Making plans!

Monday rolls around far too quickly, and the weekend has sped by! Keith was supposed to go to Tesco early this morning to get some shopping, but he came back to bed instead! I really don't blame him! At least he has a short week this week as Mike is off to London to see Abbie on Thursday.

Sophie had set her alarm for 6am this morning, and I heard her get up, but then it went quiet. Yesterday evening she said she felt she had no energy at all after her jab, and her arm was very sore, so this morning she had obviously decided not to go to the gym, which I think was a wise decision.

I stayed in bed until 7am listening to the cacophony of birdsong outside. Two wood pigeons seemed to be having a conversation, and then the sparrows and starlings started squabbling and chattering! Life in the countryside is not quiet!

As Keith hadn't gone to Tesco, and I had nothing for my lunch (unless I fancied stale bread), I popped into the Tesco garage to buy a sandwich before heading into work. It felt very humid after the rain yesterday and everything was damp. It did remind me a bit of a Florida morning after a storm!

Work was OK, busy at first and then it quietened down. The children are back at school this week and thoughts are turning to the next school holidays, the long summer break starting in July. I had several enquiries about the playscheme we put on, so that will be my next job!

Back at home I tidied up and put the hoover around. When Sophie returned home we sat in the conservatory, and Keith and I played cards while Sophie and I discussed our trip to California next year. We won't be doing Alcatraz, Muir Woods or the Winchester Mystery House again, but we want to do two wine tours (Napa and Sonoma), and we want to spend more time in Carmel and Monterey, and perhaps even do a whale-watching trip!

This evening's meal was stir-fried pork with noodles in a peanut sauce, and it wasn't too bad thank goodness!

Dinner disaster!

After a breakfast of banana porridge this morning, we were back to Weedon for Sophie's first Covid vaccination. I managed to park in the tiny car park and watched as people arrived and left. Most of them were the same age as Sophie, and I was so glad she was able to go and get her jab. She was a bit nervous, but emerged about twenty minutes later, elated that she had been vaccinated!

We returned home and made a start on tonight's dinner, a Hairy Biker's recipe for Moroccan Pastilla. We had decided to cook it as it looked interesting, but I was a bit worried that it wouldn't go down well with the men in the family as it was a mixture of sweet and savoury.

When I opened the packs of chicken thighs, they smelt a bit funky, and Sophie said they looked grey, which is never a good sign. I washed them (I know you're not supposed to) and we cut away the white gristly bits and then shallow-fried them. Once that was done we set them aside and fried onions, garlic, and spices including turmeric and ginger. Keith came into the kitchen and asked why he smelt fish! To be honest it did smell as if we'd added a Thai fish sauce to the pan!

We then put the chicken back into the pan, added stock and let it simmer for half an hour while we had leftovers from the barbecue for lunch. Outside it was very grey and stormy looking, a complete contrast to yesterday!

The next stage of the recipe was to remove the chicken from the stock and dice it finely. We had to reduce the liquid in the pan by half, and then add four eggs so the mixture resembled loose scrambled egg! After then adding dates, orange zest and ground almonds, we put the chicken back in and let it cool. The mixture looked horrible and didn't smell any better!

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing as all we'd seemed to do since we got back from Weedon was wash up! Outside we had a torrential downpour of rain and it turned very humid. I was pleased as I'm watering our neighbour's garden at the moment while they're away, so I had the evening off!

Sophie and I played Scrabble in the evening with cocktails, and I said to her that I really didn't fancy dinner at all. I felt bad that we'd spent so much time preparing it, and that it was a terrible waste of food, but it smelled horrible. Sophie agreed so we told Keith who was fine about it! He did say that the chicken had been stored in our fridge outside and that he'd noticed the door wasn't closing properly, so that might have had something to do with the unsavoury odour!

We decided to order an Indian takeaway from Mawsley instead, and Sophie and I shared a vegetable curry with mushroom rice. Not really what we'd been planning, but I think we'll give that particular recipe a miss in future!

After dinner Sophie and I made a huge decision - we have booked to go to California again in September/October 2022. We contacted the Airbnb we stayed at in San Francisco who have accepted our booking, so we were enormously excited! We are staying for two weeks, and spending longer in Napa and Monterey and we can't wait!

