Before I get onto the post topic of the day, this is our pudding from last night. I like the picture and it was delicious. The Belgian chocolate tart is from Waitrose as is the Cornish dairy vanilla ice cream.
Right. Now I shall get to the point. Is the lockdown testing your resolve? Have you learnt anything about yourself over the past few weeks? Have you surprised yourself?
I am surprised at how much I like being at home. I always thought I liked going to work and going out a lot. I used to go out 3 or 4 nights a week. I have discovered that I am not nearly as bored as I thought I would be. In fact I am quite busy with my home projects and I am really enjoying them all. There are still some I have up my sleeve that I haven’t even started yet.
I think prior to this I have underestimated how much I love my garden and the natural world. I am finding it very restful and rejuvenating spending more time in my garden with the birds, butterflies and bumble bees. The photos I take are so often inspired by nature. I am surprised by how much I like taking photos, this is a new thing for me. I do recall sometimes in the past when I have been away on holiday I have missed my garden when I’ve been away so I guess this love of my outside space was always there but under-recognised. In my zone, in nature, working the soil, growing my plants with the sun on my back is pure bliss.
I also love my blogging and chatting to you guys (sounding American here). It gives a focus to my day and to my mind. I like to think about possible ideas and photos during the day and then write the blog in the early evening, after I have seen the latest Coronavirus briefing on TV, when I can reflect on the events of the day. I like the creativity and to put my thoughts down on the page. Sometimes when I start to write a post it goes off in a direction completely different to my plan… it has a life of its own in a wonderful way!
Buying food and planning shopping takes up quite a lot of my time as we are buying for elderly relatives as well as for ourselves. Of course I am loving the cooking and having time to get creative in the kitchen. Yesterday I got a kick out of cooking the massive leg of lamb. It turned out so nicely and my first time making red wine jus was a great success.
Today after a nice long lie in I took all the leftover meat off the bone from the roast lamb of last night. I cut the meat into cubes and with one half I made a big lamb curry that looks and smells delicious. This is now in a container in the freezer and I’m really looking forward to eating it later in the week. With the other half of the lamb I chopped it up much smaller in my mini chopper and mixed in some breadcrumbs, egg, onion and rosemary to make some rissoles. I don’t know if it was me or the recipe but they fell apart as I cooked them and were far too crumbly. A culinary disaster! I have a plate of half rissoles, half mess, although I think the flavour is quite good. We will probably have these heated up for lunch in the next couple of days. I am trying not to waste any food at the moment.
So what are you struggling with most during lockdown? For me the worst part is the boringness of the walk going round and around our local housing estate. We have tried just about every combination of roads possible and I do really miss being able to go somewhere different like Windsor Great Park with the beautiful trees there, or a walk along a beach or even just visiting another town for a change of scene. Surprisingly since I do not have much work to do now at all and previously I was incredibly busy, I don’t miss the work. I am enjoying the break. But I do miss the job security I think I had taken for granted and I worry about the economic future for our business and what will happen there.
I have my husband for company and speak to my parents every day. I am talking to my father more than I have done in years as we plan all the shopping together. I do not feel lonely and have lots of friends to text or to call on for a chat, but in some ways I have been appreciating the solitude and the time to reflect on things. Having said that, maybe I miss having a proper social life more than I thought as tonight I am really looking forward to joining a Zoom pub quiz for a friend’s birthday. It will be great to see some people (albeit on screen) other than my husband, no offence David! I expect he feels the same.
Today I picked up a Book of Quotations from my shelf and started to ponder some of these. I then looked at some others on the internet and I particularly like this one from 2009 that I’ll leave you with today. Although it was written under very different circumstances is very apt at this time from Jim Beaver, Life’s That Way:
“Today we fight. Tomorrow we fight. The day after, we fight. And if this disease plans on whipping us, it better bring a lunch ‘cause it’s gonna have a long day doing it.”
The Windsor Waffle 