The Distancing Diaries - 18th & 19th October, 2020

I was wide awake at 4.40am on Sunday morning so I got up, saw to the lads, staked a couple of houseplants and mopped the kitchen floor. I brought mugs of tea back to bed and finished A Man Called Ove (a wonderful read & highly recommended), getting up with Jon at 8am. 

After a couple of slices of toast for breakfast I dyed my eyelashes and painted my nails Barry M's Night Sky. We watched The Andrew Marr Show then got dressed, grabbed the donation sack & our masks and headed out to the clearance charity shop.

WEARING: Vintage India Imports of Rhode Island block print maxi, Reiss wool felt fedora & 1970s suede jacket (all eBay finds)

It was chilly, the skies were grey and out came my blue suede jacket for the first time this season. I'm so glad I had the zip replaced at the little tailor's shop in town shortly before lockdown.

There was definitely a blue theme going on. Although I left the chazza empty handed, Jon found these incredible Jeffrey West navy blue boots. The style (O'Toole) is no longer available on the website but similar styles retail in excess of £500! I'm not surprised, they're gorgeous.

Back at home I cleaned the dining room window, took down the charity-shopped solar powered lights that usually hang from the curtain rail and replaced them with my Devil's Ivy that had got too long for the kitchen shelf. Jon hung the lights in the shelter where we thought they'd be more useful.

After noodles I gave the apple tree a radical pruning and tossed the clippings in the skip, narrowly missing Frank who'd decided it would make a nice bed. Jon researched printers as ours is on the blink (I tried to look the other day and started to lose the will to live). 

I wrapped up the weekend's eBay sales, took a few more stock photos and drafted some listings ready to upload at a later date.

Tea was half a pizza with homemade jacket wedges along with a cheeky bottle of beer each. We caught up with Friday night's Gardener's World on the I-Player before another couple of episodes of Spooks.

 

After my early start I thought I'd be struggling to keep my eyes open but I managed to make a dent in my latest book when I went to bed at 10.30pm.

On Monday I was up at 6.30am. I saw to the lads and did my first Wii Fit workout of the week. I started to catch up with blog comments & wrapped up a couple more overnight eBay sales before Jon came down and joined me for breakfast. We'd run out of fruit so had a pot of instant apple and cinnamon porridge instead. We have a stash of these in the cupboard for when we trade at vintage fairs but as it's pretty unlikely we'll be taking our gear on the road for the foreseeable future we might as well eat them now. Jon did the post office run and a grocery shop while I got dressed and cracked on with photographing the rest of the women's tops in the Kinky Shed.

For someone who petitioned for the right to wear trousers when we started sixth form (our all-girls' school only allowed us to wear skirts & dresses until 1983) and got into trouble with the company directors for daring to wear a trouser suit to work back in the 1990s, these days I rarely wear them even though, after years of having to wear built-up shoes prior to my hip replacement (oh, the glamour!), my legs are now the same length. 

I'm wearing a pair of 1990s-does-the-'70s devoré bellbottoms (courtesy of the lovely Suzanne Carillo, who sadly no longer blogs), the vintage Tarantella of Walsall suede waistcoat which goes with the skirt I wore last week (from our friends G&T), my toasty warm ex-Marks & Spencer Heatgen polo neck, a charity shopped felt hat & 1970s Indian silk screen printed scarf and a pair of silver boots I bought from La Redoute's 50% off flash sale four years ago. 

After lunch, the rest of the homemade crumble with custard (we'll be looking like apples soon), I cropped my photos, measured the garments and saved the listings as drafts. Meanwhile, Jon arranged for the skip to be collected, taxed the works van on-line and spoke to the window company who hope to be able to start work in three weeks time.

Following Monty's advice, Jon (with Frank's help) staked the brassicas and I blitzed the stockroom, filling another sack ready to drop off at the charity shop next time we go.

Don't faint, I cooked the tea! A proper old school cauliflower and broccoli cheese with lashings of Henderson's Relish, which I'd never heard of until my friend, Allie Jane, mentioned having some shipped over to Japan as part of a care package. It's the northern version of Worcester sauce but anchovy free and therefore suitable for vegetarians & vegans.

Tonight it'll be more Spooks and the latest episode of Who Do You Think You Are? I can't be doing with David Walliams but I do love the programme.

Stay safe & see you soon!