The news has unsettled me this week as lots of places are
making lots of people redundant, and although it is unlikely, it is also
causing me concern. What if I get through six months of furlough and then get made
redundant in time for my birthday? Lots of anxiety around that this week, so that’s
great. My tinnitus has been really bad for the last few weeks and is really
noticeable at bedtime when I’m trying to nod off.
Work
Work this week has been stressful. Some of my colleagues
were not furloughed and they are very stressed, and I get the feeling that they
think things are back to normal when they are far from it. A couple of team
members are still furloughed, a couple of us are only back part time, and the
rest were never off so are still working full time. It must be weird, but that
weirdness is turning into stress and coming across as pure rudeness. So this
week hasn’t been great. I am trying to take 5 minutes every hour away from the
laptop – to get a drink, have a pee, get a snack etc, and I am also being strict
with my lunchtime break. I am supposed to be easing myself back into work but
the truth is there is so much to do and only me to do it, so I am cracking on.
Next week I will be doing a bazillion risk assessments. Hoorah!
Homelife
Working from home is nice as everything is there but bad as I
just want to eat Nutella sandwiches all the time. David has had five days off
this week so he was here while I was at work on Wednesday and it was strange
coming downstairs on my break to find him on the sofa.
I haven’t been hula hooping as much this week as I was too
annoyed on Wednesday, ill on Thursday, lazy on Friday… I shall start again on
Monday. I haven’t done too badly though, nine days in a row for the first time
since Christmas.
I have finished the baby blanket that I was making for my
cousins new baby. I just need to wash it now and then get it posted over to
her.
The big square blanket is nearly done. I only need five more squares but I have run out of yarn colours and I can’t afford more until payday. Payday seems an awful long way away this month. I have been in my overdraft since last week and although the expenses claim for the work desk went in, I am still using over half of my overdraft. Oops. It has been difficult being £200 ish down each month but I think I am faring relatively ok. I don’t get charged for being in the overdraft, I haven’t used my credit cards, and I have only dipped into savings once. David has had his first ever tax rebate this week and he is going to spend it on really exciting things like a tow bar for the car. Oooooh. Aaaaahhh. Just think of all the timber and compost I could buy…
This week I have also decided to start blocking the crochet bunting I made last year, so it is now taking over the front bedroom on floor mats.
I have killed another houseplant so have started an avocado stone in water to compensate. I am good at killing things.
I have been breaking in a pair of steel toe boots that David got me a couple of years ago. I wore them once and got super mega bad blisters so I am hoping that by wearing them around the house during work hours I will get my feet used to wearing steelies again, and then I can wear these for work.
Garden
Things are starting to flower! The first few sunflowers have
opened and although they are not very tall, they are beautiful and I love them.
The herby hanging baskets might need a rethink as David said they were on the
floor one morning – we think the weight of the baskets pulled down the feeder
as the ground is so soft. The salad seeds I sowed are coming up great.
The first poppies have opened and there are loads more flower buds ready to open, and the buddleia that was already here has opened and is white! It’s quite nice. I get the impression that whoever was here before us likes white and pink as that seems to be the overall flower colour scheme.
Next door have been doing a fencing job so I am waiting for them to tell me they are going to do the fence between us which will be a bugger as this is the fence with all the clematis, passionflower, sweet peas, sunflowers, and raspberry growing over it. I will have to untangle everything, remove the plastic mesh, remove the lights, remove the solitary bee box – and they pray they don’t trample everything as they do the fence. We might also need to move the shed again so they can get to the last fence panel as it is down the side of their conservatory so they can only access it from our side.
I was hula hooping one day after work last week and saw a comma
butterfly come in to land and rest on a shrub.
Allotment
The allotment this week has been good even if I only went twice.
I never really intend to go up to do big jobs but I take the food waste from
the kitchen and potter around. This week I have decided to remove the bird
feeders from the tree as they are more hole than feeder so not much point
putting them back up. I have pruned the tomatoes to within an inch of their
life to help air circulate around the plants, and I have tied up the sunflowers
again. The borage bed is FULL and the bees love it. I did an exploration dig
around the potatoes again and found a few that were ok size but nothing great
so I am leaving this for another month or so.
I decided to dig up a couple of onions to see how big they were and if they were usable in any way and discovered that I actually had more garlic plants that I had forgotten about! I dug them all up and found another 19 garlics, but only 16 were big enough to keep. I also found four onions that can be used. They are small but ok, so they are all now in the mini greenhouse at home to dry. I now have 28 garlic and 4 onion, so it has become the greatest garlic harvest ever.
I have pulled another comedy carrot and a trip to mommas plot yielded a crap tonne of PEAS. I love peas fresh from the pod. I also picked more sweet peas to have on the table at home.
The new allotment neighbours have pretty much finished clearing the bramble from their two new plots which means mine is now awfully exposed and I have nowhere to hide to have a piss. You can actually see my shed from the road now. The plot does look tidy, but I do feel bad for the sparrows who have lost their hiding place.
The first leaf cutter bee tube has been capped off in the bee house! I am excited.
I have also planted the French bean seedlings that I've been growing at home, to replace the ones that got eaten by Little Gits.
It’s been another week of feeling like I’ve not done very
much but I was at work for 3 days and have slotted stuff in around that. Work is
exhausting – mentally – and I am quite tired at the end of the day. I am glad I
haven’t gone back into it full pelt full time and I am trying to not get too
caught up in other peoples stresses and emotions.
