Another month in lockdown. But rather than being restricted by it, boy did we fill the days with stuff. Lily helped to create some homemade protective masks.
She cut the patterns and did some sewing, then created special 'packs' to distribute them.
The masks were sent out to family, friends and neighbours.
Every year, we do a 'Home Glasto' where we watch the bands on telly and try to recreate a festival atmosphere. This year, we went BIG.
Emma and Lily were all dressed up. And so was the garden.
We had a firepit, that we kept going late into the night.
We all selected live performances of our favourite bands from previous years to watch online. Here's Dee Dee howling along to Billy Eilish.
As you can see form these montages, there was a line-up poster, wristbands, festival food...
...all our favourite acts, toasted marshmallows...
...and even a late night after party, listening to live albums in the shed. There was a capacity crowd of three, who all agreed it was the best Home Glasto yet. Hopefully, next year we'll be able to extend the number of attendees.
From Home Glasto to home barber. Emma has been getting really good at sorting out hair out while all the salons are closed.
Check out Lily's stylish trim.
Lily's school set a 'challenge' to submit favourite lockdown recipes. Out of necessity, we'd recently tried to make our own toffee sauce for popcorn. So that's what Lily sent in.
And it got published in the school's very own lockdown recipe book.
Every Thursday night at 8pm, the UK went outside to 'Clap for Carers' and show our appreciation.
We took these photos because Lily's school asked for some to create a slideshow. As you can see, our street had bunting strung from house to house, to bring us all together.
So what if McDonald's is closed?
On the 75th anniversary of VE day, we dressed up and held a forties tea party.
Emma made the most amazing mini-Victoria sponges. And we had a whole cake stand full of finger sandwiches, scones and treats.
Dunno about forties. I look like I'm in my sixties...
Another school project, this time to create a musical instrument out of recycled rubbish. Lily made this two string bleach bottle violin. It had an adjustable bridge and guitar strings so it actually made some quite decent sounds.
Lily's friend Edith popped round for a chat, observing strict social distance guidelines. Arguably, we went even further by literally having a brick wall to separate us.
Virtual hug!
As some of the restrictions started to be eased, we went for a walk down to the seafront. It was the fist time we'd seen the sea for about eight weeks.
Lily also made this rainbow bunting for our porch.
We're very lucky to have a lovely garden. And we've made the most of the weather, with the new late suntrap corner. Hot dogs, chips and cocktails of an evening. Oh yes.
Emma and Lily recycled some old cat toys and shelving units into a fabulous cat palace.
The verdict was unanimous, it was a complete hit.
Saturday nights, we joined in with family quizzes via Zoom. For one game, we created a Generation Game conveyor belt, to see how many items everyone could remember. Here's a link to our rehearsal, where we had some extra 'help' testing how it worked.
Again, taking advantage of the sunshine, we had an our first barbecue of the year.
More burgers. But these were very special. these were midnight cheeseburgers that we stayed up for to see in our fourteenth wedding anniversary.
We also had rum and coconut milk (in real coconut shells) to remind us of our amazing honeymoon in Barbados.
Here's another little montage - Emma made delicious brownies (that we had for our wedding cake) and Lily made us a card.
More home hair styling. Lily decided to add a splash of colour to her look.
Ooh, burgundy.
One of our favourite shows was BBC2's 'Great British Menu' where professional chefs had to create a banquet of dishes themed around children's literature. Well, we had a go ourselves.
The table had a Wonderland theme.
All of us cooked, creating a feast of six - yes, six - courses. There were Mad Hatter finger sandwiches, incredible risotto-stuffed mushrooms and mini cakes with jam cocktails.
Each dish came with a little write up that tied it back to a famous book (such as Captain Nemo's salad and a Robinson Crusoe inspired tropical sorbet).
We even created a special Dr Seuss themed dish for the cats.
Every little dish was fantastic and we managed to eat everything.
Lily moved out to the summer house to work through some homework in a more enjoyable setting.
And after a repeat viewing of Totoro, Lily painted these stones to help encourage Mummy's crops to spring up out of the earth. Seems to be working too.
Another social distance meet up, this time across a six foot picnic blanket.
Then to round the month off, with temperatures around 21 degrees, we attempted to bring a bit of Barbados to the back garden. There was a hotel style buffet breakfast, followed by trays of drinks.
There was even a pool. Sadly, our cats were very inquisitive about this new addition to their garden and jumped up with their sharp claws to see what it was all about. Inevitably, as the sun went down, so did our pool...
We had an absolutely amazing day (there was even Caribbean food, with jerk salmon wraps and spicy rice).
To finish, here's a piece of multimedia art Lily created. A pencil drawing of herself with a fabric collage mask. She submitted it as a piece of schoolwork. And we started getting phonecalls and emails from the teachers saying how impressed they were with all the contributions Lily has been making since lockdown.
