Sauntering Vaguely Downward

As it seems to be for many people, the days are starting to blur together. Because they're on what would in the Before Times have been the school holidays, the children have gone completely feral. Since we've been on holiday since Friday and we have all of next week off, their parents have rapidly followed suit.



Just to assure myself that despite being trapped, we have not been idle, here is a list of some things we've done in the past week.

• Cleared off all the building materials and most of the rubble from the garden, and stowed the useful stuff in the half-built extension, hence the bloke being able to trundle the wheelbarrow across the (desecrated) lawn.
  
  
• Finished planting out all the veg and clearing the beds next to the path to the playhouse.
  
  
• Moved the salvageable plants from the shady area next to our current, crumbling wooden shed to make space for the new, larger, metal shed. We are assuming that this won't be arriving 10 weeks from the end of Feb as originally planned, but it would be nice to be fully prepared for it when it does eventually come.
  
  
• Cleared the shady area next the crumbly wooden shed. Dug through the ground and removed stones, rubble and weeds, and cut back all of the surrounding vines and plants. This has taken me most of the past two days.
  
  
• Ordered concrete slabs for the shed, and bark chippings and edging to tidy up the beds. It now takes over an hour to "queue" virtually to access B&Q's web site, so the bloke devoted an entire evening to this.
  
  
• Spread bark chippings over the beds next to the path to the playhouse.
  
  
• Painted the playhouse exterior (bloke and children).
  
  
• Planted pretty flowers in one of the newly tidied beds close to the house. Humuhumu was responsible most of this and she did a beautiful job.
  
  
• Had a number of Zoom/Skype/WhatsApp calls with friends, including Quiz Nights, Virtual Pub Evenings, and just plain catch-up calls.
  
  
• Attended a virtual concert put on by a friend of ours on Facebook. Humuhumu watched it as well - he's a fantastic jazz pianist - so I think this might count as her first show.
  
  
• Talked to our parents/grandparents almost every day.
  
  
• Competed in an egg-painting competition with the bloke's family, judged by Granny.
  
  
• Eaten a load of Easter chocolate. Yum.
  
  
• Drunk our first lot of Pimms and lemonade, and had a barbecue. I think this might be the earliest in the year we've ever done those things. I'd normally expect this weather around the first May bank holiday, not Easter.
  
  
• Watched the bloke's hair progress to Mad Professor level.
  
  
• Took more Polaroids. We are now out of film, but I've ordered more.
  
  
• Made cyanotype prints of things we found in the garden with some very expired sun paper I found in a drawer. It still works! H/t to cha_mel_eon for the inspiration.

We still have quite a lot of work in the garden to do. We didn't order enough bark chippings. The bed edging will have to be put in when it arrives. The tree peony has to be moved to its new home, away from the shed. The trellis and gate need to be repaired (visible in the photo behind the bloke). I need to finish weeding the side of the lawn next to the hedgerow and move the salvageable. That area used to be flower beds but we've decided just to grass the whole thing now that we've finally cleared so much of the rest of the garden. We should be kept nicely busy for at least the next couple of weeks. I'm finding it quite helpful to maintain a near-constant state of physical exhaustion.

My last goal check-in was almost exactly a month ago. I stopped doing it because I was on holiday but now I reckon the advent of the pandemic has rendered most of the goals irrelevant. For a start, there’s no way for me to go to the gym for the next few months, and no way I’m going to get through this without the liberal application of booze. When examined in the cold light of covid-19, should any of them should be retained?

( Individual assessments behind the cut. )

In summary, the only goal I’ll be keeping is the one about reading more than ten books that are new to me. I don’t expect this to be particularly challenging, given that I have at least ten on my bedside table and I won’t be going anywhere for a while. So, sayonara, weekly goal check-in posts. Maybe I’ll give you a whirl in 2021.

In pickling news, I have made my first attempt at gherkins/American pickles. My recipe* involved the following:

• Tiny cucumbers, sliced
  
• Garlic granules
  
• Two bay leaves
  
• Enough coarse sea salt to form a thick layer on the bottom of the jar
  
• Tablespoon of peppercorns
  
• Water
  
• Fermenting jar (1.4 litres)
  
• Time (1 week)

I tried them after seven days and they weren’t quite right, so I dumped in more salt and waited three more days. They taste almost exactly like the gherkins you would buy from the supermarket, even without the mustard seeds, but I feel as if something else is missing. Could it be sugar? If you have a favourite gherkin/American pickle recipe, please share it in the comments.

( 366 meme questions, 15-21 Jan )

* recipe does not contain any actual merkin. Please do not google with tea in your mouth.

Telstar was given some catnip toy fish for Christmas. Here, you can see how terribly excited he is about this gift.

( 366 meme: Seven questions, seven answers )