Lockdown is a month old now, things are still going as well as they can here. Both of us are still working, my job is slowing down a bit but with big swings as circumstances and regulations change in various countries. Work helps but we’ve settled into a few routines that help give the week shape; both of us get up at the same time, and for the past week or so have been taking our exercise in the morning so the park isn’t as busy. I usually make coffee and toast or cereal while John does the litter and …
Well shit
Normally I’d start off with the usual apologies for not having posted in ages, but that seems silly under the circumstances. Long story short, I stated working from home from March 19th and John was already doing so by then. Lockdown followed on the 23rd, and fortunately we’d been pretty stocked up between regular shopping habits, Brexit prep, and a few additional bits and pieces. We were already getting a weekly veg box, there are several good delivery services for bread, coffee, and beer, plus quite a few take outs and restaurants for the occasional treat. Our neighborhood is pretty …
Arts and crafts
So the good news I hinted at came through, but then I got so busy I forgot to post; I have an exhibition at the local bookstore through March 28th. The opening was yesterday, and while it didn’t exactly get crowded it was a fun time with a bunch of friends and a few strangers who were kind enough to buy some of the art, can’t ask for much more than that. On the crafts front, there’s a local antiques/crafts place that has opened a new location in town and I’ve secured a little shelf there. The timing was tricky …
Taste of con
Last weekend we went to the SciFi Ball for the day on Saturday. It’s a local convention which is almost the reverse of what I’m used to in some ways, with the big focus being on the evening events (hence the name) and cheap day tickets to just hit the panels and dealer’s room. While I am all about the nightlife, the evening ticket price was too steep for me at $145 so we just went for the afternoon on Saturday. Just walking into a hotel full of nerds makes me feel good, and there was a fair bit of …
Good news everyone!
Well, not for everyone. Generally the news has been pretty dismal, but on a personal level I got a raise, and some adjustments to my job, and some other good news hopefully tab. So that’s something. Then this past weekend Josh visited, which meant John played a LOT of boardgames and was very happy. We played the last on an Unlocked box, which was an excellent Sherlock Holmes mystery. So a good month so far in that sense. We also finally have a date for getting our bathroom re-done, it’s a few months away, and we’ll have to sort out …
Beyond the Brotherhood
So far 2020 has been chock full of culture for us, we’ve fitted in two museum visits and a movie trip and the month is not over yet. First Saturday of January we took the train into the New Forest to see an exhibit at the St. Barbe Museum and Gallery in Lymington. The idea behind the exhibition was what would Romantic art look like today, and while it was a mixed bag there were artists and pieces I liked a great deal. Primarily we were there to see a big intricate piece by local Southampton artist Greg Gilbert, who …
2020
Well here we are in the far-flung future of 2020! We had intended on a relatively low key NYE at Unity Brewing’s taproom, but both of us had sore throats so we scaled it back to a couple of pints at the Butcher’s Hook, where I had a lovely marshmallow porter and we had a nice chat with some strangers at our table. Back home we played a board game, ordered Indian food, watched the first half of Point Break, and were in bed just in time to wish each other a happy new year snuggled up with the cats …
Coxon Christmas
We headed up to Peterborough on Monday, everything went nice and smoothly and the trains were not too busy so we got there in time for dinner. This year was a lower key Coxon Christmas, mainly John’s parents, his aunts, and us two – with guest appearances by George and Kathryn, and by his grandmother on Christmas day. We were also only there through the end of the week, so no panto this year. All in all it was very chill, we ate lovely food, drank wine and beer, saw old friends, watched quiz shows, and generally relaxed. John and …
Turkey and burritos
On the weekend of the 23rd, we had an early Thanksgiving with John’s parents, George and Kathryn. I had made two practice pumpkin pies with the Halloween jack-o-lantern and although the third attempt was with canned pumpkin I was pretty pleased with the results. John’s turkey was very good indeed, and John got to open some early birthday presents, so a good time was hopefully had by all. On Thanksgiving itself we were on a flight to San Francisco. We lucked out and had a row to ourselves, we watched the first ten minutes of Hustle, which was disappointing, How …
Food, cats, more food, more cats.
Yesterday we walked up to Wickes to find out about bathrooms (spoiler; they’re pricey) and had a lovely meal at Steak Bar, the little eatery attached to Uptons of Basset. They’re a Slovakian style butcher (I don’t know exactly how that differs from a British butcher) with lots of lovely things I had to restrain myself from purchasing. We shared the Butcher’s Block, which had pork pie, brie and stilton cheese, sliced meats, piccalilly, lovely bread, some pickled onions that actually tasted nice (!!!!), and Scotch eggs with runny yolks. Nom. In the evening we caught up on The Good …