January 2021

January is a depressing month in general isn’t it? Everyone is skint after Christmas, it’s cold as balls and this January of course a lot of things are still closed.

I took the girls to Hidden Valley Preserve out by Washington Depot for a walk one day when Kim was working and we needed an adventure because I kept seeing photos online of this cool bridge.

It was a beautiful walk but probably a little ambitious for kids… See this icy slippery rock bridge over rushing stream leading into fast flowing river below for details. Baby was strapped to me so that was fine but I was clutching toddler’s hand firmly at all times muttering “don’t let go, stay close to me” continuously.

Kim and I booked another star viewing night that got cancelled so we cut our losses and went bowling instead for date night. It was packed full of people, I’d never seen it so busy. I actually did pretty good, I’m usually utterly shit at all sports. Anything that could even mildly be considered to be athletic I’m useless at, obviously, but I guess every dog has their day and it was my lucky night.

And speaking of dogs that have had their day, a hearty goodbye to Trump. Nothing warms my heart like seeing the Trump store near our house closing down… except for churches that close and get converted into apartments, that also warms my heart.

We took a brief weekend away (because as aforementioned, January is a bit dull) using the Christmas money my Dad sent us (thanks Dad!). We booked an Airbnb at Fleming Farm, a petting zoo near us. After some delays (I am looking squarely at you Kim), we finally battled through the snow and it was a very sweet barn apartment on the actual farm.

Baby camouflaged exactly with a plaid cushion and toddler was thrilled to try out bunk beds.

So we enjoyed visiting all the animals, reading stories and ordering tasty food. We visited the Saville Dam one day and enjoyed having lie-ins (kinda).

One weekend we made the grave mistake of trying out Chuck E Cheese… oh my fuck. It was like what I imagine hell would be like only it’s real and in Manchester CT. Chuck E Cheese (we found out that the ‘E’ stands for entertainment) is an arcade for small children – I understand it used to have an indoor play area back in the 80s/90s but it was just an arcade when we went. It was horrible, garish, cheap, the food looked iffy, high pitched kid music blasting.

I put money on a card to buy credits for the machines and usually at an arcade the machines just eat through your money in no time so I put about $25 or so on to start, thinking I’d have to top up again…. but the money just NEVER. RAN. OUT. It never ran out, there was just more and more bloody credit no matter how many machines I swiped the damn thing on for the girls, fuck my life. The baby rode in the slowest teacup known to mankind about 20 times and still there was credit. The toddler rode on a car that took your photo about 50 times and yet still, credit. The toddler tried all the machines out several times… and still credit. I was wondering if I was going to have to live there in that godforsaken arcade having to listen to well known pop tunes get rapped by a giant high pitched mouse who changed all the lyrics to make “Get Lucky” into a song about racial diversity and friendship, when it occurred to me that children are stupid and I could merely lie and tell the toddler the card had run out because I would gladly pay double the amount that started on the card just to leave = genius.

Mostly we’re just bored of snow though.

December 2020

December, December, god what happened in December… Well we paid extortionate money to take the girls for breakfast on the Christmas Steam Train, where Santa was… you know the Santa that we don’t actually celebrate in our household… ho ho ho! But the breakfast was really nice and each child got a craft to make on the train during the journey, the Captain came to say hello to us (is it a Captain? Conductor? Driver of the train… no he couldn’t be driving because he was demonstrably not in the drivers seat…) a man in a shiny hat and uniform came to greet us all.

Baby ate her weight in chocolate chip mini muffins. She discovered that we wanted her to be quiet in order to not spoil it for the other families enjoying the train who had also paid an exorbitant amount to afford train tickets and she knew that all she had to do was protest loudly, smacking her little hands on every available surface like a small badly behaved demanding Roman emperor, and we would stuff her little face with another piece of chocolate mini muffin to buy her silence. She was extremely pleased with herself whilst I was shamed for negotiating with terrorists.

