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the lockdown log 80
It has been a bit of a week. My dental works started last Friday with extracting the broken tooth and fitting a temporary bridge. After the anaesthetic wore off things were not too comfortable and, despite cutting food into tiny pieces and avoiding anything that needed a strong bite or chew the bridge fell out on my birthday, which was not the greatest present. However, with the bridge went most of the discomfort too. I am off to the fang puller again tomorrow for a review.
We have also, after more than a year of faffing about, ordered various bits of replacement furniture for upstairs and down. This, for me, is a bit like flicking over the first of a line of dominoes. The new will not be with us until February, but I need to start clearing space in the garage and my den so as to make the project work. I am thus sorted out for Winter jobs.
My diet has been reasonable in that I have not gone mad and have worked off a lot of calories, hopefully more going out than have gone in. I haven’t weighed myself, not from any deliberate avoidance, more from having buried the scales under a pile of stuff as part of the space clearance mentioned above. I usually weigh in when I get up around 5 am and have forgotten to get the scales out the night before. I only remember when I get up and that is not the time to be trying to heave stuff around in the dark. I do feel a little thinner, but I know that that means nothing.
Something else that we have been talking about for ages is a cremation plan. Possibly the fact that we have both had recent birthdays has brought home the advancing years, but whatever, we had taken the plunge and signed up. Neither of us wants any fuss and, for me at any rate, funerals are for the survivors not the dead. My thinking is that I cease to exist when I go so what anyone else gets up to to mark my departure is their business; I won’t be there to know.
We have been out to lunch again this week, slightly spoiled by fellow diners who firstly got in our way as we walked in from the car park, the concept of giving way to pedestrians being seemingly beyond them, and then, just as our food arrived, opened a window then complained about the draught and moved, leaving the window open. I got up and shut the window, but the temperature of our food had suffered as a result of their thoughlessness.
The furniture buying trip also took us to a big shopping mall, the first that we have visited for nearly two years now. Fortunately it was quiet, but is was another step for us in going out. Whether we do more remains to be seen, but there is one more item of furniture to be bought and, as it is for me, I have been out on a solo mission to see what is available. Furniture is something that I think I need to try out and not for just buying on-line.
Stay safe wherever you are.
the lockdown log 77
I failed to mention weight and diet last week, mainly because they were not on my mind. That alone should tell you about my state of mind on that topic. I have weighed myself once in the last month and I was 110 kg at the time; not too good, but not too bad either. Right now I can’t be bothered, although I know that I will need to start bothering soon. On the exercise front I am still at it and recently passed through 3000 km for the year. I may not be controlling my intake too well, but I am still burning off a lot.
Our trip out for a birthday lunch went so well that we did it again this week. A different venue, but very nice and something that could be habit forming. We used to do it every Saturday at one time, not always a pub or restaurant, but it was our weekly treat back when we both worked for Big Corporate. In these times it is nice to get out and about a bit; a touch of normality.
I have started my course of dental treatment and have a extraction to look forward to in a couple of weeks. I will get a temporary bridge at that point and then, once the gum has settled from the extraction, I will get the long term bridge fitted. Whether or not that can be done by Christmas or not I don’t know yet.
Having a couple of weeks off work I have tried not to be too busy. A break is a break and so I have done less around the house and garden than I would normally have done. If nothing else it has given me time to think a bit about what I want to do. The Summer is gone and the Autumn and Winter job list needs some attention.
The year does seem to have vanished and I am having problems believing that it is mid-September. Where did it go? Maybe it is something to do with withdrawing into myself, my Ostrich approach to shutting myself off from as much of the world as I can. Whatever, the calendar does not lie and we are where we are. I suppose that the months slip away whilst I have my head in the sand and, as it is my choice to hide, I have no cause for complaint.
Stay safe wherever you are.
the lockdown log 76
Finally I have managed to get a few words on paper (or VDU) after the worst bout of writer’s block that I can remember. It isn’t that I haven’t been able to think of things to write; there are part started blogs for all of the missing weeks and I have a host of audio files where I have thought of things whilst out walking plus some post-it notes. The problem has been getting any of this into some form of readable state. Day after day I have powered up and then stared at a blank screen with no concept of how to turn any of these jottings into sentences and paragraphs that add up to something worthwhile.
