Your Place or Mine?

For us during this lockdown, videoconferencing has become a magic carpet.  It is as easy to have a natter with friends who live at a distance as it is people who live just round the corner.

Some of our friends have lived miles from us for many years and we are used to putting aside weekends to see them.  But recently, several other friends have moved away from the south east and are now a day trip away, or even a whole weekend.  And there are only so many weekends in the year.

However, we can now see them for an hour or so on any evening.  If they’re not already busy videoconferencing somebody else, that is!

Similarly, because Pascoe lives in Edinburgh, it is rare to have all our offspring in one room together.  But now we are achieving this once a week.

All this was available before, but it was not socially accepted to meet a bunch of friends as if it was a work conference call.  It is one of the things from Lockdown that I hope we keep. 

Now when we make a social arrangement, we ask “Skype or Zoom?”

Nigel figures it’s become the new “Your place or mine?”

Easter bunny - a new generation

Generally at our house the Easter bunny lays a trail of little pastel-coloured  eggs around the garden for younger members of the family to find. 

Since the offspring have got older and wiser, the eggs now have to be fair trade and vegan (Oxfam supplies – if you’re wondering) and the pretty foil is now carefully recycled rather than being turned into a butterfly wing collage.

However, this year, the Easter bunny was locked down miles away from younger family members.  

The bunny posted a few eggs she had obtained before lockdown.

Pascoe ingeniously provided his own hunt by standing in his sitting room, throwing the eggs over his shoulder, then going to look for them.

However, the Bunny was worried about Carenza who particularly values this tradition (and indeed the chocloate it brings).

However, she needn’t have worried.  The family has a new Easter Bunny who stepped up to the mark, obtained Easter eggs and hid them around the flat for his sister.

He even wore a set of pink ears while doing so – surely beyond the call of duty.

Our usual Easter bunny is certainly going to have to up her game next year.

Celebrating Easter alone together

Our vicar often says, “The Church isn’t the building – it’s the people”.

So the thought of spending Good Friday and Easter Sunday without being able to grieve and rejoice alongside other members of our church family, made Nigel and I feel subdued.

In the end, our vicar and curate rose to the challenge and services were available not only on Facebook, but also YouTube, AND Zoom.

I felt like emailing to complain that there was no Skype or Teams version available.  But when you are not face to face, people sometimes don’t realise you are joking.

It was a comfort to wave to our lovely friends on Zoom.  But my favourite moment was when, with the Good Friday service just about to begin, a black square appeared on the grid, labelled “Unknown Host”.

I muted our mic and nudged Nigel.  “The Holy Ghost really is present with us today.”

Back to my roots.

I guess that a lot of us are using this period of isolation to experiment with our...ahem...grooming routine.

Probably if we were to match selfies taken right now against those from a month back, it would be evident that the nation is on average much hairier today.

For myself, I have been hijacked by spring cleaning and have waxed the wooden floors, but not my legs. 

Legs are redundant anyway, since Zoom took over our world.

At least one member of my family appears to be trying out a beard when I spot him on WhatsApp.

For myself, I wondered whether this might be a convenient period to transition to grey hair. 

However, half an inch in, I got cold feet and dyed it again.

It seems I feel as young as my hair dye and not yet as old as my roots.

 

You can take foraging too far

At the weekend, we were walking by the River Ver, hoping to spot the turquoise gleam of a kingfisher.

As always, we carried with us a couple of old plastic bread bags and some rubber gloves, in case we want to pick nettles.  We had collected a little hedge mustard and were considering the young hawthorn leaves (in the past called ‘bread and cheese’ because they are edible and do not need to be cooked).

Just then I was surprised by a sudden sound of rushing water and noticed a manhole cover in the grass. 

“I suppose that must be a drain under there.  Yes.  Look. I can see bits of toilet paper from when it flooded over winter.”

“Step right away from the drain,” said Nigel, “I know toilet paper’s in shortage, but you can take foraging just too far.”

How did things go this far?

Today I allowed myself to get caught up in a train of events which led to hardcore housework.

I must watch myself and not let it happen again.

It started with a project which has been shelved for far too long – I’m making a winter coverlet for our bed. 

Even given my shortcomings as a needlewoman, the new coverlet will look smarter than the child’s sleeping bag (from IKEA in the 1990s) which we currently lay over our bed on cold nights.

During a lockdown is the perfect time to complete such a task.

I had to find a big bit of floor to lay it out.  Only the sitting room would do.  And only after we removed the chairs.

But then I could see how dirty the wood floor was. 

I swept it, but that wasn’t enough.

So I mopped it, but then it looked rather dull and matt. 

So then I got out the floor polish – its first outing in around four years - and sprayed the floor with it.

And now I’m waiting for it to dry so I can buff it up.

And the coverlet?

I’m no further forward.

Lit up by rainbows

I've been taking a lunchtime constitutional each day, as permitted by The Rules.  Often, I make a circuit round our streets.

Painted rainbows have been appearing in windows and they have made it a joy.

The Rainbow is not a single focused campaign but a general movement stimulated by sharing on social media.  It is spreading, dare I say it...virally.

The message is one of hope and reassurance - like any storm, this will come to an end.

Recently, I've seen a variant - children have been chalking colourful rainbows on pavements and walls.

It lifted my heart.

But one family had to go and take it just too far. 

There on the pavement in front of me was a sequence of chalked instructions:
"Tip-toes....walk the tightrope....five star jumps....six hops"

Dammit, they had created a pavement exercise routine.

Feeling threatened, I returned home at once.

The thrill of the food cupboard

It’s now two weeks since I last went to the shops or had a delivery.

By now I am working my way through little-known corners of the larder.

 

I thought I had everything neatly arranged in boxes.

How great was my happiness to discover that things had been flipped out and lodged behind the boxes.  The jewel in the crown of my discoveries was…a pack of dried pasta. 

Okay, so it was wholewheat, but nothing is perfect.

I’ve stopped tidying the larder just now – hoping to find some more surprises tomorrow.

Mustn’t overexcite myself.

Lockdown for Burglars

Recently Nigel left his keys in the front door.  On the outside.

I helpfully pointed his lapse out to him, but he made the point that actually a burglar would be hard put to it to find a moment when we were both out.

Think about it.

For a house robber, their way of life has pretty much dried up.

Nigel said, “I notice Rishi Sunak didn’t announce any financial relief for burglars who can’t get into people’s homes at the moment.”

“No, I guess they’ll just have to show a bit of initiative and live up to the challenge of these trying times.”

And judging by the number of Phishing texts/emails recently, seems like quite a few have.