Copper? Pottery? Leather?

 

We have been married for 9 years. 9 whole years. According to a very cursory search, the 9th anniversary can be marked with a gift of copper, pottery or leather. I must hold my hands up and admit to having completely forgotten that this day 9 years ago we watched the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton while getting ready for our own wedding. We didn’t have a vintage car or horse drawn carriage to bring us to or from our marriage ceremony, but we did have a blast of a day.

It doesn’t feel like we’ve been married for 9 years. We agreed it feels like no time at all since April 29th 2011. We’re putting that down as a good thing. We still love being married.

Shopping In Lockdown

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

I’m glad I like to cook because we have limited options when it comes to eating, given that most of the place we like to eat out in are closed and aren’t doing takeaway options. We’re lucky and privileged to have the money and space to keep too much food on hand most of the time and I stocked up a bit before shopping for food became one of the most depressing things one can do. Our cupboards, fridge and freezer were full, we ate through a lot of it and for the first time we ordered groceries online for collection and delivery. SuperValu was the supermarket that suited us best and we’ve been pretty happy with the service, despite some slightly random substitutions.

Fresh fruit and vegetables are something I need to have on hand. Frozen will do in a pinch, but I prefer the taste of fresh. Green Earth Organics is a farm we’ve ordered from before, and when a delivery slot opened up I jumped at the chance to support an Irish business and get fresh produce delivered to our door. We loved what we got, and it’s organic and fresh as can be. I then saw Sprout was offering more than salad boxes and when I realised I could order for next day delivery I ordered immediately. This was even better, although I did splash out on extras like bread and coffee. Highly, highly recommend and I hope they keep this up when things return to normal.

I’ve been trying not to shop at Amazon. I know this is a privilege and prices are higher when you buy from smaller shops, but right now I’m willing to pay a little more and support an Irish business. World of Wonder, Greenes Shoes, Kilkenny and Arnotts have all had what we want and need (we do have a special birthday coming up for one of us) and we want to keep spending our money in a slightly more ethical and local way as much as possible.

When it comes to buying for me, beyond buying some beauty products I haven’t felt an inclination towards anything else. Some of my clothes are on their last legs but I’m wearing them anyway because apart from one day a fortnight where I need to leave the house no one beyond my immediate family is seeing me so I might as well wear them to death.

I’m not sure what shopping will look like in the future, but I don’t think buying almost everything we consume online will work for me. I want to interact with humans sometimes.

Tiny Sparks of Joy

Another weekend, another art competition. Keeping our fingers crossed for some good results.

The first BBQ of the year. Our BBQ ends up in various parts of our garden once the good weather is over. Friday’s weather was too good not to break out the charcoal.

Today was a really good day. I had no plans or expectations, so getting so much done was a bonus.

Afternoon tea on Sunday. We all agreed it was so lovely we’re going to do it again.

Wine from Winelab. Our order was a surprise, but we were both extremely happy to see a favourite bottle from a restaurant in the mix.

Small Potatoes

My life has shrunk a lot in recent weeks. Like everyone else, my days revolve around home and the 2km radius around it. I miss leaving the house to go to work. I am not stay at home parent material. I make mental lists of things to do and then berate myself for not getting through them. My goals are small and the days are long. I’ve realised it isn’t healthy or productive for me to dwell on all the things I feel I should be doing but which remain undone.

I’ve reconciled myself to small potatoes. Getting one area tidied and reorganised is an achievement. Making it through some school work with the children every day is another. Keeping us all fed relatively well is something I’m going to pat myself on the back for. An empty laundry basket almost every day certainly sparks enough joy to keep me happy.

Incidentally, I had completely forgotten about the X-Files episode that inspired the name of this post until I was reminded of it in a Facebook group. Social media is definitely a help these days.

Stella Cunliffe

I first came across Stella Cunliffe a few weeks ago and I cannot stop thinking about her. She had a life worthy of a film, and I feel pretty inadequate when reading about her long, long list of achievements and notable moments in life. I don’t know why it took me so long to learn about her, but better late than never.

Any one of the things she accomplished in life would mark her out as pretty special, but her work after the liberation of Belsen has stuck with me. I watched a documentary which featured the sculptor Maurice Blik talking about the death of his baby sister in the camp. It is one of millions of heartbreaking stories. I feel like a coward saying that I couldn’t listen to the whole story. I have only so much brain space at the moment and I just couldn’t do it. And watching Maurice made me think of Stella.

Stella wasn’t like me. She went to work. She didn’t switch off. She kept going. And even afterwards, she went on to do so very many admirable things. She sounds like a giant of a woman, someone I’m telling myself to be more like. She seems like a woman who didn’t wallow, or waste her hours on unproductive fripperies. Her life story reads as though she didn’t have half enough spare time, yet got more done than I can ever dream of.

This week, I, in my own rather pathetic way, am trying to be a little more like Stella. I have small, petty goals for the days and weeks ahead. I’ve accomplished a few of them, and I have mixed feelings.

I feel ashamed sometimes, at how I lack resilience and how I don’t appreciate what I have. I feel ashamed, sometimes, that I think getting through another day, in my lovely big house where we have all the food we need and boredom can be the biggest challenge, is a cause for celebration. I feel ashamed, sometimes, that I’m not more like Stella, and all the other women I have never heard of, who went to work and didn’t need to congratulate themselves on making it through another hour, or day, or week.

I am not Stella. I am not very brave. I complain too much. I waste time. I think about myself a bit too often. But maybe I can channel a fraction of her energy, and do better.

Tiny Sparks Of Joy

Like many others, the past month has involved a lot of Looking on the Bright Side and Learning to Appreciate How Lucky I Am and Planning on Doing all the Things. This month, my joys have been:

• Cooking and baking. It has been nice to be able to cook what I feel like on any given day. Life usually involves a lot of Planning of the Meals, and it is nice to not have to do this too much.
• Our back garden. Never have I been so grateful for a large outdoor space where one or all of us can escape. Saturday was glorious, and the seed pots from Lidl I’d squirelled away last year provided some free and much needed entertainment.
• The Lindt easter egg I added to an online supermarket shop several weeks ago. I’ve already eaten all of the sublime little eggs that came with it and the big egg won’t last much longer.
• Getting Some of the Things done, like cleaning my makeup brushes, sorting out some cupboards and stripping some laundry. A project a day keeps some of the existential dread away.
• Going to work. Driving into work. Alone. Sitting in a room. Alone. Doing deadline sensitive work. Alone. Eating food I did not cook. Alone. Drinking coffee. Alone. Driving home blasting Nirvana on the radio. Alone.

I won’t make any effort to pretend that all of these things have made life easy. All of us are finding this hard. I won’t make any effort to pretend this is a battle we’re fighting. Staying at home and eating and watching too much television and consuming too much social media isn’t a fight. It’s an attempt to just get through each day without wondering how much longer we’ll all have to do this.