Isolation – The Jolly Jaunts of Sarah Kooky Cook

May 15, 2020

My Sourdough Story

I have baked my own bread for a long time. I started doing this long before it became fashionable and so talked about. I like home made bread, in fact all home made food. I like to know what is in my food; the number of additives that go into the average loaf that you buy is alarming. For many years I was happy with using dried yeast. It is easy to purchase, works well and we don’t have any allergies in our family. I had experimented with sourdough bread a few years ago, as I like a challenge and the idea of a purer product. However, the results were not good enough to convince me. My loaves were heavy and too stodgy to want to eat on a regular basis.

In the intervening years, I have seen photos of others’ successful sourdough bread and been a little envious. How difficult could it really be? In addition, my brother Matthew visits on a fairly regular basis and we share lunches and dinners. He much prefers sourdough, as it seems to be better for his digestion and well-being. Many people say that sourdough is more easily digested. If I make bread as part of a menu, it would be great to be able to produce sourdough for Matthew.

The situation all came to a head recently when I, like many, found that my yeast supplies were running low.

I started to look up recipes online as well as study my books with sourdough recipes. I also of course consulted my helpful friends in my Archers Chit-Chat group on facebook! I came to the conclusion that I was just not being patient enough and that maybe the first time round I did not get the starter going properly. I have read many times that making a starter should take up to a week, but that it can take longer. One suggestion from Chit-Chat was really helpful, that maybe I could make life easier for myself and try making a starter with a lump of yeasted dough which I could then feed and develop. So in the end I tried two starters, one completely from scratch with just flour and water and the other with a lump of dough that I have added more flour and water to. Okay, you could call this cheating, but actually Doreen Dough has been growing so well that she cannot possibly have any commercial yeast left in her! Dotty Dough, made from scratch, was not as successful; I could have tried again, but decided that life was too short and I had made a working starter, albeit not one for the purists!

I decided to use my trusty friend, BBC Good Food. I am lucky enough to have a gift subscription to this magazine. I also make use of the online recipes if I cannot find quite what I want in my hard copies (I keep them for about 2 years and then throw them away apart from a few treasured ones which have particular recipes in!) After all the advice and links suggested to me, I went for the recipe from Barney Desmazery, with the slight variation that I put a small lump of yeasted dough in with the first measures of flour and water. After that I followed Barney’s instructions to the letter. As I have become more confident, I have known where I can miss out a step or not knead the dough and rest it for exactly the number of times suggested. Here is the link to his recipe: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/sourdough-starter The full instructions for turning this starter into a loaf are here: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/white-sourdough

Here are some progress pictures of my starter and dough waiting to be turned into delicious bread:

It is testament to the popularity of sourdough right now that Barney’s recipe consequently turned up in the May issue of the BBC Good Food Magazine. The recipes had been in the magazine last summer and earlier this year.

I had a few disappointing moments with my first few loaves. In fact my first completed loaf was pretty good! I did as suggested in all of the recipes I had seen and baked my loaf in a cast iron casserole dish. The dough is pretty wet and baking it in the dish seemed to help. However, it did take a long time to cook. The second time I baked a loaf, it was a complete disaster and I ended up turning it into breadcrumbs. It was heavy and quite unpalatable. I am convinced that the dish was to blame! See the picture of my unsuccessful loaf below:

Stodgy, inedible sourdough loaf!

Despite having had success with the casserole dish method, I was not prepared to risk another disaster, particularly as I was now having trouble getting regular supplies of flour. I then had the great idea of trying to source flour from a traditional mill, and I have bought quite a few bags from this place on the Isle of Wight: https://www.calbournewatermill.co.uk/product-category/isle-of-wight-flours/ Anyway, to go back to my baking disaster, I took the plunge and just baked the next loaves on a baking sheet, free-form as I usually do with my yeasted loaves. Although the dough was really wet, it rose to the challenge and my bread was a success. The picture at the top of this blog piece was one of the loaves I made by this method.

