Not a crumble - and banana loaf!

A bit of a random post today. I have been feeling a little lost with everything going on. I have cut down on what I watch on TV, but I do like my social media - although I am trying to not look at it first thing when I get up. 

As a teacher, it worries me that parents are feeling overwhelmed with the distance learning (on top of everything else), and that there is almost too much out there now - too many free access to this site or that site - too many ideas of what to do to keep your children occupied. For some of them, just getting through the day is enough.

I have also felt a little overwhelmed this week, with thoughts of all the things I could or should be doing during this enforced time at home. For the past two weeks, part of my day has been checking the on-line apps and answering questions, and praising what has been achieved.  I also do my daily exercise - with or without Molly (my dog) depending on whether my OH is at home and will take her when he does his daily exercise. 

And then I start seeing all these things on social media about sewing masks and bags and scrubs, and I think - maybe that's what I should be doing to help? But then I think - I am still teaching and working from home - do I need to be doing anymore? 

And then you see the "it's the perfect time to learn something new", or "plenty of time to craft". But there have been days when I just can't seem to motivate myself to do any of it. This new reality is proving difficult to adjust to.

The last couple of days, though, seem to have been better. I have made a concerted effort to do things - but not to necessarily plan them. I was finding that if I said I would do x, y and z during the day, and then didn't, then I would feel rubbish about it. So, now I have an idea of what I would like to do - but nothing fixed and no pressure to get it done (after all, we could be here a while). And actually I have achieved lots.

On Saturday, I finished all my foam flowers that I started a couple of weeks ago - I will share those in another post - I went out on my bike and I made sourdough bread.  I also felt quite satisfied that we had not been wasteful with our food. Dinner included left over roast potatoes and parsnips that we sliced and fried and ate with some lovely sausages from our local market. And I also made use of the ends of the sourdough loaf (it was a tad crusty) to make a version of a crumble. I found the recipe online, and it involved oats, breadcrumbs and orange juice.

The fruit was from the freezer - stewed apple and blackberry form last year (we have two apple trees in our back garden).

The result was alright! Not as rich as a normal crumble, but it saved my precious flour, which seems to be at a premium right now.

 

And today has been a whirlwind of things. I started by cleaning the kitchen, then stripped the beds, did multiple loads of washing, walked Molly - and bathed her, and made a banana loaf - another new one on me, but I didn't want to waste the bananas my OH was going to bin. I hate the things myself, but he'll demolish this all on his own with no problem.  

Then this afternoon, we planted the shrubs that we had bought pre-lockdown, I tidied the shed and my OH assembled one of my old plastic greenhouses from our old house so I can see if any of my (very) out of date seeds will germinate. 

So, this is how I am coping. I need to take one day at a time, be happy with whatever I achieve - and don't put pressure on myself to do things. 

I hope you are all finding ways to cope. Take care, and stay safe.

Cxxx