Do 5 impossible things before you start work

Hi Everyone

Yes, I know it’s been a long time since I blogged, but I’m feeling rather smug today, so I thought I’d tell you about it.  The title of this post is one of the goals I regularly set myself:  Do 5 Impossible Things Before Starting Work.  Since I work from home on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, that’s the day I put this goal into action and try to get 5 different items.

Am I a morning person?  Probably, but more by training than biology.  I’ve had to get up early since I was a teenager, travelling 20 miles to school via train and tram.  Throw in the 7am starts when I was nursing and follow that up with decades of having to leave home at 7am in order to get to work, and suddenly a lie-in becomes any day when I sleep beyond 6am.  Anyway, one of the most important things I’ve learned over the years is that if I don’t do something first thing in the morning, chances are it won’t get done.  

So what were today’s Five Impossible Things:

1. Ran for 25 minutes.  (I’m on week 7 of the Couch-to-5K.)
2. Ran in the rain!  This is the first time I’ve had to run in the rain since before I got sick. I was very pleased that my waterproof jacket kept me dry.
3. Washed up last night’s dirty dishes, including filling and emptying the dishwasher and handwashing the lunchboxes and frying pan.
4. Ate at least 12 different types of fruit, seeds and grains for breakfast.  I’m aiming for 30+ different fruits/veggies/seeds and grains per week.
5. Did two perfect lessons of Duolingo German.  I’m on day 1811.  I did 1750 days of French, before swapping to German.

Not necessarily a profound list, but these are things that would otherwise get procrastinated about/postponed until they built up.  Instead, they were all done before I started work at 8am.

- Pip

SitRep 2020: Review of the Year

What a strange year was 2020.  It started normally, then was sideswiped by Covid-19.  It feels like we spend a good six months in Lockdown.  We’re back there now, although it’s called “Tier 4” instead.   There were so many things planned that fell by the wayside because of Lockdown: concerts, international cricket matches at Lords and the Oval, a trip to Rome in June, Normandy in April, multiple football matches (including 2 at the Euros), a day at Wimbledon, the Proms...  Some events were postponed; others cancelled completely.  

There were some good things.  We didn’t get sick.  We managed a few days in Gloucester, before going back into Lockdown.  I’m still employed.  Treasured but fleeting visits with friends, when we were allowed to meet up.  I got my sewing machine repaired just before the first Lockdown.  I have plenty of yarn.  My choir started meeting through Zoom - rehearsing is pretty awful but it’s great to see people. Duolingo tells me I’m on a 219 day streak of learning French.  I started running again on 13th July, doing the Couch-to-5K; a week ago, I ran for 18 minutes. 

Regarding my 20-in-2020 Goals, here’s the Sit-Rep.  I reckon I achieved 9 out of the 20:-

