This month...

 The month started in the Hebrides - the last day of our trip before the ferry back to the mainland the next day. 

Our original plan had been to travel back by ferry across to Skye, stay in Falkirk overnight taking the chance to visit The Kelpies - which I have never managed to see - then home the following day, however, before we’d even arrived in the islands at the start of the trip that plan had to change due to new travel restrictions being introduced from Boxing Day. 

After a long drive here me we returned to our first taste of the delights of covid tier 4, not far off lockdown but with schools being planned to open as usual after the Christmas break, and with no restrictions on leaving home for exercise. Within a few days though it was all change again as we were plunged back into full national lockdown for the third time. 

My main aims for the month were around movement and fitness - I decided to join in with Alice Liveing’s January challenge - a programme of workouts designed to build strength, as well as looking to get as many miles as possible under my belt for my first distance challenge of the year - the “Walk the Thames” challenge at 214 miles. To balance the strength and the walking I also decided to also do the Yoga With Adriene 30 day challenge - titled “Breath”. 

I always knew with Alice’s challenge I probably wasn’t going to be able to keep up with her pace of workouts - 4 strength sessions a week is really too much for me, my muscles just don’t recover that fast! I did  manage 11 sessions though and certainly felt the difference from the beginning to the end of the month. I’ll be continuing to work through the remaining workouts to finish the challenge next month. The yoga was a real challenge for me - I’ve tried Adriene’s practises before and struggled - partly as I always felt that her explanations of the poses and transitions weren’t that easy to follow, and partly because she was just a bit too “yoga” for me - and yes, there is certainly still a quite high degree of “woo” to deal with!  Having done a bit more yoga now though I found the cues far easier to follow, and by half way through the month I was really starting to enjoy a lot of it. I’ve noticed a lot of difference in things like my strength in holding some poses, and also my balance too, as well as in my flexibility. I’ve done 23 days and will do the remaining ones from the challenge over the next week. I managed to walk almost every day - mostly in the mornings on weekdays doing anywhere between 5 and 7 miles. By the time some additional walks to the shops were included, I clocked up 178.5 miles which I’m pretty pleased with - it means I should have my challenge wrapped up inside the next week.

Another month of lockdown has certainly been challenging - but at the very end of the month a small light at the end of the tunnel (literally!) appeared in the shape of the scaffolders turning up to remove the scaffolding we’ve been surrounded with since November. As always it comes down far faster than it went up - by the end of Wednesday we had daylight flooding back in to the kitchen, bathroom and spare room (aka MrEH’s office) and by mid afternoon on Friday the front room and bedroom were also flooded with light once more. The sheer delight of being able to look out and see the sky again is indescribable! 

So here we head into February - it will be more of the same really I think, with the addition of starting my second week of jury service tomorrow as well - and it sounds like this week we might actually spend rather more time at the court. 

Robyn

Mud-fest!

Jury service yesterday was shorter than I (or the court!) expected. After a minor drama on the way there - when I got as far as the big roundabout outside town and THEN realised my phone was still sitting at home - cue a circuit of the roundabout and a lightning dash back to collect it (it wasn’t “no phone” that concerned me so much - more that it was to be my navigation aid at the other end for finding the court from the car park, and also of course has the NHS Covid-19 tracking app on it...) I arrived just before 9am as requested. The first day is always an earlier start - with time being needed for induction etc. I was pleasantly surprised how familiar everything  felt - including the jury officer who turned out to be the same lovely lady I had as my JO when I served first time round, some 14 years ago! Introductory stuff all completed, we settled down to a bit of the usual preliminary “getting to know one another” chat that occurs, albeit in smaller groups as 18 people spread out over a quite large room does not an easy conversation make! We’d been told that a case was just going in, and that we would be linking to the courtroom for jury selection shortly, however, at just after 10.30am it all fell apart, and the case was dismissed, so no jury requirement! Due to Covid restrictions currently when that happens there is not another case waiting to follow on, so that was us done for the day! 

