cows outside the barn in sunlight

Project 52 2020 week 53+ Happy Cows

Happy new year. Here’s hoping 2021 isn’t as painful as 2020.

Our county entered tier 4 as of Boxing Day, but pretty much all of the south and Midlands, plus some in the north west also moved into tier 4 later this week. It means I can now go to my nearest village shop as that’s now in tier 4. And in theory N and I could go and play tennis. Evidently tier 4 children can still have group tennis lessons, but I’m not keen on that given N’s group would involve 7 schools if we included the 2 coaches as well, as well as having children from town and villages some way away. Privates I’m ok with if they start back after Christmas.

Cases are rising massively here though, and while primary schools in London are now due to be remote learning only, other places are currently still planning to open straightaway next week. We’ve got inset days so go back Thursday, but we already know one family in the village have Covid so it’s getting concerning how this new variant is spreading faster. Really we need another proper lockdown like back in March. But we’ll see what happens.

Here’s my final Project 52 covering the end of last year and the first couple of days of 2021.

On Sunday we were still eating turkey from Christmas day. We took off the rest of the breast meat and froze that to make a pie in a couple of weeks. time. N played out with his hockey stick and cones for a while. I’m quite impressed how much ball control he has although they play with double sided plastic sticks at school.

Monday I planted my amaryllis bulb I was given for Christmas. Hopefully it’s easier to grow and keep alive than the orchid I had for my birthday. I think that’s a lost cause as the stem is brown but the leaves are still ok. I know nothing other than what I read on the instructions, but I’ve already given up with watering that the once a week it says. We didn’t do much else – this inbetween Christmas and new year time is mainly for relaxing, reading and doing jigsaws, with a few board games thrown in.

On Tuesday I cleared out my bedroom. Well mostly. I cleared out the corner junk – all the piles of coathangers that I save, old clothes that need to go to the charity shop, and clearing out some of my drawers. Now the room’s got lots of bags of charity shop and recycling bits in, just a shame no charity shops are open at the moment. My replacement Fitbit arrived too, and I’m pleased so far with it. Hopefully this will last longer than the previous 2.

Wednesday I took down the Christmas tree. Usually I wait until new year’s day. but I was on a bit of a tidying spree. It’s sad to see it go down for another year. We played the Logo Game and Confident? I spent the evening changing my blog theme. There’s a couple of other tweaks I want to do, and one bit I wanted to have but I don’ think will work with this theme. But I’m pretty happy with it. I’m just debating now whether to also change the colour. But think I’ll stick with it at the moment.

On Thursday it was really cold and frosty first thing but a beautiful sunny day. The OH had a headache, so I went out with N to walk the dogs on their longer walk. I had way too many layers on for a walk. We walk round our fields, a couple have a public footpath going through although I never see people on it. As we were crossing the last field, we spotted a golden labrador snuffling around. We’d gone out without dog leads, so N grabbed the puppy, while I tried to get to the lone dog to work out if he had contact details on his collar. Before I could get to him, our older lab was off like a shot to meet him. Luckily they were friendly to each other, then before I could grab him, he was off back up the public footpath, so we assume it was a dog from the village in that direction. Thankfully our 2 dogs were pretty calm, and didn’t bark aggressively to find another dog on their land.

This week’s photo was taken as we walked back through the farm after our walk. Lots of happy cows in the sunshine.

cows outside the barn in sunlight

New year’s eve was like most other years. We had a nice tea, I made mocktails for N and me (I really can’t handle alcohol anymore and don’t enjoy it much anymore). I stayed up watching films then watched the London lights show over the Thames on tv. I was so pleased when I did my blog stats for December and the end of 2020. My biggest year ever for traffic with nearly double the previous year.

Friday, New Year’s Day was the same old. N made himself a huge den with 2 rooms and a crawl way through, so he’s been enjoying sitting in there. Just another day really, and a bit frosty and foggy weather.

On Saturday it was the start of the worry about meal planning. I wanted to use mince but we didn’t have any left of the farm mince in the farm freezer. Tried to go to the local butchers but it wasn’t open (or the bakery). It does annoy me when you check on their websites and Facebook pages for holiday opening times, and there’s no mention of them not being open. That’s the second butcher’s this week I’ve had to then go somewhere else because they don’t update their social media or websites. Then N found one pack of mince in a different freezer on the farm. Result. He spent he afternoon getting logs chopped and stacked with his dad. We had a bit of snow but just a dusting.

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8 Comments

  1. What a great idea freezing the turkey to make a pie at a later date! That seems crazy that they can still have group tennis lessons in tier 4, that’s a lot of mixing from different schools. Congratulations on your blog traffic achievement! What a lovely way to end the year with some good news 🙂 x

    1. Thankfully the tennis opportunity didn’t really come into play given everywhere went into lockdown. It’s a shame, but I think it’s better that all activity stop as there are always some people that can’t follow the rules of social distancing

  2. Lovely photo of the cows and the sun light. Glad the dogs got on ok with their sudden encounter. I can’t keep house plants alive either, especially orchids, I’ve given up now. Happy New Year to you all

  3. Love that all the cows are looking at you, were they hoping you would let them out. We took our tree down on NYE, it was starting to get in the way. Wishing you and your family a very happy new year

  4. Love the photo of the cows and glad your dogs weren’t bothered about the other dog. Good luck with the amaryllis. It is frustrating when places don’t update their opening hours, especially over Christmas and New Year. Glad you managed to find some mince in the end. Happy new year. #project365

  5. We also went into tier 4 on boxing day and haven’t seen anyone since. I do like cows I always think they look so pretty close up. Sorry about the bakers and butchers. Ive a feeling we will be struggling too soon. Fingers crossed 2021 brings better news than 2020 after this initial blip.

  6. It has been a strange year hasn’t it?

    Amaryllis I think are quite easy to grow so hopefully you will have some success!

    Love how all the cows are looking at you! Happy New Year

  7. Stay safe. We’re still in tier 3 here which seems crazy as just a month or so ago we were topping the charts with new cases of Coronavirus.
    All of those cows look like they’re looking for something from you!
    Wishing you all the best for 2021 x

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