1. Knit 20 balls of yarn (that's between 3 & 5 jumpers worth). 41/20 - I finished the jumper I was knitting (5 balls), completed the next one (finished on 13 balls), finished the third (8 balls), fourth (9 balls) and fifth (9 balls).  Also completed are three pairs of socks.   
2. 20 minutes a day learning French (via Duolingo and TinyCards) for 20 weeks. 31/20 weeks.  Absolutely smashed this, thanks to Duolingo.
3. 20 minutes exercise a day for 20 weeks. Walking 30 weeks, weight training 5 weeks, running 20 weeks.
4. Read 20 books. 6/20.  These are listed In the sidebar on the right..
5. Try 20 new dinner recipes.  5/20.  I am a cook!  How can this be so difficult to achieve?  I’ve made Chicken a la King, a chicken tray bake from New Idea and Lidl’s Mediterranean Meatball Bake, Slow-cooker barbecued pork, Lamb Moussaka. 
6. 20 gardening sessions.   14 proper ones plus a couple of minutes mucking around with seeds.
7. Explore 20 new places 7/20 - the cathedral at Bayeux, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester city centre, Cheltenham city centre, Great Witcombe Roman Villa, Painswick Rococo Garden, some of the back streets near home.
8. Attend 20 "shows" (concerts/plays/films/BBC recordings/exhibitions) 3/20 - Frank Skinner’s “Showbiz”.  The News Quiz.  The Troy exhibition at the British Museum, Chelsea vs Leeds (after Lockdown).
9. Do the 2020 Fashion On The Ration Challenge and keep within the coupon count. 60/66 coupons used.  These are listed in the sidebar on the right.
10. Phone family/friends to chat 20 times (I'm hopeless on the phone). 20/20.
11. Lose 20lbs.  10/20.  (To be honest, I’m just glad I haven’t put any weight on given the “Covid Calories” everyone is eating.)
12. Mend 20 items of clothing (yes, that includes sewing on buttons and taking up hems) 3/20 - hemmed trousers from a suit purchased in 2018 (I’d only worn the skirt and jacket, not the trousers).  Mended the pockets of a different suit jacket, bringing that suit back into rotation.  Repaired the pockets on DH’s shorts.
13. Declutter 20 items.
14. Run 20 miles (but not all at once) 20 miles (started running again on 13.7.20 - doing couch-to-5K).
15. Save 20 x £20 out of my “allowance”(£400) £400/£400
16. Make 20 site visits for work, earning mileage 20 times (it goes to the car fund).  29/20.  
17. Write 20 blog posts.  25/20 
18. Log 10,000 steps on my Fitbit on 20 or more days (harder to do than it sounds).  37/20:  11.1.20 10505 steps, 22.2.20 10603 steps, 7.3.20 13527 steps, 21.4.20 10524 steps, 3.5.20 11,196 steps, 4.5.20 13,956 steps, 17.5.20 14,066 steps, 18.5.20 15,046 steps, 19.5.20 11,567 steps, 30.5.10 10,079 steps, 31.5.20 11,160 steps, 13.7.20 11.287 steps, 18.7.20 15,001 steps, 20.7.20 10,005 steps,  22.7.20 14,830 steps, 16.8.20 10,954 steps, 17.8.20 10,952 steps, 24.8.20 11,823 steps, 26.8.20 11,402 steps, 2.9.20 10,757 steps,  7.9.20 10,714 steps, 13.9.20 10,604 steps, 18.9.20 10,946 steps, 20/9/20 11,653 steps, 21/9/20 11,374 steps, 23/9/20 10,069 steps, t5.10.20 10,355 steps, 6.10.20 13,074 steps,  9.10.20 11,012 steps, 11.10.20 10,301 steps, 18.10.20 16,786 steps, 20.10.20 16,212 steps, 21.10.20 10,341 steps, 22.10.20 11,729 steps, 23.10.20 10,298 steps, 6.11.20 10,366 steps, 11.11.20 10,100 steps, 12.12.20 11,181 steps, 30.12.20 10,061 steps.
19. Have a party in the summer and invite at least 20 friends.  Do singing exercises for 20 weeks to rebuild my voice. 2/20.
20. Watch at least 20 programs that have been on the DVR since 2018.  14/20.

How about you?  What did you achieve during 2020?

- Pam

What did you achieve during Lockdown?

What did you achieved during Lockdown, Pam?  This is a question I’ve asked myself a lot, recently.  We've both worked throughout Lockdown so, at best, have regained a couple of hours a day from our commutes.  As you know, at the start of 2020, I set myself 20 separate challenges (updated below), but what have I actually achieved in the six months since we were all told to go home and put our lives on hold?

Here's what I have achieved during Lockdown:-

• Knitted three jumpers and started my fourth.
• Completed 109 days straight of Duolingo French and learned more in those 108 days than I did in 4 years of high school French.
• Decreased my podcast queue from 357 to under 180, even though between 12 and 15 new podcasts are added each week by the podcasts to which I'm subscribed.
• Become a runner again.  In July, I dusted off the Couch to 5K app and started running most mornings.  I've had to repeat a couple of weeks because I was really unfit, but that's OK.  I'm now running more than I'm walking, and I'm happy with that.
• Published 9 recipes.  At the start of Lockdown, I set myself the goal of putting my cheapest recipes online, so that those struggling financially could find and use them.  While some of my recipes were already on the blog, I've added others that are really cheap to make.  There's also been a couple of cake recipes.
• Finally finished the sock I started knitting in February and am part of the way through it's pair.
• Grown and harvested 8 bulbs of garlic, 3.2kg of potatoes (with more to follow), multiple courgettes, a dozen pak choi, a forest of mutant carrots and a handful of broad beans.  (What can I say?  We planted out 6 broad bean plants but they just didn't deliver.)  There are still 5 heavily laden tomato plants to harvest - the tomatoes are only just starting to turn red - and, maybe, a dozen red or yellow peppers to follow.
• Harvested two huge batches of rose hips and made 10 jars of Rose Hip Jelly.
• Harvested enough sloes - 541g - to make one bottle of sloe gin.  These are from one bush from the tangle of plants at the end of the street, which fell over in August's high winds but has managed to stay alive.  Until it collapsed onto the pavement, I never knew it was there.

Yes, there are things I’ve missed due to Lockdown: choir, meeting friends face to face, attending live sporting matches, the Osterley Park Farm Shop (closed due to Lockdown), the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, the sheer joy of just driving off into the sunrise and visiting new places...  But we’re healthy and solvent and happy, and that’s the best I can ask for right now.