Today a corner has been turned and thoughts are flowing through my fingers and causing stuff to appear on the screen. Why I don’t know, nor do I know why I have had a problem. I am just glad that it is over. I will try and retrospectively fill in the gaps in the coming weeks, but, for now, a summary.
Since my last appearance here I have had a Covid scare and a fall, both of which rattled me a bit. The former came when there was a rumour that someone whom I had been in brief contact with was alleged to have been diagnosed as having Covid. This I was told just over a a week after I had been in their company and I still do not know whether or not the allegation is true, but although I did not contract the disease myself and that incident is past, It did give me a few days worry though.
The fall was at work where I was distracted just at the point where I got to a curb in the car park and tripped over it. The damage was mostly superficial, but I chipped a tooth which has begun to fall apart. The repairs are going to cost over £3000 and I am none too pleased about that. Fortunately I am not too bothered about dental work and so having it done will not trouble me too much, but paying for it will.
The weather has been variable enough to have kept me off most of my outside projects, although I have done a lot of garden maintenance and spent some to trying to work out what has gone well and what hasn’t from this year’s planting. I did manage to get the first coat of black paint on the final section of deck to be done that colour and am happy with the results. This deck paint, although a reputable brand, does not seem to cover as well as the stuff that I used 20 years ago and maybe there have been changes to the recipe along the way.
I have not yet built the BBQ station, but the new BBQ that we bought last year has still not been lit. It is likely that it will not be lit this year either the way things are going, but I would like to build the station for it before Winter sets in.
Much of my time in recent weeks has been spent in pursuit of a decent sourdough loaf. I am not quite sure why the Berkshire Belle has been pressing me to make these things when we have a good source of commercially baked sourdough, but she has and after she bought me yet another sourdough book in the Summer, I vowed to have another go. So far the score is 7 of which one was partially edible, two reasonable edible even if they had not risen enough, and four failures. I have, for now, given up and this week I made a good white loaf in the breadmaker just to cheer myself up. Having done that I am going to attempt a soda bread at the weekend. I haven’t had a go at one for a while and the last try was a failure, so I am none too confident. Onwards and upwards though; get back on the bike and try again.
The car tax reminder just dropped onto the doormat. It seems incredible that it is a year since I bought it, but time seems very telescoped in these strange times.
Anyway, time to get this onto the web and I will aim to be back again next week.
Stay safe wherever you are.
the lockdown log 72
My weight loss efforts just can’t get traction. I have a couple of good days and then there will be something that needs eating, or throwing, and I can’t abide waste. The other problem at the moment is bread. Both add calories.
The Berkshire Belle loves sourdough and, whilst we have good, local, source in Hobbs House, she wants me to bake it. Now I enjoy making bread. Twenty odd years ago she bought me a one day bread baking course and I have baked regularly since, albeit that I often resort to our Panasonic bread machine. Homemade bread is great, but I am trying to keep my carb intake down…
So far my first couple of sourdough loaves have not been good. They have been edible, but would not have won me any plaudits. I will keep trying and see what I can do, but I am finding it very frustrating, especially as we could just buy one.
As I know that I am not doing well enough on losing weight I have stopped weighing in. abject cowardice perhaps, but that is my decision for now. I really have too many other things to worry about right now.
Bread making has been eating into my time and so I have spent less in the garden. On the other hand I have been trying to put in about half an hour each day in de-cluttering. It is all necessary work and there is a bit of a feel good factor in doing it. There is just so much to do.
This week we have been out to celebrate thirty years of marriage. Our first lunch expedition for a while and we found ourselves the only customers. The food was good although it took a long time to arrive. We suspect that someone had to go out and buy the bread, but it was good enough when it arrived although it was one of those meals where the idea behind the dish could have been better. Still, we have been out, and the next few weeks see a run of special days; two birthdays and thirty two years together fall between now and early October so we are looking forward to a few more lunches.
I also have four weeks holiday booked in two lots of two weeks each. We will not do a lot, but hope to try and do something a bit different. A day out to the Isle of Wight is one that we will look at.
Stay safe wherever you are.
the lockdown log 68
I will start with the good news; the scales gave me 107 kg this week, so 4 kg down from last week and that makes it look even more like the 111kg was a spurious reading. What went wrong? Atmospheric pressure? Sun spots? I don’t know, but I am reassured that I am back on track.