I did consider buying a proving/kneading gadget from Lakeland, my favourite kitchen shop, but decided in the end to save the expense. The idea of this silicone bread maker is that you can bake an oval or round loaf in it. I was advised though that it only makes a very small loaf. I have also in the past given up on proving baskets. I bought one of these a few years ago as I liked the idea of making loaves with those very professional looking spirals on the top. However, despite using plenty of flour, my basket just kept sticking! So my equipment is really very basic. I use a very big mixing bowl, as I generally make two loaves at the same time; we do seem to be eating more bread in lockdown! If the situation changes, I can reduce the quantities or put a loaf in the freezer. I also knead the dough on my granite board. This board is not designed for the purpose at all, and in fact was purchased for chocolate making, which Jess and I both do on occasions. The reason I use the board is that sourdough making involves kneading and folding for a few minutes, then leaving the dough to rest. I do follow the advice and do this 3 times before putting the dough back into the bowl and proving it in the fridge for 18 hours. I just find it more convenient to not have my complete worktop sticky with bread dough. With the board, it is nice and portable should I need to move the resting dough and get on with some other cooking.

I had a few e-mail discussions with my brother Matthew to see how he was getting on with his sourdough experiments. He found that using a proving basket worked for him, and I believe he also bakes the loaf in a casserole dish as suggested.

I am now so happy and confident with my bread making. I usually add some spelt, rye or granary flour to my dough and I sometimes make sourdough pizza. I can also offer a loaf to my mother, as she enjoys my home-made bread. I am happy to say that Jess is now more prepared to eat home-made bread. It is probably partly to do with being kind and considerate during lockdown, and making limited visits to the shops, but she did used to insist on having a loaf from the supermarket for her sandwiches – she now happily eats the bread I make and I like to think that this is because it tastes so good!

Here is a picture, hot off the press, of today’s loaves. I shall be making some sandwiches for lunch. Oh, one further word of advice. Do try to resist the temptation to cut your loaf too soon. Hot bread squishes and goes rather doughy if you cut it too soon. It is best to wait at least a couple of hours before eating it! After a couple of days, sourdough bread is perfect for toast.

May 7, 2020June 14, 2020

Sarah’s Handy Guide to Shopping for Multiple Households

All ready to go and shop for five households!

Jess and I have been in a routine of shopping for up to five households a week for quite a number of weeks now. Her role is to drive the car and take one trolley round the shop. I don’t drive (well, I do a bit but it’s complicated!) so I organise the lists, take another trolley and do all the talking. We now have the task down to a fine art and have compiled the following bullet point list, which may or may not help others!

