I feel a bit (lot) like we're heading into a deep, dark (quite scary) tunnel for winter. While my area hasn't been put into any of the increased risk covid zones, there's talk that Nottingham, just down the road, having been put in Tier 2 this week will be going up to Tier 3 soon.
As an antidote of sorts to all this worry and gloom I'm thinking of going back to my 'what did I get up to this week' posts, with an emphasis on the small pleasures in life - cooking, crafting and art, and above all getting out whenever possible and enjoying autumn.
I've already set myself a number of 'winter resolutions' as I think this year they're needed more now, when the days are getting shorter and darker, than they may be in January when spring can feel just around the corner, and I'm hoping they will keep me focused and occupied in the months ahead.
This week has been a bit up and down, and it's impossible to ignore the sadder moments.
On Tuesday I watched a livestream gig and I was reminded of how many times I must have casually said 'see you next time you're up here' to performers, expecting it to have been only a month or two away, not next spring. It's in such odd moments that the enormity of this year strikes home. How self-employed people in the arts are surviving I don't know. The government of course is advising them to retrain (not a particularly helpful suggestion!). I did the questionnaire and my suggested new occupation is 'quarry engineer'. This sounds quite fun - I get to blow things up (cue Michael Caine 'you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off'), play with diggers, and maybe discover dinosaur fossils. For me though, it's a bit of fun; for anyone affected, it isn't.
The next day I went 'home' to change the flowers in my parents' memorial vase at the church. In part because it would have been their wedding anniversary this week, but also because replacing the real flowers with artificial will keep it looking relatively tidy throughout winter - and as the village is in Nottinghamshire I don't want to visit too often. Going there is always a sad occasion, yet part of me is relieved that my parents weren't still alive to be caught up in the chaos of coronavirus.
Thursday was our 'day out' day, or more accurately afternoon. Making an effort to go out walking once a week at National Trust properties or similar has proved really useful, in terms of a change of scene and in getting fitter. This week we went to Calke, to the garden to see the pumpkin display, and then around the park. I clocked 10,000 steps on my fitbit, and rewarded myself by eating reheated chips from the previous day's takeaway dinner.
It's a busy harvesting time of year in the garden and at the allotment. There's an ongoing balancing act dealing with produce, sorting, storing, cooking anything that won't keep. Pumpkins sit on the kitchen windowsill, apples fill baskets in the porch, tomatoes wait to fully ripen before freezing. Dinners as always revolve around what needs to be eaten, so this week that was apples - with bacon chops, with custard and oaty biscuits, with porridge - and kale - in any way you can imagine; chilli, pasta sauce, added to stews, roasted.
The large chest freezer in the garage is now so full that something has to be taken out and eaten before anything else can be added! It's good in a way (and settles any fears I have over food shortages due to Covid and Brexit) but troublesome when runner beans and cabbages are being picked quicker than we're eating them. Partially to help cope with this abundance, I've decided to add another winter resolution to my list - to cook something new from a proper cookbook once a week, rather than stick to the same old trusted meals week in, week out.
I prefer watching box sets to live TV, so I end up running through a series much quicker than the tv channel does. Fortunately the BBC have caught up with me, and Season 3 of The Bridge has turned up on I-player. I've seen this before but like so many things my husband hadn't. We got through it in about four nights though, so I need to find something else to watch.
The week ended on a curious note. First the fun bit. My youngest daughter and her bubble partner came down on Saturday, and we had a great time. It's ages since I saw her, but the minute she's here that's forgotten and it's as if I saw her only last week. Sunday though was a weird day. I felt rather like a child who's had too much fun on their birthday or at Christmas, and doesn't know how to settle back to their 'everyday' routine. Fortunately in the evening we found something fab to watch - Armando Iannucci's The Personal History of David Copperfield with Dev Patel in the title role; just the kind of fun, engrossing viewing I needed.
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