Easter on Lockdown 2021

 Hey guys!

I know it was a month ago now, but as usual, I'm running behind, so... how was your Easter?

We had a lovely Easter, despite spending it on lockdown for the second year running. Luckily, we always celebrate Easter at home because we're a bunch of hermits, so Covid didn't get to ruin our Easter. I had a relaxing weekend spending time with the family, watching movies, crafting, stuffing my face with Easter chocolate, and enjoying the Bunny Day Easter event on Animal Crossing. It was so good to have a happy, carefree Easter without Covid spoiling it in some way.

On Good Friday and Easter Saturday, I made colourful Easter crackers, and table favours ready for our family meal on Easter Sunday, while watching Easter movies. 

For the crackers, I used cracker kits from the Little Crafty Bugs, printed off some terrible Easter jokes I found online, filled them with mini chocolate bunnies and eggs, and tied them with satin ribbons in contrasting colours. I was going to do something more creative with them this year, but I was in too much pain when the time came, so I decided to let the colours do the talking and kept them simple, so I could finish quickly and minimise the pain. 

For the table favours, I filled pastel striped cone bags from Ginger Ray with a mixture of mini chocolate eggs and bunnies, and gave everyone a bag during dinner. The mint chocolate mini Lindt eggs were soooo good!

I spent Easter Sunday morning watching Steel Magnolias, which is a ritual I observe every year as it's the best Easter film ever! I also relaxed with more Animal Crossing, and let myself get creeped out by Zipper T. Bunny. That giant yellow rabbit is like something from a horror film! Things nose-dived for a bit when I somehow managed to crack one of my molars on a chocolate orange mini egg, but luckily, it didn't cause me any pain- I only noticed it later when my tongue registered a new texture. I now have a lovely little crevice between two of my teeth, while I work up the courage to go to the dentist to get it fixed. (I'm terrified of dentists). I'm just thankful that it still doesn't hurt.

After I'd gotten over the panic, I exchanged Easter eggs with my family, and helped my dog open her Easter present / latest murder victim- a corduroy Easter bunny. 

This was my Easter chocolate delivery from Tesco a month earlier. I think I might be the Easter Bunny in disguise...

I then set to work on making the dinner table look super colourful for our family Easter meal, which must have taken at least an hour of my afternoon. I was really pleased with how it turned out, and think it looked really cheerful, although it wasn't anything special. It basically looks the same every Easter. I'd love to make an epic Easter centre piece, but once the food is on the table, there isn't space for anything else.

We sat down for our Easter meal around five pm, and had a turkey roast with all the trimmings- Christmas-style, which was so delicious. It was such a gorgeous, sunny day that we had the patio doors open as we ate, with the sunshine streaming through, and music playing in the background. It was lovely. Afterwards, we had homemade blackberry and apple trifle or lemon cheesecake for dessert in front of the TV (I opted for trifle), and watched a bit of Grease on TV, which I haven't seen in yeeears. 

We had hoped my older sister and brother-in-law would join us for the meal, since the rule-of-six had just returned, and were planning to dine in the garden, but my brother-in-law had to work last minute. They visited for a bit later in the evening instead, so we were still able to spend some time with them, which was great as I hadn't seen them since Christmas. And they still got fed, so it all worked out.

We all had a lovely day, especially Rosie, who loved all the attention, turkey, and new toys. She didn't stop smiling all day, until she wore herself out so much, she fell asleep snoring on my feet after dinner.

I was completely worn out and in agony by the evening, so it was back to bed for me after that. It was my first afternoon downstairs and out of bed since Boxing Day (except for the twenty minutes I spent out of the house to get vaccinated in March), and I naturally pushed myself too much. I couldn't move for the rest of the night, or the following day. 

On Easter Monday, I was so fatigued I could barely keep my eyes open, and the day is a blur of naps, pain, and Animal Crossing. I don't think I even had the energy to watch the movies I'd planned to, but I was at least able to enjoy some turkey sandwiches and left over trifle, which helped me feel better. And of course, I also had Easter eggs from my family, so I indulged in a little Easter chocolate, too. 

This was this year's Easter loot. I only finished the last egg off yesterday!