We finally got some long wished for snow (it has become less and less desirable since). The girls enjoy it for very short periods of time before being completely over it and wanting to go back inside.

The cats too have been creatures of comfort this winter, seeking out new cozy sleeping areas that are in vogue for about 2 weeks or so before a new spot takes precedence.

We foster our girls through DCF (the equivalent of Social Services in the UK) and I think they often get a bad rap – perhaps a little unfairly at times because after all, they have a job to do. One nice thing is that sometimes we get free tickets for the girls to things (although this has been limited because of Covid). This turned out to be less nice than expected though, we went to see the drive through Christmas lights in Hartford… with the rest of the state apparently. Jesus effing Christ, we moved about 10cm an hour in a queue of cars. Do you know what two children under 4 don’t enjoy? Sitting in traffic for 2 hours. Hell, I didn’t enjoy it either. I was <—–> this close from turning around and going home when the line started move at more than a glacial pace.

Kim works one in every third weekend usually so the girls and I try to get out of the house. We went to see the aquarium at Mystic with Kim’s parents which was really nice, they had a ton of animals to see and touch.

Christmas came and went, we celebrated on Christmas Eve this year because Kim had to work Christmas (typical eh?). It was really fun actually, the girls loved their gifts – it was a lot more fun to celebrate with kids in the house. Babe doesn’t enjoy the sound of wrapping paper and boxes being opened but we noticed on Christmas Eve that she’d taught herself to blow kisses at the cats by watching us blowing them kisses when we call them over. She is obsessed with the cats, her first word was “kitty” and she has been unsuccessfully trying to lure them closer to her so she can grab them.

Our toddler was preoccupied with her new kid jeep and her LOL doll (or “wella wella dolla” as she calls them) that she had consistently requested ever since we got the girls and I had been trying to avoid. The dolls are only $30 or so, it’s just they all look like strippers. Do I pick the one wearing a skin tight red pleather cat suit or the one that’s reminiscent of Marilyn Manson in a bikini? In the end I picked the one that was not wearing fishnets and called it a day, and have been stepping on miniature earrings ever since. Oh joy. Merry Christmas.

But it has been fun playing with all the new toys. It was less fun trying to find space in the playroom to put them all in though.

November 2020

We kicked off the month right with a trip to the Dinosaur Place one day when Kim was working.

It was the day after Halloween so I guess the other kids must have been sleeping off their candy because it was dead and we had the whole place to ourselves which my toddler was pleased about. Her theory is that dinosaurs are not extinct, contrary to expert opinion, but that they have probably all gone out. They will come back when they are ready.

But my toddler went crazy for the soft play area.

And I got an addition to my squashed penny collection which has been severely lacking this year (thank you Covid!).

As supplies start to dwindle I discovered we had a hoarder in our midst when our toddler told me that she thought we shouldn’t give the baby real food because she would eat it all and we would have to drink milk. A solid point.

Joe Biden won the election, thank god. We had lunch and shopping out to celebrate.

There’s still not much open but we visited a new park.

And did some baking.

Got the train set out. I remember my brother loving the wooden train sets as a kid and building these long elaborate tracks but I think I enjoyed the trains more than my toddler. Whatever, more trains for me.

Mainly it’s been fairly quiet though, an indoors month.

Little babe has been demonstrating a new found hatred of her safety gate.

My birthday came and went… ugh.

I’m not entirely sure what the cake was meant to be… I mean it’s a Biden mask for sure but is the cake a face?

My friends got me some socks for my birthday that were meant to have our faces on for a joke… only the wrong ones turned up. And now I have some random strange man bun face on some socks in my drawer. And yes, I do wear them out. I hope that somewhere he takes pride in wearing socks with my face on them too.

Not much movement with our girls legally although visits have dried up so just waiting out the clock at the moment.

A trip to the air museum brought up new and hitherto untold questions from the three year old. What is a bomb for? Why do the planes have shooters? Why is there a picture of a lady on the plane? Why isn’t she wearing clothes? Um… to err… motivate the troops?! Oh look, a helicopter!

