The End of the Twin Shortage

Socially Distanced Easter Walk with Perran and Carenza

When Christmas got banned, we were lucky enough to have Pascoe already with us.  He had arrived early to avoid crowded trains.  However, the twins were stuck in their London flat.  We dropped off gifts and food on the doorstep, waved a tearful farewell and Zoomed on Christmas Day.

We had not spent time with them since meeting in Kew Gardens in early October.  It was to be six months from then until the Easter weekend when finally we saw them again.  Of course we had been in regular touch, but having less and less to chat about over the long, dark, solitary weeks of midwinter.

It could be that Covid Lockdown has been the world’s largest experiment to test the hypothesis ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!’

I await eagerly revelations about the evil genius who masterminded the experiment.  Given the origins of this Corona Virus, surely it has to have been one of Batman’s arch-enemies…?

But I digress.

Thing was, we did at last see Perran and Carenza.  We had lunch in our sunny, breezy garden and walked down our street, lined with magnolias framed by a blue sky, and out into the fields which were wearing their new green coats trimmed with the white lace of blackthorn blossom.

And it was beyond lovely.

All we have to do now is solve the current Pascoe shortage!

The End of the Social Drought

At times I have been so grateful to have Nigel’s companionship over this period of isolation, at others, I have wondered whether Rentokil ever deals with husbands.

A particular low point was the day when I was trying to write a short story at my desk close to the front door and Nigel decided he would fix the doorbell.  It involved testing the doorbell repeatedly over a long period.

I went into the hallway and said, ‘You know, yesterday I saw an interview with Margaret Atwood.  In 2019, she lost her partner of many years, Graeme.  It’s very sad and she clearly misses him….But do you know what she doesn’t miss at all?’

‘No?’ said Nigel, ‘What?’

‘Him playing with the bloody doorbell for hours on end.  Apparently it in no way helped her to win the Booker Prize.’

Leaving him with a thoughtful look on his face, I retreated back into the office.

But, for the time being at least, the social drought has ended and both the joys and the frustrations of one’s life partner will be diluted to safe levels by friends and family coming for a cuppa in the garden.  And probably a good thing too.

 

A Year On

Looking back at my blogs from a year ago, it brings back vividly the weirdness of distancing from people I was used to hugging, the panicky feeling of being on holiday in Lille at the point where it was locking down.  

However, I also remember a sense of relief at life becoming less frantic.  Travelling to work and to see relations ground to a halt.   There was suddenly time to address calming domestic tasks in the  house and garden.  There was tinkering with pot plants and with baking recipes.  There were leisurely with neighbours across a two-meter gulf.

My photos show a backdrop of dazzling blue skies behind frothy blossoms, the delight I took in each new spring flower – celandines, violets, wood anemones. And so many long walks as the spring evenings lengthened.

What is clear, however, is we never guessed Lockdowns would continue so long.  There was the sense that the first Lockdown was a little oasis in everyday life.  I remember teaching into the Easter holidays because I thought it would mean fewer lessons in the summer term when everything would be back to normal.

I also worked through a list of long-postponed projects, rushing to finish them before everyday life resumed.

But Lockdown has been a marathon, not the sprint I first envisaged.  If I could send a message back to myself in Spring 2020, I’d say ‘Slow down – You’ll have plenty of time at home!’ 

 

 

The Goldfinger Incident

I’m a bit of a fidget.  If I’m talking on the phone I like to use a headset and find a task to keep my hands busy.

It was time to ring John, an elderly friend from church.  So I decided to make some Christmas decorations out of materials I already had, the remnants of previous projects.

“Hello, John.  How has your week been?”

Since John is confined to his house and my adventures have been curtailed by Lockdown, it is hard to make the conversation sparkle.

“It’s been mild for the time of year, hasn’t it?”

I laid out some cones gathered from a giant redwood and drilled holes in them.