I didn't manage to take photos of all of my Easter decorations this year, but these are some of the decorations from my bedroom. I finally bought myself an Easter tree this year to give myself a place to hang my Easter decorations- a simple white tree I bought from Hobbycraft for £15. (They do a larger version, too, and seem to have them every Easter). I think it looked great, and I can't wait to build up my Easter bauble collection so I can hang more from it in the future. I actually had it on display in a different spot in my bedroom, but it was too shadowy for photos, so I moved it to where my TV usually is to show you. The other decorations sat beside or above my TV.

And that was my Easter in a nut shell. Quiet and homely, but enjoyable just the same.

As lovely as it was, I have to admit, it was surreal spending a second Easter on lockdown. A year ago, when we celebrated our first Easter on lockdown in the early days of the pandemic in the UK, I genuinely thought it would be the only one we'd spend on lockdown, and it would be a one-bit novelty to tell stories about one day. I was sure that life would be back to normal in a few weeks, and it would all be a distant memory by now. I can't help laughing at how naïve I was! Who would've thought this life would've happened to us? 

I'm feeling hopeful that next Easter will be much more normal, at least for those of us in the UK, and we'll be able to enjoy it however we please. Let's hope we don't find ourselves celebrating a third Easter on lockdown, huh?

How did you spend the Easter weekend?

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Easter on Lockdown 2020

Surviving Lockdown With Animal Crossing New Horizons

When people ask you what you did during the Covid-19 lockdown, what are you going to be able to tell them? I learnt a new craft? I took up gardening? I read a book a day? Me? I will have to admit that I spent most of my time glued to my Switch playing Animal Crossing New Horizons.

I have played Animal Crossing New Horizons every day since it was released on March 20th, and have been enjoying it so much, I've already clocked up over 570 hours on the game! I'll admit I'm totally addicted, but I'm loving this game so much, and it's proving to be a great distraction from everything that's going on in the world at the moment. It's even helped to settle my anxiety, which was all over the place when lockdown first began in the UK. It could not have been released at a better time.

Before New Horizons was released, I was a big fan of Animal Crossing New Leaf, and had played it every day for over fifteen months after receiving a copy as a Christmas present from my younger sister. So, I was naturally excited for New Horizons as soon as I heard about it last year, and bought a Switch Lite just so I could play it.

I preordered the game and began playing it as soon as it arrived on release day. It took me four hours and a lot of resetting to settle on an island I liked (no, I'm not joking!), but once I was happy with a layout, island fruit (oranges), and airport colour (yellow) (all very important factors, as any AC devotee will tell you), I jumped right in to the game, and I've barely stopped playing since.

It didn't take me long to fall in love with this game or to become addicted to it just like I was with New Leaf. It's just so cute and wholesome.

I love that it includes many of the popular aspects and characteristics of previous Animal Crossing games we all know and love like fishing, catching bugs, expanding and decorating a house, cross breeding flowers, designing your own island, shopping for clothes and furniture etc., but with a new high def make over, and a ton of new features that were missing in the past. Some of my favourites include: Terraforming (waterfalls; waterfalls everywhere!); the ability to dig up trees and bushes and replant; crafting furniture from materials found on the island; wishing on shooting stars to earn star fragments for special furniture; having a large selection of clothes and accessories to shop from each day; being able to change your character's look at any time and getting a choice of skin colours; the ability to choose where to place villagers' houses and move the buildings; being able to send gifts to friends; and by far my favourite, the ability to place furniture outdoors! It used to frustrate the hell out of me that I couldn't do this in New Leaf! Now I can place sun loungers on the beach, and make a cemetery out of gravestones. It provides much more creative freedom.

Another thing I love is that the anthropomorphic animal islanders are even cuter in New Horizons than they were in New Leaf. I love how they now sing, run around air-planing, sit in random places eating snacks, and do yoga, I don't know why it amuses me so much. I've already said goodbye to a few characters since the beginning (Ken, Bruce, Bubbles, Zucker, Doc, Diva, Huck), and had several new ones move in, and I'm fairly happy with my current selection. I currently have Iggly, Mint, Gala, Cheri, Pinky, Poppy, Bianca, Nana, Tia and Eloise. I'm still hoping to find Lily and Peanut again, which were two of my favourites from my New Leaf town, but every time I island hop for new characters, I seem to find the worst characters like the eagles and gorillas. Or Ken. Ken's a creep.

