Time flies when you’re having fun. And drags into eternity when you’re not. What have I been doing? Trying to read a book from the reading group, I thought that the enforced lockdown had taken my appetite for reading away so have been plugging away at this book for six weeks. I now realise it wasn’t that at all and I am in a much happier place. On my only trip so far into a supermarket after getting on for ten weeks of lockdown, (we started early because of hubby’s age and health) I picked up some lovely flowers and a selection of novels one of which was this and from the very first page it was a lovely read. Now this might be in comparison to the drudgery of reading the previous book, but even so, fifty odd pages in and I am gripped, which can be no bad thing.

Along with beautiful brand new books, is there anything more delightful? I needed flowers, lots and lots of lovely flowers, I had been a flower free zone for ten weeks and to be honest it has made me feel rather low. I obviously need that bunch of flowers in my life more than I realised. So a beautiful bunch of white roses for £6.00. Fantastic value at Tesco, when you think of the work required to get them to me and they were just so lovely, they are 6 days old now, so you can tell how lovely they were.

And two bunches of Lilly’s at £3.25 a bunch, you can’t say fairer than that. These will come into their own in the next few days just as the roses are fading away.

What else have we been doing? Mainly hubby to be fair has been playing at the plot, nearly everything is in, just the leeks to go now.

Hubby celebrated a birthday in lockdown. We went to the park to feed the ducks and the enormous carp and had a lovely home made dinner of his choosing, plus birthday cake.

One son returned home having spent six and a half weeks with us, which is a very long time in someone else home and one son arrived as he is now homeless. It only took a pandemic to get us all under the same roof again.

Son no.2 does cook a magnificent Sunday lunch.

I’d like to say that knitting and sewing have continued, but they have not. I don’t know what it is. I feel constantly tired and am roaming the house at 2.00 a.m. unable to sleep and then I am lucky to get 4.5 hours and then I feel constantly tired. I suspect there are many of us that feel the same. Hubby has been going up to the plot, not me. I’ve been tied up at home looking after the boy(s) one way or another. Now I have a very competent cook I’ll be able to wander up their more often.

But today is my Mother’s birthday. Son no.2 has made her a frangipani topped Bakewell tart, we had several disasters with the pastry, I flipped the bottom of the tin up and broke the raw case as I was putting it into the fridge to chill before baking, oh how it did make us laugh. I’m hoping the pastry is not going to break her teeth, the tart looks great though.

So to break me of my low mood I shall try to post once a day in June. I think June might be an interesting month in what is happening with Covid, although we as a couple have agreed that casual shopping, coffee taking and group meetings are out until a reliable vaccine has been developed or Covid has turned tail and disappeared. I don’t need anything that I can’t get online, I don’t need the risk of someone coughing in my direction whilst sipping a hot coffee, no matter how splendid the coffee or conversation is. I do need to go swimming, I miss that terribly. But that will be a decision that needs to be made at the time, no point worrying about it at the moment, although I do hear that the level of chlorine may be upped in the swimming pools, although that won’t provide a safeguard in the changing rooms, so I will just have to read what the experts are saying. But we have good food, books, flowers and the internet. How lucky are we. Or as this postcard which I have in my bedroom says.

Look after yourselves everybody.