Home Alone - Day 20 & 21

When I made this Mr Man dress last week, whilst dressed in thermal leggings and long sleeves, I'd never in a million years expected to be wearing it in the glorious sunshine eight days later!

Day 20 of social distancing started in the usual way with a Wii Fit workout and fruit & yoghurt breakfast. After catching up with the blog world I got dressed and watered the patio pots. Standing barefoot in the sunshine for half an hour, at one with nature, is as effective as any meditation class.

Simple pleasures, noticing that the rocket in our cola bottle planter had sprung into life overnight.

You won't be able to tell from the photo but Jon repaired Jacob's pen which was looking decidedly wonky. Another job ticked off the list.

I stood on the bottom rung of the ladder whilst Jon nailed supports into the wall for the climbers which have gone mad in the last couple of days. The plant on the right is a Clematis but I can't for the life of me remember what the one on the left is, we bought it from the reduced to clear section in the supermarket last year when it was little more than a couple of leaves, I'm pretty sure it's honeysuckle but I could be wrong.

I planted up another lampshade with sempervivums (houseleeks). The wrought iron stands came from a company Jon used to work for who sold those "As Seen on TV" products, they formed the base of a duff lot of terracotta chimaeras returned by dissatisfied customers, he always knew they'd come in useful one day.

After lunch (a cheese and red pepper sandwich on wholemeal bread) Jon drilled holes into the brickwork to suspend some rope lights across the driveway, in between holding the ladder for him I sat in the sunshine and crocheted a few granny squares, aided by my glamorous assistant. Whilst the rest of the world were stockpiling bog roll and pasta, my shopping pre-lockdown consisted of hair dye, mascara and wool!

After our walk around the block, Jon set to work in the kitchen. I shared this recipe for a basic curry paste a few years ago after a cookery class I did in Kerala but thought it was worth resharing just in case you normally use the shop-bought variety and have run out. Make this and you'll never have to rely on ready-made again.

Basic Curry Paste

200gms red onions

100gms chopped or tinned tomatoes

6 cloves of garlic

10gms fresh ginger, peeled

1 tsp turmeric powder

1/4 tsp chilli powder

8 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp garam masala

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp veg oil

1 cup of water 

• Finely slice the onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger, pop into a food mixer (with the water) and blend to a smooth paste.
• Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a large saucepan, then add the paste.
• Add the chilli, coriander, garam masala and salt & gently cook over low heat for 5 minutes, stirring continuously.
• Remove from heat & cool before refrigerating. It'll keep in an airtight container for up to a week.

Last night's tea - paneer curry with garlic & coriander nan.

This will serve two:

• Cut paneer into 1" chunks, fry in 1 tbsp of oil for a minute to seal. 
• Pop your paneer* into a pan with 6 tsp of the paste, half a tin of tomatoes, 1/2 a cup of water & a few curry leaves. 
• Simmer until thoroughly reheated and serve.

*If you haven't got paneer you can use any cooked, canned or frozen vegetables allowing 4oz per person

Ta-dah! Jon's lights were up and we were able to Clap for Carers whilst fully illuminated. Thursday's tribute was particularly poignant as we remembered Areema Nasreen, a nurse at Walsall Manor Hospital, who died from Coronavirus last Friday.

After my Wii Fit session and fruit & yoghurt breakfast I swept the downstairs rugs, put a load of washing on and hung it out to dry. Jon was a bit twitchy so I suggested we walk to the Co-op, as opposed to Johal's, as we were running low on fresh fruit, which took us just under an hour.

The outdoor metal table and chairs were looking rather rusty. We'd bought them from a garden centre that was closing down ten years ago and, loving the colour, had hunted down an almost identical shade of green and painted our other garden furniture to match. Luckily we still had some of the paint so I scrubbed off the rust and retouched the chairs and table. 

On the way back in from our walk to the Co-op Jon climbed the steps outside the kitchen and the brick edge crumbled away. Before our noodle lunch, he cemented it back into place.

The patch of gravel outside Stonecroft was both weed and litter-strewn, so I pulled on my gloves and sorted it out, saving the dandelions for Jacob.

Jon had another set of rope lights so wired them up and strung them down the garden from the Kinky Shed to the pond. We'll have a switch-on ceremony later.

I thought the sempervivum in my cage looked a bit lonely, so I added a friend plus a wooden Buddha (which I'd left out in the garden for a year to distress) to watch over them.

As we'd already been on our allowed daily walk I wandered around the garden instead, armed with my tortoise food foraging book.

I've found a few tortoise-friendly weeds in the undergrowth so that'll keep him going until we can find lettuce (all sold out in the Co-op).

There's mice living in the rockery, Stephen's obsessed.

Wearing:1970s gingham maxi dress (a birthday present from Curtise in 2017)

The final job of the day was to top up the pond as the water level has dropped since the Autumn. There's masses of frogspawn as well as a couple of huge frogs in there (that's what I was pointing at in my garden video).

Not visible in the photos are my handmade silver Frida Kahlo earrings from our dear festival friends and neighbours, Shilpa Silver, who we're going to miss desperately this year.  They're still selling on-line so if you fancy treating yourself you can buy them for their website HERE.

Whilst we were in the Co-op I spotted a posh Marguerita sourdough pizza in the reduced section so we're having that for tea with some salad, cheese and coleslaw. As it's Friday there's rum and cola for later.

Cheers!

Stay safe and healthy and keep in touch. I love to know what you've been up to.