I headed home, via a stop at the Lidl I pass on the way - FAR quieter than our Harlow store has EVER been I think - I’ve been avoiding our local store like the plague because, well, the plague, basically! Nice to have a bit of a wander around a different store - got the bits I had gone in for (bread flour and Greek yogurt mostly) and then a few other odds and ends where those items double up with Aldi’s equivalent- that will save me a trip there any time soon as well! Also a few tempting looking goodies - that’s the thing with Lidl, isn’t it! 

After lunch I decided to head out for a walk - and with the fancy to go somewhere a bit different to the routes we usually take on weekdays, I headed for the Common - it was still a bit musty and murky for the really stunning view but it still felt great to be high up, and with a good view over the town. From there it was across the motorway (a surprising amount of apparently essential traffic, for a lockdown!) and then along the footpath which leads through the small area of woodland above, then round a field edge. Now, the Common was muddy, but mostly in a “ahh look at this lovely puddle of muddy sludge that’s going to spray all over my jeans as I walk through it” kind of way. The field edge, however, was something quite different...

This entire area is on the edge of the basin of clay which London is built on, which means when it’s dry, you have a very solid base to walk or run on - almost concrete like at times. When it’s wet though, it sticks to your boots. A LOT.  At one stage I’d picked up so much of the stuff (the field edge section of path is only about a quarter of a mile, too!) that I was struggling to lift my feet - there must have been a good few kilos of clay weighing down each leg - an unexpected strength training benefit, I guess! 

Those jeans had been clean on when I left the house by the way - unsurprisingly they are now in the washing machine! Once back over the M11 via the foot bridge, it’s made up paths or pavements all the way home, and at regular intervals for those final 2.5 miles or so back I was stopping at every lush-enough looking clump of grass to try to wipe yet more of the clinging, sticky mud off my boots. I wasn’t altogether successful - next time they are worn I really must remember to put them on at the doorstep! 

Not entirely the day I was expecting, but nice enough all the same! 

Robyn

Brrr!

 

Well I don’t know about where you are, but it’s perishing cold here! We had a light sprinkling of snow yesterday, and although it did thaw to slush (ugh!) in some places it’s still sitting crisp and white on the ground in others. There was also a heavy frost over the town overnight  - meaning poor devils who had to go out in their cars this morning had a nightmare job of scraping or defrosting. 

The two photos here are the frost on the picnic tables outside a local pub/carvery. I love how well you can see the crystal formation of the frost and ice! This was on our walk this morning - a slippery affair in the course of which we both slid and nearly toppled over several times - it rather focuses the mind about treading carefully and making sure you don’t go over at the moment it must be said - more than ever we would certainly NOT want to end up at the local hospital at the moment! 

Today I start two weeks of officially being classified as a keyworker - I have been called for Jury Service again, and if I do have to attend court my journey there by car will be considered essential travel. I confess I am in two minds - while having to attend court would of course leave me a lot more vulnerable to the risk of covid infection, or at least to being considered a close contact of someone who later tests positive, requiring me to self-isolate, the thought of having something constructive to do with my time is utterly wonderful, as is the idea of some social interaction with a few different people!  Also, oddly enough, the thought of putting on less casual clothes for a change - my “work uniform” of skirts, tights, and smart jumpers along with my much loved knee high boots have been sitting unworn in the wardrobe for realistically close to a year now - as for the 4/6 weeks ahead of lockdown one I was wearing jeans and sweatshirts as the work I was doing involved much handling of old files which tend towards being quite grubby and dusty! Who would ever have thought that the idea of putting on a skirt would be such a lovely one, however this is what 10 months of jeans, leggings and snuggly jumpers does for you! We’ll see - I wasn’t required to attend today, and have a number to call later to check whether I will be needed tomorrow. 

Robyn

Thoughts for the day...

 

Today has been... Sunny, frosty and glorious - I didn’t want to stop walking when I was out this morning and covered 7 miles in the end rambling round the local streets. We’ve had a number of days this week of grey skies and ceaseless rain - some areas in the north of the country are currently suffering extensive flooding, including Northwick where close friends of ours live. 

