Making the best of a shit situation

@moorhen organised a dancing horse to entertain folk stuck in doors for months in our area.

I made a film of the occasion

https://youtu.be/LASAVZ5DITQ

I think parenting counts as an achievement.

Awesome.

Oh that is bloody marvellous @skydancer , and surreally uplifting. Great stuff

Looking at my future once we're out of lockdown and seriously considering moving as its given me some time to think.

Just seen this - so lovely and calming!

Yesterday I made droewors (South African dry sausages) with beef from a farmer over the road from me. I also made a meal of slow cooked beef short rib (again from my neighbour), where all the side dishes (roasted squash and beetroot, celeriac remoulade) were grown in my lockdown veg beds. This was a reminder that making sausages and eating home grown veg were not on the cards at the beginning of 2020 and left me contemplating the changes and developments that have occurred this year.

Have kept up with daily yoga and meditation, and been quite disciplined about turbo sessions and am about 1.5 stone lighter and don’t really recognise my body shape in the mirror.

A mitre saw has been purchased and have built a log store. We have a terrible tendency of leaving gardening tools outside so the plan is to build some sentry boxes for these implements to help protect them from the elements.

Cleaning had never been my forte but I took over this role at the beginning of lockdown, out house is cleaner than when we had cleaners come in, and I am much more house proud. I even had fun going down the YouTube rabbit hole of trad window cleaning and now have a set of squeegees, poles etc and quite enjoy improving our views of the countryside.

There have been disappointments - not being able to meet family and friends for birthdays etc. But myself and my family, including my Luddite dad have become competent zoom and Skype users.

It feels that despite the limitations and restrictions there has been potential for growth and development. At the beginning of lockdown my wife decided to offer pro bono consultancy around environmental issues. Out of this she has been offered 50% of a new business and they are now approaching but also being approached by angel investors.

The question “what next?” keeps coming up, what skills can be learned or improved, what project can be jumped into. Currently investigating how best to pitch to angel investors and the following rounds of investment funding. Though the mind keeps turning to physical things too - build a workshop or renovate the field shelter into a small cabin or yoga space.

It appears others have also been using this time, some forum other forum members have clearly been cooking and baking more with some really impressive results, the DIY and gardening threads have also been productive and it appears a few people have successfully stopped drinking too. What else have people been up to?

Found this quite touching, one of my nephews is autistic so it felt quite close to home

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-london-56447846