The New Normal: A Typical Monday in January

 I am on holiday from work as anything pre-booked cannot be cancelled (a rule my employers made up but it's ok).   We could have been in Dubai this week, exploring the night markets, walking along The Creek looking at the boats, but hopefully we will do all that again once Covid is dead.  Luckily we have done it before, on our way back from India in 2019 and still have our pictures and memories to keep us going - and I still have quite a lot of the beautiful perfumes we had mixed for us too!  Doesn't scent bring memories flooding back?  

When this chap mixed mine it was on the instruction of two lovely ladies (couldn't see their faces as head to toe in black) they thought this would be very light and feminine for me and I think they chose well - I wanted to go home with them  and drink tea and chat but didn't get an invite.  They told me they had different perfumes for different times of day - mine is for mornings after a shower apparently.  

View of The Creek, Dubai

On Monday youngest son had a job interview so I dropped him at the train station and then went to the supermarket for sesame oil (which we just can't get on the online delivery) . We will now avoid supermarkets as much as possible until Easter unless there is something unavailable online.  Thank goodness hubby plans ahead and has booked several online deliveries from Tesco.  We are worried about the lack of distancing in supermarkets and the staff themselves not wearing masks.

  I also took a dress I sold on EBay to the post office but from now on will use the new service where the post office will collect from home for a small fee. 

It's been bitterly cold so my EBay win kilt came out (£9.50 brand new) hubby thinks I look a bit like the Queen on a day at Balmoral wearing this - yes it is a little bit sensible but it's warm!  

I'm not hiding, but couldn't find anyone to take a pic of me wearing it, but here's the lovely pattern - and generous pleating.  I had a kilt pin in my sewing box for the last 15 years - I knew it would come in handy one day!

Whilst in the bedroom I remembered I haven't shown you my lovely new 'not fifty shades of grey' but very grey paintwork in the bedroom, (memory jogged by Vix who has a lovely new tropical duvet *here*)  My new duvet has little woodland deer running across it and inspires wonderful dreams. 

Mollie has decided after three months that she would like to have her afternoon sleeps on her fur covered scratch post with a seat on top.  She thought it was soppy until this week and had favoured sleeping on the top of the staircase so she could trip us up or attack our feet.  She will also now allow up to three strokes with a pink brush if I give her biscuits,  but drew the line at the pink collar , she agreed to wear it for this photo and that was the last time we saw it.

Mollie also likes her sheepskin rug a lot.  This look, by the way, is her

I'm about to attack your feet warning look.  She beats up slippers

and bites them to death after throwing them around a lot so we are not sure whether to actually wear our slippers or not in case we get thrown around in them .... 

I went for my 1 hour Government permitted speed walk after dropping off the shopping and stopped at a lake near here.  A little bit of yellow caught my eye - the first gorse ... fuzzy picture but it is definitely gorse.  I felt a bit lame taking a picture of it in case anyone saw me and felt sorry for me.

the strong sweet scent of gorse always takes me back to my childhood when my brothers (along with several family dogs) and I played 'tracking'... a game on some rough land where we played hide and seek.  There was a lot of gorse there, it's very prickly stuff.   As I got a 20 minute head start it could get very boring waiting to be discovered (I think they hoped they wouldn't find me and often the puzzled dogs would stand staring at me, slobbering and saying 'she's there, look, there' and my brothers would march on totally unaware of me .... I would spend the time examining the wildflowers whilst lurking in a ditch, my favourite hiding spot.

You wouldn't want to lurk here in a ditch - How come it looks so brown, muddy and dull and where are all the ducks?  

A small posy of daffodils found its way home with me - I know you shouldn't pick wild flowers but I forgot, not sure daffodils that escaped from gardens and multiplied in the woods qualify as wild, hopefully not - I badly needed that comforting yellow that says Spring is just around the corner and I didn't want to queue at Waitrose and buy one from the maskless staff.

On the way back I saw these little catkins - another welcome reassurance that Spring is springing soon perhaps.   I have noticed too 'lords and ladies'... those things with the bright red poisonous berries, unfurling a few leaves and lots of greenery that says bluebells will be coming but not yet.

Very hungry after all that fresh air so lunch was a real treat: bubble and squeak cooked by hubby- for those who don't know, it's made from left over cooked sprouts, potatoes, carrots and peas (yesterday's roast dinner)... chopped roughly, formed into patties and fried, served with fried eggs - delicious.   Wikepedia says there is mention of bubble and squeak being served at a banquet as far back as 1762.  The name comes from the sound it makes when frying.  This one looks burnt but it didn't taste like it was :)

I called a few friends and chatted with the phone in an awkward position between my ear/shoulder, whilst doing a pile of ironing (mostly mine) then had a lovely hot shower as my neck was stiff after all that chatting! ,.. followed by a little sleep for 40 minutes - if I don't have that little sleep I nod off in the evening and am no fun at all.  

Today I am going to take my permitted exercise walking to town to pick up some pre-ordered books from the library, cook a beef pie for the men and a veggie stuffed pepper for me and binge watch A Discovery of Witches..... how's your week going?