100 Days of Happiness 2020 - Day 71 - Monday again

[byslantedlight]

Monday just seems to keep coming around... and today it blew in with warmth, and a kind of muggy feel, which normally I wouldn't like at all, but which made a nice change from the cold of winter today! also it had rained overnight (and dripped a bit today too), which was actually something we've needed for a few weeks! Doesn't feel right to say it after endless wet days (it felt like) over winter, but there you go! Today was a gloriously spring day, though...




I was out food saving again tonight, but because it was a yet again situation where the carer who'd stepped in was called away and couldn't do it, and I'd filled everyone I knew easily's freezers over the last week, I sent out a call for anyone on the village support group who might want food - and had half a dozen replies from people who said they'd be glad of a bit extra, including one guy who'd been living on food bank deliveries (via our village group) for ages. So I was very happy to be able to do something useful there too. It was dark by the time I got back, but the moon was full and it was a gorgeous night. *g*

Also, my current awkward work assignment is almost finished (last day tomorrow) and although I don't have anything else lined up yet (which is always very gulp when they leave it late to send), I'm very happy to be nearly done with this one!

Comments

[stellar_raven]

Love the pics!

I'm glad you've been able to help your village out via the food saving.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Thank you! *g*

The food saving started as an environmental thing, but it's coming into its own in other ways now. I'm so glad I was able to get it started before all this...

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

I love all the flower pictures appearing on my feed, just as we are heading into winter.... it's cheering.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Well that's a lovely excuse for me to keep taking the photos...! *g*

I've been thinking of your winter, since my fam is all down in Melbourne... hope it's an easy one for everyone - you deserve it after the dread summer you've all been through.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

Ours will be mild by international standards - always is - and has been dry for the last few drought-ridden years, but maybe we'll get some rain this year.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I remember how special it was when we used to get frost! Once we had a kind of snow, but it was really more hail. Still covered things white and was cold enough to stay for a bit, so that was exciting! I think we were further south than you are though... *g*

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

People do recall the last time it snowed here, I think it was the 70s and seven whole flakes fell on the hill? The newspaper headlined it for a solid week.

We don't get hail - and not severe even then - very often. Drizzly sleet is our coldest mostly, and as a dampener on the feelings is hard to beat :(

[milomaus.livejournal.com]

Love the tadpoles!

Hopefully you'll get another assignment today!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

The tadpoles really cheered me up when I realised they were back! Not as many cos the pond's pretty clogged - I meant to have a go at trying to clear it, but forgot that the taddies would be there sooner rather than later...

And erk - nope, no assignments after today so far - apparently it's quiet at the office... Cross fingers something comes in!

[heliophile-oxon.livejournal.com]

Seriously bloody good for you. The fact that you take the trouble and make the effort, and there's a whole bunch of people the better for it - chapeau, I honestly take my hat off to you. Nothing of note is going on here, but have a bit of silliness - one of the neighbours (this is a row of 5 houses all now divided into flats, plus 1 separate whole house plus 2 buildings of five flats each, all sort of set well away from the road in an isolated bunch - just to give you the setting) - um, so as I was saying, one of the neighbours put out a note on the whatsapp group (which currently includes only the row of 5 houses) to have a playlist playoff between the houses; four flats-worth of people went out into the front gardens with a laptop and speakers and drinks, and we put speakers and a phone on our terrace-y bit (with beer) and we had a sort of long-distance musical get-not-too-close-together. I remembered we had a portable colour-changing light so we put it on an extension lead and pointed it down into the gardens to provide the lighting effects for dancing in the gardens. They had a louder sound system than we did, so at one point we texted our choice instead of playing it ourselves and the 'DJ' (first neighbour) put on an entirely different track (one I happen to loathe) so now everybody thinks we like it and I'm UTTERLY MORTIFIED :-s *g*

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Well, it started off as an environmental thing, but it's coming into its own for other reasons at the moment. I'm just so glad I was able to get it going again after the December faff, because if I'd given in and waited for Madam to sort out her funding, it wouldn't be there to help now... And hurrah to the Co-op, who offer the foodsharing scheme to start with!

And wow! Hats off to all of you for managing to have a fun party-at-a-distance between you all! What a brilliant idea. *g* And colour-changing lights and everything! Although eeeeep for your loathed-track! When this is all over you'll hopefully be able to laugh at that one (and correct them as you're doing it of course... *g*)

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Pretty flowers! And Ray would do food sharing, don't you think?

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

The flowers are lovely around here - half of them wild weeds by many people's reckoning I suspect, but for me they're gorgeous flowers. *g*

I can totally see Ray doing food sharing! In fact if I didn't have him at the relatively remote Half Moon with Bodie for my older lads, then that would be so him! *g*

[freetraveller15.livejournal.com]

Love your pics! And your vegetable patch :)
Is your garden private (for your own exclusive use) or shared with other tenants or your landlord?

Also, sorry for the silly question, how does food saving work exactly? I've been looking it up online, but haven't found much relevant info.

Take care x

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Thanks! *g* Now I just need to get planting! The garden is shared with my landlords - in fact it's their garden of course, but they share it with me. They're older, and finding it very hard to keep things in control, so I'm trying to help a bit with that.

And not a silly question at all! Food saving is basically saying food that the supermarkets haven't sold, and would otherwise have to throw away because it's reached its use-by or best-before date. Of course most of it still perfectly good, and our village store, which is a Co-op, has a scheme where you can apply to collect the food to do something useful with it in the community. So I did that at the end of last year, and after alot of faffing got started in March. I'd go and collect the food in the evening, walk across the road and lay it out on a folding table, with the help of volunteers, and people could come and take whatever they could use to stop it being wasted. Obviously in lockdown we can't do that, but it seemed stupid for the food to be thrown away again when people need it more than ever now, so I'm organising it to be delivered to people's doorsteps after collection instead. Even in our small village there are people who have been laid off work, or are self-employed and work has dried up, or who can't get to the shops themselves now (and can't afford much anyway when someone else goes for them). So the food saving is really proving its importance now...

[freetraveller15.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the explanation, and for volunteering to help saving leftover food that would be wasted. This is one of my pet hates... knowing how much food is wasted on average, something even more intolerable now that, as you say, lots more people are struggling in putting enough food on the table. And not to mention how damaging it is to the environment too, to waste food, after all the energy and natural resources consumed to produce it...

Wishing you a Happy and Peaceful Easter!
P x