Making the best of a shit situation

Liking the bird feeder too.

Haha, borrowed that idea from daughter's nursery - the bluetits love them, by the time we're back to normal I reckon there'll be a few (dozen) more of those

The flooding in Hampton Bishop 5/6 weeks ago really bought the village together as a community (there’s really no obvious centre point so it’s not really happened in a meaningful way before) and we were determined to be as self-reliant and resilient as possible. This mobilised a large chunk of the village and we started to tap into considerable social capital that we didn’t even know existed.

The expectation was that most things would be preventative but it’s now morphed into broader community resilience with a hub and spoke approach, the village zoned so it’s easier to communicate and look after each other (a large proportion of the village are over 70, a group I aspire to join), coordinate shopping and pharmacy collections and, I remain hopeful, tap into undiscovered cider resources.

This has been really life affirming and I sincerely hope that once the current situation has passed it isn’t cynically milked by Big Society opportunists (note - one of the Herefordshire MPs authored the Big Society and is very visible when there’s something to celebrate, totally invisible otherwise)

I ordered a MegaDrive mini thingy, anticipating the long haul indoors.

Teaching the kids Golden Axe > teaching them phonics

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Except they both seem to have perished and not pressed the start button to continue. I will have to teach that one tomorrow

Poor deprived kids playing ancient sprite lo rez games.
Get 'em a PLAYSTASHUN

Found a use for some of the random collection of patches I had.

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No LFGSS badge?

I've got an old sewing machine up and running, so far mended a pair of jeans and a pair of gloves. Need to replace inside pockets in the jeans next, but that's probably quite hard.

It's on order with the summer caps.

Nice!

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Ooh. I ALMOST used that one. I'll keep it for the panniers.

The Outskirts of Reality is great BTW.

I'll save you one

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Ooh. Ta!

• Learning French with 10yo daughter (helps that wife is fluent and I also have the Beginner's French course from the OU lying around from when I tried to learn 15 years ago).
  
• Relearning to play the piano (again with 10yo daughter). I did Grade 1 some 35 years ago and have all but forgotten how to read music. Also learning to play the ukulele with her.
  
• 3 x 5k runs a week, the other outside times are for family walks so no time for cycling.
  
• 100 pushup challenge, Leg Blasters (https://sawback.com/articles/leg-blasters/) and general core fitness
  
• We're starting skipping too
  
• finding new things to cook, eating properly (less shit and less snacking) and drinking less = losing weight
  
• Getting shitloads of stuff done on my general todo list (clearing off old computers, creating proper backups, emptying crap from cupboards, etc)
  
  

12 weeks should get me quite far along with those things

I live very close to one of the main roads into mcr from the motorway, and quite near the motorway too, so there is the constant buzz of road noise outside.

Tonight for the first time in nearly 10yrs I stood outside listening to zero road noise.

Bliss.

That looks wicked mate!

Gonna get myself airbrush, compressor, liquid mask, paint.

Frisket - was that the thing? Let us see any results...

Have had dinner with my family every day for the last 8 days or so. I love it! Often hungry again by 10pm, but hey.

Have taken up baking, made a mean Guiness cake at the weekend, will do a banana loaf later to use up the manky bananas. Wife is trying to teach me how to skip, good cardio I'm told. If anything the skipping is giving my goddaughter a daily laugh.

I'm also on the skipping. Just 20mins/day. Day three and improved a lot. Really starting to enjoy it actually and definitely works up a sweat!

+2 on the skipping. Nowhere near 20
Minutes. Been trying for longest continuous run. About 1.45 at the moment.

Ah yes, skipping, all 3 of us will be starting that in the next few days as it means we can get out to the garden and get some fresh air.

Been trying for 10,000 steps a day. Can do it if we all go out for a walk but my one bit of exercise a day is a 5k run then I tend to end up on ~8,500. Trips to the garden for some skipping should help bump it up a bit.

Where do these come from, and are any more likely to be available any time...? Thanks!

We were also about to get our garden redone:

• decking ripped up and replaced with a smaller area of paving (and more grass area)
  
• old shed binned and new smaller shed put in a different place (on a new concrete pad)
  
• raised beds put in and a bunch of easy to maintain stuff put in
  
• fences sorted out
  
• lawn relaid
  
  

I also have a Trimetals bike store out there with some old bikes, it's currently screwed down onto the decking to secure it.

Gardening bloke has come back to say that they aren't working during the lockdown (fair enough and it suits us). He said he'll come back when it's safer to do so and can reassess (and requote). Good news is this means I've got time to sort out a load of stuff myself and save myself some money.

I've contacted the council to try and rent another store shed in the estate opposite so I can move the bikes that are in the Trimetals bike store out of the garden for good. (I'm happy with the security now but they'll be even more secure in something brick with a big metal door - they'll also be chained with BFO chains a ground/wall anchor).

I'll then rip up the decking myself (saving £500 or so) and putting the few bits currently in the shed (mower, strimmer, garden tools, football/cricket stuff, etc) in the Trimetals which can just sit on some of loose wood from the decking to keep it off the bare earth. The shed can be dismantled too. Although nothing (shed, old decking, garden waste) can go to the local council tip as that's shut for the foreseeable.

I can even do some work to clear other parts of the garden but, again, no way of disposing of it for the moment so I won't go too big on this (council are stopping garden waste collection from the end of this week). Don't really want too big a pile of ugly stuff as we'll be wanting to spend some time in the garden this spring/summer.