That moment when you realise February is over

I should’ve known better, I should’ve remembered. February always kicks my butt. It tends to grab me tightly, pushing me into a dark corner that I can’t always get myself out of. My one sure fire remedy that has worked in the past wasn’t available this year (begins with p and ends with onds), and I’ve tried to keep afloat while accepting that sometimes you feel low and that it’s ok to just go with it. But then, sure as day follows night, March has arrived and things don’t feel as bad. We’re eight weeks into our second strict lockdown with a few months left (although some loosening of the restrictions are coming before summer), and the combination of everyone staying at home and the vaccine rollout is finally pushing our (insane) numbers in the right direction is great news. I did manage to try a few new things within our strict parameters, like running without music, which I’ve never done for the past eight years, as well as running with Mr Famapa (with Oomoo coming along on his bike), taking cold baths (intense let me tell you, but very meditative at the same time), learning how to play chess, and turning Wednesday evenings into (board) games night . There were also a couple of things I watched which felt like balm for the soul. Winter Walks on BBC iPlayer brought beautiful vistas from northern England, for which I very was grateful (I pretty much stopped going outside apart from the runs), and Pretend it’s a City, which has had me smiling the whole way through. I also started watching Wandering Thomas, who films Amsterdam and other cities in the Netherlands as he walks through the streets, which has almost been as good as being there (especially the surreal moment when he walks past my BFF’s apartment building in one of them!), and Not Just Bikes' live streams from his bike rides around the ‘Dam. Seeing as this post is all about sharing some of my self-prescribed “medicines”, I’ll also pass on THE song that has had our household grooving for the last month. Maybe it’ll get you going too. So long February! I’ll make sure I’m better prepared for you next year 😑

Snow Sunday

Snow is so rare here in London that when it happens it’s a big deal. Guessing that our local park would be rammed with people yesterday, we stayed in our garden and had an epically long snowball fight instead. I’d like to think that Oomoo will show this picture to his future kids one day, and say that their grandma/farmor always took snowball fights really seriously 😂

Buddy in da house

No need for fancy cat toys for this guy. What he likes to play with is very random (a piece of rope or the inside of a roll of tape for example), but his newest favourite is ribbons. Specifically chasing ribbons. My mother-in-law always wraps her presents with them or string, and whilst opening one of her xmas gifts Buddy pounced on one. As a result, almost daily, one of his humans will run through the house trailing said ribbon behind them with him chasing madly after it. I wanted to capture it and catch him mid-run, but as soon as he saw me with the camera he stopped. 🙄

DJ Buddy?! I so wish I’d not taken this and instead gone over to see which record he was selecting. I’m pretty sure it was a funk album, seeing as almost the whole collection is funk.

Classic cat behaviour going on here. When we got Buddy nearly five years ago he behaved more like a dog (which Maine Coons tend to do); he’d play fetch, follow me around from room to room in the house, and never jump up on your lap or lie on your newspaper as you were reading it, as most cats do, and our old cat Little Mo used to (awwww Little Mo!!!). Instead he’d lay by your feet and we’d forever trip on him, as it’s not usually a place where a cat goes and we never got used to him lying there. That’s changed now; no more fetch games, and there can be whole days where you’ve not seen him as he has gone and curled up somewhere, and now he lays on laps/chests happily. Luckily he doesn’t lie on newspapers as he’s a big fella.

When I saw this clock in the morning of New Year’s Day it said Jan 1 2020. I gasped in mock horror and exclaimed “Nooooooooooo! We’re stuck!”. Ha. Ha. The year count is not automated so it has to be changed by hand, and Buddy was very curious to see his taunter/nemesis up close. You see, twice a day the day flips from AM to PM and vice versa, and when it does it makes a loud cranking sound which Buddy is fascinated by. He somehow knows when it’s about to happen and will sit and watch and wait a couple of minutes before it happens, but almost every time he gets bored and walks away just before it changes, and therefor misses the flip. I can’t remember now if he’s ever managed to see it. It’ll be a day to celebrate when he does, as it’s been a five year long project for him.