Regarding my 20-in-2020 Goals, here’s the Sit-Rep:-

1. Knit 20 balls of yarn (that's between 3 & 5 jumpers worth). 28/20 - I finished the jumper I was knitting (5 balls), completed the next one (finished on 13 balls), finished the third (8 balls), commenced the fourth (1 ball) and lined up the fifth.  Sadly, I have still only clocked up one complete pair of socks this year (ending a ball of yarn in the process).   
2. 20 minutes a day learning French (via Duolingo and TinyCards) for 20 weeks. 16/20 weeks.
3. 20 minutes exercise a day for 20 weeks. Walking 22 weeks, weight training 5 weeks, running 8 weeks.
4. Read 20 books. 6/20.  These are listed In the sidebar on the right..
5. Try 20 new dinner recipes.  5/20.  I am a cook!  How can this be so difficult to achieve?  I’ve made Chicken a la King, a chicken tray bake from New Idea and Lidl’s Mediterranean Meatball Bake, Slow-cooker barbecued pork, Lamb Moussaka. 
6. 20 gardening sessions.   10 proper ones so far plus a couple of minutes mucking around with seeds.
7. Explore 20 new places 1/20 - the cathedral at Bayeux.
8. Attend 20 "shows" (concerts/plays/films/BBC recordings/exhibitions) 3/20 - Frank Skinner’s “Showbiz”.  The News Quiz.  The Troy exhibition at the British Museum.
9. Do the 2020 Fashion On The Ration Challenge and keep within the coupon count. 40/66 coupons used.  These are listed in the sidebar on the right.
10. Phone family/friends to chat 20 times (I'm hopeless on the phone). 14/20.
11. Lose 20lbs.  8/20.  (To be honest, I’m just glad I haven’t put any weight on given the “Covid Calories” everyone is eating.)
12. Mend 20 items of clothing (yes, that includes sewing on buttons and taking up hems) 3/20 - hemmed trousers from a suit purchased in 2018 (I’d only worn the skirt and jacket, not the trousers).  Mended the pockets of a different suit jacket, bringing that suit back into rotation.  Repaired the pockets on DH’s shorts.
13. Declutter 20 items.
14. Run 20 miles (but not all at once) 1 mile (started running again on 13.7.20 - doing couch-to-5K).
15. Save 20 x £20 out of my “allowance”(£400) £400/£400
16. Make 20 site visits for work, earning mileage 20 times (it goes to the car fund).  29/20.  
17. Write 20 blog posts.  24/20 
18. Log 10,000 steps on my Fitbit on 20 or more days (harder to do than it sounds).  20/20:  11.1.20 10505 steps, 22.2.20 10603 steps, 7.3.20 13527 steps, 21.4.20 10524 steps, 3.5.20 11,196 steps, 4.5.20 13,956 steps, 17.5.20 14,066 steps, 18.5.20 15,046 steps, 19.5.20 11,567 steps, 30.5.10 10,079 steps, 31.5.20 11,160 steps, 13.7.20 11.287 steps, 18.7.20 15,001 steps, 20.7.20 10,005 steps,  22.7.20 14,830 steps, 16.8.20 10,954 steps, 17.8.20 10,952 steps, 24.8.20 11,823 steps, 26.8.20 11,402 steps, 2.9.20 10,757 steps,  7.9.20 10,714 steps.
19. Have a party in the summer and invite at least 20 friends.  Do singing exercises for 20 weeks to rebuild my voice. 2/20.
20. Watch at least 20 programs that have been on the DVR since 2018.  11/20.

How about you?  What did you achieve during Lockdown?

- Pam

SitRep: June update

How was June for you?  Are you coping with Lockdown?  

I can’t remember where I first heard the sentence:  “Do three impossible things a day before breakfast”.  It may have been on an episode of Mr Ed, when I was a child - that’s what springs to mind.  Anyway, it’s the motto that I spent June trying to live by.  I think the point is to start your day having achieved something, so that the rest of the day doesn’t look like such a mountain to climb.  My 3 impossible things are muscle building exercises, learning French via Duolingo and singing exercises.  

You may notice that I’ve changed challenge 19 from having a party - not going to happen until after the current epidemic has run its course - to singing exercises.  I had a dreadfully sore throat in December and my voice hasn’t really recovered.  It gets hoarse after speaking for a couple of minutes.  A fellow chorister mentioned warm up exercises from Deborah Miles-Johnson, with whom we’ve done workshops.   I’ve downloaded them from Choraline and am working my way through those each morning.

