Woodland Weekend

 Hello there!

I hope you are well.  Did you have a jolly weekend?  I did and actually enjoyed being cosy inside most of the weekend.  We did do a few things but it was fairly relaxed.

On Saturday morning, I woke annoyingly early. I went to bed far too late on Friday night and then woke up really early in the morning.  Tried to go back to sleep and failed. Grrr. We had some lovely Thai takeaway on Friday night.  They gave us 20% discount for picking up and 2 free bottles of Singha Beer- CBC was happy about that.   We've been watching 'Come Dine with me' on Netflix as well as The Queen's Gambit.

After aborting trying to sleep on Saturday morning, I went and did some washing and a few other clearing up bits.  After a shower, CBC went out into the garden and attacked the Clematis Tangutica which had completely entwined all the crevices of the Swing seat and it was starting to get rusty so it really needed to get put away.  CBC ruthlessly chopped the plant down and attempted to get the mass of foliage into our garden waste wheelie as the compost bin is full.

I emptied the compost caddy in the kitchen and did my weekly tea-bag ritual.  If I've not shared this before, I save all the teabags I use at school in a box and I always grab any other teabags which people have left in the bowl on the worktop and bring them home.  I then rip them all open and throw the tealeaves onto the raised bed.  They very quickly get assimilated into the soil.  It's a small eco-gesture but it does add up- I might only be saving a small number of tea bags from going into the bin (usually about 15 a week) but it does make a surprising amount of loose tea when you combine it.  I also did a bit of pruning too- cutting back the raspberries and emptying out some old pots of compost onto the bed.  We swept the patio and then rearranged items in the garage to fit the swing seat in.  

A little later, CBC wanted to drive to the nearby woods because he's taking part in a 'The Grinch who stole Christmas' staff reading at school and each staff member has to record an extract from the story. CBC likes to go all out for things like this (he really should admit that he is secretly a drama queen) and we nipped into the Cook shop (it sells DIY stuff so is open) for him to buy some battery-powered fairylights.  

It was really busy in the carpark, despite it being fairly late and we headed into the woods to find the wooden thrones. He wrapped his fairy lights around them and took of his coat.

I had to patiently wait trying to film as CBC fussed and we kept having little windows of opportunity before yet another family with screaming children came past.  One annoying child kept trying to get into the video. 

Eventually, after about 20 takes with various fluffing of lines from CBC, we got the 2 videos filmed.

I confess to feeling a bit jealous so I told CBC it was MY turn and sat in the thrones.  He recorded me saying the poems in one take.  

Here's a shot from the woods.

We then headed back to the car.  We took a brief trip to Sainsbury's to get some mulled wine mix and minced pieces and headed home.  Whilst I made a cup of tea and we heated the mulled wine, CBC got onto Zoom with his family and we had a lovely cosy chat.  We played some fun games of Bingo together which was hilarious.

After that, we ate left-over Thai food.  We then played through 6 pieces from the Nutcracker ballet by Tschaikovsky as my school is ALSO doing a teachers reading a text- we are reading The Nutcracker to film for the children.  Our Speaking and Listening lead asked me if I would record 10 minutes worth of music for the background casually.   I'm not sure he realises how much work that is.  I managed to find a piano reduction of the full orchestra score and CBC and I played through for about 2.5 hours.  It was REALLY nice to play music together and to have an reason that motivated me to get my flute out.  CBC really enjoyed it too.

Sunday morning, when I need and WANT to get up early, I just cannot get out of bed! It's so annoying.

CBC got out of bed and headed out on a 100mile cycle ride. I emerged out of bed about 3 hours later.

I went downstairs and watched Ang's church service from United Church, Ferndown as my regular church service had not uploaded their service for some reason.  It was lovely.

I ate CBC's left over porridge. 

I then put some washing in, hung some other washing up and started to sort out the understairs cupboard- a long overdue job.

CBC called to say he was in Thaxted (that's MIIIILES away!) and he was really sorry he had gone so far and would probably not be back for hours. 

I then headed out for a walk to St Mary's church yard where I took some TARDIS Tuesday photos and then headed to the COOP where I picked up a few delicacies- got some delicious Quorn cocktail sausages- we had sausage sandwiches when CBC got back.

CBC and I then practised the Nutcracker extracts for another hour and then recorded those.  I can't upload any of the recordings of us both together but here's a little extract from Valse De Fleurs:

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Finally, CBC cooked us Salmon for dinner and we watched some Queen's Gambit.

It was a cosy, pleasant weekend which I enjoyed!