Friday Bliss #81

It's another sunny day today so outside in the garden or indoors as we stay home the good weather continues to be appreciated.
Here are five photos of my week, joining Riitta's Friday Bliss......

I sit in the front room and read, write my journal and work on my embroidery project. I can look out of the front window and feel part of the neighbourhood community.  It's still very quiet and few people pass by.

Last evening by arrangement with our Whatsapp group for our street we agreed by text that all who were able to would stand on our respective doorsteps in order to clap and cheer and show our gratitude for all the medical and social care personnel who are working in challenging situations in our hospitals, medical centres, ambulance services, laboratories, private and care homes and related fields to look after all in need especially at this time of crisis. It was an emotional experience as our neighbours young and old stepped out into our front gardens, put porch lights on as by then it was dark and started clapping at 8pm.  We live in a crescent so we could not see everyone, but we could hear the clapping up and down the road and around the corner which is a little lane leading to the other houses. The clapping went on for at least ten minutes.  We waved to our immediate neighbours across the street and to our next door neighbours along the row of houses.  Up and down the UK in every community individuals were doing the same. Showing love and respect for the National Health Service workers was a Clap for Carers initiative.  Live television showed our local and national communities clapping as an act of appreciation.  We really felt united across the miles. We know that health workers are constantly battling away tirelessly for our benefit and we want to support them even more than ever.

There's a lot to write about in my journal.

I've got one more section of my tablecloth to embroider and I spend about an hour each afternoon on the project. I've put the tablecloth on a table to show you my progress.

This morning I picked a few primulas and miniature daffodils and arranged them in a small vase as a centre piece on our dining table.

Other things I've been doing is communicating with family, friends and neighbours, even though we're separated by distance, exchanging information and daily news, posting puzzles that we can all do together and generally keeping mentally occupied. What have you been doing to pass the time as we stay at home?

Thanks for coming by.  Have a good weekend whatever you're doing.

     Friday Bliss #81

Weekend happenings

Yesterday was Mother's Day in the UK or Mothering Sunday (as my own late mother would remind us).  In normal times we might have gone to a church service where the congregation would have been given a bunch of flowers by the young people to remind us of the tradition that in the olden days people working away from home, usually in domestic service, would be given time off to go home for the day to see their family, especially their mothers and would possibly take a bunch of wild flowers or a Simnel Cake which was a fruit cake made to use up ingredients at the beginning of Lent - a bit of a treat. This is one of the explanations for this day in the church calendar which has now extended to the wider UK community as Mother's Day and has become an occasion for some family time for many.

Well, we're not in normal times and with churches closed as part of the public places restrictions these physical fellowship gatherings are now taking place on line in the virtual world.  As we have not been going to church services because of mobility issues. We've recently been watching or listening to Christian television and radio programmes and have received inspiration from them. We think of those whose mothers are no longer with us or others who do not have children. I was grateful that our daughter down in Berkshire went to the cemetery with a bunch of flowers and tidied the family graves which she does when she can. 

All day we had phone calls from different members of our family as well as video linkups. I'm thankful that grandson recently showed me how to add an app so that family members have a group chat with us now that we are social distancing and in voluntary isolation.  Our neighbours are going to set up a chat group with a mobile app so that those in our street don't feel alone and our parish church has been in touch by email. Our next-door-neighbour has again also offered to get some basic food for us if she can find anything, talking to me at a distance as described before.  

flowers from family.....

...... and gifts including a magazine, a new transfer printed embroidery kit and embroidery thread so that I can finish off my present embroidery on the small tablecloth.  That will keep me busy for a long time as I'm a slow embroiderer and do about an hour a day in an afternoon.