“The Autumn colours have been lovely, but the leaves are falling now.”

So far, so good.  I was having a nice catch-up with John and being creative at the same time.  I felt positively smug.

Looking at the decorations however, they seemed very…brown.

A little gold paint would make it SO much better.

I found a half-used spray can. Unfortunately the gold paint had formed a crust which meant I couldn’t depress the nozzle. 

I pressed down harder.

Suddenly, there was a crunch and the nozzle was now stuck down, in spray mode.  Gold paint was bubbling everywhere and pooling on the worktop. 

I gave up trying to have a civilised conversation.

“Oh no.  This is the only gold paint I’ve got!  I have to use it.  So I’m putting my hands in it and rubbing it over the pine cones…It’s going everywhere.  I look as if I’ve been in a punch-up with Tinkerbell – and lost!”

Judging by the chuckles from the other end of the phone, I think John enjoyed my combination of craftwork and phone call rather more than our usual sedate chat.

And the paint did stop coming out eventually.

 

Big Wedding Anniversary

This Summer we were going to have a party.  Monday was our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary and we thought we should celebrate with friends and family. 

In March, I was reproaching myself for being late in sending out our ‘save the date’s.

However, Covid quickly turned my tardiness into an advantage.  An anniversary party was one thing I did not have to rearrange.

It also changed my perspective.  What we had planned were large loud festivities.  What happened was very different.

Pascoe came to stay and the twins visited on Sunday (travelling by Zipp Car and socially-distanced from us).  The children gave us champagne & flowers.  I cooked a partially successful vegan quiche (‘Don’t worry – I’m sure it will taste delicious.’) which we ate in the garden.  Then we went for a long tramp around Heartwood and Nomansland where swathes of cornflowers glowed blue against the yellow lady’s bedstraw. We came back for summer pudding made from homegrown fruit (good except for the vintage saucer which had glued itself to the base of the pudding).

And after all the separation from one another, it was a hugely happy occasion to be together as a family once more.  And more than exciting enough.

Card by Carenza - Coral Anniversary

Make your own milk!

I’m a great one for avoiding faff. 

But logic made me change my mind this week.

After approximately six weeks of trudging to the Co-op mainly in order to score some milk, I finally remembered that some of my acquaintances had mentioned making their own milk.

Before you recoil in horror, I mean oat milk.

Oat milk is way greener than dairy milk in terms of carbon footprint.  Even greener than soya milk. 

I had mentally filed it under ‘faff’, but right now, it looks like less faff than social distancing at the Co-op.

This, coupled with the fact that we now have about 2 kilos of porridge oats which Nigel has rejected as being ‘Not the kind I like’, means that the time has come to make oat milk.

The first recipe I looked at described the problem of milk turning out slimy.  This was a bit off-putting, especially as my first batch really was slimy and sank like a stone in my tea.  

However, I tried again with a different recipe and this time it still sank like a stone, but at least it wasn’t slimy.

Nigel’s not keen, but I’m going to keep going.  I like a challenge.  And if I succeed, even after Lockdown ends (someday), it means we’ll have fewer of those hard-to-recycle tetrapaks.

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?”

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.

Getting hold of fresh produce

We are trying to avoid the shops at the moment – it seems the most likely place to pick up Corona Virus.  However, it means we need to be imaginative about getting fresh produce.

I got the old pack of dried mung beans out of the back of the larder and am keeping some of them damp in a tray.  By the end of the week, they will have grown enough for me to use them as delicious bean sprouts.  

Soon I’ll plant some marrowfat peas (also from a pack in the larder) in a big dish outside and will quickly get pea sprouts - very fashionable in London restaurants.

Meantime, on my once-a-day excursion for exercise I am beginning to spot things I can forage – young nettle tops can be made into soup or eaten like spinach, while ramsons (wild garlic leaves) are nearly big enough to pick and cook with pasta or add flavour to stews or salads.

