Isolation and Not so Isolation Journals 116, 117, 118, 119 and 120

116 - Friday was a whirlwind, Rachel was back from holiday and I had a short period of time to quickly handover with her before another call at 9am to discuss additional Covid protocols in the office and then I had another interview with a candidate and then a very busy day prepping for not being around for 2 days next week.  I had a catch up with Katie and Rachel for my handover and then I finally finished up around 9pm having had to upload all the CVs for my retainer and send all the links for the Hinterviews.  I also had a dilemna about what to do with a particular role, but I came up with a workable solution in the end thankfully.  We then had a late dinner of takeaway Chinese which did take ages to arrive and then I was very tired and went to bed after I think watching some more Dave on TV.  I also eventually managed to finally order a present for him at last and ordered a personalised OS map (paper!) centred on where we got married at North Shire.

117 - Saturday - we woke up and Alan decided to tell me that we had to go and "collect" my anniversary present from somewhere in South Yorkshire, so we had some coffee and some quick cereal and set off and he drove down the A1 and eventually after a guessing game I managed to guess Worksop as where we were going.  We got there after around an hour and he'd sponsored an area of woodland for me at Hannah Park via the Woodland Trust which was a lovely present.  We wondered around and found the patch that was dedicated and it was a lovely place with lots of different types of trees and birds and lots of people walking their dogs.  Amusingly as we walked towards the entrance there was a friendly little dog that kept saying hello and I was almost convinced that Alan had adopted it for me!  We drove back home and then had a relax at home with an idea that I wanted us to head back to Eccup Resevoir where we ran our first "date" 5 years ago.  We got there fairly late on in the afternoon, but had estimated we'd have enough time to be able to get around before sunset and we just about managed it with a jog walk around the 4 miles.   We got home and then I made tea which was a Hello Fresh spicy veggie coconut curry soup and I also prepped some of the very many apples that our neighbour Anna had kindly given us for the Apple and Roasted Garlic chutney  I then tidied as much as I could and organised things for travelling to North Shire tomorrow after making 5 litres of the chutney and putting it all in jars - it was past 1am by the time that I came to bed.  I cleaned the fridge so that I could ask our neighbour who was feeding the cats to put the milk away for us.  

118 - Sunday - I woke up at a reasonable time and spent a good chunk of time tidying and cleaning the house after packing and we set off to drive to Bempton Cliffs and I drove in Alan's car.  It's not far, but lots of slow winding roads and took us over an hour and a half to get there.  The weather was calm, but not too sunny or windy and we strolled along the edges of the cliffs and saw a fisherman who had scaled down the cliffs to fish, lots of gannets and a potential seal (fortuantely we'd brought the binoculours this time!) we stopped off and I had a sandwich and Alan some millionaires shortbread (he was disappointed that it was vegan) and a couple of teas and then Alan drove us to North Shire and we arrived just after 4.30pm.  We walked straight to Hagrids and the key was in the lock for us and we settled in and ended up cooking some pizza for tea, drinking the champagne that my work colleagues all bought for us when we got engaged.  We watched Dave and started a very hard 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle which was extremely tricky!

119 - Monday - the weather was lovely when we woke up and we made breakfast which took a while in the convection oven - we baked sausage and black pudding for about an hour and ate it with tiger bread and BBQ sauce outside and enjoyed the lovely sunny day that wasn't quite as warm as our actual wedding was exactly a year ago.  I wanted to go for a run and suggested I could do that whilst Alan had a bath, but then I'd also suggested that we visited Runswick Bay as we'd never been in any of the times that we'd visited North Shire and so we drove out and it was only about 13 minutes drive.  We found a car park that unfortunately had a broken card machine and so we put all the coins I had into the machine and got an hour, but we weren't sure if that would be enough, luckily I spotted that you could use the Ringo app to pay and we took a picture in case we needed more time.  It's a really stunning beach although a good steep walk down, and quiet as no busy shops or food stalls and so we walked along paddling in the sea and looked at the rock pools and saw different seaweed, anemones, little fish, crabs and later on Oystercatchers.  We then moved inland so that Alan could sit and sort out the parking and spotted a load of rocks that had fossils in them, we tapped away and found some great ammonites and also found some fools gold.  We then started to head back up the beach and spotted a crack next to a water fountain and a chap told us that it was 300 steps up to the top, so we climbed up the cliff path and looked at the stunning view.  We then had to top up the parking again and headed back up to the car.  Once we got to the car I was craving fish and chips, but couldn't find any on the way although we did stop at a COOP and I grabbed salad leaves, lollies, drinks and raspberries and it was the first proper shop I'd been in ages and no one was doing the one way system right!  We got to the fish and chips place I'd found on the map, but it was closed, but Alan spotted it on Just Eat and so we decided to try and order later.  We got back and it was still lovely and warm and we bumped into the new manager and had a chat about how business had been for them in the past few months and the fact that they weren't doing a pick a pumpkin patch again this year as it was too stressful last year!  I went for a run and explored a few of the little public footpaths and found that the road wasn't too good to run along, but managed to clear 4 miles in a decent time and then got in the lovely copper bath for a relax and Alan ordered us fish and chips for delivery.  We did more work on the jigsaw and then ate fish and chips outside, the peacocks were after me and I managed to spill the gravy and peas on the floor and Alan had to keep chasing them away!  We had some nice pink Moet with our dinner and watched the sunset and then went inside to watch a DVD - Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey and then move Dave and struggled with the light on the jigsaw puzzle before I rested on the sofa and started to fall asleep.

