BecauseBethsaidso

It's back to work tomorrow, and I'm not looking forward to it. I'm really enjoying mucking about at home, and could easily continue doing it for a few weeks yet. But that's not to be; it's back to the dreary humdrum workday, though admittedly there'll be some interesting challenges ahead while the country negotiates its way out of lockdown. But this is my final entry: if I continued to give you an account of my daily movements, it would be even more boringly repetitive than what I'm currently posting. With one day left to get a few things done, I finally got out into the garden again. There wasn't actually all that much that needed doing, just the lawn and a small stretch of garden that hadn't been attended to in a while. I spent the morning hoeing, weeding and trimming in leisurely fashion, completed a few odd tasks like spreading fertiliser, removing the bungs from the planter troughs so they don't hold stagnant water during the winter, tidyi

I postponed my gardening plans yesterday because of a few brief showers in the morning. For no particular reason, I expected the weather to be better today. So when I woke during the night to heavy rain that went on for hours, I started regretting that I didn't deal with it yesterday. When I got up some hours later, the rain had stopped, but the world outside still looked grey and generally soggy. I abandoned my gardening plans and ensconced myself on the couch to watch TV and work on the current stash-busting crochet project. I'd decided to use up some odds and ends of cotton yarn by making a cushion cover. I had a particular concept in mind for this, but after extensive fiddling around I ended up with a fairly standard 'granny square' shape. After all, when you're bringing in a lot of colours it's probably best to use a simple pattern. Even making a simple square turned out to have its complications. I hadn't taken much notice when sortin

It was raining when I woke up this morning. This was unfortunate, since a) I had planned to spend the day working in the garden, and b) yesterday's washing was still hanging on the line. The rain didn't last all that long, but it was enough to discourage me from spending the day kneeling on a squelchy lawn. I spent an hour or two on the couch with my crochet, waiting to see what the weather would do. Since the grey dreariness looked like it would hang about for a few hours at least, I decided to wash the windows while they were out of direct sunlight. The windows were, as usual, utterly filthy: covered in a film of windblown muck accumulated over however long it's been since I last cleaned them. Window washing is one of those jobs I thoroughly dislike doing, mostly because I'm very bad at it. I always think I have done a decent job, and then the sun shines and it's all dribbles and smears. I'd almost prefer the dirt. Still, it's got to be done occasi

The plan for today was to deal with my mounting pile of feijoas. As usual, I was a bit late getting started: I find I've somehow established a routine whereby I toss and turn through the night and then sleep late into the morning. This does not bode well for going back to work next week. It was 10am before I got up, showered and dressed, and did a couple of loads of laundry (which, now I think of it, are still on the line. Whoops). Finally, I settled down with a coffee to peruse feijoa recipes and make some decisions. Beth (she who prompted this blog) had kindly sent me a variety of options. These were whittled down with regards to available ingredients and overall appeal. I was quite taken with an Annabel Langbein recipe called ' feijoa pan puff ', had developed a certain curiosity about something called ' feijoa fizz ' and was in two minds about making feijoa jam . At first, the jam sounded like an excellent idea. It would use up a whole kg of feijoas, plus

It must be pretty boring to read about bathroom painting three days in a row. What I can tell you is it's even more tedious spending that length of time doing the actual painting. When I hauled myself out of bed around nine this morning, I told myself sternly "you will be painting by 10 o'clock". It's important to be firm with yourself about these things. At 10.30, I started setting up for the day's painting. I'd had a look at yesterday's efforts and decided to do one more complete coat. The areas I masked yesterday made the job so much easier that I chose to tape a few more edges I hadn't bothered with previously. Never mind that they already had smeary overpaints on them, at least I wouldn't have to worry about making more. By the time I stopped for lunch, I'd completed the second coat. Compared to yesterday, the painting went remarkably smoothly: no setbacks, no disasters, and may I say I never stepped in the paint tray, which is p

