Wednesday 20 May

Day 66 and life is beginning to feel a bit more ... no, scratch that. Life is not feeling more normal but it is feeling a bit less abnormal. Perhaps that's the way to say it.

Tim was able to go for a 3 hour hike, which is how he always imagined spending a sabbatical. The dogs, the views and the mobile tea-making equipment! It is definitely good for that man to get out in nature alone.

He still had energy to spare when he got back to the house, so he fixed up this little corner of the garden that had been looking a bit scrappy.

First, he had to take a quick trip to the recently reopened garden centre. A trip that wasn't quite so quick, after all. I guess this is the new normal: getting used to long queues of masked people standing at respectful distances from one another. While we're all desperate for social interaction, when it comes to shopping it takes a certain kind of commitment not to simply stay home, am I right?!

And my contribution to the garden was to hang up these glass jar lanterns, in the area under the 'borrowed' vine that is looking quite sweet, I think. At least this didn't require any lengthy Corona-queues to create.

Manu and I are the most scheduled members of the household. She has end-of-year tests this week and for the next 2 weeks. She is in a phase of seeking to establish her autonomy (yes, I realise this may continue for the next half dozen years) which currently means the right to keep her room in a state of chaos. Let's just say, we are re-negotiating the boundaries. To give her her dues, she has been outstanding during this period of at-home schooling and is very good at self-management when it comes to deadlines, assignments and revision.

I discovered I was ahead of a deadline today, which was delightful. It freed up some time for me to explore my new wonderland, which is the Hope*Writers community. I am trusting this will be a good venue to find the support I need to complete some writing projects and educate myself on all things authorish. I also worked a bit on my website today, with the support of Keziah who has created some graphics for my resource page. You can check it out here if you have a minute.

Today offered me moments of tedious transcription (listening to my own voice on repeat!) and featured a rather uninspired lunch (also by yours truly) but otherwise was a good lockdown day. How about yours?