120 - Tuesday - we had planned to walk up Roseberry Topping today, but Alan woke up with ear ache and feeling rubbish so we relaxed at Hagrid and I tidied up, packed and had breakfast and then at 11am we checked out and I drove us home as Alan wasn't feeling good and didn't even eat breakfast.  It took about an hour and 40 mins to get home and at one point an angry Network Rail van driver beeped and gestured at me as I stopped at a roundabout before driving on!  When we got back we unpacked and Alan went almost straight away up to bed for the rest of the day.  I tidied and unpacked and then dealt with a few work bits whilst watching The Social Dilemma which was really though provoking and made me turn off a lot of my notificatios.   I then went for a run - I had time and daylight so I decided to do 10k which I managed in 53 mins and 9 seconds which is probably the fastest all year and I then decided to run for a full hour and managed nearly 7 miles.  I managed to listen to a further 1 hour of the Wind Up Bird Chronicles and only have 2 hours to go!  I'm behind by about 7 miles from my 1000 mile target so I'm hoping I can catch up over the next few days/weeks.  I came back and had a bath and read some more of Fabulous and only have 1 story left to go.  I bottled some more Kombucha and watched the 8pm speech from the Prime Minister which is a bit odd as now he's saying if you can work from home to work from home, so I'm not sure what the means for me, although our company line is that we work better in offices so to try and continue to be in the office, so I'm going in tomorrow, much to Alan's frustration.  I made a jacket potato and salad for dinner and ate it watching Great British Bake Off and made some lunch for tomorrow and found bugs living in the tiger bread and so had to throw that out.  I'd managed to get Alan to eat some strawberries, raspberries and cream, but he's still feeling poorly.

Isolation Journal 89 & 90

Two in one entry today as I was away for the first time since March yesterday evening.

I woke up yesterday and checked my phone and had a negative Covid result from my test on Friday so I decided to go with my plan of visiting my parents and my brother.  I'd packed my stuff mostly the night before so I had some cornflakes, packed up the rest of the bits and pieces and set off just before 10am.

The roads weren't too bad, I had only planned to stop once for a toilet break and I always aim to get to at least Leicester Forest East Services on the way down and if I get to Watford Gap or further I'm over halfway and feel happy.  I got out at Watford Gap, tried to charge my car, but it wasn't working so I headed to the toilet.  I had no interest in stopping for food really as it was too busy and I felt uncomfortable and social distancing wasn't great.  I got back to the car, texted my brother and my parents and then carried on.  I had been listening to the Archers and then I swapped to some more of the Wind Up Bird Chronicles.

I ended up driving only for 3hrs 40 and ended up at my brothers around 2pm.  I had a protein bar and a banana for lunch on the go and he did offer me some lunch, but he'd already eaten.  When I arrived at my brothers it was just the 2 oldest girls Beatrice and Florence and they were very hyper and excited to see me.  My brother's wife came back shortly after with the two youngest boys Lenny and Winston.  They were also quite excited and Winston was doing ok after a couple of trips to hospital this week as he'd cut his hand and they weren't sure if he'd need it stitching, but fortunately he didn't.  They drew some pictures on the patio in chalk and then I headed over to see my parents in the garden.  I managed to curb my alloy wheels when I was parking the car and I really need to sort out my insurance claim to get them fixed up.