1. Knit 20 balls of yarn (that's between 3 & 5 jumpers worth). 20/20 - I finished the jumper I was knitting (5 balls), completed the next one (finished on 13 balls), started a third (currently 1 ball down)  and have still only clocked up one pair of socks this year (ending a ball of yarn in the process).   
2. 20 minutes a day learning French (via Duolingo and TinyCards) for 20 weeks. 5/20 weeks.
3. 20 minutes exercise a day for 20 weeks. Walking 15 weeks, weight training 4 weeks.
4. Read 20 books. 5/20.  These are listed In the sidebar on the right.  The most recent books: This Golden Fleece, finished while sitting on the patio in the warm June sunshine and Not Quite Mastering the Art of French Living.
5. Try 20 new dinner recipes.  3/20.  I am a cook!  How can this be so difficult to achieve?  I’ve made Chicken a la King, a chicken tray bake from New Idea and Lidl’s Mediterranean Meatball Bake. 
6. 20 gardening sessions.   5 proper ones so far plus a couple of minutes mucking around with seeds.
7. Explore 20 new places 1/20 - the cathedral at Bayeux.
8. Attend 20 "shows" (concerts/plays/films/BBC recordings/exhibitions) 3/20 - Frank Skinner’s “Showbiz”.  The News Quiz.  The Troy exhibition at the British Museum.
9. Do the 2020 Fashion On The Ration Challenge and keep within the coupon count. 33/66 coupons used.  These are listed in the sidebar on the right.
10. Phone family/friends to chat 20 times (I'm hopeless on the phone). 10/20.
11. Lose 20lbs.  8/20.  (To be honest, I’m just glad I haven’t put any weight on given the “Covid Calories” everyone is eating.)
12. Mend 20 items of clothing (yes, that includes sewing on buttons and taking up hems) 3/20 - hemmed trousers from a suit purchased in 2018 (I’d only worn the skirt and jacket, not the trousers).  Mended the pockets of a different suit jacket, bringing that suit back into rotation.  Repaired the pockets on DH’s shorts.
13. Declutter 20 items.
14. Run 20 miles (but not all at once)
15. Save 20 x £20 out of my “allowance”(£400) £240/£400
16. Make 20 site visits for work, earning mileage 20 times (it goes to the car fund).  29/20.  
17. Write 20 blog posts.  20/20 
18. Log 10,000 steps on my Fitbit on 20 or more days (harder to do than it sounds).  11/20:  11.1.20 10505 steps, 22.2.20 10603 steps, 7.3.20 13527 steps, 21.4.20 10524 steps, 3.5.20 11,196 steps, 4.5.20 13,956 steps, 17.5.20 14,066 steps, 18.5.20 15,046 steps, 19.5.20 11,567 steps, 30.5.10 10,079 steps, 31.5.20 11,160 steps.  
19. Have a party in the summer and invite at least 20 friends.  Do singing exercises for 20 weeks to rebuild my voice. 1/20.
20. Watch at least 20 programs that have been on the DVR since 2018.  9/20.

- Pam

SitRep: May update

Hello.  How are you doing in these strange times?  As you will have gathered from a certain car’s post, below, we’ve been on Leave this week.  While I wish we could have travelled, I must say that it has been nice to have a break and a change to the rhythm of our days.  Highlights have been a visit to Costco, a visit to the butcher and walking 2 miles to go to the bank.   Oh, and we ordered a takeaway one evening.  

Prior to the break, it felt like every day was the same!  DH and I are both working from home, so that’s 8 hours of the day taken care of.  It feels like a lot more Worktime is spent in calls and meetings than would normally happen in the office.  Most evenings after work we go for a half-hour walk, cook dinner then watch telly.  I’ll knit and sew, while watching.  (Not much change there.).  

Weekends, we garden a bit, watch more telly, listen to podcasts together... The Kermode & Mayo Film Review podcast is a regular “date”.  It comes out on a Friday evening and we’ll try to listen to it together by Monday.  (Before Lockdown, we’d both listen on our separate drives to work and then discuss it.). I have a lot of podcasts in my queue and will listen when pottering around the kitchen/cooking dinner/doing housework/gardening/doing a very boring, brainless task “at work” (literally something that doesn’t require thought or my ears would shut off). 

One evening on the weekend, DH will play a video game online with his mates and I’ll read or phone my friends.  I love to read and have far more books in my queue than I have time to read them.  In our borough, you can sign up on line to borrow e-books from the “library”, but there’s also the Bookbub mailing list which sends a daily email of free or cheap e-books to match your preferences (Kindles, Apple Books, etc).  The Kindle app is free and I read them on my phone/iPad.  Re the library service, you can also borrow audiobooks for free.

Human contact is important.  We have a couple of regular Skype calls set up, e.g. normally on a Tuesday we’d do a pub quiz, now our quiz team Skype at “quiz time”.  Every couple of weeks, I have a call with the girls from Head Office Finance (where I worked 20 years ago).   My department at work have “Virtual Pub” on a Friday, where we chat and play games.  My project team are now doing the same on a Thursday.   And my choir are having Zoom calls instead of rehearsals.  (You only need to set up a Zoom account if you are hosting the meeting.)