Request the shopping lists from friends and family at least a day in advance. Most people will change their minds about what they want a few times, or write down items which are not clear – ice-cream (any particular flavour?), grainy mustard (French or English?), organic chicken (will free-range do?)
Insist on lists being e-mailed to you, as you can then copy and paste onto sheets and print them out. Our system is that I do our own shopping, plus one friend. Jess does her grandmother and one or two friends. You need to be able to attach your list in a single sheet to your trolley. We used to get given hand-written lists (saves paper apparently! Oh no it doesn’t and it is just a faff! One week Jess had three hand-written lists attached to her trolley!)
Make sure the car you are using is not full of bags of recycling that you need to take to the tip when it reopens! If it is, just dump the bags into another car or a shed!
To go back to lists, your clients need to specify if they are not happy with substitutes for particular products. If they don’t specify, just buy them something similar! This is so much more flexible than shopping online, when I think you have to either say substitutes or none – not specific to each item! The first week we went shopping after lockdown, we bought quite a few alternative vegetables , as there was not much available! So people had to put up with sweet potatoes when they had asked for ordinary maincrop! Cabbage will be fine instead of broccoli of course?! Coconut flour was all that was available that week! Today one friend asked for either self raising flour or sultana scones. Neither were available, so I used my initiative and bought her plain flour, bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar.
Only two forms of payment should be acceptable. Either they pay you online afterwards, or you take their credit/debit card. Am I really going to be dishonest with someone else’s card?! Cheques are an absolute no no. I don’t have time to go and cash them and I want the money now!
Use quick check with a scanner taken round the shop. In fact, gather together all the My Waitrose cards you can, and get lots of scanners – one for each client! (other supermarkets are available!)
One new trick we tried today was putting a named sticker on each scanner; it saves getting the scanners muddled up! It is a good idea to remove the stickers afterwards.
Using quick check means that you can pack the bags as you go. You can allocate different bags in your trolley for each person. With my own trolley, I start off very organised and then have so much shopping for our own household that I end up with a complete mess that I have to reorganise in the car afterwards.
You must go to the shop not being stressed about having to queue up. Treat it as a fun outing. Sometimes we chat or shout across to other people in the queue. Jess usually brings a book. You can always catch up on facebook and bring a cup of coffee in an insulated cup.
If you are shopping for several households, by all means queue up with the other member of your family who is helping you. If staff ask why there are two of you, it is simple enough to explain. We then tend to split up and take our trollies when we get towards the front of the queue.
Make sure that you are not going to end up starving hungry, so pick your time for shopping. We usually go mid-morning and end up having a late lunch at about 2:30 when we get back, but that suits us fine.
Another trick with the list is to take a clip or clothes peg to attach it to your trolley.
If you are going to forget items on a list, make sure that it is your own list. I hate failing to buy someone’s complete list of groceries.
Always talk to the staff and greet them with a smile. I always chat to the staff on the fish and meat counter and comment on how good the supplies of meat and fish have been during this crisis. It is also tremendously helpful to let it be known that you are shopping for several households; otherwise our trollies can make us look very greedy!
If you take a young person with you and they have alcohol on their list, make sure that they have age ID with them! You can read my other blog piece all about what happened when Jess forgot to take her ID – not fun!
Lastly, if you are buying items for the food bank, make sure you drop them in the crate at the end of your trip. Twice now we have forgotten to do this, so have to store them in the car for the following week.

So there you are, my slightly tongue-in-cheek guide to shopping during lockdown! I think I am going to miss these trips in a funny kind of way when this is all over….

May 6, 2020

Boredom in Lockdown? Not in our household!

You are never too old to enjoy the fun of a large box!

I cannot understand the concept of being bored at home. I just love my home and my family and am in danger of getting too used to not having to go to work. I am very fortunate in having a job as a school librarian. This means that I am able to work from home, albeit in a limited way. I am also on the rota to go into school and support our vulnerable students; this happens once a fortnight. I was able to help with our school holiday club too.

I am very lucky in being so close to my immediate family. For Paul and me this is our second marriage and I was very careful not to make a mistake the second time round. We have always spent a lot of time together during the week. Paul works from home; he has not done anything but work from home in all the time I have known him. With my driving phobia, he has often had to take me to work or to the railway station. Then there have been times when I have worked from home or taken time off, for instance on both of the occasions on which I was made redundant. So being together for much of the time during lockdown has not been a big change for us. My work in recent years has been part-time, albeit nearly full time in my current post. Jess and I have always been close, partly because, well that is just the way we are; we are lucky in having some similar interests. In addition, I think an only child naturally spends more time with parents than children in bigger families. I was close to my parents, but grew up as one of three, so spent much time playing games with my brothers. Add to that the fact that Jess’ father is not with us as part of the family and it all adds up to many hours and indeed years of doing craft activities and playing board games together. I am by nature, I like to think, a fairly creative person and did not need much excuse when Jess was younger, to buy craft kits, science experiment sets and fun toys such as a rocket operated with a bicycle pump! In this time of lockdown, it has been very therapeutic to do more of these activities together. Before lockdown, Jess and I used to enjoy shopping together; she came to love Henley, the beautiful town where I work, and we often went to the shops after she had collected me from work. We also made many trips to the cinema and theatre as a a family. Another interest we all have in common is a love of walking and the countryside; it was inevitable that Jess would come to love walking, as although over the years she has lived in quite a large number of houses, for the past 15 years (so since she was 7) we have lived in our little rented cottage in the woods.

