The Distancing Diaries - Day 30 & 31

Sunday (day 30) started - as usual - with tea in bed, where we read and lounged with the cats until 8.30 when Jon went downstairs to start breakfast and I stripped and changed the bed. After we'd eaten our veggie sausage sandwiches I caught up on blog comments whilst Jon painted the French doors that lead out from his music room, taking photos of the new curtain with the doors open.

I was down to the last five pieces in my fabric stash and was a bit worried that the curtain would look a bit boring but I think I've got away with it.

In my last post, my friend Betty asked if she could see Jon's guitars. Here they are.

(Apparently, there's a few more but he didn't want you to think he had a problem!)

If only those guitars could talk, they'd tell a few tales!

 The Charlatans, circa 1990

Liquidy Headbox circa 1988 (Jon's in the Vogue tee)

Frank knows there are prawns defrosting on the kitchen windowsill so he won't leave Jon alone.

As welcome as the sun was, when I drew the curtains on Sunday morning, it didn't half show off the dust in the lounge so I gave it a good clean. I'm sure I only did this a few weeks ago (it was 20th March, I checked the blog archives), this housework lark is a full-time job!

After I'd pegged out the washing I inspected the greenhouse for signs of life.

The courgettes, onion and melon are all getting started but are so minuscule that I couldn't get a clear picture.

Jon thinned out the pepper seedlings on the windowsill whilst outside I replanted the cola bottle planter with parsley seeds, we'd had a visit from a cat that wasn't ours last night who'd managed to knock it over and displace the coriander seeds. I watered the patio pots in the sunshine and Jon pottered about around the garden, topping up the pond and checking that the squirrels hadn't made off with the fat balls on the chandelier (they hadn't!)

This week's lockdown nail paint is Barry M's, Green Berry.

 I'm down to the dregs at the bottom of the bottle and had to add a few drops of nail varnish remover to thin it down a bit. The spiky silver-green shrub is a curry plant (helichrysum italicum), it's not edible but it smells incredible.

Although yesterday was sunny it was cold in the shade and I was glad of the jacket I'd grabbed at the last minute before we went for our daily walk.

WEARING: Vintage Anokhi block printed midi dress (eBay), Lotta from Stockholm clogs, vintage Gujarati amulet pendant 

Back at Stonecroft, I brought the washing in off of the line and sat in the sunshine for a bit, joined by the cats. Frank couldn't keep his eyes open, he'd gorged on prawns.

Tea was Spanish-style butter beans with flatbread and salad. We watched Race Across The World and the first episode of Killing Eve...that ending was quite a surprise, wasn't it?

When I got up this morning I was excited to see that the artichokes and basil on the landing windowsill had started to sprout.

After my Wii Fit session and, while I waited for the tea to brew, I had a look online and saw that the garden centre we'd ordered our compost from had posted on Facebook that their website had just opened for orders on a first-come, first-served basis. With much excitement, I managed to snaffle some colourful perennials along with some pansies for my window boxes for delivery this week before they sold out. I tell you what, it was almost as big a thrill as I used to get from getting Glastonbury tickets - how times have changed!

We were running low on cat food so, after our usual weekday breakfast, Jon drove to the out-of-town pet superstore to stock up. I grabbed an old toothbrush & a bowl of soapy water, tucked my kaftan in my knickers and set about scrubbing the grime off these cast iron chairs I'd liberated from a neighbour's skip years ago.

I gave them a coat of Lovely Olive paint and left them to dry in the sunshine. They used to reside down by the pond but I thought they'd be better by the mirrored wall, it's a great little sun trap first thing in the morning.

I was so engrossed in my work that I never heard my friend Erica pop some of her surplus of seeds in the post box. Tomorrow, I shall be planting watercress, purple cauliflower and pink tomatoes.

Back from his cat food buying mission and after lunch, Jon transplanted some of the gherkin and lettuce seedlings to one of the cloches.

My grandparents bought my mum this Cotswold stone birdbath for her 21st birthday in 1963. It's resided in the border beneath the lounge window for a few years but, being so close to the house, only the bravest of the birds bother with it, namely the wood pigeons and magpies.

Wearing his lumbar support belt (yay!) Jon dragged it across the gravel to reposition it under our Indian Bean Tree (catalpa bignonioides), where the majority of our feathered visitors gather to eat.

On our walk yesterday I managed to liberate another couple of Euphorbia plants which I potted up this afternoon.

Our flag arrived! It's flapping away in the breeze, showing Stonecroft's support for the NHS (20% of the £7.95 price went to the NHS Charity).

It would have been a perfect day if the wind had dropped but I braved going for our walk minus a jacket anyway, we just kept to the sunny side of the street. I'm wearing the kaftan I had tailor-made in Jodhpur from the vintage sari Jon had bought me for my birthday.

SOURCE

Tonight we're having saag paneer with rice for tea and we're planning to start watching Fleabag on the BBC i-player (we're probably the last people in the UK to watch it!)

How are you doing in lockdown? What's keeping you occupied?