Another week gone by!

Another week has whizzed by, and it's Friday again! I really must start thinking about Christmas as it will soon be here!

Sophie went to the gym this morning and I got up with her and had a cup of coffee. Outside it was raining, and although snow had been forecast, we had none. I ate breakfast with Sophie in the conservatory, and after we'd eaten, Keith and I went over to B&Q in Kettering to try and get some wood to make into the letter "T". We have an advent walk in the village, and I agreed to display the letter in the window on the 9th of December. I had planned on nailing two pieces of wood together and then winding lights around them but after looking at the lengths of wood available, and thinking about the work involved, I decided to cheat and order a lit-up letter T on Amazon!

We traipsed over to Next, near Aldi, and I took the clothes back that I'd bought for my Mum for her birthday. I had another look in the store but I was a bit worried that whatever I bought her wouldn't fit so I decided to look online instead.

We popped into the Co-op at Broughton on the way home, drove past my Mum and Dad's old house (I still can't believe we've sold it), and then took the scenic route back for a change. It was still a dreary, grey and cold day with unrelenting rain. The kind of day to stay inside, and get warm and cosy!

For lunch today I made Sophie and I stuffed peppers - I added boiling water to a packet of couscous, then sliced the top off two peppers, removed the pips, and the pith inside, and filled them with a mixture of couscous and chopped up tomato. I baked them in the oven for twenty minutes and then added some cheese to melt on the top. I have to say they were delicious!

While the peppers were cooking I started the preparations for a Mulligatawny soup and chopped up celery, carrot, swede, onion, red pepper and two apples. After we'd eaten lunch I made the soup, and then let it simmer for half an hour on the hob. All I needed to do later was blend it with my new blender, add rice and heat through.

I managed a nap on the sofa in the conservatory in the afternoon, after putting fresh bedding onto our bed, which is an ordeal in itself! Outside the weather had not improved at all, and we had fresh warnings out for snow later in the evening.

At 6pm, with a G&T in hand and some Indian mini flatbreads to nibble on, Sophie and I watched Greg Wallace visit a wonderful Christmas market in Vienna. That is the one big thing I will miss this December - as far as I know, all the markets in the UK have been cancelled, which is a real shame. We'll just have to make up for it next year!

Dinner was delicious but I couldn't get the soup as smooth as I wanted as my blender stopped working! It's brand new so that was very annoying! However, the soup, served with naan bread, was lovely and very filling, and went down extremely well!

Tonight was the final of I'm A Celebrity, and I was delighted to see Giovanna win the title of Queen of the Castle! I had voted for her throughout, so I was mightily pleased! I will certainly miss the show!

Difficult conversations

I was a bit nervous about going into work today but was glad that Sara would be on hand to help if things became too manic. Sophie went off to the gym as usual but came home to work. She is hoping that she'll be able to go back in one day a week soon, as she really misses being in her office.

I arrived at work early and had a good chat with Sara before logging on. I was joined by Sue, and at 10am, when the phone lines opened, it wasn't too bad, thank goodness! We did have an initial rush but the online bookings system was back to normal so that alleviated some of the pressure!

Although it was busy, it was steady but I had some difficult calls from people whose first language clearly wasn't English. I had one man on the phone four times who couldn't understand me! I also received quite a disturbing call in the afternoon from a man who had received a parking ticket but who had been visiting the surgery. He obviously had mental health issues and was threatening to commit suicide if we didn't help him with the fine. I put him straight through to our centre manager as there was no point at all arguing with him. Luckily, they managed to cancel it for him, but it did cause a few raised eyebrows in the office!

When I emerged from the building at 4pm it was dark and raining. I was shocked at how gloomy it was! I popped to the garage in Moulton to put some petrol in Sophie's car (which I had borrowed) and headed home to see my family.

It was bliss to relax in the conservatory and have a good chat with Keith and Sophie. Keith was in charge of dinner this evening and cooked a delicious chilli con carne. I had the next Gin in the box - a Bramble Gin that was lovely with tonic, although it disappeared very quickly!