So now we spend time together playing games, painting furniture, clearing cupboards and walking along our many local footpaths. Cooking is another interest that Jess and I share; she works as a chef in normal times, so that is something else that we can enjoy together. These activities have to some extent replaced the shopping and visits to the cinema and theatre, as well as our trips to the leisure centre in Henley. We also just enjoy eating meals together and sometimes just having a laugh. Witness the climbing into boxes episode in the above pictures. Today Jess received a parcel; she had ordered an Oodie online! An oodie is a bit like a hoodie and, to my mind, much nicer than a onesie. You can see us both modelling this in the following pictures:

Does the sloth oodie suit me?

I think that really I just manage to fill the time that is available with activities, and that I don’t always want excitement in my life. I love looking out of the window whilst I am writing; the trees change their colours with the seasons and I can see the results of all that hard labour in the garden, mainly Paul’s hard labour. I have never watched daytime television, although I can quite happily put off a task which requires complete concentration and no background noise by saying to myself: ‘I’ll just listen to 2 hours on the radio and then I’l make that phone call or write that article that I need to do.’ I also love doing domestic tasks such as hanging out the washing and watering the pots in the garden. At the moment I also have to do a certain amount of cleaning in the house, as we have paid our cleaners not to come for the forseeable future.

We do have a new weekly event in the household, which is Friday film night. Each week one of us will select a film and we all settle down to watch it at about 7:30pm, accompanied by whatever dinner I have decided to cook. Friday is usually fish night, but there are endless variations on that theme. The first week, I did make a selection of tasty snacks and canapes, but it was hard work clearing it all up and having everything safely back in the fridge afterwards (I always cook too much when it comes to snacks!) so now I just make a regular meal such as fish pie or fish cakes.

Although I always do a lot of cooking, I can happily do more when I have more time. This inevitably means more washing up of course. Jess says I bake too much. I like making cups of tea for everyone in the afternoon and asking what kind of cake or biscuits they would like with their cuppa. I have always made our own bread, but somehow we are eating more at the moment with us all being at home. I have finally perfected the art of sourdough bread, having run out of yeast recently. I shall tell you more about that in my next blog piece! For the moment, I am a little apprehensive about the announcements to be made on Sunday. There is bound to be some news about schools and what will be happening for the rest of the term. Much as I love my job, I also love being a domestic goddess and am wondering how I shall readjust to this next phase….

April 21, 2020

Isolation in the Seddon/Roberts Household: How to make your shopping trip even lengthier!

The above picture is not part of our shopping trip; it is just meant to illustrate how youthful my daughter is. She finds it frustrating being asked for age ID, but I tell her she needs to enjoy it whilst she can and take it as a compliment!

We have fallen into a regular routine of shopping every Thursday at Waitrose, leaving home at about 11:00am and sometimes not getting home until 2:30pm. The other week our trip took even longer; I’ll explain why! The routine starts earlier in the week, when I e-mail two of our friends to check what provisions they need. One friend e-mails her list and the other leaves her list and shopping bags for us to collect from her doorstep. My mother does a hand-written list that we collect from her; she also takes a phone call from another friend so writes down her list too.

The queue to get into Waitrose is variable in length; it has taken us up to 45 minutes to get to the shop, although on occasions it can take just 15 minutes. When we get towards the front of the queue, we split up, take two large trollies and then proceed. It takes a very long time to shop for 5 households, with each list covering roughly the same areas of the shop. Sometimes we have to go and hunt for items that we are not familiar with; staff are always most helpful. I usually have to give Jess a helping hand and advise her on vegetable varieties if complex, and cuts of meat. She deals with 3 shorter lists and I do our own shopping plus one other list.