I'm really enjoying visiting friends and my sister's islands to hang out, trade, shop, and find island inspiration, and having them visit me to do the same. It's the new cool way to socialise since we can't do this together in real life right now, and we don't even have to worry about social distancing! We can just run round islands together, wish on shooting stars, and beat each other with nets! Haha! (Still waiting on the return of the toy hammer, so nets will have to do for now!) The only bugbear I have about visiting other islands is that you now need a Nintendo subscription to be able to visit friends, which I feel is cheeky considering the price of the game. (You don't need the subscription to visit friends or family playing nearby via local play, though). I think it should be free and accessible to all players.

I've invested so many hours in to my island trying to make it look as pretty as possible. I've got loads still to develop, but the front section has been turned in to a housing estate with the plaza, a playground, and a cafe in the middle. I've got azalea hedges everywhere, and the gardens are filled with pink flowers. My funfair is taking shape, and I love my little cemetery and secret beach that I dug down to out of the cliff face. I'm still working on furnishing my house, but so far I'm happy with my pink and mint basement diner, and the pastel coloured playroom in my attic. I also began a Cute room this weekend, for the Cute furniture I have so far, and just added a second human character so that I could add another house to my island to decorate because six rooms are not enough for all the ideas I have planned. (It's also a great way to get extra storage when you've used up your 1600)!

I'm mostly aiming for a pretty, pastel, natural look for my island, but with fun, and creepy areas added in, but it's sure to change a thousand times before I'm satisfied with it. It's one of those games where you find yourself constantly tweaking and improving the look until it's perfect. It's all consuming, but it's proving to be the perfect distraction from the Corona Virus and isolation. It's given me something else to concentrate on and stops me thinking about all the awful stuff going on because I'm too busy trying to catch butterflies, craft recipes, and construct the perfect layouts. Even the natural sounds of the waves and the waterfalls are really calming, just like being near water in real life. It makes you feel like you're outdoors, even though you're cooped up indoors doing your part to stamp out the virus and keep everyone safe. Gah, I love it!

If you enjoy social simulation games and are looking for a fun way to occupy your time on lockdown and distract yourself from virus life, I couldn't recommend Animal Crossing New Horizons to you more. It's fun, it's cute, it's a great game to play with friends, and there is always so much to do. Yes, it's pricey, but it's worth every penny. Everyone I know who plays the game is addicted. Just be prepared to be, too! Once you start playing, you won't be able to stop!

If you play ACNH and want to hang out or trade, leave me your friend codes!

Do you play Animal Crossing New Horizons? What do you enjoy most about it?

Easter On Lockdown 2020

How was everyone's Easter? Did you do anything to celebrate it this year despite being on lockdown? I hope it was a lovely one.

We decided to try to keep Easter as normal as possible to reclaim a little normality back in our lives, and have something lovely to look forward to amidst the craziness. We totally nailed it, as well! Apart from a couple of minute differences, it wasn't any different to any other Easter we've had. It ended up being a lovely weekend, and it was great to have the distraction from reality.

On Good Friday, I put up Easter decorations in my bedroom so I could feel festive while resting in bed. I never actually managed to take any photos of my room decorated for Easter this year because I was in too much pain to move around, but it looked very similar to last year's efforts, so I've included a photo from last Easter instead. 

I spent the Saturday afternoon making homemade Easter crackers and table favours ready for our family meal on Easter Sunday. As I still had supplies left over from last year and didn't want to put anyone in danger packing and delivering a new online craft order, I just ended up making the same pastel pom pom crackers as last year- with contrasting pastel satin ribbons and pom pom buttons. I filled them with mini chocolate bunnies from Hotel Chocolat, which I snagged online from John Lewis with 30% off before Easter. The solid caramel chocolate bunnies were sooo good. 

For the table favours, I filled pastel-striped cone bags from Hobbycraft with mini Lindt, M&Ms, Smarties, and Cadbury eggs, which was all we could scavenge this Easter. I usually add in more variety and fancier brands, but for obvious reasons, I couldn't be fussy this year, and was grateful I was able to find anything to give at all.

