Well, the world does feel like a rather strange place at the minute, doesn't it? Two weeks ago I spent the weekend in London. We'd heard the news, of course, but at the time, Covid-19 didn't seem like something we'd need to be taking precautions against, on an individual level at least. I travelled by train, shared accommodation and food, and there were plenty of hugs. I was still on strike that week, and I met up with friends, hosted a (small) dinner party, and generally carried on daily life as normal, always with one eye on the news. Things started getting stranger throughout the week, and several universities moved all their teaching online. Mine didn't, and I spent an anxious weekend refreshing the university website, trying to work out whether I should do my teaching on the Monday online or in person. I decided to go to class myself, but tell my students they didn't have to, and provide an online option. An hour later the university announced we had a week to move everything online. Monday was my first class back after three weeks of being on strike. Only a handful of students turned up, and I'll admit we felt rather daft as we stayed 6 feet away from each other, dotted around the classroom. I didn't go to my normal office, so I didn't see any of my colleagues or my usual students. On Monday night, we were told to move everything online and work from home immediately. I work from home a lot anyway, so there was no great transition needed for me, although it's been a week of experimentally recording lectures, shifting student supervisions online, an eight hour teleconference (!). Things are settling now, and work-wise, next week onwards should be much calmer, although obviously tings are changing daily now so who knows. Outside of work though... We went to our local cafe Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and they were increasingly worried about what would happen to them. We didn't go yesterday, and last night the government announced all cafes (and restaurants, cinemas etc) would close. We bumped into one of the women from the cafe at the supermarket and it felt a bit sad to be saying goodbye. Of course I'm anxious about how things are going to pan out, globally, nationally, for the health service, for people on precarious work contracts (one of the main things we were striking about), self-employed people whose businesses may not weather the storm, people already living in poverty, people without anyone to support them. I'm waking up too early, going to sleep too late, scrolling through Twitter (like that's going to help). I think I need to stop. Not stop reading the news, but stop refreshing it regularly, stop reading endless commentary, stop worrying about things I have control over, and instead focus on things I can control. Donating to the food bank. Supporting colleagues and students who are anxious. Keeping in touch with family and friends. Staying fit and healthy. As a society we'll come out of the other side of this, and I hope when we do we all have a better understanding of what it means for people to have no safety net, for health and social care services to be overstretched, for cleaners and support workers to be underpaid and underappreciated. Because those things are bad for all of us, not just for the people experiencing them directly.
This wasn't what I came here to write today. I came to write about how I've found my working hours stretching at both sides of the day now I don't have a two hour commute, how I'm spending too much time sitting down, drinking too much tea, not getting enough exercise, and all of those things are still true. But mostly I'm feeling gratitude. I'm thankful that I'm healthy, that I have a safe place to live, a stable job I can do from home, plenty of projects to keep me occupied while everything is shut, and space to be outside away from other people. Many people don't have those things, and I don't take them for granted.
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How did it get to be the middle of March? Must be well overdue time for an update on my 20 for 2020 plan! I don't feel like I've got much done this month, but let's see... 20 things mended (3/20) I repaired a small hole in a nightie, but other than that no mending this month. 19 letters written (4/19) No more letters written - but I did receive a very welcome letter from an old school pal in response to my January letter. What fun! 18 days with internet (1/18) Finally made a start on this with an internet free day on Sunday 23rd. Nothing dramatic happened, I didn't miraculously get loads of DIY done or anything, but it was a nice gentle day. Very much feeling the need for another one with all the news around the pandemic at the minute. 17 new books read (11/17) Ooh, now I have made good progress here - largely thanks to the library's audio book service. I've been told (again) that listening to books isn't the same as reading them - and I do agree that biologically they are of course different activities, but this is my blog and my challenge for myself, so I'm defining 'reading' as 'consuming books', and thus am making nice progress. Again, this is a fairly haphazard selection of things available at the library, and then other things it suggested for me after I'd finished those.
