Catching Up At Home

I had nothing planned for today and have spent the day catching up on home things. The first task after breakfast was to hoover and dust every room. I still need to wash the bathrooms and kitchen floors but that may wait until next week. Every room is tidy so I'm happy with my efforts even though I haven't done anything towards finishing off the decluttering or spring cleaning.

My next task was in the kitchen to cook up some bolognese sauce, eating one portion for lunch and freezing five more. After lunch I cooked a chilli, so that's four more meals in the freezer, and later there'll be five or six portions of veggie chilli from the slow cooker.

I heard from Lauren, cancelling our arrangements to meet tomorrow. She was sent home from work yesterday with worrying symptoms of a high temperature and a sore throat. She works in a hospital and the people she has spoken to there think it is unlikely to be coronavirus but she obviously needs to self-isolate for the required period. She's on her own at home as her mum is currently on holiday in India and the only sister who lives near enough to help her is the one with the new baby so can't risk going near her. I spoke to her this morning and she has enough food to last her for over a week by which time her mum will be home again. In the meantime I'll speak to her every day to see how she is and we'll take it one day at a time. Lauren thinks it's more likely to be tonsillitis, which she is prone to, but she's going to follow all the advice and shut herself away!

I've done a bit of a stock take and a reorganising of the freezer and have worked out a shopping list ready for next week. I've been a bit lax with the bulk cooking so will make an effort to catch up next week. I also need to tweak or rethink my eating plan as it's not quite working. If I eat a more substantial breakfast I find that I don't want to eat again until about 4 pm and then only need two meals in a day. That in itself isn't a problem but it does make it difficult on some days because I'm not in a position to eat the second meal of the day when I need to and waiting too long to eat when I'm hungry is one of my triggers for the migraines. The problem days are the teaching days, where timings can't be changed, and the days when I have afternoon activities like the theatre trips and the photography group, so it's also not appropriate to have a snack and eat later. For the time being, on those days I've reverted to the standard three meals a day and maybe the long term solution is to do a mix of the two approaches. I'm still thinking about it!

To finish, please may I pick your brains? What says 'Spring' to you? It's the next topic for the photography group and my ideas for photos have stalled at spring flowers, lambs and blossom so your help will be very much appreciated.