7th May

I forgot to mention the other day that I have finally cracked and asked John to cut my hair because it was so awful.  It is still two weeks until hairdressers can reopen and then only under strict conditions and I had a right old ducks arse going on and I find bad hair so depressing so I handed John my dress making scissors and let him take the sticky out bit off.

The photograph is the after result and I think he did a pretty good job and I still have two weeks growth to come so that when I do get to see Lumi she will have something to work with - the trouble is I just don't know quite what I want.

So now both John and I have had an in-house hairdo - I did say that if no-one was ever going to see me again I wouldn't care but with all the video calls we keep having that isn't going to be the case!!!

We have a video call booked in with Nicky and Mark this evening and so we will have to make sure we look half decent for that.

I went to do some shopping down in Paps today.  No queues and not many people in there and the non-essential items released for sale so I managed to get a replacement tablecloth for the dining table outside.

I have now dressed the table ready for a day when we can actually sit outside and enjoy a meal.  The weather is really unpredictable at the moment and there is rain forecast again for tomorrow.  The table cloth that was on the table had faded terribly in the sun and the corners had gone but it still left a huge expanse of material which we decided could make one, if not two, covers for the barbeque.

As it happens I made two and now the barbeque is protected from the elements - we plan to actually put it to good use on Saturday and I got John a huge great pork chop in readiness - I have got some marinaded chicken skewers instead.

John lost his temporary filling and had to go to the dentists today to have it replaced.  He is going to have a crown fitted in July - he nipped down to the Dentist whilst I was at Paps.  It is good to know that having been out we still had four requests in case we needed to shoot off somewhere in an emergency.


We had a long and enjoyable video call with Nicky and Mark during which time we realised we could use a variety of effects to change our faces.  The one on the right was our favourite.  This provided us with great entertainment!!!

Good news is that Mark has had his medication reviewed after his stent and with some tweaking he is now feeling fighting fit and looking forward for the lockdown to be lifted so that he and Nicky can do some more work on their house in Droushia.

Sadly today the news was not so good for David, Isobel's husband (they are the couple that we do the shopping for)  as David lost his fight with cancer today - rather sooner than we had hoped as we were praying that he might get home if only for a day to be with Isobel but it was not to be.  We knew that his time was limited but never expected his passing would be so soon.

We shall be there to help Isobel if she needs us and I will take some food down to her tomorrow which she can eat if she wants or freeze.

I am not sure that I will have enough snippets from the Ration Book for the next two weeks' of lockdown but I hope I can find something...
Unfortunately there was a shortage of boot after the Japanese invaded Malaya and Burma in December 1941, because this cut off rubber supplies, and the Women's Land Army Magazine "The Land Girl" gave advice on how to preserve them for as long as possible.  If they were damaged they had to be sent off to the Dunlop Rubber Company for repair.