End of half term

[lnr]

Since my last update I've managed an unexpected quantity of reading (Three *whole* books! Reviews on Goodreads). Some embroidery. Three days of strike. And the start of a new knitting project (The Leaf Storm shawl by An Caitín Beag). I've got frames for my two paint-by-numbers paintings, though they're not up on the wall yet. Matthew got a nice award at school last week for some powerful fiction writing, and we've been looking forward to half term, which starts today.

The only trouble is I came down with Covid last weekend (symptoms started Friday night, tested negative on Saturday, tested again on Monday as I was too unwell for work and it was positive). The other two are so far still testing negative, but we've had to cancel our visit to my sister and family this weekend, and we still haven't managed to get together since 2019 - I haven't even seen their new house they've been living in for 3 years! We'll postpone and try again in the Easter Hols but I'm a bit gutted. Depending on test results on Sunday or Monday we may still be able to go see Evan and Gina later in the week though, and finally have our postponed Christmas.

It's been very weird this week being on strike but *not allowed* to join the pickets. The unions and employers association are meeting at ACAS on Monday (on the pay dispute) so fingers crossed for progress and being able to go back to normal will some better pay in sight for everyone.