A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 22nd January 2022

The first photo an hour day for 2022 fell on Saturday 22nd January. This was the day Lily had originally chosen for her birthday day trip but a last minute hospital appointment for my Mum meant we had to change our plans slightly. So instead we arranged two birthday day trips - one going westwards from the hospital in Bath and one going southwards to the New Forest (Lily's first choice of destination). 

The 22nd was her first birthday day trip and we went across the Severn Bridge to Wales and on to Barry Island! Fairground rides, ice creams in the cold, a drive down Trinity Street (natch) and fish & chips by Penarth Pier. 

Here's what the day looked like...

9 lovely people joined in this month:

Catherine joined in on Instagram

Josie joined in on Instagram

Sarah from Sarah Rooftops joined in on Instagram

Susie from Second Hand Susie joined in on Instagram

Christine from Christine Lucas joined in on Instagram

Naomi from What Naomi Did Next joined in on Instagram

Bev from Confuzzledom joined in on Instagram

Hazel from World of Joy joined in on Instagram

Jane from Is That You Darling joined in on Instagram

And myself on Instagram and on this blog post :-)

February's photo an hour date is Saturday 19th - see you there! 

 

 

A Photo Every Hour - August to December 2021

Even though life since my Dad's stoke last August has been incredibly busy, I still managed to take part in the monthly Photo an Hour challenge over on Instagram. 

So here's a round-up of the last few months of 2021...

August's photo an hour date was spent at home catching up on jobs in the house and garden. Andrew spent a good portion of the day cleaning his lorry ready for the Bath and West Show the following week, which of course he didn't get to go to due to my Dad's stroke. 

September's photo an hour date happened to fall on my Dad's 69th birthday! At that point he was still on an intensive care ward so he wasn't really aware of anything but the staff had decorated his bed with balloons and given him a card. We'd prepared a 'Happy Birthday' photo to stick on the whiteboard next to his hospital bed. 

October's photo an hour date saw us visiting the brain injury rehab unit which my Dad had just moved to. In the evening we also went swimming at our local private hire pool. 

November's photo an hour date fell on one of the few carnival processions which took place in 2021. This time down in Honiton, Devon. We went down to watch the parade and collected some tasty chips on the way home. 

December's photo an hour date fell on the Saturday closest to my birthday. We'd packed a picnic and went on a birthday day trip to the seaside at Weymouth. We walked on the beach, had hot chocolate, saw Christmas lights and ate chips from one of our favourite fish & chip restaurants. 

And if you need a handy picture of 2022's dates, here you go :-) 

 

New Year at the Duckpond

So here we are, in 2022 no less. Not quite sure how we're almost a quarter of the way through the 21st century and equally, not quite sure how it's February already. 

• My Dad's still recovering from his stroke. He spent a few months in a brain injury rehab unit (with occasional trips to hospital for infections) and is now waiting for a space at a nursing home. We haven't been able to visit that often (as the rehab unit closed to visitors whenever there was a COVID outbreak) but the staff at the unit were able to help him do video calls. 

• Christmas came and went. We took Lily to a couple of outdoor events with Santa - one festive-themed session of her usual sports class and one trip on an outdoor miniature railway. Both events were much safer than being indoors and she loved them anyway regardless of having to wear hats, gloves and scarves. 

• All of us adults have had our COVID booster and we took my Mum for her 4th vaccine back in January (she was eligible for a 3rd primary dose then her 4th one was her booster). Lily is eligible now as well (due to living in the same household as someone immunosuppressed), we're just waiting to see when we can actually take her to have it done. 

• I managed to overachive on my GoodReads Reading Challenge last year. I set a target of 39 books and managed to read 70 so that was good. This year though, I'm behind! 

• Good TV and film we've watched - obviously 'Don't Look Up' on Netflix :-) Such a good movie, very well put together and definitely worth watching if you've haven't already. 'Call the Midwife' which we watch every year is just as good as ever. We're also very much looking forward to 'This Is Going to Hurt' on BBC which starts this week. I've read Adam Kay's books and we've also seen him perform live twice so fingers crossed, the series should be equally good. 'Back to the Outback' on Netflix is also brilliant. It's a children's film but is still very funny. 