Lunchtime treats!

Mike had booked his second jab today, so this morning at 10am, we drove over to Weedon, to the medical centre there. I don't really know why our surgery has teamed up with Weedon when it's quite a way away, but we were glad he was able to have his second jab, and Sophie is going tomorrow!

The weather was absolutely beautiful with just the right temperature, blue skies, white fluffy clouds and sunshine. Before we left we'd had a pamphlet pushed through our letterbox about a train journey to Settle in Cumbria. You could enjoy a whole day's trip, with breakfast, afternoon tea, and dinner, and we were seriously considering it for Keith's 75th birthday in September. It looked wonderful!

Mike was in and out very quickly, and we returned home where I jumped onto the computer to see if I could find out more about the train journey! To my disappointment, it was fully booked, so why had we received the pamphlets in the first place?!

Sophie and I drove over to Olney at lunchtime where we'd booked a table at Teapots for 1pm. The traffic on the way over was busy, and we think it had something to do with a Ferrari show at Sywell Aerodrome. We were nearly late, but arrived 2 minutes after our booked time, thank goodness! We had telephoned ahead to say we might be late, and I was worried about parking in the busy town centre.

We had a delicious lunch followed by tea and cake! It has been a long time!

I chose a toasted cheese and onion sandwich while Sophie opted for the Club sandwich, and both were served with salad. We enjoyed raspberry lemonades with the sandwiches. but went for the traditional pot of tea with our cakes - lemon and yoghurt, and coffee and walnut. 

After we'd eaten we had a look in the shops, and Sophie found some gorgeous 1950s glasses etched with pretty leaves. Another addition to our collection! She also found a beautiful brand new dress and some trousers in a charity shop, so she did very well! It was a warm afternoon, and Olney was packed with people so after looking in a few shops we decided to head home. 

At 5pm Sophie and I played Scrabble in the conservatory and enjoyed a new cocktail made with Campari, white wine and tonic water. The first ones we served in our beautiful glasses we found in Olney last year...

Keith barbecued this evening and excelled himself. Mike didn't join us as he'd been out for lunch with a friend and had eaten a steak and a beefburger! No wonder he still felt full hours later!

Our film choice this evening was an older one - The Lincoln Lawyer starring the gorgeous Matthew McConaughey. It was riveting!

Sad news...

Work has been mostly uneventful today, and I think we're all glad that it's the last day of the half-term holiday. We had many, many calls about swimming sessions, so that hasn't changed! I really hope that we no longer have to book people onto sessions by the end of this month! It would make our lives so much easier!

I had to speed off to get Mike at 4pm as Keith was waiting in for the washing machine man to arrive. I drove over to Kettering, held up by an idiot driver who, even out of the 30mph zone, carried on driving like a snail, and holding up a long queue of motorists! At one point I was doing 25mph!

Mike was in the clubhouse waiting for me, and when we got home we discovered Keith sitting on the sofa with blood covering his leg. He'd fallen over when he'd helped carry our old washing machine into a van and had badly grazed his knee. I wiped away all the blood with sterile wipes and made him go and have a bath.

After two weeks of no-wine night, we were back on track this evening, but Sophie and I had to cook dinner, as Keith was at the pub. It was a very simple affair, though, and I left Sophie to put the finishing touches to the meal while I went to fetch Keith.

When he came out, Dave came with him and told us, shockingly, that he'd been diagnosed with brain cancer, and that it had spread to his lungs. Naturally, we were both shocked and upset and it was horrible to see Dave so heartbroken. He's going to have treatment, though, so we're hopeful that this will work.

Somewhat subdued, we returned home and ate dinner, all of us shocked by the news. It's certainly turning out to be a tumultuous start to the new decade, and not really the brave new world we'd been expecting!

Laundry day

Today, I have been mostly doing laundry and feeling like a 1950s housewife...

After a lie-in, Keith went shopping while I tackled the washing (our bedsheet and pillowcases) and cleared out the cupboard under the sink, ready for our new washing machine to be installed tomorrow.

Doing four loads of washing took nearly all day, but it was lovely to see the brilliant white pillowcases hanging on the line and knowing the laundry basket was empty! I also ironed some clothes for Mum and Dad, but it's been the perfect day for it, with oodles of sunshine, a gentle breeze and blue skies.

