Happy Little Bees

 Deadheading. Terry’n’Mary Rose, snip. Sweet peas that are mostly peas. Snip, snip. Oregano, thyme, lavender snip chop snip. For days, with temperatures in the low 30s I had felt unable to do it, creeping up the garden from patch of shade to patch of shade - oh! all those fluffy aster heads, wilting roses, drooping brown buddleia candles, spiky geum pincushions - to look at everything ‘gone over’ as my ma-in-law would have said. Back past the lime green parsley flowers putting on a far better display than the pathetic Ammi Majus.

I’ll do it later, and retreat to the dark, cool house, flinging out my usual thought of ‘Idiots’ towards a nearby cottage where they throw their south-facing windows wide on hot days. Perhaps they like glaring sun bringing its 33c heat into their bedrooms. Emma, arriving yesterday said “Thank goodness, it’s so cool in here”. She has finally acknowledged the French practice of opening the house to the cool of the night and shutting it against the heat of the day works.

But later it is still 30c and enervated, we flop and watch Bob Ross.

A week ago golden marjoram, lemon thyme, lavenders pale and dark, were full of happy little bees. I imagine, fancifully, the bank they are on, in front of a hot, white sky as a happy little mountain just here. Let’s colour in the sky with lots of little criss-crossing primary colours. The golden herbs invading the heucheras, swallowing the penstemons, the leaning lavenders, all painted with a knife and a decorator’s paintbrush with magical rapidity and in alarming colours. Then, over the clever floral effects and threatening sky, let’s put, right here, yes, a big cloud of Vandyke Brown happy little bees. Noo.oo.o you’ve covered that perfectly rendered cloud, that happy little tree that was just right. We do wonder if Barb Rarse had had some sort of visual disturbance, as they say Monet had, that makes him see black skies with violet skies, navy blue seas with lime green waves, rocks, trees, sheds, mountains, and paths always brown. What would he have done with the landscapes of Cumbria, Torridon, Snowdonia? Had he heard on Payne’s Grey, sepia, light olive green? I wonder if he is on French tv? Inside their shuttered houses, the people are busy painting and crafting. All the DIY stores have aisles with craft materials of all kinds.

But he, Bob, has been one of our lockdown heroes, with Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin on Facebook, Grayson and Phillipa Perry with Art Club, Craig Charles and RadMac on 6 Music, Neil Oliver’s history books and the birds and our garden. Now we watch it succumb to heat and watch people who have been trapped in distant towns flock to ‘our’ beaches so we still can’t go there. But Mr Oliver’s books have given us a list of places to explore. Dorset and Wiltshire are full of hill ‘forts’ and ancient sites and hidden pubs with tranquil gardens.

Orkney

By now, we should be just off the Scrabster ferry (given today’s weather the Pentland Firth would have been ‘interesting’) and on our way to Peedie Harray. We would have come via Eire, with friends in Counties Wexford, Laois and Cavan, then Ayrshire, the Hebrides, (friend on Mull,) probably through the Glens rift valley, up the East coast thus repeating our superb Celtic journey of 2018.
Or we’d have wound up the West coast and ‘across the top’.

 I have always wanted to see Knoydart, been fascinated by the less accessible Munroes like Sgurr na Ciche, fairly doable but for the long walk in - there are no roads on Knoydart.  Now, I would find them not at all doable even with my trusty walking poles, and might struggle with the long walk up Glen Dessary! So, this afternoon I have been mostly watching other people’s great youtube videos of their long walks. Stunning scenery, but I am glad not to be wild camping however amazing the sunsets and starry nights. But I am in Scotland in spirit if not in reality.

I get a little wobble now and then, wondering when we will feel safe to travel again, stay in great places, find lovely pubs and restaurants, meet interesting people. No, we are not going to the pub today. Not even the local Stour Inn. We will wait and watch what happens.
My mum would have been 100 today. We will drink to her memory with a nice Laithwaite’s Rioja and stay home, stay safe.

Today, I have been mostly - wasting time

All those good intentions I had, all those plans I made, when we realised we would be locked down, all pffttt! in the face of glorious weather.

To edit all those photographs on pc and iPad, make some photobooks, make some hard decisions about what to delete, make a back-up disc or get a spare hard drive for storage then make the scary decision to hit the delete all button. None of this has been done.

Tidy the grandchildren’s bedroom and make it a sewing room for the duration, find some decent patterns online and use up some hoarded materials. I have got no further than tidying up.

Make a ‘When we Were Young’ book for the grandchildren with drawings, paintings and photos, plus words of life in the 1950s and early 60s when it was a different world, ‘the past is another country, they do things differently there..’. I have actually bought a beautiful A4 watercolour paper moleskine and several pages have been done, plus a lockdown diary started at the back, so at least something has been started.

