Life in lockdown, one week in

Socially distanced shadows queuing at the moules van

Day seven, Thursday 5^th November 2020

Moules frites

It was another cold night and chilly morning, something we certainly felt hanging around outside for almost an hour, watching the clouds scud across the sky from the east and hoping the mobile moules van would turn up as usual. It is getting to the end of the season for mussels, so every week she arrives with them is now a bonus. Aside from the leaves blowing around the car park outside the salle des fêtes, there wasn’t much to look at. The view across the road to the village bar, home to so many cracking nights out in the last four years was a sad and sorry sight. Now empty and abandoned, two lockdowns it seems was too much for a small rural business to cope with.

 

Part of the salle des fêtes is currently being reroofed and I did think it was particularly French to see that when the moules van arrived, the young guy working on the roof came down, found a bucket in his van, gave it a quick rinse out and joined the queue of regular villagers to buy his moules for dinner.

 

Fuchsias in full bloom

Making the most of the dry, sunny weather, this afternoon's task for me was mowing and for Adrian cutting back and shredding. As is so often the way around here, where one job creates another, I almost managed to break the lawnmower. The starter pull cord is now so frayed it doesn’t retract every time, so it looks like Adrian will need to replace that before the next mow. I’ve also moved the pots of fuchsias to a more sheltered spot close to the house, but they will soon need to be cut back and brought in for winter. They are looking stunning at the moment however, so I can’t quite bring myself to hack away at them just yet. 

 

We will have certainly earned our moules frites this evening as once we’d done with the garden chores, we picked up our paintbrushes. Decorating is something we’ve neglected for many years, mainly due to Adrian rarely being home for long periods of time and no one in the family being too keen for me to climb ladders while home alone. There is no excuse now and we are slowly but surely working our way around the upstairs. I can’t admit to becoming addicted to it, like some of our friends, but seeing Adrian without a paintbrush in his hands is getting to be a rare sight. Today was sanding down and giving the loft hatch and three doors their first coat of paint in over twenty years. 

 

I also tried my best to do some more sorting out in the laundry room, a task I started during the first lockdown, but when there is so much stuff stacked against the shelves my short arms couldn’t reach them, it felt rather overwhelming. There are only three of us, or four when Pearl stays, how many towels, duvets and sets of bedding do we really need? If you don’t hear from me for a while, send help, I’ll more than likely have been buried under a ton of bath towels.