Before collecting Mike from work, we drove to Next in Kettering to pick up two tee shirts for my Mum, which we'd ordered last Sunday. We picked up Mike, dropped off all the clothes and returned home, where I had a much-needed shower! It's been warm today!

When Sophie returned home I put her gym clothes on to wash and that was it! Hopefully, tomorrow we can use a proper washing machine again!

The water carriers...

I had my second Covid jab booked for today and was extremely pleased to have been able to bring it forward by 11 days after originally booking it for the 13 June. The Indian variant is running rife at the moment, but this isn't translating (yet) into deaths or hospitalisations, thank goodness. There is some doubt, though, that the easing of all restrictions on the 21 June might happen.

Before we went to Moulton Park, our new twin tub washing machine arrived. We didn't have time to have a good look at it and said we'd read all the instructions when we returned.

As before, the vaccine process was very smooth and efficient, and I received my second jab right on time. The woman I spoke to said they were hoping to do about 2000 vaccinations today, which was impressive, seeing as the venue was only one of very many!

Before going home we popped into the Co-op to get something for lunch and then it was back to have a bite to eat before trying out our new washing machine!

We quickly realised that we wouldn't be able to use it in the kitchen as it needs to drain into a lower container. Putting it on the draining board meant we couldn't get to sort the washing out inside the machine unless we stood on steps, not a good idea!

Keith went into the garage to clear a space next to our tumble dryer, and we used an old plastic waste bin as the wastewater container. This meant, however, that we had to continuously carry heavy buckets of water backwards and forwards from the house to the garage.

The instructions were long and complicated and we soon simplified the process! Bascially, we had to fill the left reservoir two thirds full of hot soapy water, add the clothes and then set the timer. We set it to 15 minutes, but this can vary depending on how dirty the wash is. According to the instructions, after the wash is completed, you add the clothes to the spinner, but add extra water... why? We seemed to be forever carrying water to and fro (and emptying the bloomin' waste container), so we soon dispensed with this stage! We just spun them, then added fresh water to the left compartment, rinsed them, added more fresh water with fabric conditioner, spun them again and then hung them on the washing line. It was a bit of a faff, and to begin with, I felt despair about doing this several times a day, every day. Carrying heavy buckets of water, and then lifting them up so we could pour the water into the machine was not fun!

It soon dawned on me that there was no way I could wash our heavy super-king duvet cover as the machine really only takes about 3kg of clothes (or 8lb) and even less than that when you use the spin cycle.

I suggested to Keith that we contact Highlands to see whether we could take delivery of our new washing machine early. I emailed Anthony and within half an hour, he had replied to say this was no problem and it would be with us on Friday! Hooray!

We did manage to empty our laundry basket today, though, so I was pleased we'd done that, but by late afternoon I felt shattered. I'm not sure whether it was the jab, the heat (it was saying 29c in the car but that's always higher than it really is) or the constant backwards and forwards with water, but I felt deadbeat! Keith suggested we all go to the pub for a drink this evening and I agreed, but I still felt tired!

As it neared evening, the skies clouded over and it looked a bit stormy. We went to The White Horse and sat in the garden with two halves of Guinness (Soph and me) and two pints of San Miguel (the boys).

We spent a very pleasant and enjoyable hour talking and sipping our drinks. Just before we left, it started to rain, so we chose the right time to go!

Film time!

At work today I managed, at last, to put some films on the system, starting with Dream Horse showing on the 25 June, when we re-open. Work was busy first thing but then it went quieter, so it was an ideal time to do the job I'd been longing to do for ages!

At 4pm I sped home, looking forward to a couple of days off. Keith had ordered a new portable washing machine to use until our kitchen is sorted out. It's like an old-style twin tub so I'm hoping it will be OK and will be able to cope with the volume of washing that we do in our household! It cost just over £100, probably the same amount or less than if we'd had our machine fixed!

Sophie and I played cards in the conservatory, and we enjoyed a barbecue again for dinner. Keith had marinated thin strips of chicken and they were delicious! Let's hope that we have a "barbecue" summer this year when we can do some outdoor cooking!