Today I woke up as per usual at 5.40 (no alarm needed)… surprised to discover Antony was already up working – he usually needs 1 – 2 more hours sleep than me. I seized the rare opportunity to turn the lights on and read in bed. I made myself a hot lemon drink and enjoyed reading ‘Hand in Glove’ for about an hour and a half. It’s one of the many Robert Goddard novels I found at the Chertsey Bookstore last year… he’s a great storyteller.
The morning otherwise proceeded with Chlöe Swarbrick’s daily Facebook Live at 8.10am. For a backbench MP in her first term, she’s been amazing to watch – especially given her age (entered parliament age 23, now 25). Regardless of age, she has really impressed me … down-to-earth, articulate, confident, compassionate and intelligent. When she first entered parliament she did little explainer videos trying to demystify politics & parliament for people which I thought was cool. Since then she’s seen her Election Access members bill pass unanimously (originally fellow Green- Mojo Mathers’ bill), she’s been an outstanding advocate for drug reform and now she’s a key part of the cross party ‘Mental Health and Addictions Group’. She’s probably my favourite politician so I enjoy her live ramblings each morning.
Les Mills Body Balance class was on TVNZ 1 at 9am- good to stretch out and do some strength training after my more cardio workouts of late. Cool that while I was doing this in Ashburton my 70 year old Mum was doing it too in Naseby… wonder how she’ll go with Body Combat tomorrow. Watch out Dad!
A shower, breakfast, folding of washing and an hour of TimeBank work followed. It was a grey, rainy Monday here and our kitchen is not that warm on days such as these so I was pleased I had all but made lunch and dinner for today, yesterday:
- Morning tea: Zucchini bread & Zucchini/ choc chip muffin (made from my monster marrow)
- Lunch: Marrow soup (with sprouts on top)
- Afternoon tea: another slice of Z bread and a Z muffin
- Dinner: Marrow fritters with leftover cooked marrow (+ kimchi, + tomatoes) & fruit crumble for dessert
The afternoon included a couple of hours doing TimeBank work and our first TimeBank online zoom catch up which went well. After sitting for quite a while I decided to have a break and move around a bit. The result? I strung up some fairy lights in the lounge to brighten up the dreary day!
Antony spent the entire day (from before 6am and still going – nearly 10pm) in his office only coming out to help himself to fruit crumble for lunch. I brought him soup for dinner into his office as I was in the lounge on a Zoom meeting tonight. He is powering through before the 31 March deadline tomorrow!
As for the other members of our bubble… the hens … they continue to baffle us. As I explained to in my Lockdown Day Zero post our hens aren’t too clever. All our other chooks went straight up to the wooden beams off the ground in their coop to roost on… but these ones have not figured that out for some reason. Yesterday we finally got round to eliminating the nesting box as an option for them to sleep on or in. Left with no option we thought they’d get it… but no… checks last night and early this morning show that they slept on the ground (!)… and not even the dry ground sheltered by the covers, but wet ground near the laying box! Oh dear… maybe we need to build them a ramp to get up to the roost!
Maybe tomorrow.