I'm saying these are fairly haphazard, but there is a bit of a pattern emerging now I can see them all written down together. No fiction (so far). Lots of books about running and exercise, and the odd self-help thing (always trying to be a bit more organised...). March is looking a little bit different already so let's see what happens there... 16 household items or pieces of clothing made (9/16) I made a hat! A real hat! This is most exciting. I can still see the flaws, and there are several things I'll do differently next time, but it's still pretty exciting. 15 meals with friends (4/15) Another two added this month - a friend came over to stay, which was lovely (she's not been to our new house before) so we had dinner (I won't count breakfast as a separate meal, although it was more of an event than it would usually be). And we hosted a mini dinner party, just three guests, but one didn't know the other two which made it a little more fun I think. 14 meals from home grown produce (0/14) Er, no. But we are getting a few more eggs these days so I'm hopeful! The rhubarb is coming on nicely too (not sure there's anything that I can make that only involves rhubarb and eggs though). 13 evening lectures (0/13) No. I've started going to running club a couple of nights a week which has clashed with a couple of talks I might otherwise have gone to. This is feeling like less of a priority than other things at the minute, but again, we'll see. 12 donations to food bank (1/12) Donated a load of toiletries and household cleaning products as most of the stuff in the box seemed to be food. Obviously this is going to be more important now in the wake of recent events, which (as usual) are likely to hit the poorest the hardest. 11 solo days out for me (0/11) None yet, although I did have a little weekend in London at an event which was most exciting, might write about that more soon. 10 loaves of bread made (0/10) Er, no. 9 bike rides (0/9) No - although I did get the bike out of the garage at one point, but then it started snowing again. I have great plans for cycling the last little bit of the way to the office once I'm back at work though, so maybe that'll encourage me to get out and about a bit more. 8 organised runs (1/8) No races in February, but I did start going out with the 'Target 5k' group of my local running club. They'd been working up from nothing at the start of the year, and when I joined they were already up to running for 8 minutes with 1 minute walk breaks. This morning we did our 5k target! Very exciting (but as it's March that'll be added onto next month's list). 7 new places visited (1/7) I don't think I've been anywhere new locally, must up my game! 6 attempts at cheese making (0/6) None in February. 5 'No Quibble' weekends away (0/5) No, but we've roped my mother in to look after the chickens on the weekend of my birthday so I'm most excited about a little trip away. Hi mum! 4 pairs of socks made (0/4) None. 3 days volunteering (0/3) None - I did spot an ad hoc call for volunteers locally which I was tempted by, but it was then cancelled. 2 LAND centres visited (0/2) No official LAND centres (part of the LAND network run by the Permaculture Association), but I did visit a friend who took me to her community allotment, run by her local permaculture network. I'm not counting that as I want to visit official sites (as we're thinking of working towards becoming one ourselves) but it was pretty cheerful (although thinking about it, that was at the start of March...) 1 holiday! (0/1) No. All in all, a bit of a strange month. I was on strike for several days at the end of the month (and several more in March), and while I thought I'd get through plenty of DIY and days out, the reality has been somewhat different. The earlier part of the month was spent preparing for the strike (while of course the purpose is disruption of the university, none of us wants to harm our students, so it's not as simple as just downing tools and walking out - and at any rate quite a bit of my job doesn't involve teaching at all).
I've seen a lot of people though, visited friends, done some DIY, a bit of running, and a whole lot of general hanging around. Let's see what the rest of March brings. It feels like it's been raining forever, and apparently I'm not imagining things as it's been the wettest February in the UK since records began, and the fifth wettest month overall. I feel like I've spent most of the month inside, trying to stay dry. Still, there have been one or two non-soggy days, and a couple of outdoor things have been started. Tackling the quagmire On one of the few dry days I decided to tackle the quagmire that appears outside our front gate when the rainwater washes down the driveway and creates a giant puddle, which we then reverse the cars into, creating a muddy, soupy mess, which expands until we have to put wellies on just to get to the car. It's interesting, this puddle, because it sits and settles and eventually the grass grows over the mud. All that grass you can see in the picture, both inside the gates and outside, is growing on just a couple of inches of mud - underneath is all tarmac. I suspect if we left it long enough (and didn't drive over it), the grass would keep expanding until it reached the top of the drive. There would be some advantages to that I suppose, but I'd rather not wade through mud when I'm trying to get to work at 6am. So I needed a solution. My solution wasn't complicated, or pretty, and probably won't be long term, but it's solved the immediate problem without creating a new problem (and it was done in a very short break in the rain). The chickens helped. The water now runs through my new little channel, away from the house and into the field. Not perfect, not elegant, but good enough for now (which is my general aim in life). Compost bins We must have had another dry day at some point as I made a start on the new compost bin, which I mentioned back in January. So far all I've done is retrieve wood from the pile of old floorboards removed during the building work, and lay them out in order to make sure I have enough. I've measured where I want the compost bins to go, and now need to do a bit of sawing and screw everything together. It's not raining today so perhaps that's a job for this afternoon. Plastering Some things have been happening inside too - not much, I should add, but I have made a start on plastering the new bedroom. Not a very good start, I admit. Either I let the PVA glue dry too much, or the plaster has gone off, and quite a lot of it didn't stick to the wall and had to be scraped off. What a fiasco. Still, it feels good to have made a start, and by the end of March I'm hoping this room will be beautifully plastered and ready to move in (ha, fat chance). Growing Not much is growing in the garden yet. Snowdrops, and I glimpsed the first crocuses the other day too. I did spend an hour clearing old ferns from the bed in the garden, so that looks a little tidier (although it would be even better if I'd not left the offcuts lying where I cut them - but in my defence it had started raining again). The rhubarb has sprouted though and is coming on nicely. Rhubarb crumble before March is out I reckon. Things I didn't do I made the mistake of looking back at January's post to see whether I'd made any progress on what I'd started then. I've started the compost bin, but other than that... no. No walling (far too rainy and windy for that), no progress on the fence, and we've not even taken that giant pile of rubbish to the tip (although we have added to it). The snow hasn't helped - it's not been constant, but every few days there's a flurry being whipped up by the wind, making me not want to set foot out of the door, let alone spend an hour lugging stones round in a field. Even the chickens aren't impressed. Oh well. The nights are getting noticeably lighter now, and that always makes me feel more energetic. I'm off work at the minute (we're on strike, again) so theoretically I should have plenty of time to be getting on with all these things. But somehow there's always someone to visit, or something else to do (that involves staying warm and dry).
But I'm going to declare a few things (which I reserve the right not to achieve). By the end of March I would like to have
Let's see how far I get... |
Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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