Mrs Henderson was busy this morning painting – touching up the front, back and garage doors.
Tidied the garage and then a few light jobs in the garden.
Then cup of tea and hot cross buns (obviously our buns are not a patch on yours, Sarah😀) in the garden, accompanied by the usual tinnitus of machinery. One neighbour who has pressure washed his house and garden ALL DAY! No kidding.
Album of the day. A great summer listen.
So lovely to have a drink with dear friends John and Jane.
I’m doing a little bit of school work each morning while Mrs H grapples with paint charts looking for the ideal combination of colours to redecorate the lounge. When she thinks she’s decided, we contact Goring Hardware who tell us they haven’t got or can’t order them in. And repeat.
Nice to see Claire and her bedroom.
Lunchtime outside. I thought you might be missing my miserable face but I am happy inside.
It should be so quiet. I pointed out in a previous blog how noisy it is with everybody firing up their power tools. The odd lawn mower I can understand but there is a constant background drone-collage of one tool or another. Another sound that interjects into this motorised counterpoint is the barking of dogs. This is really puzzling me. Given that their owners are almost certainly at home, why would they be barking? Are they not being walked? Are they barking at the machinery or have they just decided to join in with a canine descant of their own?
Had another lovely card and music related goodies from Dougie this morning. Thank you.
In the afternoon cut grass and watered the garden. Mrs Henderson scrubbed up one of the benches. Then Mrs Henderson started a jigsaw and gave it up as too tedious. Not that desperate yet.
Current garden highlights.
I love the sculptural fairytale look of the clematis stems.
This morning I decided to do a job that wasn’t even on a to do list! And in the afternoon I painted the shed.
Before…
After…
As there wasn’t much paint left I finished it off on the fence next to the shed.
Before…
After…
Looking at the before pictures now I feel ashamed that I had let things get so bad. In my defence you can’t paint the fence in the rain. No comments about the state of the clematis, please. This is what happens when you miss the pruning window, Sarah. But a nice pile of spare bricks. Anyone need some bricks? To go with spare sand and cement maybe?
Had a nice chat with Baz and Jonah.
I went for a little drive round the block to check that a. the car still worked and b. I could still drive. Luckily it was “yes” to both of those. So lovely to see the outside world. It is bin day tomorrow and almost every house had boxes out with the recycling, a sign of the times. I also noticed how beautiful the self set violets and primroses are in the front garden.
No music today because we’ve been in the garden a lot and we didn’t want to annoy the neighbours.
It was nice to be joined by the Darkins and Mr Clark for this weeks quiz, last night. Great to see everybody. Although, where is Garry?
Three weeks ago we were angry at the selfish people frantically panic buying.
Now our ire is directed at the stupid people who abuse the privilege of being allowed out for a walk.
We didn’t particularly think about the NHS workers and now we applaud them.
This isn’t really funny, is it?
Three weeks ago we were worried about creating a schedule to keep busy. Now we effortlessly glide through the days. The warm sunny weather helps. Thankfully I have been training for long periods like this by being a teacher!
We have been reading. I finished Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada. A very sad book about the futility of individual small acts of resistance in Berlin during World War 2. But brilliantly written. We also completed our exercises.
Time in the garden. And it did rain last night. Look at the lovely puddles in the lupin leaves.
Lovely tulips.
And nothing shows the rebirth of Spring quite as wonderfully as new growth of the ferns as they unwind like springs.
In what has been a beautiful day today, we have spent a fair amount of time in the garden listening to the din of everyone firing up all their power tools. Just saying.
Yes these people are superheroes.
And when this is all over. And it will pass. Let’s not forget and let’s make a pledge to change the way we treat our public servants in the future.
Mrs Henderson passed some of the day doing a doll’s sized jigsaw very kindly lent by Sally and Nick.
I did some jobs in the garden. Including replacing the beak on a wicker friend and found the brick face sample that the builder used to match the bricks for the extension.
Chronicling the garden is nice. We have already seen the passing of the crocuses. The tête-à-têtes are nearly done; I dead-headed some yesterday. The tulips are here and more coming.
The dianthus (or sweet heart plant) has started and there is a strange plant that comes up every year and then comes to nothing. It just disappears. Any thoughts?
I hate to say this, but we could do with some rain.
We treated ourselves to a piece of Mrs Mote’s Christmas cake with a cup of tea
Album of the week. I always thought John was the best solo Beatle but Mrs Henderson said that it was George. She was right and this is a great album.
It’s very difficult to keep up with what day it is. I hope the song of the day has helped over the last 7 days. This service will stop after today – from tomorrow you’re on your own!
That feeling of “it’s the weekend” is not quite so much of an elated one. And to be honest, our routine hasn’t really changed. Bit of school work (sending out the bailiff notices to those students who haven’t submitted work)
There was the thrill of getting a delivery spot with Tesco, so put a food order in. Then there was exercise. Out into the sunny garden for weights and the Bleep test. This after I caught Mrs Henderson doing aerobics in the living room.
Then some light pruning of the apple tree. It’s amazing when you think you’ve done and have put away the long handled loppers. You come back out to tidy up and immediately notice that there are a pair of crossing branches. No point in going in to get the loppers out again because you’d never be able to see the offending branches again.
Put the finishing touches to tomorrow’s quiz to find that the music round is scuppered because my MacBook has started to explode.
New photos from space show that this is now the official shape of the world.
LP of the day inspired by today’s song. A favourite of both of us.
We don’t know where the time goes; well at least the days. The evening drags a bit. And I’m not sleeping too well.
Today busy with school work. To the accompaniment of
a cracking CD.
Then a bit of exercise and some gardening. Since this all started I have now been round the whole of the back garden and weeded every bed. It has been nice to have had the time to remove moss. The moss has become a real problem for the last couple of years. I believe though I don’t know if it is true, the mild winters haven’t helped kill it off. Anyway I am picking it off bit by bit. I also removed a rather leggy and woody lavender and replaced it with one from the nursery. A new Clematis Montana for the pergola. New colour still to show in the form of the Photina, Primulas, and the tulips have started.
When I first moved here, I was very disparaging about an old honeysuckle and suggested that we remove it. Mrs Henderson was quite adamant that it should stay and in recent years, I have been so glad that she did. Look at its architectural, gnarled beauty.
Mrs Henderson dashed away with the smoothing iron.
while listening to the album of the day.
Note the Woolworths compilation! Actually I hate Free! So we agreed on a change.
We had very lovely roast children dinner last night (thank you Sheila) accompanied by a glass of white wine. And this evening Caroline made a lovely lasagne with the leavings. Plus chicken sandwiches at lunchtime. Mmmm!
The theme of last night and today was deliveries. We got a Tesco delivery last night, phew!
Today the post brought better things (rather than a Penalty Order). Caroline got a new mascara. So important to keep up appearances.
And thank you to Dougie for a lovely card and some listening to keep me occupied.
No gardening today but we’re improving at the bleep test.
And the perfect end to the afternoon, a school Team Leaders meeting via Google hangouts. Only 2 hours, next time I must remember to bring the ironing! What we learnt from the meeting. Not muting the mic is the new reply all! And 10% how does this work? 5% Coronavirus, eh? 6% actual meeting. 79% investigating colleagues’ backgrounds for anything incriminating.
So to the album of the day chosen by Caroline
Off out now to give the NHS another round of applause. 👏👏👏👏👏👏
Isolation 