My boss was very happy when I presented her with my project plan for the week last Monday. I was very excited to get to work, all was good. But then disaster struck. Don’t you hate technology sometimes?   All this week I  have been unable to upload photos to my blog. Many, many bad words were spoken about WordPress which I now need to take  back. Yesterday in desperation I updated my software and oh joy, I can now upload photos. Yay!!

I had a couple of projects in mind which I was going to show you  during the week but never mind, flexibility and all that!  I will merely reschedule.

Project 1: 99 Things to Do

When I retired a dear friend gave me book called 99 Things to Do When You Have the Time. I have added a subtitle!

I absolutely love books like this. I have one called 365 in which you are supposed to record something every day for a year, like a diary or what you did in the garden, free writing….whatever you fancy. I think I got to page 15. I also have a lovely book that D2 gave me for Mother’s Day in Spain in 2014 – A Sentence a Day. Pretty self-explanatory, answer a simple question every day, repeat for three years   I have done this on and off over the years.  Maybe I’ll cheat and just fill in for the first three months of 2020!!

So the question  about books like 99 Things is “In what order do I do the 99 things?”

Do I start at number one and work through methodically?

Do I choose things that take my fancy at the time?

Do I open a page at random and do what ever activity is on that page?

I have decided to go with the first option. If I chose either of the other two options it would make me anxious that I could have chosen a different one, a better one!  I worry I will do all the ones that I like the look of, or are easy, and then not do the rest! History says this is the most likely thing to happen.

So here we go! I was quite excited to get started, not so excited when I saw the first three activities. An artist I am not!!I made a good decision on the order of doing the activities though, I would never do these first three  by choice. And I have to say it was fun and I was pretty happy with my results.

1. Draw a picture with your eyes closed

2. Make a self-portrait

3. Draw a picture of a friend (very happy with this picture of the lovely Mrs L)

4. Look up a word or phrase you have never used before and try using it.

This was fun! I posted it on my Facebook Reading group, asking for suggestions of words and phrases that are no longer in use. I got lots of great replies and had an interesting day looking up the meaning and origins of many of them. In times PSO (Pre-Self Isolation) I wouldn’t have had time to do that or if I had I would have had the niggling “I should be doing…..” in the back of mind.

I used some of them to write this little piece (suggested words in bold)

Forsooth, the sun is high in the sky and quafftide is fair upon us. Pray good folk, come join in much boisterous merrymaking! We may become gigglemugs and laugh and dance ‘til we are fair puckled!
But I beseech thee, do do not partake overmuch of Mistress Meg’s honey mead, lest thee become a valetry of common riff-raff!”

I am loving quafftide (when the sun is over the yard arm and it’s time for a drink!) and  fair puckled which means very tired. The self-auto kept changing puckled  to pickled which is a different thing altogether but would still work!

5. Look up the words to a song you half remember

My Dad had a beautiful tenor singing voice and I grew up to the songs of musicals – Carousel, My Fair Lady, South Pacific, Hans Christian Andersen. The song I loved hearing him sing most of all was Younger Than Springtime, Lieutenant Cable’s love song to Liat, a local girl. The depiction of interracial love  caused a big stir in the 50’s when the musical was released.

I could sing all of the songs of South Pacific off by heart as a child, but just recently I found myself humming Younger Than Springtime and I realised I couldn’t remember all the words .

Once upon a time in a different life (about 3 weeks ago) I was intending to spend this particular weekend preparing for a long-planned trip to Pemberton with D2 and D3.  We were going to walk in the forest, have drinks and tapas at the local bar, explore the surrounding towns, it was going to be great. The novel I have been writing for about 2 years is partly set in Pemberton and I was intending to do some more research and take photos. D2 and I visited last year  and we were looking forward to returning.I reckon when we finally make it we’ll stay in one of the poshest Airbnb’s in Pemberton!! 

I have to say the weekend is not much different to the weekday here at Casa Anderson (Geraldton Retreat). I had a performance review with my boss on Friday afternoon and we both agreed that I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped and I needed to lift my game. She suggested that I make a little plan each morning of what I intend to do – my Bullet Journal is letting me down here!!