The jolt that I got from the dodgy numbers last week did give me some motivation to try and focus. I have not gone into starvation mode, but have tried to cut back on intake and to be a little more thoughtful about what I am eating. The latter can be hard, especially when a certain voice calls through from the kitchen asking if I knew that such and such needs eating by today. Obviously not or I would have had that rather than what I have on my plate, but such circumstances tend to see me eating my share of the about to run out of date food in addition to what I had portioned out for myself. The difference is that a couple of weeks back I would probably have buttered some bread and made a sandwich whereas now I just eat whatever it is and cut out the extra carbs.
Out in the garden the foxes are still passing through and we get the odd signs of the passing, but the damage has largely stopped. Other pests have made an appearance though; blackfly, greenfly, caterpillars, slugs and snails to the fore and the constant battle has moved on. The wet, but warm, weather had seen growth rocket and with it the amount of time needed for basic maintenance is eating into getting projects done. The big Silver Birch in my neighbour’s garden is now shedding its seeds and, even with no real breeze, standing on the deck is like being in a minor blizzard which means that finishing the deck repaint is on hold for a week or two.
I am hoping to be able to get on with building a table for the barbeque in the coming week as that will mean that I have the table available and can get the barbeque off the floor and can also, perhaps, use the damn thing although I have never understood the attraction of standing out in the heat cooking on something that is even hotter. We are planning lots of things salad based for the coming week.
With the 19th approaching we have no plans to ditch our masks. Down in these parts we are also seeing a surge in C-19 cases and we will be staying safe to reduce the risk of being sorry. We are plotting going out for lunch one day soon though and one of the local pubs will be seeing us all being well.
Stay safe wherever you are.
the lockdown log 65
Life goes on for us and whilst I am calm about lockdown it is bothering the Berkshire Belle considerably. I am content wearing my mask; she is not, yet if we fail to spot the sanitation station at the store entrance (or are too preoccupied to notice), she can get quite stressed when she realises that we have not added that layer of protection. The oddities in the changing regulations bother her too; why can large crowds attend sporting events when you can’t have a concert and so on. None of this interests me in the slightest and I cannot give her any answers as to why these things are as they are. I just accept them as facts and get on with my day.
I suppose that it is my innate habit of ignoring anything that I cannot influence. It works for me and I do my best to let all of this just wash over me. Yes it is affecting my life, but I have adapted and just live a different life. I used to do this to some degree when we spent as much time as we could in the USA and I would tell people that we were not on holiday, just living there instead of here. And that is largely true because from the second trip onwards we did little that was touristy, rather we settled into trying to live as much like locals as we could. It was a different life to here and one that we liked better. Covid life is not like the one that we knew and it is not so good, but it is the one that we have and I do my best with it.
One this that I have noticed recently is the way that fuel prices have risen. I am notorious for not looking at what I have paid for fuel, but I do remember a point during lockdown about 12 months ago when I paid less than £1 per litre for unleaded. This week I spotted at the Esso station that I pass on the way to and from work that the litre price was up to £1.319. Pre-lockdown it was about 122.9 to 124.9 per litre, so it makes a bit of a difference, but I do not use too much these days and I am glad about that.
We have been out a bit this week and the Berkshire Belle has had two trips; one over to Cheltenham to the bigger Waitrose supermarket there and then a three shop trip locally the next day when we did a garden centre, Marks and Spencer and Lidl in a mini orgy of retail. It is important that I keep getting her out, even if these trips are hardly full of excitement. We talked a lot this week about going out to lunch one day, but did not come to any conclusions beyond the uncertainty of whether we would enjoy ourselves. Given the lady’s dislike of lockdown protocols as mentioned above it does, for her, take away much of the pleasure and if she is not having a good time, then nor am I. We stayed in for all of our meals and, in all probability, actually ate more healthily that had we dined out. Certainly it was cheaper.
There is no rush for us to book any holiday yet. Our preferred destination is America, but things are so bad over there that we are concerned about going. We have talked about a shorter trip to, say, Dubai, but that, as a major hub, is firmly red-zoned for now. It will probably be another year for us with no holiday now. We have no interest in going to Europe at the moment, even if they would have us, nor in a UK tour, so it will be making plans for 2022 by the look of it.
This coming weekend I have an appointment with the scales. It is a year since I had the diabetic diagnosis that spurred me into a concerted effort to lose weight and I need to see where I am and, perhaps, try and kick start another drive towards getting under 100kg. The Berkshire Belle has had a splendid result from her own diet. Her numbers are her affair and not to be shared here, but she has done very well and I am proud of her efforts. It is causing her some issues in that she has few clothes that fit and her normal sources, various US chains, are not readily available to her. We are working on that from a mail order perspective though.