Here is my update on my 20:20’s:-

1. Knit 20 balls of yarn (that's between 3 & 5 jumpers worth). 15/20 - I finished the jumper I was knitting (5 balls), started the next one (currently 9 balls down) and have still only clocked up one pair of socks this year (ending a ball of yarn in the process).   
2. 20 minutes a day learning French (via Duolingo and TinyCards) for 20 weeks. Not started yet.  Modified to 20 weeks.
3. 20 minutes exercise a day for 20 weeks. 5 weeks.
4. Read 20 books. 3/20.  These are listed In the sidebar on the right.  I have two books on the go right now and am 70% through both of them.
5. Try 20 new dinner recipes.  1/20.  I am a cook!  How can this be so difficult to achieve?
6. 20 gardening sessions.   4 proper ones so far plus a couple of minutes mucking around with seeds.
7. Explore 20 new places 1/20 - the cathedral at Bayeux.
8. Attend 20 "shows" (concerts/plays/films/BBC recordings/exhibitions) 3/20 - Frank Skinner’s “Showbiz”.  The News Quiz.  The Troy exhibition at the British Museum.
9. Do the 2020 Fashion On The Ration Challenge and keep within the coupon count. 29/66 coupons used.  These are listed in the sidebar on the right.
10. Phone family/friends to chat 20 times (I'm hopeless on the phone). 8/20.
11. Lose 20lbs.  6/20.  (To be honest, I’m just glad I haven’t put any weight on given the “Covid Calories” everyone is eating.)
12. Mend 20 items of clothing (yes, that includes sewing on buttons and taking up hems) 3/20 - hemmed trousers from a suit purchased in 2018 (I’d only worn the skirt and jacket, not the trousers).  Mended the pockets of a different suit jacket, bringing that suit back into rotation.  Repaired the pockets on DH’s shorts.
13. Declutter 20 items.
14. Run 20 miles (but not all at once)
15. Save 20 x £20 out of my “allowance”(£400) £100/£400
16. Make 20 site visits for work, earning mileage 20 times (it goes to the car fund).  29/20.  
17. Write 20 blog posts.  15/20 
18. Log 10,000 steps on my Fitbit on 20 or more days (harder to do than it sounds).  9/20:  11.1.20 10505 steps, 22.2.20 10603 steps, 7.3.20 13527 steps, 21.4.20 10524 steps, 3.5.20 11,196 steps, 4.5.20 13,956 steps, 17.5.20 14,066 steps, 18.5.20 15,046 steps, 19.5.20 11,567 steps.  
19. Have a party in the summer and invite at least 20 friends
20. Watch at least 20 programs that have been on the DVR since 2018.  9/20.

- Pam

SitRep: April update

Hello.  How are you?  As you can see from the posts with the tag “Lockdown Diary”, I’ve been posting fairly regularly since my last Sit-Rep.  Admittedly, most posts are recipes but that is what I promised to you when I wrote this post on Monday 23rd March, setting out my worries for people’s finances during/after the Covid-19 induced economic crisis.  All the relevant recipes are tagged <£2Dinners.

We’re both still working from home.  I usually start work before 8am and finish around 4.30pm.  Lunch is timed to coincide with the auction stage of Bargain Hunt on BBC1, which DH and I watch together.  Most evenings, we go for a walk around the neighbourhood, before coming home to cook dinner and settle down with my knitting/the TV.  Every Tuesday evening, we have a SKYPE call with the other members of our pub quiz team.  (Tuesday was Quiz Night.).  I try to call friends on the weekend, because I’m spending half of every working day on the phone at present.

So many things that we were planning to do this year have been cancelled or postponed.  Did I tell you that I got lucky in this year’s draw for Wimbledon tickets?  Well, that’s been cancelled.  Rather than rolling the tickets over to 2021, Wimbledon are refunding everyone their ticket money.  < pout >. Hopefully, I’ll get lucky again next year.  We also had tickets for a recording of the Now Show at the BBC but that, too, was cancelled.  (The show was recorded without an audience and is available as a podcast.). 

