Substitute Holiday

During lockdown there have been emergencies and bereavements and immeasurable problems.

So it would seem churlish to grumble about missed holidays. And actually most people haven't been.

However, for many there has been the hushed sound of the passing away of a vision of oneself in bright summer clothes on a mountain or a beach or in a stylish foreign city.

It makes me realise that for me, nurturing the prospect of a break is as important as actually having the holiday.

This week was supposed to be spent with all our children in a holiday rental on the stunning Northumbrian coast. I could almost taste the salt air.

So although we didn't take the holiday, it had at least performed its role for several months this year as being something I was looking forward to.

In the end Nigel and I took the time off anyway and on Thursday we and the twins shared an outing to Chartwell, Churchill's former home.  The house was of course not open, but the grounds were. 

And after the very quiet life we have been leading recently that was excitement enough.

Shopping

The shops are open.

I haven’t been yet.

I need some summer clothes and I really like to examine the fabric and fit of an item before I buy it.

However, as with every other phase of the release of Lockdown, I am slow to take up my new privileges. 

Part of this is for the very practical reason that Nigel is an asthma sufferer so I’m keen to avoid Covid on his behalf.

However, I seem generally a little reluctant. 

I think it is because, while I remain at home, I can half believe that the town centre is operating just as normal, with people drifting along the market stalls, making casual purchases and finally settling to a coffee at a cafe table. 

Once I get there, I shall be confronted with the reality of queues, face masks, hand sanitiser, social distancing and worse – the failure of social distancing. 

However, I know that if we don't go in and support our local businesses, they may not be there in future when we want them.

So I’m sure I shall be tempted into the shops very soon, but just for the moment, in my mind, I am still picturing St Albans town centre as a far-off magical place where everything remains perfect even in spite of Corona Virus.

Photo by Emily Fletke on Unsplash

Twins

Our family has one car between five of us.  Nigel and I share one and our children, settled in the hearts of London and Edinburgh, find it more effective to use feet, bikes and buses.

Our low number of petrol-guzzlers is a source of green pride to us.  But recently it has delayed us getting to see our children.  We last saw Perran and Carenza at the start of February, and Pascoe in March.  

Unlike our offspring in their city flats, we have a garden which would be perfect for an outdoor, socially-distanced rendez-vous.  However, the children can only get here via public transport, which is still best avoided if you don’t need to use it to get to work.

However, we finally hit on a plan.  It wasn’t perfect and it didn’t include Pascoe, far away in Edinburgh. 

We drove.  Perran & Carenza took an Uber.

We met in Epping Forest, which was in itself overwhelmingly beautiful – massive old trees canopying acres of dappled woodland.  I kept expecting Errol Flynn or Kevin Costner to jump out from behind a tree dressed in Lincoln green. 

We spent several hours strolling and picnicking.

Apart from missing Pascoe, it was heaven.

Maybe one day we will even be able to hug.

Firsts

We’ve been a bit slow with our post-lockdown firsts.  I blame it on the fact that we’re having the kitchen ‘done’ – it’s taking up a lot of bandwidth.

However, I can proudly report that our first (and only) garden-centre purchase was two massive tubs of chicken poo – on special offer.  I had hoped for something perhaps more glamorous, but Nigel seemed pleased as punch.

Our first guest for a socially isolated chat in the garden was Jennie.  She helped us to remember how to stop gardening and enjoy the sunshine.

Our first socially isolated country walk with a friend was with Steve – which is fitting since he was also the last friend we walked with before lockdown.  After work, as the low sun struck the landscape, we strode for miles across fields and through trees and had a picnic under a towering ash which was the roost of an owl.  The most magical moment was as we came through a field gate and startled five skylarks who all rose up singing into the blue sky.

The effect of such a long seclusion is that these simple occasions, once so commonplace, are now singular and jewel-like because we have learnt to treasure them.  A privilege.

Making it Complicated

We were pretty comfortable. I’d stocked up the store cupboard before panic buying struck the nation.  We’d gone out and bought supplies for DIY and craft projects.  We’d sorted out home-working via Zoom easily.

And then we made a mistake.

As new Lockdown guidance made it possible, the kitchen design company got in touch.  We had arranged with them to have our kitchen done at the start of April.  However, everything had been postponed.  

But now we could go ahead (with careful social distancing precautions, of course).

What better time to renew the kitchen?  We can’t have friends round for dinner and we’re not going anywhere.

