Week Fourteen of Furlough

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.

This week I have also decided to turn a big ol' crochet square I made a few years into a cushion cover. I started making the back but didn't like it, so undid it all. I shall try again.

I have had a poorly tumtum and poorly bumbum this week and we are not sure if it was the lamb, the rogue courgette, or just a tummy bug. David has been fine despite him also eating the lamb and the rogue courgette. Either way I had an interesting 24hrs. Back to normal now, as this pizza depicts:

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.

Week Twelve of Furlough

All change! 

Mental Ill Health

My medication isn’t affecting me how it did last time my dose was increased and I’m not sure why, and if that’s a good thing or not. My brain is still overwhelmingly sad, but I am so far managing to suppress it and get things done. If I stop, it takes over. My tinnitus is mega bad, especially at bed time. The imposter syndrome is strong, I feel like a fraud, and I feel like a failure. Every time I am doing well and making good progress it all comes crashing down again, and it’s hard to accept that it isn’t me, it’s external things making me ill.

Work

I have had the phonecall! I am going back to work on July 1^st. Only part time, 18hrs a week, but after 12 weeks of furlough and 14 weeks of not working, I am looking forward to it. I will be working from home, catching up on admin and e learning, doing Covid risk assessments, and doing wellbeing stuff for the volunteers. After a couple of weeks I will be venturing out to sites to check them, gather gloves to bring home and wash, and to clean tools etc and disinfect handles, the office etc. We won’t be having practical sessions until September at the earliest but I have a lot to be getting on with before then. I will be part time furloughed, and then maybe back at work full time in August but we’re not sure about that yet.

 

Allotment

The doctor has prescribed allotment three times a week and so I have. It has been far too hot for me this second half of the week. I spent time on Monday working on Mommas plot, stripping back turf so that she can make a pumpkin patch. Tuesday was spent shifting the compost from her plot to mine – three trips in the car vs 15 or so with the barrow! What a good car. On Wednesday I did a brief jaunt to sow more parsnip seed, and I noticed that the loofah is starting to flower!

I have been suffering quite badly with blackfly this year on the loofah and the nasturtium aren’t yet big enough to be sacrificial plants. I was checking on the loofah and noticed that all the blackfly had gone, but I did also see one massive ladybird larvae looking very pleased with itself!

The sweetcorn are loving the hot weather and have shot up. One of the plants was a lot smaller and weaker than the rest and I thought it was going to die, but it has caught up with the others.

Lots of baby yellow courgettes are coming – I suspect I will have a glut of these in a few weeks time (there’s a surprise).

The sweet peas have also suddenly decided to grow. I was quite disappointed in these as they weren’t getting very tall at all but they’ve also had a growth spurt and are putting out lots of flower buds, so I'm happier with them now.

The potatoes are getting super tall and are starting to flower. I do love potato flowers; they come in so many colours.

I have also sowed a load of flower seed in the raised planting area that David built into my new compost bins. It is a narrow strip but filled with peat free compost. Last year it had nasturtium, rosemary, lavender, and mesembryanthemum. All of it died. This year it has heartsease, red & white clover, nasturtium, cowslip, and dwarf foxglove.

I have harvested the first carrots this week! I sowed these at the start of lockdown as part of a panic seed sowing spree. Growing carrots is very satisfying - the seeds are tiny but what you harvest is huge in comparison! Always a good feeling pulling out a good solid carrot.

Garden

It has been far too hot to do much. I have had to buy some slip on shoes to wear in the garden as the paving slabs get too hot for my feeties. I do like bare foot gardening but I don't want burnt feet! The borage has started flowering, as have the French marigolds in the fence hangers. All of the things that I started from seed are starting to come to life and I am enjoying finding new flowers every day.

The peas are so tall now that I’ve had to start training them across the fence instead of up! I have picked the first pea and scoffed it – it was yummy yummy.

I found this photo of the garden back in March before we did anything and I can’t believe the difference – even though it was us who’ve made it all. I am building up ideas of what I want for next year too. I am going to get some small trees and put them in pots – I want holly and buckthorn alder for the butterflies.

We haven’t had any more visitations from the ratty boy. I am thinking about getting another bird feeding pole for putting more hanging baskets up. I have ordered a load of new fresh herb plants including an orange thyme, so I want herby hanging baskets. I am thinking of digging out the lobelia and putting them around the outside of the baskets. Need to wait until next payday now though...

Some of the sunflowers are nearly as tall as the fence panels now so I have put in a couple of 8ft canes for them to be tied to. I think these are the Pikes Peak variety which means they might get up to 4m tall!!

Homelife

I had a little post-bath visitor under my bed as I was sitting in my towel. I presume it flew in through the open window but the first I heard was a massive thunk as it fell to the ground. It was about an inch long! I trapped it in a cup and slid some paper under it to release it back out the window. It was a huge grass hopper!!

David has finally admitted defeat and swapped the mattresses back. He had bought a super expensive, super huge, super hard mattress when we moved in and it’s been a sore point ever since. It is magic for him and his back but it has been absolute hell for me. I’ve not been sleeping well since we had it and as it is SO thick (11 inches deep!!) I had been having nightmares about falling out of bed. I kept waking up right on the edge and jumping backwards with shock. So we changed the mattresses and we are now back on the original memory foam one, and it is HEAVEN. For me, anyway. I have slept so much better for the last few nights, I can actually get comfortable, and I’ve not been having nightmares. David however hates it as it is too soft, so we have decided to invest in a more expensive memory foam one. The downside is we are used to being high off the floor so getting out of bed is now harder…

I haven’t done any more of my jigsaw. I just can’t face it. It is still on the living room floor, half done.

I only have eight squares left on the blanket. I am working my way through my pile of green yarns as I need more green on the blanket. I have enough for maybe four squares, so the last four still need to be sorted.

I have also started a fluffy soft winter baby blanket for my cousin who had a baby girl this week.

We’ve had our first chippy tea this week! It was well good. Really nice fish, and super nice chips. I’m not usually one for chippy chips as I prefer thin fries, but these were gert lush.

Next week we will be sorting out the second bedroom to turn it into an office space for me. Work have authorised me to buy a desk and stick it on expenses so I have somewhere better to work.