Monday 25th May
Bank holiday Monday meant that Lee had an extra day off work which was great as we got to spend more time together! I suggested asking if we could take his daughter geocaching with us for the day which we ended up being able to do!
We decided today would be a great day to hide some more of our own Geocaches. We hid one around a year ago and we love being notified when people find it! We’ve had a film canister, a nano cache and come small Tupperware pots ready for new caches for a while now so cracked out some paint to decorate them! We left the film canisters as they were but painted the clear Tupperware pots in camo design and one green sparkly one! We had a lot of fun spending the afternoon deciding where to hide the caches and finding others nearby along the way. One cache was really tricky to locate and we didn’t end up managing to find it, unfortunately. We will definitely re-attempt at some point in the future, but we did enjoy the views the area provided. We’re so lucky to live by the sea!
The final cache we hid in the gardens of the local abandoned mansion and saw the line of pebbles again! I can’t wait to get some more rocks to paint and hide. The grounds and architecture of the mansion are just stunning. Take a look!
It seems such a shame for this beautiful old building to be left to rot. I remember going in there as a child and the staircase inside was absolutely amazing! The mansion has survived so much in its life, World War 2 included. Unfortunately, our local council are abysmal and can’t seem to look after, or upkeep anything.
In the evening, I went to a social distancing barbeque at my mum’s house, it was really nice to get out and see my family again, albeit from a distance! my mum always throws great barbecues and goes all out when it comes to the food! We had proper hot dogs, burgers, garlic bread, salads, cheese and pineapple, veggie snacks, pringles and chocolate-covered strawberries!
I found a big box of chalks in my craft drawers a few hours before heading to mum’s so I decided to bring them with me to the BBQ so that my sister and I could do some chalk drawings together in the garden!
I spent the rest of the evening chatting, chalking, listening to music and teaching my little sister TikTok dances. It was the best night I’ve had in such a long time!
I also tested out my Bokeh photography skills on this tree, I think it turned out pretty good, albeit a little blurry!
Tuesday 26th May
Tuesday started with a spot of blogging, catching up with last week’s post and some photo editing. Soon after, I cracked on with some washing up (boring adult-y stuff!) I can’t wait to buy a house and finally purchase a dishwasher! 😂After finishing the washing up, I popped back on the blog and started to finalised last week’s post.
The first bit of excitement of the day came in the form of a parcel. I’d been asking Lee to print some images I’d found for my frames in the living room for quite a while now and it would seem the nagging finally paid off 😂I absolutely love them and can’t wait to get them hung up in the lounge!
Inevitably, the time then came for Lee’s quarantine haircut. No OMG moments here, I normally cut his hair anyway! We did try a bit of a different style this time, but it still ended up looking decent!
We then spend the rest of the evening Geocaching and re-attempting ones we previously couldn’t find in the past. We ended up finding all the ones we attempted so we were pretty happy with that 😊
Wednesday 27th May
Wednesday started with a wardrobe refresh. I decided to finally swap out my winter clothes, such as jumpers, for my summer dresses, shorts and playsuits. I did keep a couple of jumpers in the wardrobe and always have my jeans in the cupboard for the inevitable return of the standard Great British weather proceedings.
I spent most of the day finalising last weeks blog post and inserting all the images. It took me a little while to get that one finished for some reason!
I then cracked on with a bit more of my course. Lee likes to work with the radio on, and normally when I’m working, I need the radio on too, however, when I’m trying to concentrate and take in information, I need something a little less distracting. I found a great music/sounds video on YouTube specifically for focus when studying and it really helped! I ended up completing 4 more modules. I highly recommend using this technique if you also struggle to concentrate when studying. I used to be great, but I think the longer I’ve been out of education and the longer I’ve spent in jobs that don’t really challenge me mentally (just stress me out! 😂) my brain just doesn’t work the same as it used to!
Again, we spent the rest of the evening out Geocaching, and did a little trail of them near our local hospital. It always amazes me that there is a whole world full of caches that, unless you knew about Geocaching, you’d never know was there! Hundreds upon thousands of caches go unnoticed every day, pretty crazy!
Along the route of caches, we found so many trees that had little fairy doors in them!
It was 11pm by the time we got home from Geocaching, so we were pretty tired! We did watch a bit of footage from the SpaceX mission, I was gutted to have missed it live but after watching for about 30 minutes, we realised it had been cancelled due to inclement weather, so there is a second chance to see their second attempt on Saturday!
Thursday 28th May
I started Thursday by updating this here blog post, I try to write each day as soon as it’s happened to keep things fresh in my mind, sometimes that doesn’t happen, but I try!
I decided to make another Millionaire’s Shortbread today as it was such a hit last time. This time, however, I had to make my own caramel as I had run out of pre-made! This is the first time I’ve ever made caramel and I think it turned out okay! Whilst the shortbread was cooling, we decided to pop out at lunchtime to grab some shopping essentials such as bread and milk.
