Well, I guess we're trying to make the most of all this, even if it does feel rather like groundhog day, every day. And the irony is that Scrumpy is meant to be only doing a few very short lead walks, so when we venture out to pad the streets or the parks, she can't come with us and her little eloquent spaniel face is expressing extreme displeasure!
But H & I are getting more into walking – slightly worryingly he has taken to timing everything on some fancy new Garmin watch thingy he has acquired, so everything now seems to be judged in miles per hour.. He has at least realised that having a pocketful of Jelly Beans is a useful tool to encourage me to the next half mile point.. Here we are in the lovely Richmond Park – only to be visited on week days in average weather otherwise 3/4 of London appears to be in there. So many so the other weekend we honestly thought there was a Lockdown Festival of walkers and bikers… a hasty exit was beaten.
And at least H is knocking out a few treats in the midst of our 'trying to lose a few pounds before we eat half of M& S at Xmas'. He's become a dab hand at scones, and we even got the last pot of clotted cream in Waitrose the other day – watch out, it's my tip for the next thing to be hoarded and rationed! So amusing that he is the only one of us two who ever visits what I gather is the 'baking cupboard'…
Last night was a very nice change from ploughing through every episode of Sherlock (we've only just discover these!) – every year I usually go to the Ocean Film Festival with Nicky & Sophie, which is held in the Union Chapel in Islington. A bit old church so a great space but with bum numbing pews to sit on. It's a sort of sea-ecology venture where they screen about 8 films, some only 5 minutes, a couple of main ones 25-40 minutes, on all sorts of sea related topics.
Last night's included 2 English guys rowing from New York to Salcombe to mark the passing of one of their dads, some major surf action in the Arctic of all places (hypothermic surf dudes trying to warm up with just their car heater), an American chap turning what was litterally half a knackered rusting hull into a sea-going boat to head to British Columbia in, a sad one about the decline of the polar ice cap and the resulting lack of hunting ground for polar bears and a feature on 2 very sweet oldies who broke the couple's scuba diving age record – I think they notched up 174 years between them! Now there's something to aim for…
We managed to hook the show up to the kitchen telly rather than the living room, but my how comfy I was in the reclining chair with my jimjams on, with H feeding me stir fry and Nicky & Soph to chat to on HouseParty! Beats the schlep to Islington and those killer pews any time.. x