After we'd eaten tonight, Keith and I watched an excellent German film called The Balloon about two families in East Germany who escaped to the West in a hot air balloon. It made a nice change from I'm A Celebrity, but we recorded the show instead, and watched the last half hour!

The end of lockdown

So, today has been my last day of freedom before being back at work tomorrow, but then I am off again until Tuesday, so definitely no complaints!

Keith and I went out to Tesco this morning, and I bought a pretty decorated tree for my Mum and Dad for £15, which I thought was very good value. It was the kind that brought me out in a rash, though, so I was careful handling it! Mike had asked for an advent calendar, bless him, but we couldn't find one anywhere, trying both Aldi and B&M with no success.

We headed home and I put together all the things that Mum and Dad had asked for - a new portable DVD player that had arrived yesterday from Amazon, their Samsung tablet, aftershave for Dad and a new pair of reading glasses. I had two boxes to take in so I asked Keith to accompany me!

I had an appointment to see them at 12.40pm, so we left in good time as I keep getting held up by the builders every time I go just lately! Luckily, we arrived with minutes to spare and lugged all their purchases into the reception area.

The half-hour we now have whizzed by, and I was pleased with how my parents were. My Mum, especially, looked a lot better and seems to have put on weight, so that was good. Her face has definitely filled out more. We left at just after 1pm to get Mike from work, and the golf club car park was full! It looked like all the golfers couldn't wait to get back onto the greens!

Today the weather has been horrible, with dark grey skies and drizzly rain. Driving home Keith and I talked about the knocking noise my car is still making, and it now makes a grinding noise when I brake so I think it needs new brake pads. As soon as we got home Keith phoned the garage and they asked us to pop over with it. I wasn't that happy, to be honest, as I just wanted to stay at home but he insisted, so off we went out again into the gloom of the late afternoon.

The garage they have at Broughton is for MOTs only, so we had to drive into Kettering during the school run hour, and it was not pleasant! The garage is in a maze of streets and we couldn't remember where it was so I had to resort to using Google maps to get us there! We pulled up onto the forecourt and the younger of the two mechanics took it out for a drive.

While we waited we had a look at a selection of old cars that were being renovated, and one in particular, a black vehicle that Keith thought was a Standard, didn't have an engine, but the casing had been cleaned and re-painted. I peered inside and marvelled at how primitive it was! No seatbelts, a thin steering wheel and tiny little windscreen wipers!

The mechanic brought my car back, and then put it up onto hydraulics so he could look underneath. It felt very strange seeing it like that, and he asked how often I took it off-roading, no doubt noticing the mud from visiting my parents in the care home!

He couldn't see anything dangerous (nothing was falling off!) and we arranged to bring it in next week to have the brake pads replaced. Keith and I went home, and I resumed my peaceful reading of the newspaper with Sophie in the conservatory!

During the evening I noticed some WhatsApp messages and saw, with horror, that today at work had been horrendous. I thought at first that Sara was joking as she said they'd received over 500 calls and had had nearly 300 abandoned ones! I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but it was true!

Apparently, the online bookings opened at 10am this morning, the same time that our contact centre opened, and then the system crashed, forcing people to call us instead! Sara said that as soon as the phone lines opened, they had 59 calls in the queue, something she has never seen in all the time she's worked in customer service! She said the calls were mostly long and complicated with people booking multiple swimming sessions and classes. It doesn't bode well for us tomorrow!

I relaxed with a Gin and Tonic this evening, and had the first of my Gins from the Advent calendar that Keith bought me:

The first was a Blackberry Gin, and it was delicious with my Fevertree Aromatic tonic!

Deck the halls

Day 27

Sophie took today off work because I thought this would be my last day before going back to work tomorrow (the end of lockdown), and we had decided to put up all the Christmas decorations. She had an appointment at the GP's surgery at 9am so I went with her, and then we headed to Beckworth to do a little bit of shopping. My Mum had asked me to get her a small Christmas tree, but the prices were steep at Beckworth - £40 for a little undecorated tree, so I decided to get her one at Tesco!