• Lily turned 6 - which is both great and horrifying (where did those years go!?). She asked for a birthday day trip (which ended up being 2 birthday day trips due to a last minute hospital appointment) and we had a lovely afternoon in the winter sun in Barry Island followed a week later by a car picnic in the New Forest with the ponies. 

• We went to a theatre show - Dr Semmelweis at the Bristol Old Vic - which was a magnificant performance by all the cast and such a interesting story. It was a show I booked back in January 2020 pre-COVID and after being postponed several times, it finally had its performances from January this year. We were in two minds whether to go but a) I'd been looking forward to this one for 2 years (it stars Sir Mark Rylance!) and b) the theatre was still requiring people to wear masks and they also had details of their ventilation system on their website. We donned our FFP3 masks for the entire time and they must've worked because we came through it COVID-free. 

• I've still been doing the photo an hour challenge every month over on Instagram but not actually getting round to writing them up on here. February's photo an hour date is Saturday 19th - feel free to join in if you want to! 

 

Autumn at the Duckpond

Been a bit quiet around here over the last couple of months. I haven't found the time to write a monthly round-up post or sum up my photo an hour days because on the 23rd August my dad had a stroke. 

He had neurosurgery at Southmead hospital in Bristol and then spent the last couple of months being looked after in hospitals in Bristol and Bath. And last week, he was moved to Frenchay Brain Injury Rehabilitation Centre to start lots of therapies and rehab. 

My mum and brother moved in with us so we could take care of them and also drive my mum to her oncology appointments so the last couple of months have been rather busy. Thankfully my work granted me a year off (as a 'Career Break') so that's helped.  

I've still been taking part in Photo an Hour over on Instagram and of course, life carries on. 

We've managed to do a couple of swims at the local private hire farm pool and there has actually been two small carnivals down here in the South West - one in Chard and one in Castle Cary. Both were what they called 'walking processions' with no large floats involved but were still rather good. There's a few more small processions happening over the next month as well, in Bridgwater, Burnham on Sea and Honiton in Devon. 

Lily did pumpkin picking, carved a pumpkin and then did some trick and treating last night with my mum's neighbours which she seemed to enjoy a lot! (or perhaps it was just the free sweets and chocolate :-D)

And now it's November and it'll soon be Christmas! No idea where the year has gone.

 

July at the Duckpond

Ooh look I've kept up a monthly post for a second month at least. Bit of a hot month wasn't it? We managed to fit in 3 swims, a bit of gardening, some sewing and excitingly, our first actual show since before COVID. 

• We had an excellent day out to Portishead and Clevedon, visiting the outdoor pool (which is beautiful and you can even smell the sea when you're swimming), feeding the ducks, finding playgrounds and Lily even dipped her feet into Clevedon Marine Lake.

• Good books I've read - The Promise by Lucy Diamond and I also reread One Sweet Moment by Maggie Craig (it's set in Edinburgh - I first read it years ago before I started going there and it mentions lots of street names and places so I wanted to reread it now I know where it's referring to).

• We had a day trip to Barry Island to visit the funfair. We went there in May on the bank holiday Monday and at the time the funfair was far too busy so we promised Lily we'd return when it was less busy. We went on a Thursday and she pretty much had all the rides to herself! She loved it, obviously. 

• Our last show before COVID was Mark Thomas at Frome's Merlin Theatre. Our first show since then was Russell Howard at Ashton Gate Stadium in Bristol. We originally had tickets to see him doing a work in progress show at Edinburgh Fringe back in August 2019 but he had to cancel that show. Then we spotted he was doing a gig in Bristol during July 2020 so booked that instead. Obviously it was postponed to 2021. It should have been at the Bristol Hippdrome but they moved it to the outdoors Ashton Gate Stadium so everyone could be sat distanced. It felt a bit weird but was still a really good show. We probably overcompensated because we kept our masks on during the performance anyway even though it was outdoors. We seem to have come through it COVID-free though so that's good. 