Babe is extremely inquisitive and so we’ve set up a little play pen in the living room to avoid wrestling/screaming matches as she merrily flicks the safety covers off of the electrical outlets with gusto – little darling.

Thanksgiving came and went, we had a nice little dinner and watched the virtual Macys parade (which was CGI this year because of Covid and wank).

The girls and I had a nice walk next to an airfield to watch the planes take off, naturally we have to stop at every dog we pass (of which there are 675) and enquire after every dog’s name (of course we do), then because the walk comes to an end and you have to double back on yourself we HAVE to cheerily greet each dog on the way back with their correct names.

We were finally able to get our tree in too with minimal effort actually compared to last year. A few of the chocolates have mysteriously disappeared from the tree already though…

October 2020

October has come and gone.

Leaves are everywhere.

The heating is well and truly on.

And one of our hickory trees fell over in the storm and loomed ominously over our nice neighbour’s house. Several contractors came to take a look and in the end we needed a crane to remove it (ugh) so that was an expensive and joyous occasion. My Dad’s solution? Get some rope and get up there with a chainsaw girl! I thought he was around quite a bit during my childhood but it turns out I was mistaken and he has clearly never met me because he thinks there is a chance I could be the outdoors type. Commiserations Dad on finding out 31 years in that this is not the case.

We took a trip to Robbs, yet another pumpkin patch (one pumpkin picked out of the grass is just never enough is it?).

And went for a hayride.

Our toddler took some time picking out a pumpkin that ‘spoke to her’.

But it was fun, they had cider doughnuts, apple crisps, a playground, ride on toys, chicks…

Some vintage tractors from yesteryear.

A corn maze that we were too stupid to complete. What more could one want in entertainment you ask? Why, a screaming toddler when it’s time to go of course!

She’s best kept on the move.

So we finally got rid of that bloody tree. The state has some sort of issue with trees being diseased, suffering from drought and storms of course. So I wonder which one will go next that we will need to pay for. I’m so glad we live surrounded by expensive trees.

Kim and I had a fun date night with a constellation tour. We rocked up to a dark field at a vineyard that was closed for the season and parked next to a lot of other cars. We got fold out chairs out, blankets, couple snacks and we got given pairs of binoculars. Then a man with a laser pointer pointed out a lot of constellations in the sky and the different types of stars, we saw some planets too which was something a bit different.

I put the tent up in the garden with my assistant now that it isn’t sweltering.

We all played in the tent (including Barclay the cat) and then we prepped it to sleep outside. My mum was concerned about bears and said that she’d read that bears could smell menu-stration and could attack women. I told her she should stop sticking menus up there and that she’d been doing it wrong but not to worry either way.

Baby is desperate to walk but just not quite there yet. She is 8 months old with 6 teeth and what she lacks in walking she makes up for in shrieking. She shrieks when she’s happy, she shrieks when she’s sad, she shrieks when she’s laughing and she shrieks when she’s mad. I’m just surprised she hasn’t found a way to shriek in her sleep yet, little darling.

We are still trying to make the most of the weather before the dreaded snow which may be compounded by the second wave of covid of course. Won’t that be enjoyable for us all.

We took a day trip out to Massachusetts while it was still not on the travel advisory list (although I see it is now!). And we went to the butterfly conservatory Magic Wings.

Both toddler and baby alike were thrilled to be dive bombed by huge butterflies but for baby this was overshadowed by the plastic beads each of us got given on entry which she proceeded to strangle me with for the entire time.

On the drive home we saw Trump supporters…

Our girls have been doing well. Hide and seek is still a work in progress.

But body image is at an all time high.

We walked more walks.

We left more rocks.

We took the girls to the Lutz Children’s Museum one weekend.

All socially distanced of course! Lots of animals to see.

Lots of toys to play with.

So that went down well.

There are still leaves everywhere.