The weather today has been gorgeous - a real first day of winter with clear blue skies, frost and sunshine. What a difference to the last few days! We ambled about in Beckworth and bought some treats, and then headed home for breakfast. Sophie made us a veggie sausage sandwich, and then it was time to get going! Keith and Mike had taken everything down from the garage eaves yesterday so I moved the chair in the living room to the window, hoovered the carpet, and Sophie started assembling the white tree. I moved into the conservatory, and Keith and I put up our little Scandanavian tree and attached the lights.

The house was in uproar for a few hours and Monty just wouldn't settle down, bless him. He hates change of any kind and kept wandering about and getting in our way. Sophie made a fantastic job of both trees while I hoovered and cleaned the downstairs of the house. We have put the conservatory tree in between the two sofas as there isn't really a lot of room in the corner, and Mike always knocks off the decorations when he sits down at the table!

By 1pm we were mostly finished so I went with Keith to get Mike from work, and then we headed home to sort out the outdoor lights. These were brand new (we'd cut through the old ones in the summer!) so it took both Sophie and I ages to unravel them all and put them onto the tree! At one point the lights were strung across the road, they were so long! It was very cold, and we stopped to chat to Graham who was walking Dennis, and also Vince and Sue. 

Again, Sophie made a great job of the lights, and we retired inside to the warmth and a mug of hot chocolate laced with cream, marshmallows and spiced rum! Just the ticket!

To make the day all the more Christmassy, we rented Christmas with the Kranks, and it was lovely sitting in the living room feeling cosy with the twinkling lights and the snowy scenes on the television!

Before we started on the dinner preparations (breaded pork escalopes) we walked up to see the lights on the green. As we'd had a day of sunshine, they were shining, and the front green looked lovely!

New hours

Day 26

The fog had disappeared this morning, to be replaced with grey cloud, so not a lot better! Keith and I went to Tesco this morning and did the shopping for the next three nights. It was busy in the store, which surprised me for a Monday morning!

When we came to the checkout, our bill went from about £50 down to about £35 - because of the savings made on our Clubcard. I was amazed, to be honest, so it might be worth us doing more of our shopping in Tesco rather than Aldi, although I do wonder if the company artificially inflated the prices, so it looks like we're getting a good bargain!

Keith had an appointment at the hospital in the afternoon, to have a blood test, so he went by himself as I had to pick up Mike from work. His hours have now changed but not much to our advantage - we did think he would be working 8am until 3pm, but he's now doing 6.30am until 1.30pm, which interferes with Sophie's lunch hour and a walk if we manage to get out. Earlier in the year, we had worried about the 8am start as it clashed with my hours, but that's no longer a concern!

Keith came back from the hospital to say he was able to park easily, so that was a relief! The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and dinner this evening was minced beef crumble. Before we did the final touches to the meal, Sophie and I watched the last episode of The Undoing which we had been looking forward to all week! We were both a bit surprised by the outcome and I thought the ending was great, although Sophie was not so sure!

A foggy walk

Day 25

For a Sunday, today has been busy! The weather has been very foggy again, and it lingered all day, with no let-up at all and no sign of the sun.

When Keith and I collected Mike from work we took him to McDonald's for a drive-thru breakfast as a treat. I think he deserved it after working both days this weekend! Back home we made our own breakfast, and after we'd eaten I suggested to Sophie that we start preparations for the evening meal - a chicken and pappardelle soup. We had to cook a whole chicken for about an hour and a half on the hob with garlic and onions, and then let it cool before taking off all the meat.

While that was cooking Sophie did some more prep - grating tomatoes, and peeling and slicing celery and carrots. We also managed to apply face masks, which is becoming a lovely habit on a Sunday! While they were setting we watched an episode of A Place in the Sun - this time a very fussy couple who turned down everything they were shown!