At least, I thought it was a good time.

But today our formerly pleasant kitchen is a hollowed-out waste.

I am cooking on a camping stove on the patio.

Worst of all, the fridge is now in the room where Nigel works.  Every time I creep in for a surreptitious snack, he flicks his laptop open and says, “I’ll just add it to the spreadsheet!”

And I’m not sure he’s joking.

Woe is me.

The Lost Meadow

We’d been walking across the local golf course in order to access some of our favourite stretches of countryside.  

We had thought we were being very daring and trespassing until we discovered the golf club had kindly opened up pedestrian access during Lockdown.

For several weeks we took only certain routes which joined up with the public footpaths we were aiming for.

Then last weekend, for no particular reason, we abandoned our plans and swerved off down a path we had never followed before.  

We discovered a massive tract of verdant golf course.  We had not even known it was there.  The blue sky above emerald grass, close-mown over rounded hummocks, was almost too good to be true.  It reminded me of Tellytubby Land.

Here and there, parents with tiny children were having a gentle toddle, or rolling balls.  Walking beside the ‘Rough’, we caught sight of a great-spotted woodpecker, a tom-tit’s nest, the first comma butterfly of the year.  It was idyllic. 

I’m glad now that we ventured out there because the following day, golf courses were declared open once more and our trespasses have come to an end.

I shall always think with longing of this Lost Meadow.

But not enough to consider taking up golf!

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.

Has Lockdown caused a Time Warp?

It’s been two weeks since I blogged.

When was the last time I allowed so much time to elapse?

I guess it is an effect of Lockdown.

A number of friends have said that they are losing track of time.  Nigel and I are both still working and have scheduled meetings so that helps to keep a grip but even so…

The main clock for me has been the dandelion clock. 

At the start of Lockdown my phone filled up with pictures of each spring flower as it blossomed – celandines, violets, purple ground ivy, red dead nettle, bluebells.

Blackthorns and cherries blossomed luxuriantly.

However, the clock has run on, and there are now some different photos, of flowers run to seed.

Like the dandelion clock.

It has made me feel a little melancholy that this perfect spring of gin-clear skies and abundant blossom is past its peak.

Yet without the seeds, there would be no new flowers.

Just so, the Lockdown period of simple, black-and-white rules, which has in some way been comforting, is likely at the end of next week to give way to a world where there are more grey zones and one must use judgement.

But without that, how can life move on?

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.

Donald Ducking It

I was on a Zoom call with Nigel and the children last Sunday.  Each of us was present as head and shoulders.  Pascoe asked,

“Anybody Donald Ducking it?”

That sounded rude.  “What on earth do you mean?”

“Think about Donald Duck, Mum.  What does he wear?”

“A sailor hat and a sailor top….and not much else.”

“Precisely – he doesn’t have any trousers. Now we’re all working by videoconference, nobody knows what you’re wearing under the desk.”

He was right – I’d put on a respectable shirt but beneath the table lurked ripped gardening trousers.

Since then, I have taken full advantage of this partial view.

On Monday, I went to work in the unflattering purple jeggings that I was a fool to buy, even if they were a knock-down bargain.

Today I am sporting the slim-fit black jeans with a silver snake-skin pattern which Carenza persuaded me to buy in a fit of overconfidence that she had on my behalf.

And guess what -  none of the pupils or coworkers I’ve met with on videoconferencing has said a thing.

So for tomorrow, I have got out my red sparkly leggings – seems a waste only to wear them on Christmas Day.

Nettle Soup

We are keen not to go to the shops until we absolutely must as that seems the most likely place to catch Corona Virus at the moment.

Foraging has been our hobby for many years and it is now coming into its own.

Yesterday I boiled up a load of young nettle leaves with some three-cornered leek that Nigel had weeded out of the garden, whizzed it up with lemon juice , olive oil and seasoning, added a can of lentils and made enough soup for three days.

Its colour is very green indeed, and of course it is green in other ways too.

I’ve also noticed bittercress growing as a weed in our garden (like mini watercress) and hedge mustard sprouting at the wayside – leaves to look forward to in a salad.

(Pics below)

Tip 1 Pick well back in the hedgerow so no dog has been there.

Tip 2 ALWAYS remove the garnish before eating the nettle soup!

Bittercress and three-cornered leek

Hedge mustard

Stir crazy

During the week, Nigel and I were both really busy rejigging our jobs to work from home. 