Here is my update on my 20:20’s:-

1. Knit 20 balls of yarn (that's between 3 & 5 jumpers worth). 7/20 - I finished the jumper I was knitting (5 balls), started the next one (currently 2 balls down) and have still only clocked up one pair of socks this year (ending a ball of yarn in the process).   
2. 20 minutes a day learning French (via Duolingo and TinyCards) for 20 weeks. Not started yet.  Modified to 20 weeks.
3. 20 minutes exercise a day for 20 weeks. 1 week.
4. Read 20 books. 3/20.  These are listed In the sidebar on the right.  
5. Try 20 new dinner recipes
6. 20 gardening sessions.  2 proper ones so far plus a couple of minutes mucking around with seeds.
7. Explore 20 new places 1/20 - the cathedral at Bayeux.
8. Attend 20 "shows" (concerts/plays/films/BBC recordings/exhibitions) 3/20 - Frank Skinner’s “Showbiz”.  The News Quiz.  The Troy exhibition at the British Museum.
9. Do the 2020 Fashion On The Ration Challenge and keep within the coupon count. 27/66 coupons used.  These are listed in the sidebar on the right.
10. Phone family/friends to chat 20 times (I'm hopeless on the phone). 5/20.
11. Lose 20lbs.  2/20.  (To be honest, I’m just glad I haven’t put any weight on.)
12. Mend 20 items of clothing (yes, that includes sewing on buttons and taking up hems) 3/20 - hemmed trousers from a suit purchased in 2018 (I’d only worn the skirt and jacket, not the trousers).  Mended the pockets of a different suit jacket, bringing that suit back into rotation.  Repaired the pockets on DH’s shorts.
13. Declutter 20 items.
14. Run 20 miles (but not all at once)
15. Save 20 x £20 out of my “allowance”(£400)
16. Make 20 site visits for work, earning mileage 20 times (it goes to the car fund).  29/20.  
17. Write 20 blog posts.  11/20 
18. Log 10,000 steps on my Fitbit on 20 or more days (harder to do than it sounds). 4/20:  11.1.20 10505 steps, 22.2.20 10603 steps, 7.3.20 13527 steps, 21.4.20 10524 steps. 
19. Have a party in the summer and invite at least 20 friends
20. Watch at least 20 programs that have been on the DVR since 2018.  6/20.

- Pam

Thirteen plus years in the making

Once upon a time, in 2005-6, I worked in central Reading.  Our office was a short walk from the Reading branch of John Lewis, which is the only major British department store chain to continue selling fabric and yarn*.   My lunchtime “treat” was to wander down Castle Street into John Lewis to browse the knitting yarns.  Sometimes, I’d buy something - the yarn for this jumper, for example - other times I’d just window shop.

At some point, I was drawn to an expensive, shiny, silk yarn, Debbie Bliss Pure Silk DK.  The colours just glowed.  I don’t remember the exact price, although £15/skein springs to mind.  There was a green that just kept catching my eye.  I waited patiently hopefully for it to go on sale.  I was disappointed.  When the John Lewis biannual clearance sale came around, there was none of that green to be seen.  I kicked myself that I didn’t make note of the colourway, while I had had the chance.  They didn’t get any more in stock afterwards, either, and soon after that my office moved out of town.  But still the colour haunted me.  Eventually, I caved in and ordered 10 skeins from, Bunty’s.  It was not something he usually carried, so I had to order out of the catalogue and hope from a tiny sample that I’d picked the right shade of green (there were two).  When it arrived, I paid over my £79.99 and tried to hide my disappointment.  The shade was much more blue than I remembered.  Pride prevented me ordering other green colourway from Bunty, I didn’t want him to feel obliged to take the first order back.  (I couldn’t inflict the loss on Bunty - it wasn’t his regular stock.  He’d only acquired it for me.).   Eventually, I ordered it from John Lewis in Brent Cross and, again, I was disappointed.  This time, it turned out too yellow.  

    

Neither were the exact colour I wanted but, having paid good money, I dutifully put them away in the stash and waited for inspiration to strike.

Fast forward to last year.  I was looking through the stash, wondering what to knit next, when my eye fell on the yarn on the bottom.  In the intervening  years, it seems to have changed colour and is far more like the yarn on the top.  If I couldn’t see the shade number, 27006, in the photo on the bottom, I wouldn’t believe it was the yellow-green one.  Anyway, it “spoke” to me and told me that it would like to be a Blanche Too by Susan Crawford.  I finished it last weekend and wore it for the first time on Wednesday.

See what I mean about the colour?  DH took this photo on our regular afternoon walk, our daily permitted “Lockdown Exercise”.  And this one, in the garden, afterwards.

After so long a wait, what do I think of the yarn?  The comments on Ravelry are full of complaints about the way it was spun:  slubby in places; tightly overspun in others.  I have to agree.  Every hank was an absolute beyotch to wind, having felted against itself in places. After the second skein, I gave up with the ball winder and wound them by hand.  They were unevenly spun, too, so I was surprised that it knitted up as evenly as it did.  

What will I do with the rest of it?  No idea, at this stage.  I may give it to a friend who is allergic to wool and alpaca, but has been bitten by the knitting bug.

- Pip

* In the 1990s, I watched as one-by-one department stores such as House of Fraser, Selfridges and Liberty closed their fabric and yarn departments.  By 1995, John Lewis were the only ones left.