After deciding I had no choice but to paint the whole bathroom, I spent yesterday evening preparing areas previously overlooked, dismantling removable fixtures and making a start on the paintwork. By the time I called it quits for the day, I'd done one coat in the dodgy corner, along above the window and bathroom cabinet, and the wall alongside the bath. It wasn't particularly tidy; I hadn't thinned the paint properly and it was difficult to work with. Also, I couldn't seem to keep a neat edge and kept getting paint in places it shouldn't be. Cleaning up smears and dribbles with an old cloth soon meant I was wiping more paint on than off. Fed up, I packed up for the night. It took me a while to get started this morning. I knew there was a fair amount of work to be done, and I wasn't all that eager to start it. I'd spent half the morning reading a book before I hauled myself off the couch and set to work. With yesterday's splatter struggles in mind,

I've lately developed a habit of standing in the bathroom, staring at the wall. (You may well ask. The reason for this behaviour will become apparent.) My bathroom is more than a little tired. It suffers from a combination of outdated fixings and the disturbingly poor DIY operations of a previous owner. When I first moved in, such small improvements as could be quickly achieved were completed by my industrious parents, but that was several years ago, and the room's condition has continued to deteriorate. The real problem is a lack of ventilation. There's no extraction fan; only a window to let out the inevitable moisture. To compound the issue, the walls are not tiled and moisture-proofed like a more modern bathroom, merely painted Gib like the rest of the house. What the room really needs is a complete renovation. That will happen one of these days, but it's hardly possible in the present circumstances. What I can do is try and affect some small cosmetic improv

A couple of weeks ago, when this whole isolation thing got underway, it occurred to me that a crochet project would be an excellent lockdown pastime. I can't go and buy more yarn; I have to make something from what I already have. In case you are unaware, this is not the usual procedure. What I usually do is pick a project, decide there is no suitable yarn amongst my collection, and go out and get exactly what I want. This sort of behaviour leads only to the increase of The Yarn Stash, what with leftover bits, abandoned creations and the ever popular "I liked it so I bought some". Clearly, it's time for a stash buster. The most daunting of my various yarn bins was the one labelled 'fluffy and bobbly'. The contents were mostly items inherited from my Nana, since I'm not fond of fluffy (or bobbly) yarns myself. Making something from this hodgepodge of tasteless fluff would certainly present a challenge. After some experimentation on how best to wo

It's obvious that my task for today was to finish sorting through the chest of drawers. I still had a number of drawers to do, and there's no point leaving a job half-done, is there? I pulled out the three drawers below the one I did yesterday. These contained a mish-mash of togs, trakkies, shorts and "brr it's cold" clothes. You will be astonished to hear that the drawer containing what I loosely consider 'exercise clothes' also held a certain amount of dust.  As I carefully folded and put away the 'keep' items, I found that the remaining contents, originally from three drawers, now only filled one and a half. I have a whole empty drawer there! Perhaps I don't need a basket in the wardrobe for scarves and such, after all. From there I moved to the drawers on the right-hand side. These are more commonly in use, holding my t shirts, singlet tops, merinos and other standard layering items. I dug through these, consigned a few mor

When I woke up this morning (after an excellent night's sleep, thank you for asking) I didn't really have anything planned for the day. I got up, toasted some hot cross buns, spilled coffee down my pyjamas, changed into clean ones, and climbed back in bed to read. It was well into the morning before I finished the latest whodunnit and climbed out of bed. In an attempt to be productive, I took up The Fluffy Thing and whiled away a few hours crocheting and watching TV. I did not make as much progress as I'd hoped. By lunchtime I was getting annoyed with it and decided to do something else for the afternoon. I made myself a BLAT salad, (feeling quite smug that I'd managed to select a perfect avocado by sight alone during my supermarket mission the other day) and scarfed it down while considering what to do next. It seemed sensible (and not too arduous) to continue my clothes sorting by attacking the chest of drawers. I started with the sock drawer, because it was

Having spent the past couple of days being moderately productive, I was already planning a chill-out day today. It's lucky I didn't have anything energetic planned: after a second restless night I wasn't up to doing much. I'd reclaimed my own bed, which should have helped. What didn't help is my new neighbours in the front flat choosing to thump about until 3am. I have no idea what they were doing (moving furniture, or something?) and no doubt they were completely unaware of how much noise they were making. For reasons unknown, I have had The Mutton Birds 'Dominion Rd' persistently circling my brain for the past several days. My inability to banish this tiresome ohrwurm, coupled with sporadic thunks and clangs through the garage wall, was enough to drive me completely loopy. Still, I didn't have to get up for work. I resolved to sleep as late into the morning as I could. This moderate ambition was foiled by the earth shaking me awake shortly before