I’m feeling nostalgic about... normal routines. We made marmalade earlier in the week - usually we make a trip to the farm shop a few miles away for the oranges - this time we gratefully grabbed the last bag of Seville oranges from Sainsbury’s last weekend. Usually around now we’d be heading to Manchester for their annual beer festival - always a great weekend, friends, beer, lots of laughs... There would be other plans coming up too - more beer festivals, trips to Scampton for me watching the Reds carrying out their winter training... Instead there is none of that - and currently not even any certainty about when we WILL be able to do any of those things. 

I’m being inspired by... A podcast I listened to earlier in the week while walking too and from town (essential, before anyone huffs!) It was on the subject of “Staying calm during a pandemic” and featured host Dr Hazel Wallace talking with a Psychologist, Dr Emma Hepburn. Lots of good advice, suggestions of things to think about, and be aware of, and all delivered in a really balanced, thoughtful way. My favourite bit was the suggestion that trying to make tiny changes is far more likely to be successful than going for great sweeping overhauls of life as we are so often lead to believe we should be aspiring to. This is something that I have already started putting into place since the current lockdown started too, so it was great to have that given credence, as it were! 

Right now I’m loving... The yoga challenge I’ve been doing. It’s surprised me - the first few days my brain was doing a lot of sighing and eye rolling about the level of fluffiness in it, and yes, I’m still struggling a bit with some of the more wacko stuff. Over time though - I reached day 16 today - I’m starting to feel a lot more benefit from it. Some days count as a really good stretching session, while others, like today, are geared up to deep relaxation. Either way I’m enjoying it far more than I expected and it’s something I’m interested to carry on once the 30 days are up. 

Something small, but productive... one reason why I was so inspired by the podcast I mentioned was the bit about small habit changes, because as I said, I’d already made a start in that direction. When we got back from the Hebrides at New Year I committed to remembering to clean my teeth and cleanse my face every night, rather than just most nights. A silly thing, but significant - aside from the obvious benefits, it also contributes to a good pre-sleep routine, and that’s something else I want to work on. 

Robyn.

Furry faces and unexpectedly rural views...

 

Well the last two mornings have been grey, gloomy and wet. We have been out for our walk both days, and today I also had to make a second trip out as I needed something from the town centre, but it’s not been pleasant to be out in, I have to say, beyond just the aspect of movement and fresh air - and daylight, so much needed at this time of year!  Monday was brighter though - and once MrEH had reached the point where he needed to start walking back towards home I turned the other way and walked a loop around one of the green wedges that sit in various places throughout the town. This particular one has fields and horses, as you can see, so nose rubs and fusses were duly handed out to those who were interested enough at the strange person walking by to come and investigate - the one below didn’t think much of me having to continue my walk though, as you can see - how rude?! 

The town itself sits across two fairly low hills, but still the little elevation they give is enough to provide a decent enough view - looking this way across the fields you’d never know that the shops of the town centre are just across another field and a road, behind me. (In the top photo you can see the side of Asda, the civic centre and TK Maxx! 

The view in the photo above also shows the fence-line of the other path I walked along as I looped back - across where you can see the building work for the new college. I’ve said this before but we are SO fortunate in our town-planning - when the new town was built many of the old roads were left in place but closed to traffic so we have cycle/foot paths all over the place. Being able to walk a good distance with time alongside traffic at a minimum is a wonderful thing! 

Robyn

A Sunday walk...

 

With the amount of local walking we did during Lockdown 1, combined with the less tempting weather at this time of year, it’s not been the easiest thing to come up with interesting places to walk this time around.  Clearly we have no reason to use the car as we do have plentiful areas to walk locally, even if we HAVE walked around most of them time and time again in the past 10 months! Today though after a brief discussion we decided to head to Churchgate Street - one of the villages on the outskirts of the town. It’s a lovely little village and feels quite removed from Harlow itself, and is also slightly too far to venture on one of our routine morning walks on weekdays, so a slightly longer leg-stretch in that direction today seemed to fit the bill. 