And in our little veg plot, I asked Nigel not to uproot last year’s chard and kale yet.  They may be a bit leggy, but they are still giving some green leaves.

Even if we didn't have the threat of Corona Virus, growing and foraging food still beats standing in a queue in Morrisons.

How will the countryside manage without us?

The spring weather has been so heart-meltingly beautiful lately.

Our reward for grounding the polluting aeroplanes has been cobalt skies and tiny twists of white cloud.  Just like the clear weather when the planes stopped because a volcano erupted in Iceland a few years back.

And combined with that, there has been the time to enjoy the sights of spring.

Over the last week I have stood with Nigel and Pascoe and watched:

 a coot diving to the bottom of a moat, then rising swiftly upwards as if in an elevator,

male moorhens battling over territory like an aquatic display of cock fighting,

a little grebe hunting for food by zipping along underwater.

“What is this world if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?”

In the warm weather this week, I’ve had my first sightings of the fabulously colourful brimstone, peacock and tortoiseshell butterflies.

Not to mention the naughty bee fly with its intriguing life cycle.

Violets and wood anemones are blossoming and bluebell leaves are pushing through, readying themselves to blossom in a month’s time.

So it’s going to be tough if we stop being allowed out to exercise.

But just like with the planes stopping, there’s always an upside: perhaps the wildlife will be glad to have a break from us disruptive humans!

A Mother's Day Service

At church, Mother’s day is called Mothering Sunday and is said to be the day when people would traditionally revisit their mother church – the one where they were baptised.

But I have always held this to be an evil rumour put about by clergymen who have forgotten to buy their mothers a card.

Mother’s Day is about ME.

Obviously.

So although I’m a regular churchgoer at St Luke’s, I usually eschew Mothering Sunday Services and force my benighted children to accompany me on a day trip into the countryside.

However, due to current guidelines, I couldn’t gather my offspring this year.  We phoned Nigel’s Mum in Northumberland, mine in Cornwall.  My kids Skyped and Zoomed in.

However, the thing that really made it feel like Mother’s Day was, paradoxically, church.

The church Mother’s Day service was not held this year owing to Covid 19.  In the Vicar’s garden paraded a legion of brightly-coloured pots of polyanthus. They had been purchased to hand out on Mother’s Day, but were now unclaimed.

A few of us who could not think up an excuse quickly enough were delegated to place these on the doorsteps of the women who should have received them.

Initially, the freezing East wind and the fact that my recipients were dotted all over town made me curse.  But then I got into it. 

I began to feel a bit like the Easter Bunny come early.

And in the end, one of the nicest things about my Mother’s Day was the thought of those other mothers opening their doors to an unexpected splash of colourful flowers.

Social Distance

It’s a deep need in us, to see each other.

Carol was back after six weeks away in Australia, braving fires, floods and, it transpired, a deadly snake which found its way into her shopping bag.

Caroline and I really wanted to see her, but we are told that just meeting together could be almost as much of a danger as those threats Carol had already survived.

In the end, we drove in separate cars to Heartwood, our local forest, parked, air-hugged one another and walked several miles, mostly at two meters’ distance to one another. 

The sky was blazing blue, white blossom studded the hedgerows and a brisk East wind zipped past.  It was a great day to be out and Carol had lots of new tales to tell.

Everybody else seemed to have had the same idea and were out with kids and dogs and friends.  I’ve never seen so many people there at one time. 

I twice forgot to push kissing gates with my elbow, and used my bare hand, but otherwise we did well. 

However, I was glad there were not too many of us as it was hard to stay apart and still chat.

So just now when I spoke to Pascoe on the phone, I was intrigued when he said he was about to climb a nearby hill and watch the sunset with four friends.

“Gosh, how are you going to stay in a group and observe social distancing with so many of you?”

“We’ve thought about it,” he replied, “And we’re going for a quincunx formation.”

After all, they are scientists.

quincunx