On with the Motley

Today is a special anniversary.  20 years ago, today, I joined the discussion boards of The Motley Fool.  The Fool has played quite a big part in making me who I am today: tech savvy; an investor; a knitter again (I’d given up in the ‘90’s).  I’ve made friends through it; discovered new places; learned how other people live and how other countries operate (tax, politics, etc).  The members of the Fool taught me to budget and how to put the “living” into Living Below Your Means (aka LBYM).  Their posts gave me a window into their lives, before Blogs became a thing and long before Facebook.  For all of that, I say “thank you”.  Yes, I am a Fool and so are they.

All of the above brings me to what I want to say today.  I think that we’re witnessing the start of the next Great Depression and we will need the wise counsel of the Fools more than ever.  No, it’s not because the stock market has crashed (the FTSE100 is down over 2,000 points).   It will be the unintentional consequence of The Big Shutdown that we’re experiencing in Europe:  everyone working from home who can;  flights cancelled;  schools closed;  hotels, pubs, clubs and restaurants shut;  shops closing their doors and hoping that their online business will keep them afloat.  All concerts and live performances have been cancelled.  So many lives are already disrupted and it will just get worse.  The British Government has stepped up for regular employees - if you are furloughed, you will get 80% of your regular salary*, paid for by a government grant - but if you are a zero hours employee or self-employed, as I write you are only entitled to the most basic of benefits (£92/week).

In all this, my thoughts turn to what we can do to help. I worry about how bad it will get and how many people will suffer.  I’ve already fundraised for the local soup kitchen and the food bank**, but I want to do more.   Since I am a Fool and a cook, I have decided that I will create a collection of recipes of really cheap meals, based on four principles:-

1. Tasty
2. Filling
3. Nutritious
4. Less than £2 for an entire meal

They will be posted here on the Blog, since it’s free to access, and possibly compiled into a PDF.  That will be my big task for 2020. 

- Pam

* There is an upper limit in the £2,500/month.

** How is it that, in the 21st century, people are relying on soup kitchens and food banks, institutions which disappeared during the majority of the 20th century.

March update

Good morning.  How are you?  How are you coping with the Covid-19 “plague” driven madness?  I am gobsmacked by the things that people are panic buying - why bottled water? (Covid-19 is not a waterborne disease.)  Why toilet paper? (Nor does it cause diarrhoea.)  I have ventured into the supermarket a couple of times over the last month and they are chaos!

We’re well.  Haven’t been struck by a cold since before Christmas.  I’m a little worried about my choir’s concert being called off next weekend, but it’s wait-and-see at the moment.  (The committee sent out an email yesterday.). Oh and having got fed up of chanting “Happy Birthday to Me!” when washing my hands, I’ve swapped to chorus of “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of my Hair” from South Pacific.

Here is my update on my 20 20’s:-

1. Knit 20 balls of yarn (that's between 3 & 5 jumpers worth). 4/20 - This hasn’t moved much because I had to rip out and reknit the jumper that I’m creating, since I screwed up the above-waist increases.  (Only ripped down to the waist.  Am now, finally, on the shoulders). The fourth ball used up was on a pair of socks.   
2. 20 minutes a day learning French (via Duolingo and TinyCards) for 20 weeks. Not started yet.  Modified to 20 weeks.
3. 20 minutes exercise a day for 20 weeks.
4. Read 20 books. 2/20.  False Value, by Ben Arronovich (the latest in the Rivers of London series).  People Like Us: Margaret Thatcher and Me, by Caroline Slocock (a memoir of Caroline’s time as a civil servant in Downing Street.  Fascinating.).
5. Try 20 new dinner recipes
6. 20 gardening sessions
7. Explore 20 new places 1/20 - the cathedral at Bayeux
8. Attend 20 "shows" (concerts/plays/films/BBC recordings/exhibitions) 3/20 - Frank Skinner’s “Showbiz”.  The News Quiz.  The Troy exhibition at the British Museum.
9. Do the 2020 Fashion On The Ration Challenge and keep within the coupon count. 17/66 coupons used.  (Bought a trouser suit.)
10. Phone family/friends to chat 20 times (I'm hopeless on the phone). 2/20
11. Lose 20lbs
12. Mend 20 items of clothing (yes, that includes sewing on buttons and taking up hems) 2/20 - hemmed trousers from a suit purchased in 2018 (I’d only worn the skirt and jacket, not the trousers).  Mended the pockets of a different suit jacket, bringing that suit back into rotation.
13. Declutter 20 items
14. Run 20 miles (but not all at once)
15. Save 20 x £20 out of my “allowance”(£400)
16. Make 20 site visits for work, earning mileage 20 times (it goes to the car fund).  28/20.  I have one more week of my commitment in the Huntingdon office - I’m handing over the job to the new starter -  then it’s back to normal and no claimable mileage.
17. Write 20 blog posts.  5/20 
18. Log 10,000 steps on my Fitbit on 20 or more days (harder to do than it sounds). 3/20:  11.1.20 10505 steps, 22.2.20 10603 steps, 7.3.20 13527 steps 
19. Have a party in the summer and invite at least 20 friends
20. Watch at least 20 programs that have been on the DVR since 2018.  0/20

