Valentines Day

Day 333...

Happy Valentines Day!

Well the day started like any other at the moment. A slow and steady Sunday morning. I chatted over WhatsApp with Molly as she shared her Valentines gifts with me and once we had eaten breakfast and were on our second coffee of the day Simon and I exchanged gifts.

Simon had bought me a Star Wars Mandalorian Pop Vinyl figure...how cute is this?

I had bought Simon a Star Wars LED light for his desk; one that can swap between R2D2, the Millenium Falcon or the Deathstar! But I also decided to treat us both...one of our little pleasures, in normal times, is to go out for 'coffee & cake'. Now to be fair it's not often that we have the cake element and it's more about finding the time to take ourselves out and about and just stop and enjoy a moment just the two of us. But because of the current lockdown going out for 'coffee & cake' hasn't been possible for a long while...in fact I can't remember the last time we went and sat in a coffee shop!

Anyway I decided that as we couldn't go out for 'coffee & cake' I would bring it to us. So by the power of online retail I was able to buy one of our favourite coffee shop brand coffees and indulge in a low carb treat.

Caffe Nero Coffee 

Chocolate Raspberry Brownies by Deliciously Guilt Free

We then braved the chilly wind to take one of our longer walks out, in fact it turned out to be our longest to date, managing 5.69 miles in 1 hour and 48 minutes! We have been using the Strava app to record our walks and already this year we have walked 72.6 miles in a total of 23 hours!

Suffice to say when we arrived home we indulged in the aforementioned, and very much deserved, 'coffee & cake' and it was yummy!

Then this afternoon while I did some 'research' ahead of this evening's Disney Quiz...which meant watching the Pixar movie Soul...Simon made some more progress on his latest art piece, a renditioning of a game character called Shadowman from a game he worked on back in the late 1990's.

And as the evening came around it was time for our weekly Disney Dream Girls Disney quiz via Zoom. I didn't do too badly, I think I managed 5 out of a possible 11 for the questions on Soul although my knowledge of Disney's Hollywood Studios let me down for the second half of the quiz! But it was still fun and lovely to chat with a group of friends from around the world that I would not otherwise have met had it not been for this weekly quiz.

Take care out there.
xx

Day 55

Day 55...

And we have our first lockdown birthday today - Molly!!!

So as is tradition we had breakfast followed by the opening of presents and I have to say I think Molly did rather well this year...I blame online shopping.

And I can now reveal the little bit of artwork I was creating over the weekend, rather than buy a birthday card I decided to have a go at drawing some of Molly's favourite Disney characters and I don't think I did too bad!

And talking of creative endeavours look how Molly's cake turned out...

...layers of cappuccino cake and lemon & poppy seed cake sandwiched with vanilla buttercream and decorated with handmade chocolate swirls! All Molly's handy work!

It was lovely to see a couple of Molly's friends take the time, and make the effort to drop by with some gifts. Both friends visited independently of each other and both kept to the social distancing rules but it was nice to experience a little bit of normality in this crazy world.

My day had rather a heavy work focus as following our governments announcement on Sunday, and then updates yesterday, revealed that not only is the proposed return to school aimed at Reception, year 1 and year 6 children but also early years providers...just like my pre-school. So I read through numerous government documents this morning to try and glean some understanding of what is expected of our pre-school. I then composed emails to staff, my committee and our parents to let them in on what the proposals are and to try to gauge what the parent demand for places would be.

All the information that I have read is, to be honest, pretty vague, full of lots of ifs, maybes, potential and possible statements. This is all predicated on the easing of lockdown measures going well, so that schools should be able to 'welcome more students' from 'potentially, at the earliest, the 1st June'. So I am now having to figure a way forward and plan for possibly opening...at the earliest...on the 1st June while still adhering to social distancing (with under 5's!) and good hygiene. I will admit to my mind being a bit full of stuff and possible scenarios, but I am glad last week I took the time to put some of this down on paper so that I can now start to unpick and hopefully formulate a plan of some sort. I must admit I have been surprised by the number of parents wanting their children to return as I am not sure what I would be doing if I was in their position. We will be returning for possibly 6 or 7 weeks before the summer break...assuming that still happens...I guess at this point all bets are off as they say!

And we had our usual lunchtime walk, another 2 miles in the cold and wind, where has the good weather gone? Oh and chance for me to have a rant at cyclists who insist on cycling on the footpath when there is a clearly marked cycle path on the road which ends up with me and Simon having to walk on the road - argh! Oh and pedestrians who have to walk two abreast rather than single file even though Simon and I always walk single file and move as far away as possible from any other walkers!! Rant over!

Oh and to end the day we had cake...and it was good!

xx

Countdown to Christmas - Day 23

23rd December

Well my day today has been spent mainly in the kitchen.  I have made almond paste for my home-made Christmas cake (thanks Mum!  Would like to say I made the cake but alas no, and besides my Mum's cake is sooo good), a batch of mince pies and some apple sauce to go with pork on Christmas Day.

Mince Pies - kinda Hidden Mickey display!!

And just as I had the kitchen all clean and tidy I suddenly have both kids saying 'Muuuummmm....can we do some baking?'  How typical is that? Clean kitchen and my kids want to make it all messy again!  So we have come to a compromise; we are making the dough tonight to then chill over night (as per recipe) and then tomorrow we are making Mickey Gingerbread :)

Oh and also today I saw my best friend, who popped round for a 'Mickey-ccino'...

The Simes patented 'Mickey-ccino' - the only way to drink coffee :)

...and it was also an opportunity to exchange gifts...I just love the gift tag on my pressie!

Thanks Paula xx