#LivingInLockdown
Day 24 – Wednesday 8th April
This week has had a number of highlights thus far. The first being I received in the post some lovely hand written letters from my great nephew and niece. I can’t remember the last time someone wrote to me by slow mail, everything is done by text message or whats app these days. My post is usually just full of bills and legal stuff. It’s quite exciting to get an actual letter and reading them put a smile on my face.
Obviously I had to write back. This was a bit complicated as I don’t have any nice stationary, but did manage to find some lined paper. These days, except for jotting a few notes, pretty much everything I write is on a keyboard. My fingers are out of practice and my hand writing has definitely suffered. I had to concentrate to make it even remotely legible. It was like being back at school. Nonetheless I think I managed a passable letter to each of them.
The next highlight was going to the post office to send these letters. Before anyone asks I also had a couple of legal documents that have to go by post as a digital copy is not valid in court, so I didn’t go to the post office just for the letters, though they were the most important bit as far as I was concerned. The legal documents were my excuse should the police question me. The great thing about the post office is it is much further from my house than the supermarket, so I got to have a reasonable walk. I’m wondering if there is a reason to go back there, but the reality is I probably visit the post office once or twice a year normally. Shame because I enjoyed the outing.
The final highlight revolves around my love of wine. Before the lockdown I used to attend at least one wine tasting a week. Many of the places I went to have started to do tastings online, some free and some you pay for. However this generally entails you watching some expert tasting the wines and talking you through the wines of specific region or grape variety. You don’t get to try the wine yourself. This sounds like torture to me. There’s no fun if I don’t drink the wine myself.
One shop, Madrid & Darracott, have got round this. They produce a box of 6 wines which they deliver to you. Then do three tastings a week each on just one bottle from the box, because you don’t want to open more than one bottle at a time when you’re on your own. This is done live on instagram and you tune in to try the wine with them in the comfort of your own home. You can comment via instagram and they will respond to these comments and questions during the live show. Also it’s in English and the guy who does it, Luke Darracott, is super enthusiastic and knowledgeable but likes his tastings to be fun. This sounds a lot more my style, so I ordered a box. Apparently they’ve had so many orders they are unable to supply all of them with the six chosen wines so will have to give some people alternatives. As I’m a regular customer they made sure I got the correct wines…. Thank you! My box arrived today, which was so exciting. I have tried none of these wines before and three of them are grape varieties I really like. It’s all very promising. My first tasting is this weekend and I’m really looking forward to it.
Cheers everyone!