The Distancing Diaries - Day 78 & 79

Every weekday morning I wake Jon up with a mug of tea, delivered to the bedside. On weekends he tells me to stay in bed so he can return the favour but, more often than not, I'm awake first and it seems daft to lie there waiting for him to wake up. Saturday (day 78) was a case in point. I got up, fed the lads and returned to bed with mugs of tea where we read until 8.45am.

Once up I stripped & changed the bed, loaded the washing machine and joined Jon in the kitchen where he was unpacking a delivery of decorating materials which had just been delivered from Tool Station. After coffee and toast (made from Ray the neighbour's sourdough loaf he'd delivered frozen last week), Jon cracked on with prepping the kitchen walls. 

Saturday is self-care day, I epilated my legs and filed my feet,

I slathered my hair in coconut oil, plaited and pinned it up and painted my toe and fingernails with Barry M's Rhubarb.

The houseplants had been soaking in the bath overnight. After I'd given them their fortnightly feed, I put them back in their rightful positions and scrubbed the bath clean.

The lads decided to have a mousing morning, managing to catch one each and both attempting (and failing) to bring their prey into the house.

They spent the rest of the morning fast asleep.

Taking photos helps me to see Stonecroft objectively.
When I saw the picture I'd taken of the freshly cleaned bathroom on Friday I hated how tatty the blue plant pot looked and the expanse of the wall beneath the framed plant was too bare for my maximalist tastes.

I had a rummage in the cupboard under the sink & found a can of Wilko spray paint. I braved the torrential rain and stood under the shelter of the massive lime tree in the garden, spraying the blue pot metallic gold. 

From the drawerful of frames in the bedroom, I unearthed a portrait of my Great-great-grandmother and a set of framed 1920s snapshots I'd bought from a car boot sale for 50p over a decade ago.

 Isn't the woman in the knitted bathing costume gorgeous?

By now the rain had stopped so I risked pegging the washing outside on the line. I joined Jon in the kitchen for noodles and spent the next couple of hours tidying my wardrobe and reading.......

....and hurtling up the garden at breakneck speed to rescue the washing from the rain. Thank goodness for Jon's hand-built clothes dryer!

By now Jon had downed tools, called it a day and had gone upstairs to shave his head and shower. As he'd shopped with a basket when he'd visited Morrison's, space was tight and he'd forfeited his weekly treat of a packet of biscuits to accommodate a bottle of rum & cola so I thought I'd make him some.

Flour-free Peanut Butter Biscuits 

200g peanut butter

175g golden caster sugar (I used unrefined demerara)

1/4 tsp fine salt

1 medium egg

• Preheat oven to 180°C
• Line two large baking sheets with greaseproof paper
• Mix peanut butter, salt & sugar in a bowl, add a beaten egg and stir until mixture forms a dough
• Arrange cherry tomato-sized chunks onto the trays and squash down with the back of a fork
• Bake for 12 minutes, until edges are golden and middle is slightly paler. Cool for 10 minutes and then move to a wire rack. Keep in a tin and use within 3 days. 

It seemed only polite to keep Jon company while he sampled one. They're a bit too sweet for me but the texture is gorgeous.

Tea was potato lattices with poached eggs (seasoned with black pepper) and peas. Later we watched three episodes of the new series of Cardinal and drank rum.

I was up first again this morning (day 79) so made tea and brought it back to bed where I read and Jon snoozed. We got up at 9am and watched The Andrew Marr Show over breakfast of coffee and toast. It was another day of grey skies, cold temperatures and intermittent heavy showers, so miserable & uninspiring that we didn't get dressed until 10.30am.

Again, Jon got stuck into the decorating whilst I attempted to put yesterday's washing away. Unable to shut the dressing table drawer, I tipped it upside down and filled a bag with a sarong, a pair of shorts, two bikinis, a pair of leggings and a couple of off-the-shoulder tops, ready to donate when the charity shops reopen. Every garment I tossed was a modern item from the charity clearance shop, bought not because I needed it, I'd justified my purchases because they were £1 and might come in useful one day. Lesson learnt. When lockdown ends and the charity shops reopen I shan't be seeking instant gratification with cheap impulse buys, I shall keep those £1 coins in my purse and save them for something special.

I altered and hemmed another pair of Jon's shorts then put my clogs on and, as the rain seemed to have stopped, went for a wander around the garden. I was scared to look in the greenhouse and the cloches but, other than a gherkin and a courgette which had been eaten by slugs, the rest was still looking pretty good.

The Welsh poppies are loving the rain and there's even more wild sweet peas. How gorgeous is this pink poppy I spotted, growing amongst the weeds outside the gates?

The blue anti-algae treatment we applied to the pond seems to be doing the trick, there's still plenty of frog and tadpole activity bubbling beneath the surface but the water is a lot clearer.

After our lunchtime noodles, I spent a couple of hours at the PC catching up on blog reading and comments.

After wearing its twin on Friday, it seemed only right to give my original India Imports of Rhode Island maxi an outing. With our unpredictable British summer, is there anything more practical than a cotton dress with sleeves?

Ever the critic, despite the newly painted dressing table, the decoupaged chest of drawers and the revamped necklace hanger there was still something about the corner of the spare bedroom that irked me.

Looking at the photo on my last blog post I decided it was Tina, the shape of the frame didn't sit right.

We bought this 1960s glazed print of a beautiful Spanish lady a couple of years ago for the princely sum of £3 during a Black Country charity shopping extravaganza with G'n'T and the poor thing had been propped up against a bookcase ever since. She fitted perfectly.

Tina's now in our bedroom...for the time being.

Tea was pizza with salad.

The plan for tonight is bingeing on the rest of Cardinal with a handful of the fizzy vegan allsorts Jon treated me to today.

Talking of viewing, we watched The Green Book on Friday night and loved it. Based on the true story of an interracial friendship that developed between an African-American pianist and his Italian-American driver whilst they toured the American deep south in a time of racial division. Almost sixty years on and it's heartbreaking that discrimination in all its ugliness & utter pointlessness still exists. #blacklivesmatter

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Stay safe, stay sane & stay fabulous.