This Week I…

Hello folks and welcome to another exciting story of things I did inside my house this week.

I’ll be honest, this weeks been a bit of a tough one for me. I have good days and bad days, as I guess we all do, as we adjust to this new normal. I’m trying to focus on eating better and drinking less and looking to my more productive and healthy coping strategies.

This afternoons coping strategy is going to be watching trashy movies and then having a virtual games night.

But first, this week I…..

Hurt My Knee

Because of course I did. Running has been a real release for me recently. Keeping it slow, no speed work and trying not to beat myself up about being slow, but long distance runs really shut my brain off.

On Easter Sunday I set out to do my April #12in12 challenge, a virtual race the Harry Potter themed RacingClaw 9 3/4 . I could have done 9.75k but I wanted a challenge so decided to make it miles. I haven’t run that far since late February, but I’ve been doing 6-7 miles, so knew I could do the distance.

I headed out super early and the streets were quiet, it was lovely actually. But I was tired and started to flag quite quickly. Then at 7.5 miles my left knee suddenly went. It’s the knee I have previously injured, so I’m guessing it’s related to that, but it was really painful. I ended up walking much of the last 2.25 miles, I wanted to finish running, but within 10 seconds of trying I’d be limping and I must have looked like a crazy person to anyone I passed.

So, I did the distance, but not how I’d have liked, and I’ve only been able to do short distances since with the help of my knee brace.

Had a pleasant Easter

Easter Sunday still happened, and I attempted to cook a roast dinner. We get an organic meat box from Riverford once a month, which conveniently contained a beef joint this month, and I managed to cobble together everything else from freezer and cupboard left overs without going anywhere near a shop, so I was pretty chuffed with my lockdown dinner.

I also found party hats so I wore one of those too, it’s like an Easter Bonnet but with less creativity involved.

Said Goodbye

Tuesday was the funeral of our dear friend Julie who died in March. Obviously we couldn’t attend the funeral, so at the request of her husband all her friends played Purple Rain for her at 11:30 am.

Her husband asked me to try and get other people to join in on Social Media and make it “Purple Rain” for Julie and I’m hugely grateful to all the people on Instagram who filmed short clips of them playing Purple Rain.

It was a very emotional day and to be honest has left me quite drained for the rest of the week. It hurts my heart to think how her husband and boys must be feeling and I can’t wait till we can hug them.

Made Banana Bread

Ok. Just to be clear, I did not make Banana Bread, Mr LLL did. Baking is on a list of things I don’t do, it also includes sewing, crochet, knitting, and anything else creative or productive.

Normally when bananas start to turn I freeze them for smoothies, but seeing as everyone is baking now, we made banana bread instead. Technically it was more like banana cake as we don’t have a loaf tin, but it was very nice.

Got Angry with Asda

A couple of weeks ago I’d been lucky enough to snag a delivery slot with Asda. I do not like Asda groceries normally, but beggars can’t be choosers right now so I was glad to have it.

When the order actually arrived half the stuff was missing. I’d requested substitutions, but they still failed to deliver a huge chunk of stuff including basics like cheese and eggs without offering a substitution.

I found this incredibly irritating and it has reconfirmed my dislike of Asda (last time I tried to order from them they told me it was on its way and then it just didn’t turn up at all) we ventured to a corner shop for some things and local company Bread Source came to our rescue with some others.

Snagged me some luxuries

I have to confess that the global shortage of some items is baffling me. The peroxide I use on my hair, for instance has been out of stock at Boots and Superdrug for over a month, and one of my little luxuries, Westlab Epsom salts have also been mysteriously out of stock everywhere. Why have people been stockpiling Epsom salts? Who knows.

Anyway, I did finally manage to get onto the Boots website after a week of trying and ordered some boring basics like cotton wool, which then took 2 weeks to arrive, but my little luxuries were nowhere to be found, neither were some of my other regular purchases, slightly more understandably it’s been hard to get cleaning wipes and vitamin D for instance.

Anyway, to cut a long story slightly less long. This week I managed to get a delivery from Savers. They open at 6:30 am each day and then close down once they’ve taken a certain number of orders that they know they can manage.

This means I received my delivery with all my hard to get items within a week, so I’m very impressed.

Get up early and shop at Savers is my advice!

Went to the Pub

Well, we went to the back door of the Pub, bought some beer at a safe social distance and then carried it home. The pub we visited, The Artichoke, is 2 roads over from us. A place I used to pass on my way to the gym, but which now felt like I was venturing beyond the borders of the known universe. It was kind of fun and the beer was a nice accompaniment to that evenings virtual pub quiz.

Had a Nosebleed

In this weeks less fun news I had my second nose bleed in 2 weeks.

I haven’t had a nosebleed since I started taking tablets for my high blood pressure, so this rang some alarm bells.

I do have a blood pressure monitor, so I took my blood pressure, and sure enough it had shot up again to pre medication levels.

This is worrying, but I guess not hugely surprising and the last few weeks have been stressful and involved a lot more drinking and some terrible eating.

I shall be monitoring it and doing healthy things like meditation before I run off to the GP right now.

Went to a beer festival

It’s amazing how many thing you can do virtually if you put the effort in, and last night we went to the first ever CyberFest organised by Beer52.

We had a box of beers, tasting notes, a Zoom session with friends who also had boxes of beer and live feed from Beer52 with tutored tastings, comedians and quiz questions.

It was fun and we had a really great night. About 6 or 7 beers in it degenerated slightly and there may have been hats. Then there was some dancing. We went to bed quite early, but our more energetic friends apparently danced till midnight over Zoom.

Highly recommended.

Found some interesting discarded property

Lastly, because this just need sharing, this mornings dog walk revealed some interesting discarded property just inside the fence of what I think is some kind of electricity thing.

How did it get there? Who knows?

And that was another fascinating week in my lockdown life.

I hope you’re all staying home and staying safe.

How was your week?