Monday 17th saw a relaxation of rules that opened up to a greater sense of freedom that we've had in a while. The big changes were really around being able to be indoors again with others, so pubs and cafes were opening up and you can have people in your house (still with some restrictions).
Suddenly lots of plans are being made and my calendar is filling up. By Monday afternoon I was already double booked on a coming weekend. Tbh it all felt a bit much!
Mark was in London on Tuesday. I had a busy day of meetings ahead. I was feeling really sluggish so I decided that I would have a run at lunchtime. I was dressed in my lycra to be ready and at 12noon I set off for a couple of laps of the park.
On Wednesday early evening there was a new parent's evening for Bunnykin's new school. She will be joining Woo at the same secondary school in September. We got to find out about the new school uniform after the change in name and logo, so that was interesting.
After that I nipped across to Ben's house, well rather his garden. I had been trying to sort someone out to lay a patio for him and we needed to meet a potential builder. The guy was nice but quite bombastic. After a fair bit of back and forth to get more information, we are going ahead, so that is exciting.
Thursday was a bad day weather wise, a front was coming in and the rain lashed most of the day along with driving winds. The pergola is good, but when the wind is so strong I don't like to have the side panel down and even if it is down the wind can still drive heavy rain through the fabric. So we decided that for the first time since March 2020, the session with Ben would be in the house.
It was quite strange, I was a bit at 6s and 7s to figure out what was best to do. We're relaxing....but not too much! Anyway I wanted to maintain the social distancing stuff so for tea we set Ben up to eat at the old bureau that has been hanging around in the back room. It worked pretty well. Then we set up to play.
The bad weather was really set in by Friday. Bunnykins wanted to walk to school. It was damp all the way there and it seemed even worse all the way back. My coat held up but my trousers were soaked. Fortunately Bunnykins had PE, so her leggings would dry pretty quickly.
At lunch Mark and I walked out to the library through the rain...second pair of trousers soaked 😀☔.
After work (in my third pair of trousers for the day 😄) I went out to the optician to have my glasses re-checked. I had been wearing them for using the computer but while I could tell that they were making things clearer, there was something not quite right.
The optician was lovely and took me seriously which was nice as I felt a bit silly going back and saying "they make things clearer, but there's something er just um not right". He did some thing with me looking at the tip of a pen and him covering my eyes in turn. He was quite surprised at the result (the pen seemed to hop about by quite a bit), turns out that my eyes (or eye - I think the left) was turning in.
He did some other checks with all the kit, checked the eye/pen thing again (it was turning in less dramatically). My eyesight is pretty good. 20-20 in the right eye and a bit short sighted in the left. I used to have glasses with prisms to reduce strain from the astigmatism that I do have. But the new prescription had focused more on the short sightedness and didn't include the prisms. The glasses had been optimised for close reading and things like sewing (30-40cm distance), but I was using them for working at the computer which is about 70cm distance. I haven't felt the need to use them for reading or sewing and when I use them for the computer, they do make things clearer but there is a weirdness and I have been getting headaches.
Anyway, the conclusion was that I really needed them for computer use so they needed to be re-made with prisms for the eye strain and optimised more to the distance for the computer.
Saturday morning the weather was much better. I was up relatively early to go off on a birthday walk with Ben. Mark made me porridge.
I was a bit slower getting going than I hoped, but by 8:20am ish I was on my way along the cycle path.
I met up with Ben and we walked along the cycle path as far as the river Avon.
Love this picture! First album cover 😁:
On our walk, when we got to the river, we walked alongside it then. It was such a nice day after the hideous weather of Thursday and Friday. The clouds were thick, but it was still warm and bright and the thick clouds made everything feel saturated with colour and detail.
For much of the way the path was quite wide and open. Even with the rain of the past few days it wasn't too bad underfoot. There were a few more narrower sections, but it was all so pretty and we didn't meet many people coming the other way.
The river snaked around past the old Fry's chocolate factory.
It was so nice to feel out in the countryside away from it all, even though we were also still certainly in the town.
We got to the pub where I had booked lunch. We were about an hour early, and my plan had been to walk on past the pub along the river path and then double back. But Ben's leg was giving him jip and the lure of a pint was a bit much I guess. We went to the pub next door for a drink. We were sat right by the river, it was such a great spot.
The rain came down a bit, but we just put up the umbrella.
We were sat inside for our meal, with another great view.
The food was delicious, but enormous 😄
After stuffing our faces and then me opening my presents (hiking socks and a great book - thanks Ben 😊) we got going again. We walked back the way we had come a while, then went off across town but through some community woodland and to Willsbridge Mill. It is nice to have these green corridors through the area.
Meanwhile, Mark and the girls went out for an explore along the river Frome.
Always time for a few selfies...😄
We sat a while in Willsbridge Mill. The sunshine was coming through the trees and it was such a delightful spot. Ben had mixed us some martinis to bring along. I didn't manage to drink much of mine, but it was so nice.
We walked back along the cycle path, but my ankle was starting to give me trouble. We'd done over 20km so I didn't feel bad giving Mark a call to ask if he could pick me up. Ben didn't have far to go as we were in Oldland.
Mark had organised a European meal: lasagne and a variety of snacks and such, because it was of course Eurovision! Last year it didn't happen, but this year they were holding the event, with a few covid changes, but essentially seeming as normal.
The girls decided they wanted to stay up to watch the whole thing.
I settled down with the snacks and my leftover martini.
It was a fun evening. Mark had his spreadsheet going and the girls were very into the scoring.
Mark and I were messaging with the Dicksons who were watching too. I was also messaging with Stella, Ben and even Karen which was nice.
We were all a bit disappointed with the end result, but it was a fun evening.
On Sunday morning, Woo was up early with Mark so she could volunteer at the junior park run (for her Duke of Edinburgh).
After lunch we got the outside area ready for our new neighbours Nancy and Peter to come over for a cup of tea. It was raining but calm, so it was nice to sit out there.
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