Blimey – when someone asked me at the start of all this corona hoohah, 'how do you feel about having to stay in for the next 12 weeks?', that 3 month window felt like a very, very long time and a terrible impingement on my freedom.
Now, with the wisdom/reality/resignation of knowing that we will be lucky if the outside world is safe by the end of this year (and may well still not be), I'd have bought the 12 weeks option like a shot… sigh.
Still, we are now entering week 9 and last week continued to be a decent enough way of passing the time and trying to feel like you're not just treading water..
Like most of the rest fo the UK, we continue to Zoom, and actually ha ring 1-2 a day makes the most ginormous difference to how this all feels. Every little story, however seemingly trivial, takes on new resonance as I am eager for 'new news' of any kind – especially as my own remains pretty mundane! I did have a fairly unusual Zoom this week with a bunch of old Cats uni people, nearly all of whom were from 2 years above me (and Helen Tebay who was my chum on the call). Basically the people you looked up to, and the boys you dated when first year 'fresh meat'… I've not seen any of them for 30 years so it was curiosity that took me on there – and MAN how old they all looked!!!! Partly because of course they will all be 20 years old in my mind, but the blokes in particular had lost an awful lot of hair… Also slightly surreal having Ben Miller the actor on there (bottom row, second from right) as he was in that year. Seems a very nice chap still – although slightly oddly was dialling in from Morocco where he and his wife has apparently got stuck. The green bit was a college-based emoji quiz that the organiser had pulled together – a good distraction from me with my jaw dropped going 'bloody hell, you look barely a day over 20 but the next one along, maybe a bit less so!'
And I have even resorted to baking – still not my forte at all – but I managed to cram huge amounts of parmesan and cheddar into these tiny parmesan biscuits, so each one is basically a heart attack waiting to happen. Don't worry, we haven't eaten them all – yet.
Mr H is still loving our Richmond Park walks, as is Scrumpy who delights in the shallow river there, and is up down, up down hundreds of time, dropping sticks hopefully at our feet (if we're lucky) or just eating them – and plenty of deer poo – if we don't watch her closely enough. It does at least result in very tired animals at night – this a shot of our duvet last night, shared by a knackered dog, a slightly unimpressed cat and a stuffed armadillo. As you do.
And the only – rather major – bummer of the week was the installation of our overhead blinds in the 'white space' – the bottom level of our kitchen area. We'd ordered the blind ages ago and just missed the lockdown cut off point, so it had been sat in a warehouse for weeks. Till they rang up and said 'can we come, we don't need to come in as can enter through the garage and then we just install it on your roof'. So we said yes, they came, humped the enormous heavy beast onto the roof, seemed to have it all going smoothly and then just as we were heading for a dog walk – we heard the noise.
Chap had somehow drilled into one of the window casings and we looked up to see within seconds, the tens of cracks rapidly become hundreds and then thousands, as the entire huge pane fractured. Then the middle began to sag – and seconds later (luckily with us and the animals at the top of the kitchen and not on the sofa below) – it came down, shattering everywhere. Cue mad scramble to get the animals into the lounge where their paws would be safe, and shoes on for us.
Bloke was pale as a sheet, apparently 'it's the first time that has ever happened'. Well we are just SO lucky hey?? Long story short, they swept up and hoovered – and even rubbed red wine stains off the wall from behind the sofa, which they hoovered upside down, taking off a few unseen cobwebs as they went. So we now have just the outer pane of the double glazing remaining in the roof, and a splintered glass balustrade on one side, which took a battering as the window glass rained down.
It's going to be a while till those get replaced sigh. But no point having a go at the guys – it was a mistake and there are worse things going on. I think I'm possibly mellowing in my middle age…
Still – at least the blind is now in, and actually works! Came down the next day to a noticeably cooler kitchen as it opens itself on a sensor when it feels the sun, and goes back in when it's windy. Which can – one a day like today – result in a bit of an 'in-out, in-out, shake it all about' dance – but you can override it, and the novelty hasn't yet worn off.
Here's hoping that week 9 is imminently less eventful – and once the sun comes back out next weekend we can put our feet up outside on the loungers, hopefully without any small shards of glass attached.
Take care lovely people x