The Cullimore Cottage guide to lockdown life
DON’T know about you, but here at Cullimore Cottage, feels like we are finally getting into the swing of things. Makes a pleasant change after the ups and downs of the last few weeks. These days, we seem to have got a workable little routine going on. Bit patchy in parts, but certainly seems to help. Makes the present weirdness a bit easier to handle. If you are sitting comfortably, hopefully somewhere you can enjoy the sunshine, I shall talk you through some of the finer details of our day. If you wish, we can compare and contrast. Always helps to see how others live, I find.
An average day begins, as these things usually do, with a chattering dawn chorus from the birds outside our window. Talking of which, is it just me, or have you noticed that nature seems to be enjoying our withdrawal from the world? As if an annoying house guest has finally left the building. Sigh. Makes you wonder why we normally behave the way we do, being beastly to almost everything we find. But I digress.
Point is, after the chattering of over excited birds, we have to deal with the chattering of over excited dogs. Once our two have been fed, watered and played with, the morning continues in a most civilised way, with tea in bed and a relaxed discussion of plans for the day ahead. Not with the dogs, obviously. That would be pointless. Even if they could talk, I reckon their only conversation would revolve around walks, treats and neck rubs.
Since we are locked down tighter than a tiny drum in our house, plans for the day are usually on the modest side. For instance, this morning the talk was mainly about vegetables. My wife was cooking cauliflower cheese for dinner and wasn’t sure what to do with the half cauliflower that would certainly be leftover.
To make things even more exciting, we had half a dozen beetroot to deal with. To be honest, things got fairly philosophical for a while. Luckily, we worked out exactly how to resolve the situation to everyone’s satisfaction. As you can see, the lockdown drama never ends round here.
Chitchat is followed by an energetic half hour. A daily online session designed to get the blood pumping and energy flowing. Five days a week, my morning workout of choice is, “PE with Joe.”
He’s a rather excitable young chap with a YouTube channel, a voice like young David Beckham and far too much hair for his own head. Despite all this, he gets millions of people from all over the world to join in with his child friendly exercise regime every week day. Most pleasant it is too. My grandkids were right, it really is a lot of fun. After that, it’s time for breakfast. Followed by another cup of tea.
I could go on, but you get the point. Now we have a routine in place, days trot on by very contentedly.
Luckily, we also have a house that lends itself to socially distanced chats with friends and neighbours passing by the front door.
If all this wasn’t enough to bring a smile to our faces, we have also found a few lovely folk who deliver fresh food to our doorstep on a regular basis. On Thursday we get a delivery of supermarket stuff. On Friday we get a box of bread from one of our favourite bakers. And sometime early in the week, we get a box of fruit and veg from, “The Bristol Food Company.” Have to admit, fresh fruit and veg was the hardest one to sort out. We tried a few different places, but found they didn’t do the job very well. However, this lot are fantastic and best of all, contents of the box change, depending on the season. All of which brings me, rather neatly, to the point of this piece.
A box of fruit and veg brings change into our lives on a weekly basis. We never quite know what we’re going to get. But we have decided we are going to make best use of whatever turns up.
If anything arrives which really has us stumped, or is more than we need, we pass it on to someone else who can make good use of it. Which I reckon is also a really good way to deal with the new realities of the big strange world out there. No-one knows what is going to happen next. So all we can do is try our best to turn it into something lovely.
Or cauliflower cheese. Which ever you prefer.
Hope you and yours are safe, well and happy.
Until next time, all the best
Stan
❝ My grandkids were right, PE with Joe really is a lot of fun. After that, it’s time for breakfast. Followed by another cup of tea.