But the cats winter coats have come in so they’re both lovely and soft and velvety.

We have new neighbours who seem very nice, and the neighbours from across the street brought the girls some things over for Halloween which was sweet.

There was a ‘spirit week‘ at daycare including a crazy hair day.

And then before we knew it, Halloween was upon us. Our three year old wanted the happiest pumpkin in the neighbourhood so that was an easy carve.

We have so many pumpkins I may go into business.

Including these little pumpkins. We took the girls trick or treating in our neighbourhood. The baby of course can’t eat candy so was purely a spectator. We went to about 7-8 houses and I was surprised the toddler managed that many. The neighbours had been very creative with their socially distanced candy handing out and a couple of them had made candy chutes and tubes to slide the candy down into the kids bags at the bottom. Another lady had a T-Rex grabber stick to deposit candy into the bags. We had a steady stream of neighbourhood kids to our door but left the candy outside for them to help themselves to while we ate fondue. Toddler accidentally stabbed Kim in the eye with a fondue fork, little angel.

September 2020

Kim and I kicked off September by having a date night… I know lots of new parents have to wait a while for one of these but we were actually waiting on anything being open because of Covid. We went for a curry at this weird looking restaurant, we were the only people there and we ate with disposable cutlery and plates because of THE VIRUS (the one and only). Curry was bloody lovely though and our three year old loved the left overs. She’s actually a very good eater so far. Her favourite food is couscous weirdly enough. I remember mine was sausages at that age. My eldest cousin Sarah had a vegetarian phase as a teenager and I didn’t know what that meant. I remember going round and telling everyone that I was a sausagetarian after I learned.

Things at home have been good and we’re getting into a routine.

We had a weekend away in Mystic in an Airbnb (thanks Dad!).

The house was really twee.

Completely beautiful and fine for the weekend but it had some impractical Dutch-like stairs of death that reminded me why it was OK to live in a house with less character.

Don’t you just love a roll top bath?

It was in walking distance to Mystic Pizza (remember that 80s movie?).

And vacations are a great novelty for our toddler who was excited to explore but was a bit confused as to whether we had moved house or not.

Also within walking distance was a truly excellent bakery we got breakfast at in the mornings, Sift.

It reminded me of the bakeries in Paris.

Mystic is a nice seaside touristy type town. There was a lot of shops to browse and places to walk along the water.

They had a good toy shop for me my toddler, we discovered the joys of stick on earrings. As did parts of her hair after nap time.

Strolling along the water in and out of shops with an ice cream in hand is an agreeable way to spend any day in my books.

We took a trip to a cider mill one day for some apple cider (what the Americans call apple juice, not actual English cider) and cider doughnuts.

And we also went to Olde Mystick Village (yes, this is actually what they called it. Yes, actually. No, I don’t know why they didn’t stick a ‘Ye’ at the front) a little shopping outlet you can wander around which was cute. It is not old or even olde, it was built in the 70s.

So that was a nice weekend in Mystic and well worth another visit. It was a long weekend actually but Kim had to work the Monday so the girls and I walked the Lebanon Green together on Labor Day and my three year old discovered the joy of finding the perfect walking stick.

We made some Rice Crispy crackle cakes.

And spent a little too much on additions to our autumn wardrobes… oh well.

The weather has been cooling off finally.

I fucked up monumentally one day by telling our three year old that dinosaurs were extinct. Despite apologising and insisting that I thought she knew (?!), heavy mourning ensued. Her – “But WHEN did they die?” Me – “Erm… millions of years ago?”. Queue agonised wailing over demise.

We took a trip to Flamig Farm one weekend which was excellent.

You can feed all of the animals and they were very tame (of course they were, we had food!). Horse rides were a big hit.

It’s finally cool enough to fire up the err… fire.

We’ve gotten in to rock painting and so far all the rocks we’ve left on the trail by our house have been taken which is fun to think of.