They've done a lot of gardening during lockdown including planting melons, aubergines, courgettes, tomatoes, cauliflowers, nasteriums, cucumber, lettuces and sweetcorn.   We sat outside and chatted and I gave them some malbec and some prosecco as well as a rag wreath I finished off under lockdown.

We went for a walk around the recreation field at the back of the house, it was a nice walk, but it's sad that at the back of the garages people have just dumped mattresses, fridges and other rubbish.  I used to think that the street was a really nice area, but some of it with my eyes these days just looks a bit tatty.

I texted my brother to find out what to do for food that evening and suggested I bought them a takeaway and he suggested I come back for around 7pm to read a story for the girls.  By the time I'd moved a few things around in my car it was five past seven and Beatrice told me off for being late.  

I read them Andy Pandy and Hansel and Gretel and made up a story about some cats stealing  a fish, they were very excited and out of routine and I felt a bit guilty as it took them a while to fall asleep and they tried hard to convince me that I should sleep in their room!

I went downstairs and we chatted whilst Steph fed Winston and he fell asleep and then we ordered a curry from the Raj using the Uber Eats app with a code that gave me £20 off and my brother a £15 off voucher.  By the time we'd faffed around the food was ordered around 9.30pm and I ordered some poppodoms with dips, Tom Yum seafood soup and a vegetable thalia and a portion of lemon rice which was way bigger than I'd expected so there were a lot of leftovers.  

We ended up chatting until around 1.30am discussing holidays and indeed lack of holidays as kids, something that seemed to bother my brother more than me, the fact that they still have a Range Rover in the garage and my brother worked out it was last taxed in 1995 and could be worth a lot these days - I said that when the time comes, he can deal with it.

I eventually fell asleep around 2am and woke up a few times, as I was quite warm and there were a few odd noises, but I was fairly comfortable on my sleeping bag on the sofa.  The kids initially woke up about 6.30am and came downstairs around 7.30am and I had cornflakes for breakfast and a couple of coffees as I was knackered!  The kids did some more chalk drawing in the garden and played with the bubble machine when it turned 9am and screamed a fair bit!  I had a shower which I desperately needed and then headed over to my parents for around 11am and we chatted in the garden some more and then had lunch of ham, cheese and salad sandwiches including home grown yellow tomatoes.  I went to the toilet in their house in my mask and sanitised before I went in and sprayed down the toilet after I left.  We went for another walk aound the field and I tracked it and it was just under 1K - they could make a parkrun there!  I managed to find a green parakeet feather by my parents house as they hang out there, there was also a nest in their kiwi bush and I couldn't work out what bird lived in it.

I set off home about 1.30pm and my Mum gave me fabric for some masks, some soap and some lemon drizzle cake Naked bars and an aubergine and nasterium.  The satnav gave an ETA of 6pm and it was a bit slow on the M25 and then there were some slow sections on the M1 with roadworks, but nothing stationary fortunately.  I chatted away to Alan for a big chunk of the journey and really missed him when I was away.  I then listened to more Wind Up Bird Chronicles - it's a very very long audio book!  I got to Leicester Forest East services just over half way and went to the toilet and it was a lot less busy than Watford Gap yesterday and so I braved the Waitrose and bought sushi as I'd been craving it as not had any for ages as well as some pepsi max and kefir.

I drove for another hour, but ended up stopping at Woodall as I started to feel too tired, so I went to the loo and emptied some rubbish to get a bit of a walk in and some fresh air.  Then my sat nav said an hour to do 35 miles, but it included a bit diversion through some South Yorkshire villages and so I was quite slow.

I was home for 5.45pm and about 3 hours 45 driving time and 20 - 25 mins stopping and break times.

I unpacked the car and said hello to Qubit who was hiding in a box and then had a cuddle with Alan and then a quick tea and sit down watching some cricket.

I decided to go for a run around 7.30pm and do about 8K and take it steady.  I listened to more Wind Up Bird Chronicles and did my Lumby Loop circuit and then as I got towards the end my stomach felt really odd and I had to run in and go straight to the toilet.  I then had a shower and Alan finished making tea of Carribean beef and courgette rice, I quick hung some washing out and we ate and watched Storage Hunters UK.  I prepped some strawberries and cream and then cleaned up the kitchen.