But when you have days like today, -no chance.
I woke early, made tea, the whole day stretched ahead. First, the phone rang. Our insurance company, discussing an issue we have ongoing. Good start. Only took 30+ minutes but that delayed breakfast. Then the post arrived with, oh dear oh dear, a new Hub. We are supposed to plug it in right away, ready for some technical change in July. My heart sinks; anything to do with our home tec causes problems. When it works, everything is fine, but when interventions have to be made, we can’t find passwords, patience or common sense.
Today was not too bad when compared with past exploits, except unplugging one set of stuff and working out where and how to plug in new stuff involved scrabbling around on the floor and banging skulls on furniture. And then vacuuming as the furniture under which things were plugged had been put there temporarily when we moved in four years ago and was still there, unshifted, and no-one had cleaned behind it. But we did succeed in producing the ‘blue for go’ light. The pc works. The device has to be signed in. All goes smoothly, amazeballs. We feel smug.

Then he tries to print something. Printer won’t work. For once we keep calm and work out why, and how to put the network and password information into it. More success and smugness.

Boxing up the old hub to return it reminds me to find a card for a friend’s birthday and then I have to venture into town where no-one seems to care about ‘the rules’ as much, to go to the PO. I notice that the C-19 testing area set up by the army is empty but for 4 gloved masked soldiers.
As I walk back with lovely bread and some bbq treats I realise it is now a) far too hot to go for a proper walk and b) nearly lunchtime anyway.

After lunch I give up. He is fossicking about with the pond in the garden with plans for a new filter box etc and I enjoy sitting in speckled shade admiring the work we have achieved in the lockdown garden and reading. Not even an improving book, but the second book in the Dublin Trilogy. (Funny but I prefer Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy books.

And so it goes, another day of lockdown drifting. I am ashamed. Vik has made a whole patchwork quilt and is taking her daily dips in the North Sea! Nic is learning Italian! Daisy is volunteering at the local Primary! Jan walks every day!
Where do they find the time!?!

Right, I’m Going In..

I arm myself with the necessary equipment.
Puffed down body warmer
Long warm cashmere fingerless gloves
Rubber gloves
Reading glasses
Spare sealable freezer bags
A biggish box to hold temporarily removed items.

Somewhere in this bottomless chest freezer in the outside shed is a joint of beef bought at Christmas for possible family visits. Well that isn’t going to happen, is it, and it needs eating up.
Right, I’m going in...
I may be some time..


I catch myself, too often, paying attention to my own breathing, in, and out.

Proof of age may be asked for...

Contemplating the eagerly awaited easing of Lockdown. (Does it warrant a capital ‘L’?). I call one of the other in-laws, whose birthday it is today. He is finding it more arduous than most of us, but unlike the rest of us retired ones, used to spending days pottering with ‘projects’, he, at 76, still works in his own business. And quite hard physical work too - no way is he ‘vulnerable’.
We agree a big get- together celebrate will be on the cards ‘once this ridiculous L thing is over’.

But will it be over for us? As small shops, then businesses, then Primary schools gradually open, as young families are released from their cramped flats and doll’s house starter homes, will the over 65s be told they should still Stay Home Stay Safe and paint a rainbow on their downstairs window?

Time to look online for hairdye peeps, and a bright lipstick, some new narrow jeans some new sunnies. Cross fingers that the daily exercise has encouraged the dropping of a few pounds and - come on folks, get dolled up and try to pass for 55, so we can strut to the pub. Pray that you don't look like Private Godfrey in that Dad’s Army episode where the platoon had to look younger, I forget why, where they ended up looking like Robert Smith but not in a good way. (The Cure). Choose a pub with a garden, pick a shady corner and send the youngest person in for the drinks. Don’t order sherry, babycham or a pint of mild, go for a bucket sized glass of pinot grigio or a pint of eurofizz. One hopes the bartender won’t squint suspiciously over the bar and ask to see proof of age. Just don’t proffer your bus pass.

Lost in Music

Drifting through another Lockdown day, hunting for a lost cd. Yesterday evening, between ‘Masterchef’ and ‘Taskmaster’ we watched another episode of ‘West Wing’. (On our second ride through its 7 Seasons and wishing the fairytale of intelligent, principled US politics could come true,). The title of the episode was ‘Somebody’s going to emergency, somebody’s going to jail’. What a track, what an album that is, I thought. Find it and play it tomorrow.

Of course, I find every Don Henley album that I have, sitting correctly between Hendrix and John Lee Hooker, except The End of the Innocence which is the album I need. So what was left of the morning was spent checking through the cds on Billy, re-filing a couple, removing two more for the charity shop, (Razorlight and Wet Wet Wet fyi), wondering who Moriarty are and planning to play it later and putting last night’s Craig Charles’ programme on bbc Sounds to listen to whilst doing some minimal am housework. Then ordering that cd from Amazon.
A pretty typical morning I’m afraid, but hey, it’s Saturday, I am truly retired and apparently vulnerable, so it’s all guilt-free. Although the choc-hazlenut croissant from lidl, saved from yesterday, and about to be eaten with a coffee, won’t be.