We buy most of our own wine and beer in the cash and carry, so don’t have bottles to get in Waitrose, although I sometimes buy a bottle of whiskey. On this particular occasion my list for our friend included gin. I am not that familiar with gin, so took some advice from one of the Partners on what to get. I also helped Jess to select two bottles of wine for her grandmother; it was coming up to the Easter weekend, so we wanted to make sure that she had something good quality. Because Jess is 22, I never think to ask her if she has age ID with her. Unfortunately she behaves a bit like the Queen and prefers to travel without the incumbrance of a purse! Paul does this too; they are lucky that I never go anywhere without my handbag and purse! So of course, the bell rang at the Quick Check till for Jess to be age checked. The Waitrose Partner naturally thought that she looked under-age and refused to authorise the wine purchase. I realised that I had been a bit silly in not just putting it in my trolley to put through with my purchases. “Oh never mind,” I said naively, “pass it over and I’ll pay for it!” He was not happy with that at all! “I cannot let you buy alcohol for your daughter!” Jess protested that she does not like wine and that if she were going to buy alcohol she would not choose “fancy, expensive wine!” What really annoyed me in addition was that my purchase of gin was approved with no questions! However, the damage was done. By this time we had been shopping for about an hour and a half and were tired and hungry. My last ditch attempt to buy the wine was to suggest that I went round the shop again. The Partner said, yes you can do that if you want to. However, when I put the wine through the till a second time, he came over and refused to sell me the wine! I have to say that I have not had this experience in my favourite supermarket before, and I think that the stress of the current situation is getting to everyone. I was a bit upset by this time, explaining that we just trying to make sure that my mother had a jolly, happy Easter Sunday dinner on her own! But all to no avail. So we had to give up and go to Tesco to buy wine afterwards. Luckily there is a small branch on our route, and the queue was not too long….

On our return home, Jess put her driving licence in her phone pouch ready for the next week (when of course wine was not on the list – what a shame!)

March 27, 2020

Isolation in the Seddon/Roberts Household: Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th March

On Wednesday I again spent part of my day keeping up with Twitter and other social media in an effort find the best recommended resources to share with students and staff at my school. I have been working my way through a document of online resources shared by a colleague in another school. School librarians as a profession are often quite isolated anyway in terms of much solo working being the norm. Of course you have colleagues in your school but you are often the only person doing your specific job. So sharing resources and ideas is the way we work commonly anyway, even when not in isolation. As well as the facebook groups I have already mentioned, I am also a member of the wonderful SLN group (School Librarians Network) which many of us find a lifeline for lone working. Each day I have been posting useful links for my Year 7 classes, whether that be a site to inspire story-writing or a free source of e-books. I am worried about over-whelming them with too much useful information though, as they are having remote lessons with all of their teachers.

Jess painted another door on the inside, this time the back door. The sunny yellow colour is truly cheery and complements well the deeper, sunflower yellow of the walls. Someone once said that our kitchen walls look just like the yellow of the van in the film ‘The Lady in the Van.’ Well I take that as high praise indeed! Here is our back door with a much needed facelift:

We decided to take our daily exercise as a family and venture over the road to the postbox! This is a half mile walk, with the postbox being outside our local church. Although I am a lapsed church-goer, we do have an attachment and connection to the church as sadly we have four family members buried there. You have to be quite special to have permission to be buried in our local churchyard, as it is the only church in the viccinity which actually has burial space attached to a functioning church. The first family member to be buried there was my brother, just over 41 years ago. He sang in the church choir and played the organ for some services. It is really peaceful and special walking round the gravestones, with views across open countryside. I also have happy memories of when the vicarage was the large house in the grounds (now a private house) and we would be invited there for church functions and after concerts.