While Sophie had a quick shower I removed all the meat from the chicken carcass and put it in the fridge. Sophie put the rest of the ingredients into a saucepan and we let the soup come to the boil before setting it aside. This evening all we'll have to do is blitz it until it's smooth, add the chicken and pasta and warm it through.

We decided to set off for a walk into the village, and then down the rough track between the fields. The fog looked like it had become even denser!

We walked down the track, and it was eerily quiet, all sounds muffled by the fog. Sheep filled the fields to the right of us, and we stopped to say hello. They all stared at us curiously, and I think we saw a ram in with the ewes.

In the distance we could hear the muffled buzz of off-rode motorbikes, so we decided to turn around and head back to the village. The track was lonely and quite eerie in the fog! We walked to the "triangle" of grass and then headed back home.

We met Lynn who was doing some digging in one of the borders on the green and had a chat with her. She said that a couple of the residents had very kindly put up solar lights on the trees, but with the fog today, it was unlikely that they would be shining when it got dark. Even though it's not yet December, quite a few of our neighbours had already put up outside lights and decorations, which will cheer us all up!

We relaxed for a while before it was time to put the finishing touches to the meal. We blitzed the soup, Sophie made garlic bread and I added the chicken and pasta to the saucepan. There looked a lot of it, so that was a relief!

The meal was a success but I said to Sophie there was one ingredient in the recipe I wasn't keen on, which we discovered was thyme... I am not a fan for some reason!

Where's the grub?

Day 24

Today dawned foggy and damp and stayed that way all day. It was a real November day!

Mike was working this morning, and Keith took him in at the slightly later time of 7.30am. He then went back to collect him while Sophie and I stayed in the warm and watched Saturday Kitchen, which raised our spirits a bit, especially when we saw the segment where Rick Stein was in the Jura region of France, It looked beautiful!

At midday, we showered and went over to Tesco to get my Mum some bits that she needed. I picked out two boxes of Christmas cards, and some toiletries and we got out as quickly as we could. The store was packed with people and the whole retail park itself was very busy with queues of people waiting to go into B&M. I bought myself a sandwich and ate it in the car before we set off for the care home for our 2pm appointment.

We sat with my parents and chatted for the shorter time of half an hour, and before going home I booked appointments to see my parents at Christmas. Unfortunately, the slots for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were already taken (unbelievable) but I booked an appointment for the 23 December and one for Boxing Day. I kept telling my Mum it was only one year and we would make up for it next year, but I can see her being very upset in the month ahead. I think she was under the impression that they would both be able to come out for the day and have Christmas dinner with us, so she was very tearful. I felt wracked with guilt, but what can I do? I said to her that we'd had some fantastic Christmases in the past and that we would have a great one in 2021, but it was not much consolation.

Back at home, and despite the gloomy weather, Sophie and I decided to go for a walk, and we went down to the village and did a circuit. It was chilly and damp, and still foggy, but it was great to get out and have some exercise. We both felt so much better when we returned home.

It was lovely to put the heating on, light the candle in the window, and watch a Christmas cooking programme with Jamie Oliver. At 6pm we ordered a Chinese takeaway from Broughton, and they told us we should expect it at about 7.30pm.

Sophie and I had already enjoyed a Martini, and we opened a bottle of the Jurancon wine I'd bought a few weeks ago in Woburn, and we waited. Keith set the table and put the plates in the oven to warm, but 7.30pm came, and then 8pm, but there was no sign of our meals!

At 8.15pm we called the takeaway and they said they were waiting for the delivery driver to return but it was almost 9pm before we took delivery of our dinner. We all fell upon the food like ravenous wolves, but I hate eating so late in the evening!

After eating Sophie went upstairs to collapse on our bed, while Keith and I watched I'm A Celebrity. I was going to try and stay up a bit later in an effort to digest the food, but I caved in at about 10.30pm and went to bed as well. Maybe next time we order, we won't decide to have a takeaway on such a busy evening!