In the garden we are still having fox problems although we seem to be down to two now. Mrs Reynard has not been seen for a few days and the dark red coloured youngster has also been AWOL lately. The remaining pair have possibly picked up on Mummy’s talent for killing pigeons though judging by the evidence and neither looks to be going hungry. Whilst the are still living in neighbouring gardens ours is still the preferred place for burying food as we have the well turned flower beds and planters that our neighbours lack. July is around the time that the cubs usually push off and find new homes so maybe only another.couple of weeks…
My efforts to build a new base for our mini-Kamodo BBQ have probably caused this latest downturn in the weather. Honest Mother Nature, I didn’t want to use it, just to get it up off the deck so that I could finish painting said deck. I am getting very tempted again to buy a pop-up gazebo to work under: It would protect me form both sun and rain after all.
Anyway, that is it for me for this week. Stay safe wherever you are.
the lockdown log 63
The lunch outing was a success, despite driving for over an hour to get there, but after some good food we had a slow meander back via Waitrose and Abingdon and Aldi at Farringdon. Around Reading and the village where we ate it was wet and horrible, but within about ten miles coming home we were into sunshine and a very pleasant drive.
I am slowly getting some focus back into the garden projects and because that progress is visible it is generating some motivation. Much of what I am doing are things that I dislike such as painting (and the preparation for painting), but I am moving again and that is good.
There have been a lot of distractions; silly things going wrong prominent amongst them and new jobs coming into the schedule that I had no expectations of having to do. Life is like that though and you just have to get on with it.
Paid work plods on regardless and I seem to have no issues with that. I can turn up, do my stuff and come home and I am grateful for that. I have no recollection of a time where I had a problem with a job and although there have been times when I have not especially enjoyed a piece of work or a time at work, I have not lacked motivation to do it. The fact that I am still working getting on for aged 70 perhaps bears that out.
Technology has been one of the distractions for me and I am still using an old desktop for these blogs as my laptop will not display the blog properly at the moment and I am too reluctant to invest time working out why. This is a Windows 10 machine and works slightly differently to the MacBook. It is also an American device and I realised the other day that it was using American English not UK English. I have changed the settings, but it is still trying to Americanise my spelling, so apologies if you have found some strange words recently. This PC uses a grey fond on a white background and, in certain lights, I can’t be relied on to spot when it has corrected me.
That’s it for this week. Sorry it is a short one, but time is pressing and I need to go and cook a couple of Brill fillets, along with some veg, for dinner.
Stay safe wherever you are.
the lockdown log 62
It has been another week that has just flown by and it hardly seems possible that it is Thursday again, but the date at the top of the newspaper is about the only thing left in the media that I believe at face value so it must be true.
Life with my fox family continues and every time that I think that I have built a decent defence they find a way around it. We seem to have lost one of the quartet, but I still see the other three youngsters on a regular basis and mum occasionally. The latter’s continuing presence comes more in the regular stashes of dead pigeon that she leaves for the kids and now that I have so many of the old locations covered up she just leaves them on the lawn.
My daily regime with these visitors is to go around with a black bag and my picker-upper and clear food debris and rubbish that they have left around (they love toys and steal dog’s balls, squeaky toys and such from other gardens) and the go around and hose off the mess that comes from the other end of the animals. They have no sense of potty training and barely break stride to leave ley another deposit, often right outside the back door. This takes me about 30 minutes and is getting boring.
All of my neighbours have turned their front and back gardens over to patios, astroturf, gravel or similar and ours is the only one with flower beds and tubs so the foxes, whilst living under sheds in neighbouring gardens, get to dig in ours.
aAnt over and on to other topics. My garden labours have slowed a little because I am waiting for one of my neighbour to replace the shared fence. He said that this would be done by the end of May, but as yet there is no sign of action and I can’t do some of the things that I want to do until he sorts it out. I have managed to cut away the rotten sections of my old deck and replace them so that is another job crossed off the list.
I have, to some degree, lost my motivation for getting the garden done and I think that the fox problem may be at the heart of that, but I’ll not go back to them right now. I do need to find something that will get me going again though.