Elections are heavy in everyone’s minds. I can’t vote so I try not to depress myself by listening to political news although I still can’t escape snippets of that orange fucking moron and the utter shit that comes out of his mouth.

We’ve been making the most of the days before the dreaded snow comes though and trying to get out to see friends.

Little babe is getting confident on her feet to stand and is a fast crawler.

We went apple picking with the girls one weekend at Johnny Appleseed’s Farm.

The leaves were really beautiful and they had a pumpkin patch. What is a pumpkin patch you English ask? Well friends, let me tell you, it is a piece of grass that the Americans place random pre-cut pumpkins artfully spaced out for children to pick out as though they just grew that way. As the pumpkin numbers dwindle they bring out more pumpkins to place randomly in the field and the cycle continues. Truthfully I don’t really get it, the kids could just pick the pumpkin off of a shelf but whatever.

They also had a tractor ride which our three year old loved. The baby was less sure.

We took the baby in a baby carrier that our lovely foster mentor has given us and we have used to death. The only problem being that now baby is getting a little hefty and I don’t think she’ll fit in it for much longer.

And so that was our packed September.

August 2020

August was chaos. It started off pretty good, we’ve been getting things done around the house. I have a very enthusiastic flat-pack furniture apprentice that I’ve taken on under my tutelage.

The girls have been growing like weeds and then…

POWER OUTAGES after a storm. In our area storm (Isias I think?) wasn’t even too bad but all it takes is a few trees to fall down. Power was out to a third of the state at one point. No power at home, at daycare, at work.

We went without for about a week. I can’t remember power outages in England since… well the early 90s, especially not lasting more than a day. Kim’s parents lost power for a little while but their’s came on relatively quickly so luckily we could go to their house for showers.

And then one day at about 5am all of the lights came on and Kim and I cheered. So all’s well that ends well I suppose, you know… until the next outage.

My toddler has been discovering my heritage and has found a new love for afternoon tea. I suspect mainly for the snack opportunities it affords. She has also started showing visitors her plastic dressing up bracelets and informing them all that they’re her bracelets “from England”… they’re not?!

Now that the kittens and Tuppence are happily settled in their forever homes we have turned the cat room into a play room. Yes, yes, we’ve become those people who have dedicated an entire room to toys. But it has freed up our sun room from some of the garish plastic so that’s been nice.

The cats are pleased about this.

Daycare has been going well for the girls.

And we saw a lot of our friendly neighbourhood deer, Eileen.

We found we filled up the playroom pretty quickly. we got a donated 70s style dolls house from a coworker of Kim’s which is huge. We’ve already filled another bookshelf with toys and crafts.

We’ve had a visitor, a baby deer (Dotty) that’s been hiding out in our undergrowth a lot.

We had a weekend away in Greenwich, CT. We couldn’t leave the state because of Covid.

So we stayed at a nice hotel and ordered a ton of room service, swam in the pool and got a couple of beach days in.

Our baby hates the sand with a passion.

Kim turned 30, I constructed this beautiful expertly made pink Power Ranger birthday cake.

Kim and I have still been going to the cat shelter. After bringing their numbers down while Covid was kicking off and everyone wanted to adopt a pet for quarantine there was a huge influx when a man who had been feeding strays died and there were 60+ feral cats to trap! Luckily lots of them were friendly so the numbers are starting to fall again.

Kim works every third weekend (give or take) so I took the girls to a park called Mikey’s Place in Wethersfield on a day she was working. It was a really cool park that was designed around differently abled kids. Our toddler had a blast.

Time flies when you’re having fun…

July 2020

Ah July, it’s been a scorcher, the girls have been settling in to daycare.

And we’ve been settling into our family routine pretty nicely and trying to make the best of the great outdoors before the snow comes yet again.

