A month in lockdown! How did that happen?
After having the rug pulled out from under our feet, having all our plans cancelled and our business put on hold, we've reinvented ourselves. The house is cleaner and better cared for than it's been in years and we're making baby steps towards self-sufficiency by attempting to grow our own produce. Food-wise we're eating well, experimenting with new dishes & being a lot less wasteful. At this time of year, we're usually too wrapped up in preparing for vintage fairs and the craziness of the festival season to appreciate the world around us. Now we've been given the gift of time, we can immerse ourselves in the here and now, enjoy each other's (and our pets) company, marvel at the wonder of nature, the beauty of the change of the seasons and just live.
So what have we been up to since I last posted? After receiving an email the previous evening advising us that our paint delivery may be delayed, our order arrived on the doorstep on Friday morning before 8am. Let the decorating commence!
Jon's first task for the day was to turn over the soil in the bed he'd cleared the previous day and, with rain forecast for later, he cracked on as soon as he'd had breakfast.
Yesterday's warmth had vanished and it was back to long sleeves yet again. This 1970s Alpnani Indian handloom kaftan was my frock of choice.
An hour later and another delivery arrived, this time it was a bumper tub of fat balls for our feathered friends. We threaded a few with garden twine and suspended them from this old wooden chandelier we bought from a car boot sale years ago and which resided in our kitchen until a few weeks ago.
According to Chris Packham, TV naturalist and all-round top bloke, the British spend £200million a year on bird food, more than any other country in the world. Visitors to Stonecroft are all pretty common British garden birds, robins, blackbirds, wrens, chaffinches, sparrows, goldcrests, coat tits, blue tits, long-tailed tits, ring-necked doves, wood pigeons and the owl we hear at night but they keep us enthralled.
Although it wasn't actually raining it was far too cold to play in the garden so I cracked on with my rainy day project, sewing together the fabric pieces I'd cut up in the sunshine a couple of days ago to make a curtain for the French windows in Jon's music room. With 6Music to keep me company, I was happy in my own little world, only stopping when Jon called me down for lunch.
I continued sewing for the remainder of the afternoon whilst Jon did some work on Gilbert's electrics, watched over by the lads, breaking it off to take our daily stroll around the block. I caught up with some blog reading and Jon made tea which consisted of homemade chilli-infused jacket wedges with salad.
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Entertainment for the night was the very enjoyable 2017 film Victoria & Abdul, currently on the BBC i-player and, as it was Friday, it was accompanied by a few cheeky rum & colas!
The ever-fabulous Sheila showed us her casual stay-at-home clothes which included some gorgeous sheepskin slippers in her post HERE so I thought I'd show mine off, too. I've admired the pom-pom trimmed lambswool slippers which hang outside the tourist shops in Greece for years but it took me until our trip to Corfu last September to treat myself to a pair. What took me so long?
On 6Music yesterday Lauren Laverne was asking how we marked the weekend in this strange new world. In our house, we don't set the alarm (although I'm always up before it goes off), one of us makes tea, brings it back to bed and we read for an hour or so. I have a break from the Wii Fit and we don't have fruit for breakfast. This morning was a giant crumpet slathered in butter.
Saturday morning is houseplant watering day. As it's Spring and the growing season I've started to feed my plants. I've got so many houseplants that I put some in the bath, some in the Belfast sink in the utility room and the rest go outside. I hope they appreciated the dousing from this morning's April showers.
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| Hmmmm...which Barry M will it be for our fifth week of lockdown? |
Next up was a bit of self-care. I touched up my roots, deep-conditioned the ends and removed my nail polish, ready for painting in front of the TV later. After a quick shower, I got dressed and cracked on with the curtain making which took me up to noodle time. In the meantime, Jon tidied up the music room so we could get to the curtain rail.
Jon hung the curtains facing outwards so they'd look pretty from the garden. I'll show you them with the doors open when I can persuade him to climb back over his guitars to get to the lock.
After waking me up at 5am this morning, Stephen Squirrel's having a quiet afternoon on the bed.
This one, on the other hand, has just got back from visiting the neighbours for his daily treats.
It's a wet, grey and distinctly cold day today, walking around the block was a bit of an effort although bumping into friends and having a chat (from a safe distance) brightened up our trip out.
I wanted to show you Jon's Patrick Grant (he of The Great British Sewing Bee ) Merino wool pea coat he found in a charity shop before lockdown, but he wouldn't stand still for long enough.
Since I last wrote a blog post about our neighbourhood (back in 2013, HERE) a lot of houses have since been sold and redeveloped, it's quite depressing how so many of the new owners have paved over their lawns, replaced the original Edwardian wooden windows with plastic double glazing or added ugly extensions. One family has dug up the lawn, replaced it with astroturf and swapped the mature trees and shrubs with a row of plastic palm trees! Why on earth do people buy old houses and make them look modern? Why not just buy a new house?
A few houses do still survive in their original forms like this pretty Edwardian bungalow, complete with its original windows and lawn.
We've been promised better weather tomorrow, I do hope so. I'm gripping my mug of tea like my life depends on it, my hands are freezing after our walk! I finished Snowblind this morning and I've just put this on the bedside table ready for later.
Plans for later? Jon's slaving away in the kitchen making a spicy bean & wholemeal pasta bake for tea and there's Twin to watch later along with the last of the rum. I'm pretty sure Johal's have rum in stock or we're in serious trouble!
How're things with you? Staying well and keeping positive, I hope!
PS. If you're wondering about today's blog title, I've pinched the lyrics from one of my favourite songs of recent years, the beautiful Home by Caribou. When I first heard it last year I had no idea how apt the lyrics would become in April 2020.
PS. If you're wondering about today's blog title, I've pinched the lyrics from one of my favourite songs of recent years, the beautiful Home by Caribou. When I first heard it last year I had no idea how apt the lyrics would become in April 2020.