I thought I would sleep like a log last night. I was certainly tired, and the spare bed is quite comfy. For whatever reason, I actually ended up tossing and turning into the small hours. I did eventually drift off, only to be awoken by my neighbours' dog indulging in its favourite pastime of barking incessantly during the hours of darkness. Today's priority was therefore to sort out all the guff and claim my own bed back. I made a start as soon as I was up and dressed. It was quite astonishing how much stuff I hauled out of that wardrobe yesterday: piles of shoes, (several pairs worn out) a number of bags, (half of them broken) and heaps of varied garments, (many ill fitting, shabby or unworn for years). It's amazing how quickly you can get through such a pile of stuff if you're prepared to be sensible about it. Several pairs of shoes went immediately into the bin, (I have a terrible habit of replacing worn out shoes but keeping the old ones 'as a backup'

I got up this morning intending to sort out my wardrobe. And I did - but not in the way I planned. It's one of those obvious lockdown jobs: sift through the contents of an overstuffed wardrobe, decide what to keep, what to donate and what to biff. That was the plan. I got as far as hauling all the guff out and piling it on the bed before I was distracted by the state of the wardrobe itself. Usually a wardrobe is overflowing with stuff, you don't even see the walls of it. But when you take it all out, you see the rough paintwork, scuffmarks and random gouges. My immediate thought was "that needs painting". As I wiped and vacuumed out the interior, I tried to talk myself out of what is, after all, a fairly unnecessary job: "It's just a wardrobe!" "You won't see it once the clothes are back in" and "There are other things around here that need painting more than that does!" But really, once the idea had popped into my head th

Officially, I'm on holiday. Alright, so I happen to be holidaying at home during a lockdown, but it's still nice to lie in bed on a Monday morning with the knowledge that all my coworkers are already hard at work. Well, at work, anyway. After a leisurely hour or two perusing yet another Georgette Heyer, (a regency one this time) I abandoned the intricacies of Miss Fanny Charing's sham engagement, and dragged myself out of bed to make muffins. (You'll be wanting to know about yesterday's murderer. Turns out I had the motive and backstory spot on, but had identified the wrong neighbour as the long lost first wife. It was in fact the nosy vicar's wife. Well played, Ms Heyer.) I'd actually been planning to make these muffins for the past few days. My choice of Alison Holst's carrot and pineapple muffins was governed mostly by the standard 'having the ingredients in the cupboard' rule, but more specifically by the following: I had ple

Sunday morning after the clocks go back: the sun well up at a comparatively early hour, encouraging me to go out and do something about my shambles of a garden. Once I'd had my breakfast, I set down my book and headed outside. (It's another Georgette Heyer. Only a few chapters in, and I'm already fairly certain that the murderer is the helpful neighbour, who will presumably turn out to be the grumpy General's first wife, stabbing her ex-husband so her son doesn't get disinherited for marrying a Mexican cabaret dancer. But I could be wrong.) I've been neglecting my garden lately. It gets that way at this time of year, when everything I enthusiastically planted in spring has flowered, fruited and gone a bit straggly. We've had water restrictions in place recently too: somehow weeds still flourish while the grass dies off. My lawn was in particular need of attention. While I don't aspire to the manicured perfection favoured by the male of the

On my first day of Covid19 lockdown, my sister-in-law said to me "You should write a lockdown diary", apparently believing that this would make entertaining reading. I am not convinced that I can be entertaining on the subject of staying at home and doing nothing. But she threw in quite a lot of flattery, and I do like a challenge. Also, this lockdown business is likely to get boring. I started my lockdown more than a week after most other people. What I mean is, I work in an 'essential service' industry. So for the past week or so, while others have been going stir-crazy at home, I have been getting up and going to work much as usual. The thing about supplying only essential services is that the usual workload is reduced. There's not really much for me to do, so I took a couple of weeks off and thus find myself in a self-imposed lockdown. It's obvious that the first thing I'm going to do when I get to stay at home is sleep in. I'm usually dragg