Shortly after Boris said it was unlikely we’d have another lockdown I decided we needed a holiday. COVID-19 has resulted in the cancellation of two holidays so far this year and so not wanting to risk another disappointment, I opted for a week in North Devon – a few nights at the cottage, followed by a few nights in a hotel on the coast. Then came Lockdown 2.0 and the third set of plans went out the window, a First World problem I appreciate, but still disappointing. This time I decided not to cancel the week I had booked off work, as I felt I needed a break from the screen and so this week I am on annual leave. Unfortunately Catering is so busy he is still working and so I am having to amuse myself.

I am filling my time by arranging to walk each day with a friend or ride my bike and then I have a list of jobs I have been meaning to do for some time, so I am tackling one or a couple of those each day (depending on the size of the task in question). It’s not glamorous or exciting but it is strangely comforting and positive.

Monday – bike ride (puncture), followed by sorting out the gloves & hat bags by the backdoor. Who knew we had over a dozen EJC baseball caps from the time Alex worked for them. Also there was an interesting collection of odd gloves, clearly we never lose a pair. I have now binned all of them, after thanking them for their service a la Marie Kondo – not! Do people seriously do that? It could potentially take me days to thank all the useless odds & sods lying around our house before disposing of them and that’s before we’ve even got to the sock pile.

Tuesday – early morning (well 8.30, early for a holiday morning) walk around Marlow and along the river with Anne, followed by a wrestle with the cupboard under the stairs. I know we don’t have any stairs, it’s a long story, but you’ll be pleased to know we also have a downstairs loo! The amount of cobwebs and spiders in said glory hole means it could easily have qualified as a trial on I’m A  Celebrity… and I think as the below photo shows – I got 10 stars!

Wednesday – mid-morning walk over the weir and along the river at Mill End with Sarah C-S, followed by glass cleaning on an epic scale. The inside of all the windows, the light in the hallway and the high level glazing in my office. The ladder was required and so Catering obligingly held the ladder while I scaled the heights and then hoisted up the hoover, passed me an assortment of cloths & sprays and pointed out where I’d missed a bit. He’s a brave man.

Thursday – lunchtime walk with Toni, preceded by a thorough cleaning out of the condiment and tins cupboard. This was prompted by a post in a WhatsApp group where a friend had discovered chilli powder dated best before 2005. It occurred to me that I probably hadn’t been through the tins, spices and dried goods cupboard for a considerable time, possibly not since we moved back in to the Outhouse on our return from Japan – in the summer of 2000! Slovenly does not begin to cover it.

I also found a collection of Ikea spice jars filled with a range of different spices, which I obviously thought were a good idea many years (possibly decades) ago, however I forgot to label them and so they have turned into an assortment of mystery spices.

For reasons best known to myself (probably a lack of sellotape) I had put labels inside the jars, so you had to fish the label out to identify the spice. They are so old that most of their labels have long since disappeared and the contents are all roughly the same colour and smell of nothing in particular, so on that basis they have joined the ten year old can of corned beef in the bin.

So proud of myself was I, that I rewarded myself with an afternoon trip to the amazing Italian shop in Maidenhead. Not technically what you’d call essential shopping, but an excellent opportunity to restock the cupboards and fill the space freed up by the removal of everything well past its best before date.