A Free Friday

I had a free Friday again this week, it was lovely to just stay home after three intense days at work.  I cycled to work the first two days and took the bus on the third day, as I felt myself getting progressively more tired and as a consequence the time it took me to ride there got progressively longer.

I didn't have any plans for today, other than to have a rest, but when I got up this morning and went into the bathroom to get showered, I just had to clean it, as it was in a real mess. It was the one room that I didn't get around to cleaning before returning to work, as I ran out of time. I felt a lot better when it was done.

I was able to have a leisurely walk with the dog today for a change, no time limits, which was a lot more relaxed than on work days, when I always have to get  back by a certain time to set off for work. It was a pretty hot day, so it was good that we could take it easy and stay in the shade where possible.

The only things I had to do today were to collect a prescription from the chemist, do the washing up which had accumulated over the previous couple of days and do some washing, so that I had clean bike shorts to wear to ride to work in tomorrow.

I managed all of the above and also had time to play with my new little gadget that I ordered on eBay after seeing it featured in a video on Gardner's World last week.  Here it is:

A solar powered water fountain.

I've wanted a water feature in the garden for a while now, but didn't want the hassle of pipes and electricity supply.  When I saw this, I thought how perfect, so immediately looked for one online. It cost about £10, which although not super cheap, was reasonable.

It comes with 4 different nozzles to get different height and powered sprays and is purported to last for 10,000 hours. I had to give it a go and was pleasantly surprised at how good it is. It will only work in full sun, so if you put it in any shade it won't work, but that's fine by me as we have a south facing garden and get plenty of sun for most of the day. It probably won't be used in this trifle bowl, but that was all I could find to try it out in.

I also received a little freebie in the post today too. This doggie protein strip, sent to me by Tesco, along with a couple of vouchers for other products from the brand.  These will get used on my next supermarket trip, as I've bought products from this brand before.

Tonight, was Pizza night, so I didn't have to cook, OH always takes care of the pizzas. I just needed to iron a few things for work tomorrow, which I did whilst watching Gardener's World, of course.

There's been a definite feminist flavour to TV watching this week. OH and I have been enjoying Mrs America on iPlayer. It's a great series based around the fight to facilitate/prevent getting the Equal Rights Amendment through Congress in the US in the 1970s. Each episode adopts the viewpoint of one of the different characters in the battle.  It is really fascinating and covers a period of history that I had very little knowledge of.

In a similar vein, I recorded a couple of great programmes from the TV this week, the first was entitled Germaine Bloody Greer and was all about the career of the infamous writer of The Female Eunuch. She's probably a bit like marmite, as in you probably love or hate her, but it was a really interesting programme and I admire her for being a female voice of dissent, who highlighted the chauvinism women faced in the 1970's. 

The second programme was all about Virago, the feminist publishing house started in the 1960s or 70s. I've been a big fan of their Virago Modern Classics books for years and have a shelf full of them.  I find them to be some of the hardest books to give away, as I have really enjoyed reading them, so I tend to just keep them and add to the collection. The programme was really interesting and highlighted the company's success from very humble origins. It also cast light on the infighting that occurred at different times in the history of the company, mainly at times when the company had to be sold to survive. I love what they did for Women's literature, which included bringing many novels written by women back into print for later generations to enjoy and it is great that they are still going strong today.

(In case you didn't know, part of my degree at University was in Gender Studies, so the above programmes were right up my street. I wish there were more programmes on TV like these.)

Anyway, I'm back at work tomorrow, cycling in again.  Our Shop Manager should be returning from furlough, so it will be interesting to see what he thinks of what we've done in the shop.  Takings at work are still very low compared to pre-Covid, but at least we managed to open the shop a few more days this week, so we should have raised more money than last week. It seems that the shops outside Central London are faring much better, so it may take a good while for us to get anywhere near how well we were doing before lockdown, if we ever do. For the moment, all we can do is our best.