Thursday was a bit of an odd day to be honest, the world works in mysterious ways. About a week ago, I asked for a sign. Now, I’m not religious at all, I don’t believe there is a ‘god’ as such but I do believe if you put something out into the universe, or ask a question, the universe will answer in some way. I asked for a sign of what I should be doing. Some guidance, anything to lead me down the right path career-wise. I’ve felt really lost these past few years in terms of what I actually want to do and so I asked for a sign. Well today, that sign appeared. I’d been wondering (hoping) that I would hear from work about whether my furlough leave would be extended or not, since I was due to return to work this upcoming Monday. As we were leaving at lunchtime to grab some groceries, I checked the post to find I’d received a letter from work informing me of the potential likelihood of being made redundant as a result of COVID-19. The news wasn’t anything I wasn’t already used to, after all, this would be the 3rd redundancy in a row for me, but I still felt disheartened and deflated at the prospect. It would seem that every time I think I’m safe in my job, redundancy appears and jeopardises things. If this wasn’t a sign, then I don’t know what is.
Being furloughed has really opened my eyes to career possibilities and has given me an urge to find the career that’s really right for me and will make me happy. I’m tired of feeling replaceable and underappreciated in the jobs I’ve had, I need a job that needs me.
In the evening, I went to my mums for a chat and a pep talk which really helped. The possibility of further education is looking more and more tempting, to be honest. I really need to work out the financial side of it all. We then sat looking through old photos and family heirlooms. We came across my Grandad’s diary from the year he met my nan and it was just so sweet to read what he wrote about her, even saying about 6 years before the got married that he would marry her one day. It’s so rare to find a love like that nowadays with modern technology (and society) we have.
We then spent the rest of the evening compiling our family tree on Ancestry.co.uk. I started this years ago and decided to try and find out more about our family history. I’ve found loads of records so far that match up to my relatives and lots of interesting information.
Friday 29th May
Friday started very early indeed. I didn’t sleep very well, managed to get to sleep at around midnight, woke up at 3am, got up and ready by 4:30 and was out the door by 5am. We decided to try and catch the sunrise and it was stunning. There were a few other people who had the same idea but there was something special about being awake when the majority of the country was still sleeping!
After capturing the sunrise, we decided to attempt a few geocaches whilst there weren’t many muggles around. We managed to find a few that we’d attempted in the past but couldn’t find so that felt like a good achievement!
Once we got home, I decided to have a short nap just to catch up on the sleep that I didn’t get last night, I felt much more refreshed after a couple of hours snooze!
A little later in the day, Lee had to pop over to the office to sort some technical stuff out so I decided to go along and pick up some of my personal belongings just in case. There wasn’t much, just my mug and some stationery etc. but saves me a job having to collect it all when there are more people there, how embarrassing!
When we got home, I continued on with a bit more of my gem art before looking for some jobs online (again, just in case!) I saved a few to apply for later so we’ll see how it all goes.
We then headed out to do a bit more geocaching in the evening before heading home and re-watching the Divergent series!
Saturday 30th May
Saturday consisted of another BBQ at my mums house. I decided to head over whilst Lee was busy fixing up the studios at the Hospital Radio station. Me and my mum took a walk to the local Lidl to grab some stuff for the barbecue later. Once we got back, we all decided to head out to find the Geocache that myself and Lee had hidden a couple of days before. (I just observed, obviously) and we had a nice long walk around the gardens. It was really nice to get out so much and enjoy the sunshine!
We saw so many beautiful plants along our walk, I used the PlantSnap app to find out what they all were.
Later that day, I was eagerly awaiting the launch of the SpaceX Dragon2 Mission! I’m so glad that I was able to see it! We started watching the live stream of the rocket launch at around 6pm, the rocket itself launched at 20:22. It was so incredible to watch. I’ve always had a love for space and astronomy and the idea that we can send people up to space completely blows my mind!
The new said that around 15 minutes after launch, we may be able to see the capsule from the U.K. so we headed up to the coast to see if we could spot it! I took my new camera lens that arrived yesterday to test it out. I got some pictures of the moon but I’m not overly impressed with the lens to be honest! Unfortunately, it was too light to see the capsule but they did say that it would be visible again form 10pm once it got darker outside so I went out at 10pm and managed to see it! I couldn’t get a photo but it was amazing to see!
Sunday
Pretty much all day on Sunday we were out geocaching and tracking the Dragon2 flight on it’s way to the International Space Station.
Whilst geocaching, we found some cows out in the fields, they were so cute
We pretty much spent the rest of the day exploring and geocaching and even decided to hide some more of our own.
Whilst out on our geocaching trail, I looked down to find a four-leaf clover! I’ve never seen one in real life before and I couldn’t believe I just happened to look down and spot one. Hopefully this is a sign of better things (and luck!) to come
3 things I’m thankful for/made me happy this week
- Geocaching! It’s so much fun, we’ve really enjoyed hiding some more of our own and we hope to do some more geocaching next week also
- Barbecues – delish!
- Four-leaf clovers – I’m hoping their rumours of good luck are true!