Seriously though I really do want to make weekends different from the week, otherwise its just same old, same old! S1 ( know that some of you may not not even know that I have an S1! )  is a journalist and is starting to work from from home this week. He said he intended to get up and get dressed in his work clothes each day, I read  of someone who said they get up, dress in their work clothes, grab a coffee and their lunch, leave the house and come back into their office (dining room table) Interesting thoughts. So I may wear something other than my ACDC t-shirt and Nepal pants during the week!

I was very earth mother this weekend. I made yoghurt and revived my sourdough bread starter. This is not a Hunkering Down initiative, I’ve been doing it for a few months now. However, it was the first time this weekend that I had made yoghurt with long-life milk. There are two things to remember when making yoghurt (apart from the obvious, you must have colour coordinated  utensils and ingredients).

First, when you are bringing your milk to the almost boil, never leave the stove. Don’t go and get something out of a drawer in the pantry otherwise you may get caught counting how many tins of tuna you have and the milk boils over. Secondly don’t leave the kitchen bench while you are waiting for the milk to cool to 44 C, especially not to chat with D2 in the lounge with a coffee. By the time I got back to the yoghurt it was 28C. I thought what the hell, I’ll just do the whole process all over again. After all yoghurt first appeared in many cultures (hah!) when people carried their milk in animal stomachs and it thickened and developed a delicious sour taste. So I guess the making of it is pretty forgiving. Anyway, it turned out fine. 

My sourdough starter had been hibernating in the fridge since before breaking my wrist and took some persuading to wake up and bubble. However, bubble it did, eventually, and I decided to start making pizza dough using the air knead method which is basically slapping it  onto the bench for 5 minutes,  lots of fun!!

When I retired a dear friend gave me this  book, I added the subtitle!  So I thought I might do these, not sure whether it will be a work activity or a weekend activity, it seems like a fun weekend activity to me. I decided to start at 1 and work my way through to 99. If I tried doing random activities that take my fancy I’d get too anxious that I’d make the wrong choice.   I’ll let you know how I go.

So we have made it through one week of self-isolation, so far so good. For this I am grateful.  Keep safe dear people. 

Meet Evie  the Unicorn and Thomas the Bear. They belong to my grandchildren but live at Grandma and Grandpa Bear’s house. In between visits they are put away on a shelf in the WIR but after the last visit they were very sad because they don’t know how long it will be until they see their family again,  so we let them come and and sit in the dining room. I talk to them about all the fun they had during the last visit and it makes them feel better.

And now for something completely different. This is not a political blog. There’s enough people out there giving opinions and debating the actions and decisions of the government and medical authorities. I just want to share how life is for me and my family in these strange times. I want my grandkids and great grandkids to know what daily life was all about during the COVID-19 pandemic. I hope they read it some day.

However I’d just like to say that if I lose this, even if there is sometimes  lots of seaweed,

and I don’t get to do this

because people  think the rules of social distancing don’t  apply to them or the beaches, I will be mighty pissed off. Just saying!!

Work wasn’t too bad for the rest of the week, in Spanish I’ve learnt to say “La niña no tiene una boligrafo” which means “The girl doesn’t have a pen”. I’m sure this is going to be very useful when I next do the Camino. I did some writing, tidied a bit more of my office, practised doing different fonts so my Bullet Journal is Insta-worthy and planted more vegetable seeds. I’m up to level 711 on Candy Crush Saga.

Papa Bear couldn’t get the barbecue on the Costa del Balconia working, despite long phone calls with the experts (his brother-in-law and his mate)

so was forced to use the one down at Porto Gardenas. Just as well we have 2 barbecues, a weber and a smoker to choose from! As always Papa Bear produced a culinary masterpiece from his barbecue, salmon cooked on a piece of cedar plank which gave it a deliciously smoky flavour

My artfully arranged lettuce leaves and chunks of potato and pumpkin barely did the salmon justice

And to finish off,  this pilgrim is grateful for the living art  that graces her casa every single day!

Keep healthy folks.