Boredom was not even a remote threat.

However, at the weekend, Nigel has been getting through his tasks in the house and garden at a rate of knots, and finding more unusual things to do.

I discovered him in the kitchen sifting through an entire sack of dove food* for coarse husks which might jam the mechanical feeder.

“Who asked you to do that?  It wasn’t somebody called Rumpelstiltskin was it?”

Surprisingly quickly, he had processed the entire sack and was stalking the garden. Presently, he put his head round the back door and asked,

“Can I have a drop of sunflower oil please?”

“Sure,” I said as I went to fetch it, “What do you need it for?”

“Oh – it’s for my butt – I want to put some in to stop the insects.”

I nearly dropped the bottle.

Seeing my face, he realised what he had said.

“I mean the water butt – a drop of oil on the surface of the water means gnat larvae can’t breathe and die out.”

“Ah.  OK.”

…I wonder what he will get up to next.

*If you’re wondering what the difference is between dove food and pigeon food, it is that the person who sold it to us crossed out the word ‘pigeon’ on the label and sharpied ‘dove’.

  

Home Sweet Home

A few weeks ago Nigel, Pascoe and I were on a long-planned jolly to Lille when France suddenly shut down.  It felt like being inside a trap and hearing the mechanism clicking into place.

Everything was lovely on Friday, including the weather so we went to stroll in the grounds of the Vauban Citadel.  We would visit the massive art museum on Saturday.  But on Saturday, it (along with all museums) was declared shut. 

We began to feel uneasy. We would come home early.  But Eurostar had picked that weekend to renew its computerised ticketing system.  We could not change our tickets, not online, not on the phone, not even in person. 

We would just have to make the best of it. 

We lounged in cafes having a truly relaxed lunch and dinner.

But on Sunday, everything that wasn’t a food shop or pharmacy shut.  The fun really was over.

Our train was not until three - a whole day to kill.

We hiked to the legendary market at Wazemmes and marveled at the beautiful fruit and veg piled high.  However, we could not relax as there were so many people it felt like the Covid 19 version of Russian Roulette.

Even departure was challenging – Pascoe was booked on a later train but with the rapidity of the lockdown, I worried the border might suddenly close. 

Luckily, many people more cautious than us had cancelled their trips and there was a spare seat on our train for Pascoe.

The whole experience made me realise that if I were to be locked down or ill I would much rather be in my own home, surrounded by my own stuff, and supported by kind neighbours.

Home Sweet Home. 

An important social event

After all our social events went online it was nice to have a real one last night.

The eight o clock call to go out on doorsteps and cheer for the NHS and health workers was the biggest thing to happen in my street since John and Margaret’s Christmas drinks party.

I unearthed my last four party poppers from a little-known drawer in the Welsh dresser which had not been opened since the days long-ago days of teen parties.  (Another turning-out task, I noted.)

Our cul-de-sac is a quiet one, not given to hullaballoo.  But we managed a reedy, self-conscious cheer.

And four party popper bangs which, in retrospect, may not have been a good idea.  It probably sounded as if Nigel and I had barricaded ourselves in with guns and were defending our well-stocked freezer against raiders.

We had a yelled conversation with John and Margaret opposite as the icy breeze swirled around us.

And although we said very little, really, it made us realise how lovely it is to catch up with neighbours, the people we rub along with each day and whom we miss when we don’t see.

The Queen of Video-conferencing

At the start of last week, I had only ever attended a handful of video conferences, and had certainly never set up a meeting.

By the end of this week, I will have taught Latin to over seventy children and adults via several Zoom sessions I set up.

Communicating with twenty-five teens on a single video call is…interesting, but I’m getting better at it.

I always thought that classroom teaching was not a job I could do from home, but these strange times have proved me wrong.  I feel lucky to have had the previous two terms to establish a rapport with my pupils before we embarked on this new adventure together.

And it’s not just the teachers who are learning new skills – the children are having to learn to work independently without the structure of a classroom and teacher for much of the day.

For those who find their inner discipline, this life skill will be the most valuable learning experience of all; for those who don’t it will mean several weeks of lost education & worried parents.

As for me, my neighbours probably think I’ve gone bonkers through isolation.  My desk is in front of the window and anybody passing by will be able to spot me quite alone, apparently talking animatedly to myself for hours on end.

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!