Zero Sleep. School. Work. Kids saw their teachers on Zoom. Very touching somehow. They deserve a medal right now.
Cycled against the wind to the Olympic Park for a very distanced masked-up work out with an equidistant friend. Always surprises me how near the park is by bike from Forest Gate (10 minutes if you power pedal; 15 mins if you saunter), designated lanes pretty much all the way.
Once there, our route took us through the reeds and the bullrushes and the over-wintering prairie borders of grasses, coneflowers and black-eyed Susans, trying to find the safest routes along the walkways and canal banks in terms of adequate space and deserted dead ends, although there were only a smattering of folk to be seen (no sign of the weekend crowds Boris reported seeing yesterday).
Feels so constrained to not even be able to stop for a chat but needs must so on we pedalled. Good to work out and have a slight change of scene but felt equally bleak at the same time.
Do need to pitch an article about wildflower meadows though – had a little reminisce about the ones that were planted for the Olympics in 2012. The softest grass that cried out to be rolled down; the most beautiful drifts of poppies, ox-eye daisies and cornflowers; the first steps and bloom-gazing of my eldest son Syl in the wildflower carpets of red, white and blue.
On that note, I finish the day by making a lemon drizzle bundt cake for his 10th birthday tomorrow, camouflaging the usual cracks with lashings of smarties, chocolate stars and strategically placed disco lights.
It’s raining now outside; it was snowing when Syl was born, 12 January 2011, 6 weeks early, a date that now resides in the last decade. There were daffodils in the garden not long after that though. And today, I spotted a glimpse of the hundreds of bulbs I planted back in fall. There is hope!
I open a curtain and peer through the window into the inky night, a rainbow of just-blown up balloons reflected in the glass. January is always a bit bleak, I muse. The flowers and the joy they bring will come soon enough.