The Churchyard with a view of the Old Vicarage

We certainly appreciate having so much open space on our doorstep. On our return I decided to make a start on sowing some seeds. We are not going to be self-sufficient, but I always like to grow a few easy to manage herbs, salads and vegetables. This year I am hoping to grow cucumbers, courgettes, runner beans, rocket, basil, parsley, coriander and sunflowers. We bought a supply of seeds from our neigbouring nursery whilst it was still open. In the midst of sowing my seeds and cleaning out the cold frames, I felt obliged to give the drain a bit of a clean. It is on our neighbour’s side and it is not great for them when it gets a bit pungent! We also share the outside tap. We have to walk round to their side to use the tap; at times like these you appreciate having friendly, helpful neighbours, who don’t object when I wander round there to turn on the tap.

Today the winner of the Berkshire Book Award was announced. This is an award that my school is involved with, despite my school being in Oxfordshire. I am on the committee, so love to get my Year 7 and 8 students involved in reading and voting for the books. The winner this year is ‘Five Feet Apart.’ Yes, this title is indeed apt at the moment, but the significance of the distancing is because the two main characters are in hospital with cystic fibrosis. The film was released almost at the same time as the book, so as a family we have decided to have a film evening, as it is available on Netflix; luckily Jess has an account. We have plans for interesting TV snacks; photos to follow for Friday’s diary!

Thursday 26th March

A significant part of the day was spent helping our vulnerable friends and relatives; actually my mother and three family friends. I decided that Jess and I should brave Waitrose again. I put together our own list and gathered the other lists from the older generation. Of course on arriving at Waitrose we found that we had to queue in a spaced-out, social distancing way. Marshalls from the shop were on hand to explain the system and indicate when we could collect trolleys. I have to say that the Partners in Waitrose have been so helpful and understanding. Each time we have been shopping, I have explained that we are shopping for four households and that we need to take two trolleys; Jess and I can then do two households each. Whilst we were in the queue, probably for about 45 minutes, I tried to embarasss Jess by suggesting that we should sing to entertain the shoppers. My first two songs were ‘Always look on the Bright side of life’ and ‘It’s De-lovely’ (Cole Porter). However, she was not impressed so instead we played A-Z, with the theme of ‘activities to undertake in isolation.’ When Jess got bored with this, I played it instead online with my Chit-Chat friends on facebook. They all seemed to enjoy it!

Once we were finally allocated our time in Waitrose, the shop was lovely and peaceful, so social distancing was not too difficult. I had to grapple with using two scanners and Jess used just one. In terms of being limited by the number of items we could buy, quick check helps in the sense of separating out the shopping of different households. The shelves were so much better stocked than last time we visited, with fresh vegetables and fruit aplenty! Oh joy, we do love our vegetables! Also, meat and fish, as on our last visit, were not in short supply. The shopping did take quite a long time, with sometimes hunting for items that we do not usually buy. As it was getting to 2:30 by the time we had nearly finished and we had given our home-made loaf of bread to my mother, I decided that some bought sandwiches would be a bit of a treat for lunch in the garden later. I am not a fan of ready-meals and cannot remember the last time I bought any. However, I do have a weakness for shop sandwiches, even though they are never as good as home-made!

Paul calls me Pollyanna because I usually have a very optimistic view of life and every situation. Sometimes he finds it irritating! Why can’t you just get cross, instead of finding something positive about everything?! Well when I sent texts to Paul and to my mother saying that we would be out a long time, Paul’s reaction was very philosophical, whereas my mother thought we must have had a dreadful time! Not at all! You just have to ‘Always look on the bright side of life.’

Happily we were able to buy all the provisions we needed for our film night, so I am looking forward to that! Must remember to promote ‘Five Feet Apart’ to my Year 7 students and suggest that they too think about watching the film.

Onwards and upwards!

March 25, 2020

Isolation in the Seddon/Roberts Household Tuesday 24th March

I am recording diary entries to share how we are coping and spending our time at home. I may not write every day, but hope to do this quite frequently.

First of all, in my Pollyanna way, I have to count our blessings, and we have those in plenty:

There are three of us in the household so we have human company and people to laugh and be sad with. We can play games together and share our highs and lows. Let’s not forget that Tigger is part of our family, and Tibbs, who lives next door, would like to feel he is part of the family too!