Isolation Journal 76

We woke up late again at around 10.30am, Alan had been sleeping in the other room for most of the night as it was so warm and his ear had been giving him grief.

I came downstairs to a dead pigeon that Maya had brought in and mauled with feathers everywhere, I cleared it up with Alan's help, thankfully it was completely dead.

I made some tiger bread toast, sausages and scrambled eggs for breakfast with orange juice and we watched some Peep Show this morning.  I listened to more of "I heart Las Vegas"

I then watched some CSI original Vegas episodes as I've finally had a play around with the SkyQ box.  One of the only things I used to watch when I had Sky was CSI, NCIS and Criminal Minds, I used to watch them for hours whilst my ex would go to bed at 9pm about 20 minutes after I had got home.

I went upstairs to read, but ended up messing around on my phone and then eventually got up and hoovered and mopped all the floors and cleaned the bathroom whilst listening to "I heart Vegas" and then went for a run.  I didn't really need to go for a run, but it seemed like something I could chalk up to achievement for the weekend.

I ran 7.2K and just did a very even pace and it seemed to say it was a base effort and took 43 minutes.  It was a nice sunny evening and I did a few Strava segments to increase my Local Legend efforts.  

Alan made dinner which was a Hello Fresh pork and rice dish and also harvested the rhubarb in the garden and bought some more yesterday and made a crumble.  I made Lynchberg Lemonades for me and Alan and we watched even more Peep Show and I accidentally ordered another copy of Girl Woman Other from Hive, forgetting that I'd ordered it already from Fox Lane Books!

Day 4 - Bali Adventures Day Tripping!

Rachel's husband like many Balinese men seem to be has many different talents and different jobs including a bar job at Hibiscus (where Rachel met him when he was doing magic tricks - another talent!), raising/herding ducks, wood carving, export and driver/tour guide!  We booked Made to take us on a day of exploring.

Made picked us up from our hotel at 9am (well 20 past by the time we stopped messing around) and we headed off first of all to have a look at some silver smithing.  There wasn't a huge amount of demonstration to be seen, but we got to have a look at some of the raw materials and then we looked around a huge shop of some beautiful pieces.  For the equivalent of £8 I bought some lovely silver and amythyst stud earrings.  

Next stop was a beautiful waterfall - It was a few steep steps down to the waterfall and then a scramble over some rocks and then edging around a watery ledge to get right up in front.  The roar of the sound of the water was at the same time intense and crashing, but also extremely calming.  I clambed across to get a closer look whilst Anna looked at butterflies - there are so many gorgeous butterflies in Bali, just hard to get a decent shot as they have a habit of moving around!  I asked a nice couple by the waterfall to take my photo, but in actual fact my "selfie" was probably a bit better!

We clambered up the steps again - hot work! - and then it was onto our next stop - coffee and tea tasting.  A lovely chap took us through a garden of all sorts of interesting plants - I'd never seen cloves growing before and they look as you would expect, but also quite different, also he showed us chilies, cocoa, coffee, evil lemon, ginger, a strange looking different type of rhubarb and ginseng.  

We got to meet a Civet - the mongoose type creature that is used in Bali to create the famous Civet or Luwak Coffee.  Civet Coffee apparently is produced only in Bali and only 300kg per year is manufacturer so it's considered a real delicacy!  In fact whilst all the other coffee and tea we tasted were free - our Civet coffee was 50,000 rupiah (£2.50) for a cup.  Civet coffee is produced by getting the Civet to eat coffee beans, these are then fermented in the stomach and quite frankly excreted before being collected for roasting.  The shell of the bean is removed and the bean is roasted and ground as you would with a usual coffee bean.  We waited with anticipation to compare and contrast standard Bali Coffee with this delicacy of Civet coffee.  

We were fortunate enough to sample a whole host of different varieties of tea and coffee and so here are my opinions on each taste test!

Mangosteen Peel - fruity, but not overly sweet, apparently good for all sorts of ailments including preventing stress, cancer and anti aging - I decided to buy some of this to take home at the end!

Coconut Coffee - Like a syrupy latte that you might get from Starbucks, really sweet, but not too sweet.

Bali Coffee - slightly bitter, a bit like Turkish coffee, but without all the sugar added - grainy finish at the end of the coffee grounds.

