This is one of my favourite mice I’ve made. I call her Muriel the Mermouse.
[Derek Zoolander voice] MerMOUSE!
Continue readingMermouse
Author: walksbetweenthecommons
Mudlarking
I can’t believe I didn’t know about this for so long, after living here for almost five years! And it’s even something we can go do within the current lockdown restrictions!
For those of you who are as in the dark as I was about what this is, well, you’ve heard of beach combing? Mudlarking is like that, except along the Thames River in London; and you’re not looking for pretty shells, but rather, for bits of centuries-old-trash-turned-treasure. Centuries of lost or cast-off items that now qualify as antiques. It’s treasure hunting the whole family can do together, right here in London.
Continue readingTwo Boot Scrapers, Three Mice
Well, we came out of lockdown, and then pretty much immediately had to participate in “surge testing” for the South African variant of the virus, which had popped up in our local area.
It was like, Happy reopening! …now go get tested. (Ours were negative.)
But fortunately, school has resumed following the Easter holidays, and pretty much all the kids’ activities have resumed as well. So we’ve been trying to get back into a routine after a very disjointed start to this year.
Continue readingUnlocking London
Today, Monday, April 12, was a big one for removing quite a few of the restrictions we’ve all been under since Christmas. Domestic travel and holiday lets are now allowed, so some of my friends and neighbours have packed up their cars and gone off to various English country- or seaside locales for the remainder of the school holidays.
Retail shops and gyms could reopen, salons and barber shops could welcome back the desperate and ungroomed (that would be a good name for a soap opera, no?), and restaurants and pubs could once again serve diners and drinkers, as long as they were outdoors. People have been very excited for this day, and are hungry for a taste of the former freedoms and simple pleasures we once took for granted.
So it seemed like a particularly cruel joke when we woke up to this:
In Mourning
HRH Prince Philip died yesterday, at the age of 99.
The nation has gone into mourning, so I’ve heard, but we’ve already been deep in that due to our own personal loss this week.
Easter Sunday was a very sad day for us, as we said goodbye to our beloved dog, Wren. It’s been a difficult week, to say the least.
Walks Between the Commons 