Lockdown week 14 - music, muffins, and maggots 🐛

Days 93-99 (24th-30th June)

Hola! I am writing this on day 100!!! We made it to 100 days WHAT. Ed and I have a new wedding date (hooray) so I've been trying to fill my spare time with packing and getting ready to move house. If you have ever seen a space that I have inhabited you'll know that I am something of a maximalist when it comes to interior design so currently my room is looking uncharacteristically sparse.

Before:

After:

The soundtrack to this week has been Haim's new album, Women In Music Pt. III ~ it's soOo good. Every single song is an absolute bop, very catchy and summery. I had it on in my headphones whilst I was in the supermarket and it was very difficult to listen to without singing along. My sister bought the CD and it's an official signed copy!

We've had some very HOT days this week, some hot weather activities have included:

A walk around the lake with my dad and grandma

Scones in the garden with my mum and sister

Some garden reading with Ed as the sun set

I picked a load of loganberries from my grandma's garden (so tangy and yum) and then made some french toast muffins (another recipe from John and Lisa's Weekend Kitchen - link here!). They are a bit unusual but nice because it's basically sweet and fruity bread and butter pudding in the form of a muffin!

A lovely, busy corner of my grandma's garage (I get my maximalism from her I think)

Before lockdown I found this Little Princess duvet and pillowcase set in a charity shop and just had to buy it, I've never seen one like it before and got the feeling I wouldn't see one again! I can remember watching Little Princess on video and also we had the book 'I Want My Potty!' (anyone remember it? Absolute classic). I have the vague idea of turning the duvet cover into a dress one day but this week I decided to use the pillow case to transform a plain tote bag...it turned out great! I think I may have stumbled across a business idea 🤔

Here's a picture of my new monstera leaf which I mentioned last week (third this year), how exciting! Also I took a spontaneous trip to Aldi and ended up picking up this ficus tineke (pretty variegated rubber plant!), how could I resist for only £2.59?! One of the leaves has turned brown and I'm not sure why, it might just be because of moving it to a new environment. Anyone got any knowledge about rubber plants? Google didn't help me.

As I type this I am watching a pigeon drink from the pond, very sweet, Tom likes drinking from it too. The fish are thriving, they like hiding under the pond weed. I have noticed that Hector has blue eyes and Salvador has red eyes.

Last week I took a few seeds from a sweet red pepper and let them germinate on some wet kitchen roll (thanks for the tip mum), this week I planted them in some soil! Who else just does not understand the concept of gardening gloves?

I started 1984 this week and I am hooked! I've even got a pencil out and am underlining bits because it feels too real right now. A book club I'm in on facebook is reading it too so it's fun to be able to discuss it with likeminded peeps.

On Monday, my dad, the siblings and I went for a jaunt to Haytor. We were originally going to go swimming in the sea but when we got there it was quite grey and cold so we had a change of plan and drove up to Dartmoor instead! It was so windy that we had to eat our lunch in the car, then we went for a walk through the ferns.

One of my favourite things to see is an ice cream van with really bad cartoons on that are so bad that they're excellent. I loved this interpretation of The Simpsons eating ice creams.

This week I have had a few vivid dreams, featuring baby slugs, old school friends, troll dolls, a local artist, and a strange, slightly sinister holiday park where I got lost trying to find the toilet.

Dad's laden cherry tree

Tom snoozing

A present in the post from Ed's parents 🌻

Ed documenting Tom being funny

Handsome boy

Socially distanced sister, eating roast in the rain

A sky

My free copy of Premier Christianity came in the post

A smoky, fluffy friend on an evening walk

A squirrel being eaten by a slug (and many maggots)

Me and a microwave

Another sky

Whilst preparing for this week's house group I discovered some well-known artists have made work based on the book of Job (which we are studying). This first one is by William Blake and the second is by Marc Chagall.

Job and His Daughters, 1825

Job Praying, 1960

I'll finish up with a few more pics of Tom because there can never be enough. They outline what the average day in his life might look like...

1. Wake up the hoomans

2. Have some breakfast and read the paper

3. Survey the territory

4. Sleep in various positions and in various places

...it's a hard life being a cat! I hope your days are as fun and fulfilling as that.