By the time we headed out (after a rather tasty lunch of beef stew cooked in the slow cooker overnight, with dumplings) it had turned into a quite nice day with the sun just peeking through. It was also quite a lot warmer than the last week has been too which made a nice change. We headed out on a pretty standard route towards the Tesco at Church Langley for MrEH to buy his newspaper, and then remembered that the old route we would have used to get from there to Churchgate Street is currently partly inaccessible due to the building works for the new parts of Newhall, so we needed to come up with an alternative. Handily MrEH thought he knew a path which might work, and a quick check on the map confirmed this, so off we went...

Up to the top of Newhall and past the Roundhouse was easy enough, but there is a short - about quarter of a mile - gap in made up paths and roads across the fields that divide the New Town and its offshoots from the older village of a Churchgate Street, and although there is a footpath, there has been a LOT of rain this week! The photo above is one of the drier sections...

Eventually though we found our way to the roadway that MrEH had been aiming us for, and from there it was all solid underfoot, which was a relief! The spire of the church itself is a bit of a local landmark - rather like the water tower (which also appeared in clear view across the field while we were battling the mud!) it’s visible across a surprising amount of the town. The picture at the top of the post shows you more clearly what the church looks like - it’s a lovely building which was rebuilt in 1870 after its much older predecessor suffered a fire.

A nice just-over 6 miles walked today, taking me to over 80 miles walked so far this month. This week will be morning walks as usual - mostly 4 - 6 miles each, with an additional walk into town one day as there is an item I need that I can’t get from our local shops. Hopefully I’ll be able to order in advance so I will just have to walk in and collect this, but otherwise it won’t take me long to pick it up in store. Other than that the week will be mostly “Staying at home” unsurprisingly! 

Robyn

This week...

 

The power of blogging proves its worth once again - what you see above is the front cover of the photo book I’ve put together with loads of memories from a 6 year period using photos from my phone. I started it within minutes of my blog post the other day, and have sent it to print today. In true frugal fashion I also found a 50% off code too which allowed me to make a decent sized book at a really quite sensible price. 

Also this week, lots more walking, 4 more of Alice Liveing’s challenge workouts, and yoga each day. I’m getting more used to the Yoga with Adriene stuff now, and have actually enjoyed some of this week’s practises, but I’m not convinced I’ll ever make a committed yogi! The Alice workouts this week have been tough but not unbearably so - and thank goodness I have been far less stiff after these than the first one last week! I’ve now covered just over 83 miles of tracked walking this month which I’m pretty pleased with - it means I’m firmly on track for breaking the back of my 214 miles virtual Thames Path challenge before even getting to February. I’m also about to sign up for another of the RAF Museum challenges too - this one is on a rather longer timescale than any of theirs I have done before as it runs through until May, and also has several different distance options. Allowing that I will be combining walking and running anyway, I’ve decided to sign up for the longest - 500km, and I’m also planning some fundraising alongside it. 

The freezers are definitely looking emptier - although there will be a bit of an influx of additions tomorrow as it is farmers market Saturday. Although due to lockdown the market is not operating in the usual way this month, the regular stall holders are working on a click & collect basis, and we’ve placed orders with three that we like to buy from - 2 lamb breasts and a couple of packs of liver from Highbury Farm Lamb, bacon and sausages from Great Garnetts, and sliced haslet and some of Catherine’s rather wonderful beef and horseradish sausage rolls from Foxholes. All three local small businesses that do excellent produce. Tomorrow will also be meal planning day, and so will orchestrate the use of lots more of currently frozen items through next week. I’ve not made bread this week as we plan to breakfast on the bread items that we already have in the freezer - bagels and the leftovers from previous weeks bread - those always get frozen for future use, they toast perfectly using the frozen setting in our toaster! 

So all in all things are running along quite smoothly - lockdown this time is definitely feeling less stressful than the first one, I suspect due to a combination of the time of year (it’s less appealing to want to spend lots of time outside when the weather is cold, damp and grey) and also that I’m more aware of the challenges it creates this time and so am dealing with them before they really cause problems. A little self care definitely goes a long way!

Robyn