Coronavirus Lockdown: Days 61-65 Organising and Pottering

Hello, I hope everyone is well. The late May Bank Holiday weekend has come and gone and here we are in week nine of lockdown. Over the last few days, the news has been dominated by reports of the PM’s Chief Advisor Dominic Cummings and his controversial trip from London to Durham. I very rarely discuss politics in person, rarer still online. All I will say is that no matter what the circumstances are, you don’t need an optometrist to tell you that taking a thirty-minute drive isn’t the way to check one’s eyesight. (As you can imagine, I had a lot of messages asking for my thoughts on this particular aspect of the situation). I really do feel for his family now; I hope the Press can move on so that they feel safe.

And moving swiftly on here, we also had some positive lockdown news over the weekend. We learned that years 10 and 12, (Harry’s year), might return to school in mid-June. As well as that, some non-essential retail outlets will be able to reopen. The full list includes fashion and charity shops, car dealerships, markets and “similar types of retail”. At the time of writing, there hasn’t been any communication from optometry’s governing and professional bodies, so I’m unclear whether or not it includes optometry practices. Opticians are in quite an unusual category. We provide both NHS and private eye examinations and we “sell” glasses and contact lenses. Throughout lockdown, optometrists have provided urgent and essential care, but not routine eye tests. I don’t quite know where we sit in this latest list. Either way, I am preparing to go back to work anyway on 15th June by getting as organised as I can at home and by reading about some new optometric equipment that we’ll have in practice when we do reopen.

Garage Shelving

We tackled a big organising job over the weekend. Do you remember that two years ago we converted the back two-thirds of the garage into an office? Well we finally got around to sorting the front third. We ordered some garage shelving from B&Q and collected it on Sunday, wearing as much PPE as I could muster including this fab mask that my mum made from an old roller blind.

As you can see, the garage had become a disorganised, and frankly rather dangerous, dumping ground. One third of a single garage does not make for much space, so everything was piled up with no way of reaching anything.

Monday was hot and dry so we emptied everything out onto the drive. Ian built the shelves while I sorted through boxes of photo albums, children’s schoolwork, Christmas decorations and emergency chairs. It took a lot longer than we thought but it was so worth it.

The tip has reopened so Poppy and I went yesterday with a very full car boot. Before lockdown, I would not have anticipated that one day we’d queue for forty minutes to enter a Household Waste Recycling Centre. These days, nothing surprises me and we quite enjoyed it. My dad told me that they need to make an appointment to go to his local HWRC. He’ll be as excited as we were; he loves going to the tip.

Today

Today, Wednesday, is warm and sunny. I went for an early morning walk around the park then tidied out a few more drawers. I planted some seeds and pottered in the shed and have simply enjoyed being home. My next bi-monthly blog post for Stepper is about white eyewear and I made a start on that too. All in all, the last few days have been very productive and very enjoyable.

Stay safe, enjoy the sunshine and I’ll be back tomorrow.

Notes

Lucinda broderie dress: Boden, SS19 (This dress will forever remind me of the beautiful arches in Nerja where I first wore it last year).
Leopard print trainers: Lotus, current, (part of a paid partnership). Read about these fab trainers in this post from when I spent a weekend in Durham (not with Dominic Cummings ;)).
Shed paint: Seagrass by Cuprinol, current.