Birthday in lockdown
May 2, 2020Spoiler alert, it was great. OK for those who wanted the longer version, it started a bit grey but I had kept a couple of deliveies to open. My merchandise from Wacken 2020, I wanted it to be Wacken fo my birthday. For those who don’t know Wacken is a music festival in Germany, it is my holiday every year. Until we moved it was very much my home. The one place I could go to relax. For obvious reasons it has been cancelled this year, but they handled it so well. We saw the German goverments statement that all large events were stopped until the end of August so we knew it was coming, but we thought it would take a few days for them to talk to bands and traders then they would tell the fans. The organizers told us the next day, that is serious organization and care for fans, trust me a lot don’t handle it half as well. Possibly becasue of that, or more exactly because they always try to do the best for all the fans, the fan response was to buy merchandise. So these shirts and hoodie are only round one, I am also getting the cancellation special shirt. For my birthday they confirmed we can just trade in our tickets for next year too, how amazing is that.
After admiring that haul I opened my Neals Yard jumbo bottle of soap and some alcohol hand sanitiser. If we are going to be using this stuff in huge amounts for the forseeable future then I will make sure I have some nice ones as well the the purely functional. I was also really pleased with a card that arrived in the post, complete with a Captain Tom postmark. I was hoping I would get something with it on, and I did. I also recieved a mug, with me and Fenrir on. It’s a really nice size with a handle you can really get your hand into. I do like a large and easy to hold mug.
After years of experience we know ordering food on my birthday is risky. Well maybe I can’t call it a risk as it is certain to go wrong. Over the years we have had burned food and missing food, off food, and hidden chili, but it happens every year. This year we orderd a box from the local bakery. Mostly local produce and some yeast, how is that foor a birthday win. As predicted it went wrong, the sausage rolls didnt arrive. Mind you everything that did that we have tried so far was amazing and today they deilved the sausage rolls in time for lunch so not really too bad. Turned out my bread I made Thursday was actually nice. Felt very dense and heavy but tastes fine and slices nicely.
We spent the day playing board games which is something we havent done in ages. We also spent a lot fo time with Fenrir who was on his best behaviour all day. We walked and played and wore him out. He is starting to get used to using his nose in in scent training classes. He isn’t a natural at it, he would rather use his eyes, but he is getting better and we can leave him more complex trails. It does also seem to be helping him get more restraint and focus which was actually the point. Along with the games I had a couple of the homemade run truffles.
Dinner was steak and chips with the January gin club gin. I even managed to fit a couple of ice cubes in the freezer for the first time in months. As it was a special day I broke out the new gin glass. The gin club keeps telling me to use one so I finally bought one. I won’t use it a lot as I am not good with stemmed glasses but it is nice to have for special ocassions.
Oh yes, my icecubes are often large spheres. They cool drinks really well and melt much slower than cubes so dillute the drink less. The moulds are also smaller and easier to fit into the freezer which for me at the moment is a big factor. We just had our monthly delivey so the freezer is very full. I didn’t get as far as making brownies, but apparently birthdays in lockdown last a week so I still have time for that. The day ended with my supervisor cat dragging me off to bed and tuking me in, she is a total professional about things like that.