Kim and I have to be careful when making plans. When we don’t want our 3 year old to know what we’re saying, Kim and I spell words to each other, safe in the knowledge that our toddler can’t recall many letters of the alphabet yet let alone spell. I’d asked Kim if she wanted to go to the B-E-A-C-H tomorrow and the toddler immediately said “we’re going to the beach?”. At that moment I had a feeling that we were all in very real danger – she is too smart for us.

We got a family pass to the beach at the lake in our town which has been nice to use.

We hatched some butterflies and they all survived (miraculously).

Our toddler asked to go camping and as we didn’t have a tent we thought it was a good time to buy one (thanks for the $$$ Dad!) however we didn’t factor in how effing hot it is in July so instead of setting up outside we decided to camp inside in our bedroom in front of the AC. And afterwards I decided to invest in an air mattress because oh-my-god-my-back.

But none of that stopped us from smores so it was all good fun.

Life has been pretty active.

Sweet Tuppence got spayed and ready for her forever home.

Kim works some weekends so it’s just the girls and I. Things have been pretty limited as to where we can go with Covid still alive and well but I managed a trip to Beardsley Zoo one weekend. Our toddler informed me she would be taking her knitted Peppa pig in the car but NOT in the zoo because the animals DONT KNOW how to play with her and they will only RUIN her!! The toddler liked the crocodiles best because they are “cute” and I am unsure whether her preferences indicate cause for concern or not.

We have been spoilt with access to Kim’s parent’s pool which is has been nice on the hotter days. Even our baby enjoys a little dip to cool down although I think she prefers the pool to the beach, she despises sand.

Our neighbourhood mascot Eileen (she leans) has still been making the rounds and we keep a bag of apples in the fridge in case she comes to see us. Her leg hasn’t been looking great and it has an open wound on it so every time we see her we’re thankful she’s hanging in there.

We visited the Ashley Reservoir one day in July which was really beautiful and had all these great trails. We saw a lot of wildlife, I think the animals must be so used to people hiking and riding bikes they didn’t pay any attention to us.

A friendly elderly couple coming back to their car from the reservoir started talking to us and wanted to see the baby. And so we got chatting and the lady asked if I was Australian. Now this happens a lot with Americans but especially with elderly Americans, they tend to be less well traveled than their younger counterparts, watch less international tv and film and they are not used to accents. I said I was English, and then she asked sincerely if I was sure, because I sounded Australian. Am I sure of the country I am from? Yes. Yes, I am sure you blithering fool.

Anyway, that was our July. And here is a champion photo of Bunny the cat being annoyed by Kim to finish with.

3 Years Old & Independence Day

We’ve been busy busy. June is our toddlers birthday as the pandemic was winding down (for now) and we wanted to help her celebrate we started to plan a little garden party.

We got some humane mouse traps for our basement and caught a couple of these little fellows. Turns out mice love peanut butter! I drive out to the woods and open up the trap and they scamper off. I’ve tried to release them in the same area incase they’re all friends with each other.

We got a beach pass for the little beach at Columbia Lake and tested it out for size. There’s a few restrictions for the amount of people allowed on the beach due to Covid but we’ve been trying to go on less busy days so it hasn’t affected us.

Our kittens got the run of the spare room instead of the crate as they’re all so big now. We still shut them in the crate at night so they don’t get up to too much mischief.

And then the big 3 was upon us! Our toddler doesn’t know any other children so Kim and I borrowed any friends we could round up that had children to come be buddies – luckily kids make friends fast and our toddler had a great day. Thank goodness for Kim’s family who ran around helping us. I didn’t give enough credit to my parents for organising my childhood parties, it was a lot of work. She’s asked several times now to have a birthday next week.

Our toddler got lots of great gifts, my favourites are the ones I get to play with of course.

Now we just have to find places to put all of the toys!

Restrictions are lifting and the park is now open again – and the ice cream parlour, woohoo!

We took the girls strawberry picking one weekend (“I’ll eat this one!” said my toddler for every other strawberry).

Our baby’s two bottom teeth have come through and she was only mildly grumpy. More grumpy after the second set of shots though and a little fever!

