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

On Friday morning, for the first time in ages I was up before the alarm - set for 6.30am - immediately going online and booking a National Trust trip for the day after Boxing Day. After my final Wii Fit session of the week I caught up with blog reading and wrapped my eBay sales parcels before joining Jon for breakfast. The supermarket delivery arrived at 9am and, after Jon had santised it and put it away, we drove into town, popping into Wilkos for some household essentials (including some new cat toys for Frank, which were very much appreciated) before visiting the clearance charity shop.

Jon scored with an Italian-made shirt printed with wading birds which, after researching the label at home, it is currently retailing at £75. There was a small stain on the front which was possibly why the original owner donated it but, as luck would have it, one of the things we'd bought from Wilko was their brilliant Oxi Plus Stain Remover and a thirty minute soak soon shifted it. 

I'd not worn my embroidered green velvet dress in ages so gave it an outing on Friday. Combined with a sheepskin coat borrowed from the stockroom, a woolly pom-pom hat, wrist warmers and a quilted face mask I was almost expiring with heat in the chazza as it was an very unseasonable 15°C!

A bit more detail. My 1960s Simran, Indian velvet dress (from eBay) and the Mjus metallic snakeskin boots found in a chazza last year for a fiver.

A rather sodden Richard turned up with the post including this incredible handmade wool waistcoat with Amazigh embroidery (worn by the North African Berber tribe) to add to my collection. It had taken its time arriving, the seller posted it on 7th December. 

After our lunchtime noodles, Jon nipped out to the post office and once back we got to work on our Xmas wrapping paper. Cheapskates that we are, we'd been saving brown paper from all our deliveries for months. After I'd ironed it, we used household emulsion & some Indian printing blocks to adorn it. I nicked a few of the recycled brown cardboard price tags we use for our stock and printed them, too.

I usually leave our birthday cards up for a fortnight but the vintage glass on the sideboard where I display them was looking very dusty so I took the cards down, gave the glass a wash and the surface a polish. 

Don't you just love Jon's specially adapted card, For My Non Wife? He bought it especially for the dreadful pink nylon bow, tacky illustration and the awful verse. Who says romance is dead?

Having put it off for long enough, I finally opened the Xmas cards that had been accumulating in the hall since 1st December, hanging them from the twine and peg arrangement I'd bought from Poundland over a decade ago. Jon dug out some more lights and hung them up in the lounge. I really should write our Xmas cards tomorrow....

After I'd had a bath I gave the tub a scrub and filled it with our bathroom houseplants for an overnight soak. We had a buffet tea of pickles, cheeses, homemade bread, crisps and lager and spent the evening drinking rum and watching a true crime documentary we'd found on the iPlayer.

On Saturday morning, despite it being Jon's turn to get up first, I was already awake so made tea and brought it back to bed, reading until 8am. I stripped and changed the bed, loaded the washing machine and put away yesterday's laundry which had been hanging in the utility room. Breakfast was sausage and egg sandwiches. I swapped the upstairs plants in the bath for the ones on the kitchen used-to-be-a-coffee-table shelf.

The weather forecast had been dire but it turned out to be a glorious day. Jon pottered around outside, sorting out the shed and doing some work on Gilbert. 

While Frank joined Jon outside, Stephen Squirrel and I remained indoors as he's an old man who needs his sleep and I was sewing something for a friend's Xmas present. 

Armed with secateurs we went for a walk on the hunt for some holly with berries as the bush in our garden was looking a bit sparse. We managed to find some on some unclaimed land and filled a bag. 

Today's outfit was a 1970s Interlinks Indian cotton midi dress (eBay, 2018) topped with a Banjara mirrored waistcoat bought from Colaba Causeway in Mumbai in 2016 and some whopping mirrored earrings bought from the side of the road in Goa back in February. No India this year but at least I've got my wardrobe!

We had tea, the rest of the pizza we'd started on Thursday, whilst watching BoJo's press conference. London and parts of the south of England will be in tier 4 (in effect, lockdown) from midnight. The rest of the country's - quite frankly- insane five day Xmas free-for-all has now been reduced to one day. Not that it'll make one iota of difference to us. I suspect it won't be long before the rest of us are locked down, too. 

Tonight's plans involve rum and some TV, the usual 2020 Saturday night. When we finally do go back to normal I won't know how to go out!

Stay safe, keep smiling and see you soon!