• I had my second vaccination on 10th July (exactly 8 weeks after my first) so I'm now double-Pfizer-jabbed! We're still doing everything we were doing before though - avoiding indoor spaces, wearing masks, etc - as we all know the vaccinations aren't failsafe against infections or mild disease. 

• We visited White Row Farm fish and chip shop for mother-in-law's birthday meal. If you're ever heading north or south on the A36 near Frome, White Row Farm shop is an excellent place to stop. Their chip shop is really tasty, they have lots of outdoor seating, 2 playgrounds and farm animals to look at. 

• We had the results from Lily's LAMDA exam and she passed! Her teacher said all the students passed with either a Merit or a Distinction although we don't know Lily's exact score yet.

• We're looking forward to our August holiday and have even booked 3 shows to see at the Fringe! 2 of them are outdoors shows (1 for us, 1 for Lily) and 1 indoors in a very well-ventilated venue. We "treated" ourselves to a load of FFP3 masks so we'll wear them indoors anyway. 

• We're looking forward to Series 3 of Sex Education starting in September and also the new series of Ghosts starting in August. I was also excited to spot they're making a second series of Good Omens!

• Photo an Hour day was on Saturday 17th July - the round-up is here. August's photo an hour day is Saturday 21st - feel free to take part if you like :-)

• I downloaded the 1 Second Everyday app to use after seeing Denise using it on Instagram. I thought I'd give it a go and see how interesting it it (or more accurately, my life is!). I'll put a summary on Instagram at the end of the month. 

• We're looking forward to Carters Steam Fair visiting Bath during August. The last time we were there on the fair was back in October 2019 when me and Andrew were working for them for a day. We haven't told Lily they're coming yet so it'll be a surprise. 

• And we discovered an excellent splash pad play area in Chippenham which was apparently the "best thing EVER!" according to Lily :-) 

How was your July?

 

A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 17th July 2021

Well, that was a hot one wasn't it!? Too hot to do much outside, instead we did some things inside the house and had an early dinner so we could do a bit of gardening in the evening whilst it cooled down. 

Here's what the day looked like...

6 lovely others joined in:

Naomi from What Naomi Did Next on Instagram

Susie from Second Hand Susie on Instagram

Jennifer from Pastry and Purls on Instagram

Christine from Christine Lucas on Instagram

Jane from Is That Your Darling on Instagram

Hazel from World of Joy on Instagram (who takes the prize for the best 'photo an hour' news ever) 

And myself on Instagram and this blog post :-) 

August's photo an hour date is Saturday 21st - see you there! 

 

 

June at the Duckpond

Many many years ago I used to do a "weekend at the duckpond" round-up on Mondays. I think Jane from Is That You Darling (who was one of the first bloggers I followed) used to do a 'Mondaying' post and I liked the idea of that so did my own version. 

There's absolutely no way I can keep up with doing a weekly round-up nowdays (to be honest, I'm not sure how I managed to keep it up all those years ago) but I might attempt a sort of monthly round-up instead. Sometimes I feel like there's things I'm quite happy writing about, you know, books I've read, places we've been, good recipes, etc but none of them really are quite "big" enough to warrant a blog post all to themself. So I suppose a monthly post is a way of collecting up all those little things that make life interesting but aren't really significant in any way. Well whatever, let's see how many months I keep it up for. 

So yep, how was our June?

• Photo an hour took place on Saturday 12th - we spent most of the day doing a bit of gardening and a bit of sewing before collecting our supermarket order in the evening. There's a round-up here - http://duck-in-a-dress.blogspot.com/2021/06/a-photo-every-hour-saturday-12th-june.html - and July's date is Saturday 17th. Feel free to join in if you fancy :-)

• We had a lovely swim in Mendip Farm Pool, a privately-owned pool local to us that lets households or bubbles rent the pool all to themselves for an hour. Going swimming is something I miss about the pre-COVID life; I used to swim lengths while Lily was having her swimming lessons and also do aqua aerobics. I mean, I miss it but I don't miss it enough to willingly swim with 20 or so other people (all maskless) in a poorly vetilated room. 

• We bought a load of cheap plants from a couple of garden centres and B&Q back at the end of April and they all seem to be growing quite well.

