getting caught up in a detail that didn't matter. So, anyway, I lay there long enough in indecision that the noises died down and I sort of went back to sleep except it wasn't a good night's sleep at all.
New years day I woke up and the house was very quiet. Everything felt quiet. The sky was thick and heavy and I could see the hoar frost had built on from the day previous. I put on my boots and went out into the garden in my onesie to take some photos. It was so still, there were hardly any sounds, everything felt muffled.
Mark got up and went for another run leaving about 9:30am. I really didn't feel up to much. I woke up the girls about 10ish. We all came downstairs in pjs and onesies and sat watching Friends episodes for three hours in the front room. It was nice and cosy and I was glad to be spending time with them even if it wasn't particularly productive.
I did a bit more on the mural - but really just going over the black outlining on all the characters after having painted them in.
After tea we watched the videos we had made in June. Woo didn't want anyone to watch hers, though she was OK if I watched it on my own. It was interesting. I realised too how lucky we were that we hadn't lost anyone through this. Several friends have been struck with long covid which is awful enough, but when I was saying "I hope everyone is OK" in June - I realised watching it back just how big a hope that was.
Things haven't moved on much from June. I have not been optimistic throughout and I still am not. I will lay my cards on the table now... I would think that Christmas 2021 we might be able to have something closer to normal but tbh I can't get my hopes up for much else before then.
Social distancing and tiers etc. are only about controlling the impact on the NHS. This is with us now until we have some other method of controlling it. Tiers and masks etc. wont ever make it go away. Vaccines are the only hope of getting rid of this situation. Ben told me that he looked at a vaccine checker and he thought he might be in line for one by September 2021. Well I can only hope that is conservative estimate and that the process speeds up. Because if he's September, then TeamChallis can't hope for much this year. Indeed I just had a look at the calculator for myself... thumbs up for Jan 2022! 😂
At home we nipped out to take some books to the library and Mark went to Downend to pick up a few groceries for tea. It was also a chance to give the new boots a short run out to start wearing them in.
It is hard to have an appropriate segway from that really. I mean you can't, and you can't say anything pithy to draw a line under it. So, I apologise, that this is now a clumsy transition, but I don't think there is another way other than to avoid mentioning the book - which would be a bad decision.
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We had planned to have another fun-du outside to mark the ending of the Christmas holiday. This time we had a bit more variety in our dippers. We had bread (a walnut loaf), chorizo, steamed broccoli and then also cherry tomatoes and pickles. It was so yummy.
I got up and did a longer walking workout, then had a nice hot shower. I got started on lunch but it had been quite a slow morning so it was already fairly late.
After lunch we all took down the Christmas decorations. We tend to make quite a celebration of this; the last shout of Christmas. Mark had made us some marzipan medallions the day before. We lit the smoking man and had the Christmas tunes playing. There are plenty of jobs to do as we wander the house trying to spot all the Christmas things that need packing away...undoubtedly we will have missed something!
We have a plan for next week on 12th night for a final final Christmas goodbye...but more of that next week.
I did wonder for a while if my week counting should re-set, but I think this is about Covid-19 weeks so I am going to carry on with the numbering system into 2021...
2021...bloody hell! Fingers crossed for this year. 💗
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