Tomorrow might be a good point in that we are going out to lunch for the first time since way before lockdown. In fact the last time that we ate out was probably in Florida in October 2018, so hopefully it will be a treat. We are going to a restaurant in the hinterland north of Reading which we have been to a few times before, The Berkshire Belle is doing her usual “I don’t want to go” thing, but that is just her and I am used to it now.
It will not be a lunch that is in any way slimming and I have been trying to cut down this week to allow a bit of a blow out. My greenhouse activities have provided various lettuce and cress to bulk out my wraps and sandwiches and I have, this week, had my first salad for lunch. The end of June will be one year since I started my diet and whilst I have slipped somewhat over the last 6 months I am going to have a weigh in at the end of the month just to see what the damage is and maybe that will help to re-focus me.
Stay safe out there wherever you are.
the lockdown log 61
I have had a week off and, most days, have been working on various projects. Some of that seems to have told on me physically as I have a lot of muscular pain around the right side of my rib cage that may be due to lots of sawing amongst other things.
The weather has still not been too kind and that has curtailed things a little, but I have invested in a cordless circular saw and so that means that I do not have to run a power cable around from the garage to the back garden for many of the jobs I have on the list. On days with random showers it is a nightmare having to keep reeling it in.
The foxes are starting to roam and seem to spend the odd night on the loose, but were back the other nights and had their most destructive session yet. It is heartbreaking to see so much laid to waste. This morning I found a dead fox, probably from last year, when lifting a couple of rotting deck boards so had to dispose of that and one, or more, of the current crop is a bit loose in the bowel regions and I also had a lot of hosing down to do. All good fun (not).
It has seemed strange not going into work, but I am still getting up at 5 am as normal and have been out in the garden working on the quiet jobs most days by 7. Two door down are having an extension built and so as soon as their crew start work I get my power tools out and join in with the cacophony. I am into some of the more complex jobs at the moment and so there is the mental challenge of working out how best to do things and, sometimes, getting it right first go. There is the usual problem of nothing being the same level, length or square, but it all keeps me amused.
I have finally taken the plunge and planted out my hanging baskets, That has given me some space in the greenhouse which is welcome and I am trying to pot up some of the seedling that I first put in there a couple of months ago. I have been a bit lax in keeping notes on what I have done and when so I may have to rely on memory if I do it again next year.
For over a week now I have avoided the scales. Naughty, but mentally I have not been too good and have not wanted to know in case the news is not good. As I have said here throughout these scribblings I like the ostrich principle and work on the basis that what I don’t know will not bother me. I apply this to much of the news too, but the Berkshire Belle is an avid reader and only has me to share with so I get it all pored over me on a daily basis. I act like a sponge and soak it up because she needs to vent her feelings, but often knowing things that I have been avoiding drags my mental state down. One day this week I just had to tell her that I didn’t want to talk about a certain subject and I left the room; I could not take it.
Today we were going to go to a craft fair and have a rare day out, but we bottled it and stayed at home. It is odd, but our reasons were slightly different; she loathes all of the Covid regulation, even though she knows that it is sensible. Things like one way systems, mask wearing, having your temperature taken and so on take all of her pleasure away whereas I accept all of that stoically. My reason for backing out of today was that there had been more overnight rain locally and the thought of trekking through wet grass plus the risk of getting stuck where other idiots who cannot drive on such surfaces without chewing them up would make life difficult for us all.
Little things tend to become big things and this week I ended up with so many things that required a trip into town that I finally took the plunge and did it. It took up an afternoon, but, despite my fears, all of my errands were completed. I find that there are so many things that, these days, I tend to put off whereas a few years back I took on all comers with little bother. I have flown into countries like Columbia, Libya and China to work without batting an eyelid and let a trip into town to run some errands took more out of me. It must be age creeping up on me. Perhaps it is just that I am out of practice.
I made lamb burgers for lunch today, but elected not to fire up the BBQ and cooked them in the pan on the hob as the sky was looking very black. When I have finished this I am off to do a few outside jobs and then back into the kitchen to make a chicken and leek pie for dinner tonight. Anything to keep busy and stop my mind wandering off into areas that I don’t want it going off to.
If you have plans for this weekend, a Bank Holiday here in the UK and Memorial Day weekend in the US then I hope all goes well for you. I shall be looking out for the Indy 500 on whatever medium I can find to follow it from afar, but I hope that things hold up for you and you have a great time.
Stay safe wherever you are.
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