I had a lazy Easter Sunday morning watching Steel Magnolias (my favourite Easter film that I have to watch every Easter without fail) for the millionth time, and enjoying the Easter themed Bunny Day event on Animal Crossing New Horizons. (Who else is playing ACNH? I'm addicted!) It put me in such a chilled mood for the rest of the day.

I then exchanged Easter eggs with my family. I managed to pick some up from Cadbury's Gifts Direct online a few weeks before Easter, which was a relief as our supermarkets ran out as soon as lockdown began, If I'd waited any longer, I would have missed out as they had such high demand they had to keep pausing new orders.

This was my Easter loot. My parents gave me a chocolate orange Easter egg, and the egg tasted just like a chocolate orange. OMG it was amazing! My sister got me a Galaxy egg, and I treated myself to a Cadbury one, because why not?

Around lunch time, I somehow found the courage to brave the Everest that is The Stairs so I could set the table for Easter lunch. I hadn't been downstairs since early February because my arthritis and fibromyalgia have both been so bad this year, and I've been struggling to bare weight on my knees and feet because the arthritis has been so painful. I've barely even strayed from my bed since Boxing Day. I had the worst aching, radiating pain in my leg on Easter Sunday, so getting out of bed and hobbling down the stairs wasn't the easiest or most sensible thing I've done. I was in agony, but I'm stubborn AF, and wanted to enjoy Easter lunch with my family, and make the table look pretty for it, so I powered through, with a little help from my Mum who did most of the leg work to and from the kitchen.

I made our Easter table super colourful using my favourite Easter table linens and pastel crockery. (You know you're getting old when you have favourite tableware, and look forward to using them)! I bought the table linens from John Lewis a couple of years ago, and started collecting the Port Meirion x Sophie Conran Colour Pop china around the same time. I still bloody love them; the colours are such a mood-lifter.

I added in my handmade Easter crackers, and pastel-striped bags of mini Easter eggs to every plate, plus a couple of egg-shaped bowls full of chocolate eggs to the table, which we were munching on as we got ready for lunch. The only thing that was missing was some fresh spring flowers. I think the table looked really cheerful, and the parents seemed to like it, too. Apparently I'm a creature of habit, though; the first photo is this year's table, and the second was what I came up with last year. Well, if it ain't broke...

We sat down for our meal around half two, and had a turkey roast with all the trimmings, Christmas-style. My Mum actually managed to find us a turkey crown from the local butchers (we'd normally get a whole frozen turkey but couldn't get one anywhere), and all the ingredients to make my homemade trifle. We just swapped the usual raspberries and blackberries from a local farm shop for a bag of mixed frozen berries from the supermarket, and it was almost as good as usual. The food was all delicious, and the only real difference to the meal this year was having regular roast potatoes instead of delicious goose fat ones, which was regretable but not the end of the world. My sister and brother-in-law were also missing from the meal- but they weren't going to be able to get the time off work to visit this Easter, anyway, virus or no virus.

The sun was shining and we had the patio doors open while we ate, with The Beatles playing cheerful tunes of days gone by in the background. It was a lovely meal, and just what we needed during these not-so-lovely times.

After lunch, I crawled back up to bed, and continued to play Animal Crossing while watching some TV. I was going to watch another Easter film, but I think I ended up binge-watching The Big Bang Theory again. I read for a while, and had turkey sandwiches and leftover trifle for tea later in the evening. It was a good day.

Easter Monday was spent watching The Sound of Music (another Easter ritual I observe almost every year), and playing more Animal Crossing while munching on some Easter chocolate, and eating more leftover trifle.

It was just the kind of Easter I was hoping for, and even though we were on lockdown, it really wasn't that different than it would normally be. We always celebrate Easter at home and never go anywhere on Easter Sunday or Monday, so I'm pleased lockdown didn't ruin our Easter. It was just a shame my sister and brother-in-law couldn't make it, and that my Dad was unable to go to church over Easter, which is important to him, but considering we were on lockdown during a global pandemic, I think it was a success, and far better than any of us expected it to be.

Hopefully next year we'll all be able to enjoy Easter out of lockdown with out families and friends, and all the little things we usually enjoy but couldn't do this year.

Did you celebrate Easter this year? How did you make the best of it on lockdown?