- Pam

Update on my goals

Hi!  How are things with you?  I’m working too hard - I’m covering a full time role on one of the Highways contracts we have at work, while still trying to do parts of my real job and live my life.  It’s not fun and it involves a lot of mileage.  Here’s the update on my goals for 2020:-

1. Knit 20 balls of yarn (that's between 3 & 5 jumpers worth). 3/20
2. 20 minutes a day learning French (via Duolingo and TinyCards)
3. 20 minutes exercise a day for 20 weeks.
4. Read 20 books. Still on my first book, “People like us” by Caroline Slocock.
5. Try 20 new dinner recipes
6. 20 gardening sessions
7. Explore 20 new places 1/20 - We were in France over New Year and toured the cathedral at Bayeux
8. Attend 20 "shows" (concerts/plays/films/BBC recordings) 2/20 - Frank Skinner and, yesterday, the recording of BBC’s News Quiz
9. Do the 2020 Fashion On The Ration Challenge and keep within the coupon count 0/60
10. Phone family/friends to chat 20 times (I'm hopeless on the phone)
11. Lose 20lbs
12. Mend 20 items of clothing (yes, that includes sewing on buttons and taking up hems)
13. Declutter 20 items
14. Run 20 miles (but not all at once)
15. Save 20 x £20 out of my “allowance”(£400)
16. Make 20 site visits for work, earning mileage 20 times (it goes to the car fund).  13/20
17. Write 20 blog posts (in 2019, I haven't managed one yet)  4/20 - including this one
18. Log 10,000 steps on my Fitbit on 20 or more days (harder to do than it sounds). 1/20
19. Have a party in the summer and invite at least 20 friends
20. Watch at least 20 programs that have been on the DVR since 2018

21. Post on TMF at least 20 times.  5/20

As you can see, I’ve made a start.  Wonder how I’ll do in February??

- Pam

Fashion on the Ration vs Yarn Addiction

I mentioned in my last post that I’m doing Fashion On The Ration again this year.  My big weakness isn’t clothes, it’s yarn.  I have a stash of humongous proportions, so I don’t need any more yarn, but I still managed to blow 40+ coupons on it last year.  Seriously, I bought so much yarn that I lost count!  Some of it was one-off-specials, the sort of thing you find at shows but don’t see every day:  Tweed Valley Clotted Cream 4-ply; some Poledale sock yarn.  I bought a jumper’s worth of each.  There’s no excuse for the rest:  12 x 100g balls of Regia sock yarn, in three different shades of grey (it was a really good price, though); plus several assorted skeins of sock wool, which has now been turned into socks. 

My plan for this year is to knit up at least 20 balls of yarn from stash AND NOT BUY ANY.  Right now, I’m knitting another Blanche Too, from Susan Crawford Vintage.  The first one was out of Debbie Bliss’ Wool of the Andes; this one is out of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk DK, which I’ve had in the stash since I worked in the centre of Reading in 2006 (I bought it in the sale at John Lewis).  I’m almost up to the armpits and started the year on skein 3.  Now on skein 4; it should take another 4 skeins, so that’ll be 6 off the target by the time I’ve finished.

I’ll update the sidebars in a moment.

- Pam

Goals for 2020

A very clever person on MSE has devised a “20 in 2020 Challenge.  I’m joining in and have set the following goals for 2020:-

1. Knit 20 balls of yarn (that's between 3 & 5 jumpers worth)
2. 20 minutes a day learning French (via Duolingo and TinyCards)
3. 20 minutes exercise a day for 20 weeks
4. Read 20 books
5. Try 20 new dinner recipes
6. 20 gardening sessions
7. Explore 20 new places
8. Attend 20 "shows" (concerts/plays/films/BBC recordings)
9. Do the 2020 Fashion On The Ration Challenge and keep within the coupon count
10. Phone family/friends to chat 20 times (I'm hopeless on the phone)
11. Lose 20lbs
12. Mend 20 items of clothing (yes, that includes sewing on buttons and taking up hems)
13. Declutter 20 items
14. Run 20 miles (but not all at once)
15. Save 20 x £20 out of my “allowance”(£400)
16. Make 20 site visits for work, earning mileage 20 times (it goes to the car fund)
17. Write 20 blog posts (in 2019, I haven't managed one yet)
18. Log 10,000 steps on my Fitbit on 20 or more days (harder to do than it sounds)
19. Have a party in the summer and invite at least 20 friends
20. Watch at least 20 programs that have been on the DVR since 2018

And a special goal, number 21:  Post on TMF 20 times in 2020.  I owe that website a hell of a lot and I’d like to keep it alive.

Care to join me?

- Pam