We had a couple days of storms and the neighbour’s tree came down into our back yard. But no damage done to any buildings luckily. Our poor neighbour has been slowly decanting all of the wood back to his yard.

All of the kittens got spayed and neutered and 3 of them have gone to their forever homes which the toddler did not approve of. Queue screams of “THEY CAN’T HAVE THEM, THEM’S MY BABIES!”.

And then afterwards we went to one of my work friend’s houses for a bbq which was so fun.

The next day we went to Kim’s parents for another BBQ (score!) and to use their pool.

Busy busy but it’s a welcome change from the monotony of lock down as restrictions start to lift.

Foster Care

And since then it’s been really fun (mostly!), we’ve had the odd few tantrums of course but it’s been two months and it feels like the girls have always been here. We are fostering them for now but we hope we get to keep them one day – that’s all dependent on their bio-parents so everything is sort of unknown at the moment. 

We’ve had amazon prime packages arriving almost every day with supplies and gifts from friends and family. I have a new identity and am now Mum Hayley, and Kim is Mommy Kim.

Lots of friends have dropped round baby gadgets to make life easier and toys galore.

Our knowledge of old bed time stories and parenting tricks have been brought back to life. I think I’ve already recycled everything my own parents have ever said to me. Isn’t it amazing how I remember almost every nursery rhyme from when I was a kid but I can barely remember my own age.

Kim has been off of work on FMLA, I took two weeks off and then returned part time for a month before going back full time and although we got the girls in pandemic we’ve still managed to keep busy! We got a stimulus cheque which I suppose is just our own taxes we’ll be paying back eventually, we got the driveway paved (how domesticated).

Our kittens we’re fostering have been growing and learning, they’re all little darlings. The black boy kitten reminds me so much of my boy cat Barclay when I got him as a kitten.

We took the girls to the drive-in movies – the perfect quarantine outing! Both girls and Kim ended up falling asleep so I had some peaceful alone times with all of the snacks.

We took the girls to the aquarium in masks because the outside attractions were open.

I took our baby for shots, which went fine, she’s a long baby and she’s been gaining weight well.

Our wildlife is back in the neighbourhood with the good weather. Here is our resident groundhog Clive.

And also Eileen the deer is back for another season, we hadn’t seen her all winter and we’d been worrying about her, she’s very tame. 

So after a quiet start to the pandemic it’s been a rather more active May!

March 2020 and COVID-19

Remember March? How we were all just chugging along? 

I went to see my first ice hockey game (which was very entertaining by the way, did you know they’re allowed to fist fight each other?! I feel like this would make all sports more interesting). 

Our life was full of outings and kitties at the shelter. 

St Patrick’s Day was approaching. 

And then BAM – Covid-19 arrived!

For Kim and I it’s been mostly boring. We both still had to work as normal so luckily we haven’t experienced any financial hardship but staying home during our free time soon lost all it’s charm. Luckily the package stores (off licences) have stayed open the whole time and we had ourselves a little blind box-wine tasting. 

That killed all of a couple of hours. I baked a few things. 

We’ve still been going to the cat shelter because the cats won’t take care of themselves! Only now it’s become like a special outing – what joy!

We took home a mama cat from the shelter who was about to give birth and have been fostering her and her 5 kittens. Which has been very fun actually, she started out as timid and jumpy but now she’s ever so tame and affectionate and the kittens are funny to watch and cuddle. 

Work has been difficult because for a while it felt like there were new rules and regulations every 5 minutes which means a lot of new paperwork and training materials to put in place everywhere. We all had to wear masks at work and then it became the law in our state that we all have to wear masks in public places like shops. A kindly neighbour in our community donated a thousand mask extenders to my work that a team of volunteers had printed on 3D printers so that was sweet. 

And now we seem to be at the tail end of the restrictions and everything is slowly becoming a little more normal. What happens next will be interesting/depressing for us all I’m sure. At least we didn’t run out of toilet paper!