• It's been a strange month of two halves - sunny at the beginning with the paddling pool out and ice lollies in the garden. Wet at the end with temperatures getting cold again. I imagine the mixture of hot and wet weather had helped the plants! 

• It's been very strange without Glastonbury for the second year in a row. I usually work in Pilton village and get a staff pass to enter. Children of staff are also allowed in free of charge (up to the age of 12) and when Lily was born I thought it'll be great that she'll grow up going to the festival each year. As it is, she's only been to 3 so far - 2016 at 4 months old, 2017 at almost 1 and half years and 2019 at almost 3 and half. 2018 was a fallow year and obviously we all know what's happened to this year and the last. If we assume it does go ahead next year, she'll be 6 and half and halfway to the age where she's not allowed in with me. 

• Andrew's had his second COVID jab, my second one is in a week. He's had AZ and me being a few years younger (under 40) had Pfizer. Between both our families we've had a mixture of the two and Andrew refers to the ones of us who've had Pfizer as "the chosen ones"...

• My 'Shows I've Seen' Twitter thread came to an end. I started it on 7th June 2020 and finished it a few week ago. Now I need a new project for Twitter! 

• Some bits of sewing I've completed over the last few weeks - a skirt for me, a tshirt for Lily and Paw Patrol-themed dress for Lily. Don't look too closely at the seams but they're wearable and she seems to like them :-)

• Good books I've read - A Beautiful Spy by Rachel Hore (all about a woman who becomes a spy in the late 1920's/early 1930's - also based on a true story), Becoming by Michelle Obama (a really interesting look at her early life and time in the White House) and Failures of State: The Inside Battle with Britain's Coronavirus by Jonathan Calvert (both fascinating and horrifying to read).

• My favourite theatre company decided they were going to close. Which is incredibly sad but also understandable (the guy who founded it was 70 last year and decided to step down as artistic director earlier this year). This article in the Guardian is really good - https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/jun/16/running-away-with-the-circus-thrills-shocks-genius-kneehigh - and sums up the company I think. 

• Good TV we watched recently - Feel Good on Netflix and Bristol Old Vic's 'Touching the Void' theatre show (they streamed it both as a live performance and also on demand). Andrew's watching The Big Bang Theory from the start - the characters in it are very much like some people he works with! I'm also watching the Great British Sewing Bee on iPlayer; I'm only up to week 4 so far although I already know who won from Twitter. 

• We managed to see the partial eclipse the other week using Andrew's welding mask. Amazingly the clouds actually parted long enough to get a good shot!

• We have several tickets for shows in the autumn which were rearranged from 2020 but I also booked tickets for a new show - Wise Children's 'Wuthering Heights' at the Bristol Old Vic in October. It did feel a bit weird booking them but they're obviously not going to run the show if it's not safe so either it'll be okay to attend or the show will be postponed. 

• We're looking forward to our summer holiday to Scotland and hoping it doesn't get cancelled and it's okay to go! Our holiday style is 'road trip', 'car picnics' and 'sightseeing by driving' so we're not really planning on mixing with other people anyway. 

• We had a nice walk around a nature reserve near Bristol - Golden Valley Nature Reserve. I've been using ViewRanger to find walks and also creating my own on there. My Golden Valley walk is here. 

• Back in January I decided to listen to every song on my 'liked songs' playlist on Spotify. You know how you add a whole album when actually it's only one or two songs you like? And then never get round to removing the ones you don't like? Yep, well I thought if I listened to every single song then I can remove all the ones I didn't need. There's almost 2200 songs on my 'liked songs' list and I'm up to 'R' at the moment. The idea is that when I've done the whole list then every time I press 'shuffle' I will only ever get good songs I enjoy. 

• We ordered a some food gift boxes for Father's Day for the various dads - all were very good so I'm told! We used Georgie Porgie's Puddings, Warren's Bakery and Made Marion Gluten Free.

• And lastly, Lily took part in her very first exam - LAMDA Solo Introductory Stage 1 - where she had to recite a poem, talk about how to play a game and talk about her favourite toy (a dinosaur, obvs). She came out of the exam saying it was lovely! 

How was your June?