So as anyone whose read my blog has probably worked out, I
like to go on adventures a lot over the year, and I really love meeting new
people. This means that the lockdown has been hell for me. but I would like to
write about a few little vignettes that occurred to me over the past couple of
months.
Firstly I became really into sewing over the months due to
the fact I still had leftover fabric from a different projects, my mother’s old
sewing machine, and plenty of time. This lead to me contently hand stitching
different bits of the fabric and pinning them into an assortment of items.
Naturally this inevitably became an arms race of crafting trades between me and
a redheaded friend of mine from a music festival. I made her pyramid shaped
juggling balls and a plain white drawstring bag, and she in turn drew me, and
made me a tie dye Tee shirt that is officially one of m
y favourite items of clothing.
I also ended up stitching an assortment of scrappy homemade
clothes including a pair or terrible home sewn overalls that fell apart of
second use, a pair of simple pyjama trousers, a medieval style blouse, and most
important of all … THE DRESSING GOWN. To be honest it was more like two dressing
gowns. The first was a trial run that was mismeasured, and the second was an
old bedsheet in a regal blue colour that was given a fancy clockwork trim from
tearing apart the first dressing gown for scraps. It definitely looks
homemade, but it also makes me feel powerful when I wear it, and its super
soft. Literally made out of bedsheets.
I also received a reply from a “penpal with a prisoner”
system I applied for months ago. However, just as I wrote the letter I was
planning to send to the prisoner, I decided to google him just to make sure it
was a good idea. Surely they’d just be in for theft, or tax evasion, or
something harmless. I typed in the name of the prison followed by the recipient
of the letters. The first headline filled me with sheer dread. “Man labelled
monster by the mother of the victims for horrific sex crime”. I have never
penned an email so quickly, asking to be withdrawn from the project.
Finally My father has always loved chickens, and after years
of not having them he’s finally gotten everything to a standard where he could
have chickens. Today he asked if I wanted to accompany him, so I decided to tag
along. After a queasy half hour of welsh hills and twisted valleys until we
arrive to the chicken farm. Baring in mind that when we’d arrived I’d heard a
young man’s voice on the phone, and two months of lockdown had made me wishful.
I imagined an early to mid 20s man in check shirts and overalls, immaculate hair
and a rugged, muscular farmer charm. needless to say when his middle aged
mother in her oversized jumper presented the hens, and his greying father lugged
the food pellets my heart sank a little bit.
But it was heading back that filled us with dread. The car
gas indicator was blinking furiously and my father began to simmer in a low
heat of panic. “I should have filled up beforehand. And if we get stopped we can’t
claim to be doing essential travel because we have chickens in the back” he
moaned. We looked at each other and there was a trickle of nervous laughs. We watched
the satnav as the car stuttered forward, praying silently that the car didn’t stop
dramatically before we were there. After two (2) closed false petrol stations,
we arrived just in time and breathed a breathy sigh of relief. We made it, only
just, dizzy, carsick, and with a tension you could cut with a spoon. The hens
were alive, and all was well.