Home life

I think I can count on one hand how many sunny mornings we’ve had this winter, but when they do come it makes breakfast a little bit special. I keep thinking that I should go and sit in the garden all wrapped up, with a thermos of tea at hand and catch some rays, but because of the time of year and the angle of the sun I’d have to sit in the plant border, so that obviously never happens.

I’ve kept the white mini bunting up in the windows from our xmas decorations, to keep the windows a bit more cheerful. Lots of people have left their fairy lights up post-Christmas, and I’m sure it’s for the same reason. You try and get your joy from wherever you can.

Speaking of Christmas, ours, as I’m sure most of yours, was very different this year. We spent the day at home, just us three, which meant that for the first time ever we had to cook Christmas dinner ourselves. I tried to convince the guys that maybe we could go for the easy option and cook something less tricky, but they weren't having it. I’m the everyday cook in the house, but really don’t enjoy cooking on a bigger scale, so I was relieved when Mr Famapa dived straight in and pulled it off brilliantly. It was actually a really lovely day, so relaxed and quiet, and a very fitting way to spend Christmas 2020.

There are now two guitar players in the house. Oomoo has been playing for a couple of years and Mr Famapa decided to have a go this winter and has gotten quite good - without any lessons. I’m still not back on the piano properly; I’ll have a go every now and then, but not regularly enough. I’m finding it hard to stay focused and use my time properly, and the days seem to just vanish. I can’t believe we’re almost half way through January already, but at the same time I’m glad that we are.

In all my years in London I’ve never seen these kind of fireworks on New Year’s Eve; here the big day for that is on and around the 5th of November. In Sweden, on NYE, lots of small fireworks go off at midnight, and when my Swedish friend M (who I go winter swimming with and who for obvious reasons couldn’t go back to Sweden for the holidays) asked if the same thing happens here I said no. So imagine my surprise when at the stroke of midnight our sky lit up with them. It made me a bit teary thinking of how in times of hardship we always try and make the best of a bad situation. That hope is innate.

My dear friend M sent us some jigsaw puzzles for xmas. I’m not sure I posted a picture of a 1000 piece miniature jigsaw I did of Van Gogh’s Starry Night in the summer. It was intense to say the least. I did really enjoy it though, so I was really happy to start on another Van Gogh jigsaw, and this time not a miniature one.

A very familiar sight around here. Oomoo got his own Kindle from his uncle for xmas, and I’m so grateful for e-readers now. I initially loved mine as it was so handy to be able to buy a book and read it straight away, but it was one particular book that killed it for me - Crime and Punishment. An absolutely brilliant book, but a nightmare on a Kindle. Halfway through the book the characters’ names changes, and trying to go back and forth on a Kindle, with no way of knowing of whether something was on a left or a righthand page to find something was impossible. So I gave up on it, and started browsing and buying books in physical stores again and never looked back. But an e-reader for a 10- now 11 year old bookworm in lockdown is PERFECT. I kid you not, but Oomoo read 80+ books in 2020. I managed my yearly average of 15.

When we moved into this house I made a mistake of hanging our dining room lamp over the table too high, and as the cable holding it got cut to length there was no going back. It’s bugged me for years, and in the autumn, after some random internet browsing, I found a company in Denmark that sold the cable separately. They in turn had to order it from Italy, and it took about two/three months for it to arrive (I’m so glad I ordered it when I did or it might have arrived in 2025 - because Brexit) and last month Mr Famapa switched the cables out. It’s so much better now! OMG, as I’m writing this I’m boring myself. Apologies. This has been a very longwinded way of explaining this picture, which are the reflections of the dining room fairy lights (which are permanent… I’ve just realised that I’ve always had fairy lights all year round since 1994) on said lampshade. Anywaaaay, in future I shall remember that all pictures don’t need explanations.