Paul and I are still in gainful employment and being paid. I am a school librarian and can work remotely as well as being required to go into school to support vulnerable students. Paul is self-employed and can organise conference calls and remote working. He is based at home anyway, so it is not a big change for him. Jess is being treated very fairly by the owners of the pub where she works.

We have a big garden for exercising and never-ending gardening projects. We are also on the edge of woods, fields and National Trust land. We can exercise and walk with no fear of meeting too many people.

We have a huge network of friends and family with whom we can keep in touch by phone, e-mail and social media. I run an amazing facebook group called Archers Chit-Chat which is just the best support network ever!

We are healthy with no underlying health issues. We have always preferred eating at home and cooking from scratch to eating out.

We live in a rather remote location with very few neighbours. It is quirky and delightful and makes self-isolation easier!

I shall actually have to maintain social interaction because of working in a school. I feel privileged to be working in such an important sector and to make a difference to the lives of young people. At the moment there are very few children attending school because they are vulnerable or have parents who are key-workers. I think that my time in school will be very special and I have so much I want to do in terms of reading, playing board games, walking round our beautiful school grounds (33 acres in total) and perhaps taking photos of the scenery in the sunshine.

So, how did we spend our first day at home in isolation? Well I spent a large part of the day in touch with school, checking the rotas for the in-school provision and planning some activities. I also have all of the Year 7s as classroom groups, as I run library lessons with them. I have been sharing with them some of the many free resources available in terms of e-books, audio books and other sites where they can find out more about books, authors and mental well-being. My lessons are not compulsory, unlike the work set by teachers. However, it is great when the students respond with their thanks or send me work that they have done. I can share pictures and happy stories on our school library Twitter account. I am also a member of some other social networks and facebook groups in which we share ideas and resources.

Jess my daughter decided that she would like to do some painting projects – house and furniture painting rather than works of art (although that may be another idea for later on). She is better than I am at preparing with masking tape and not dripping paint everywhere! I am only allowed to paint outside because of my messy habits. Paul thought it would be a great idea to brighten up the insides of our front and back doors. You can see here what a fantastic job she made of the front door. Most of the paint we had already. You will see from pictures to follow that we like definite, bold colours, although the front door is actually quite subtle!

Jess also started re-painting our garden chairs, which is something that we do every year. She also painted two smaller chairs in a lovely sunny shade of yellow. These chairs were left behind by guests some years ago and never collected.

Other activities included eating lunch altogether in the garden. I somehow failed to take a photo of this, or lost it, but here is the loaf of bread I made:

Ploughman’s Ale Loaf (recipe courtesy of Delicious Magazine)

We decided that as we have a big garden and Jess and I usually go to the gym, we should set up some improvised gym equipment outside. There will be photos to follow when we have completed this project, but to start with Paul and Jess repaired our home-made swing in the trees and we all had a go on it. You should soon be able to see a video on facebook of me giving it a go!

After lunch we had a message from my mother that the new SIM card had arrived. This was a purchase to set our uncle up with a mobile phone, which he has resisted for many years. He finally agreed recently that he should be in proper communication with the family, as going out to use a phone box is no longer sensible and does not allow us to contact him. Jess and I went round to the house and sat in the garden (complication is that mother is paying for the contract so the SIM arrived at her house) setting up the phone with all the contacts that Geoff could possibly need. We then drove over to Burnham to deliver the phone to Geoff and give him a quick lesson in using a smart phone. He tried out texting, phoning people and navigating the screen. Of course we also had to make sure he could find the keypad for ringing other numbers such as the emergency services. So to anyone who is saying, ‘was it a good idea to go and visit your uncle, a vulnerable, older person?’ my response is that giving him a phone lifeline was at that moment more important than social isolation!

So that was Tuesday 24th March, a day well spent. How did you spend your day?