Ginger Tea - sweet, much more fiery ginger taste than you usually would expect.

Ginseng Coffee - considered buying some of this - good for male virility and tasted almost similiar in sweetness to the Coconut Coffee.

Lemon Grass tea - loved this one as I love the flavour of lemon grass and it was sweet as we found out they had added sugar to everything!  

Cocoa Spices - similar to the "aztec tea" that they give you to try at Cadbury World - really fiery spice and dark chocolaty flavours.

Lemon Tea - Sweet and sour - nice lemony flavour - I would have bought this as well!

Vanilla Coffee - Again - very similar, but nicer, to a Starbucks latte with vanilla syrup.

Bali Cocoa - chocolatey and not overly sweet - not quite as spicey as the Cocoa spices, a really smooth flavour.

Red Ginger Tea - Similar to the ginger tea, but not quite as fiery.

Luwak / Civet Coffee - So this was nice, smoother and much less bitter than your usual Bali coffee, but the question of whether I would buy it specially or take any home, not for the price as the differentiator wasn't really there.  

We also got to try milk chocolate, vanilla chocolate and orange chocolate - all were lovely flavours, but slightly unusual textures - a bit too gritty and waxy compared to what we are used to in the UK.

Anna has been on the hunt for some wine glasses and with a whole host of glass shops on the route we were driving she got Made to pull over and have a look around, although nothing quite right for what she wanted to pay, but looking at the craftsmanship was really interesting in itself.  

We then reached the Elephant Cave Temple which oddly had a pan-piped version of "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion as we arrived.  I had long trousers on, but Anna had to borrow one of the stock sarongs to be "decent" enough to walk around the temple.  In the temple there was a very shallow pool with lots of huge fish that couldn't even seem to fully submerge themselves in it.  The entrance to the "Elephant Cave" was an ornate, and quite scary looking carving.  Once in the cave it was a heady smell of lots of different types of incense burning in a very enclosed space and it felt almost sophorific - would be good for all sorts of strange thoughts whilst meditating I thought.  The temple was set in quite shelving slopes of jungle, so it gave us a good opportunity for exploring and we passed a few locals including one lady who was naked and having a wash in the stream!

After a brief drive we got to the Holy Water temple - I've been here before, but it's really stunning and I was happy to have a second visit.  There are various jets of water that the idea is that you walk along and pray at each.  People make loads of colourful offerings that run into the water and make a beautiful watery scene and there are even bottles on sale so you can collect your own holy water to take home!

There is a huge fish pool with loads of Koi carp everywhere and the colours make an incredible sight.   I particularly liked the view of the garden where they were washing and drying all the tourist sarongs that you borrow to be able to enter the temple against the lovely lush green rainforesty setting.

They cleverly make you walk back past all the shops to get out of the temple and so you have people running after you offering you all sorts of good bargains and less value for money options - i.e. 1 banana 1 dollar!  I especially liked that they had a Princess Diana head to model one of the kaftans on sale!  Anna bought some carved masks after a bit of negotiation, but I managed to escape without spending any more cash as it's dangerous in Bali as there are so many lovely things you can buy that aren't even tourist tat and they aren't expensive, but I'm on a desperate mission to declutter!

By this point we were pretty hungry and so were pleased to get driven up to Kintamani for lunch!  It was a buffet style lunch, not cheap for Bali at 120,000 rupiah or £6, but it's the price you pay in tourist places and we got to eat whilst looking out over a volcano which you don't get the opportunity to do all that often!

We started the route back to Ubud and stopped off at Tegalug rice terraces - beautiful view that they used in Eat Pray Love I believe and I got a nice picture of a chap working in the rice terraces complete with a hat that was woven from banana leaves!

The last stop on our whistlestop tour - Made crammed in loads for us on the one day! - was to see some white cranes flying over at 6pm to a particular tree - there were loads of them!  They were on time and it was really strange how they all navigate to the same place each day - you can tell that this is the case based on the amount of guano on the ground beneath!

We arrived back to the hotel exhausted from our fun, but busy day and so then it was a quick meal at one of my favourite places in Ubud - Juice Ja where I tried a locally brewed beer called Stark.  I also decided to be naughty and have some ice cream and tried both Pannacotta and Tamarillo ice cream - Pannacotta was pretty much just a very vanilla flavoured ice cream, but Tamarillo definitely tasted as described!