Month: October 2020

Feest Isolation Days – 30 October

Pansies! Tulips!  Hyacinths!  Crocus! The bulbs are going down.  The summer pots have been emptied and room has been made for the spring.  It takes some organising planting up our  garden and my Head Gardener knows what he is doing.  He keeps a spread sheet from year to year which he adjusts with the bulb order, and makes sure they arrive in good time for planting. 

Each year, we have a conversation about whether or not it’s time to remove all the pots which means summer colour is gone.  This year, it was easy as there were only a few pots that could remain and supply us with much needed blooms for another few weeks.  They are visible from the kitchen window and are a most welcome sight as the last of the outdoor colour disappears. The pots filled with nothing but soil look sad but I know that there are now tulip or other bulbs sleeping away. 

And suddenly, as if by magic! (Or the Head Gardeners hard work) some of the empty pots have flowers in them again. The pansies have appeared! They are a wonderful plant and this year were delivered by a dear friend as no one on line was selling pansies to ship. Her visit to the Chepstow garden centre enabled our walk towards winter to begun. 

According to the Horticultural Trades Association the words “pansy” and “viola” are often used interchangeably.  However, there is a difference between these two. Pansies have four petals pointing upwards, and only one pointing down, while violas have three petals pointing up and two pointing down. After all these years I finally can tell the difference…count!

The name “pansy” is derived from the French pensée, or “thought”. “Heart’s-ease” or “love in idleness” are also names given to the wild form of the plant.  The wild plant was considered a plant of humility – hence the expression the humble violet.

We have Lady Mary Elizabeth Bennet (1785–1861), of Walton–upon–Thames and her gardener to thank for collecting and cultivating heartsease, the genesis for the modern pansy.  The pair were the first to introduce these cross bred plants to the horticultural world in 1812. Several other gardeners were working away after Lady Mary and by 1833 there were 400 named pansies available to people who once thought of heartsease, as a weed.

D.H. Lawrence (who wrote over 800 poems) published a collection of poetry called Pansies.  Here are a few of his short poems. 

BELIEF

Forever nameless
Forever unknown
Forever unconnected
Forever unrepresented
yet forever felt in the soul.

THE WHITE HORSE

The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on
and the horse looks at him in silence.
They are so silent, they are in another world.

THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE

There are too many people on earth
insipid, unsalted. rabbity, endlessly hopping.
They nibble the face of the earth to a desert.

SELF PITY

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

TELL ME A WORD

Tell me a word
That you’ve often heard
Yet it makes you squint
If you see it in print!

NOTHING TO SAVE

There is nothing to save, now all is lost,
but a tiny core of stillness in the heart
like the eye of a violet.

Have a fantastic weekend!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 29 October

We have had a doorbell that makes a sound that goes with the house for the past twenty nine years. And then it stopped.  The replacement doorbell goes ding dong and just isn’t the sound of this house.  Today, John the electrician arrived and with some clever pre-work from Terry, got our old doorbell back in action.  It took John months to get back to us, but we could hardly say our doorbell needing attention was an emergency.  So we waited.  And now, when the key workers deliver our many parcels, the ring sounds like it should.  It is strange to have the electrician wandering around inside with a mask on.  But he totally complied without a fuss or a moment’s hesitation when we suggested it might be a good idea.  The windows are open in every room he enters and the wind gusts through the house. 

We are being even more careful than we were.   In Bristol our Covid numbers are up. Apparently, there are now 300 cases a day.  This is huge.  We were used to single digits not that many weeks ago.  It is strange to think that so many more people are infected.  The source of infections, according to those that are researching this, seems to be infections passed on inside homes. Social gatherings indoors, not Covid secure venues, seem to be where the spread is occurring.  We can’t understand why the city isn’t moved to Tier Two.  That would mean no mixing inside and people would stop the transmission sooner.

Who knows why we aren’t there but we aren’t….yet.

But some good news for a change!  More and more books are being sold and presumably read.   According to Bloomsbury, “people have rediscovered the pleasure of reading”. The company has reported half year profits bigger than any time since 2008. Profits were up 60% to £4m from February to August. After feasting on streamed programmes, it would appear that the constant screen time lost some of its appeal.  Or perhaps people just had more free time on their hands and needed something “new” to turn to. 

The titles that sold well were largely feel good books with ‘Humankind’ by Rutger Bregman, a best seller with its positive view of we humans.  The other books that did very well were cookbooks.  With most of the country eating in, that makes a great deal of sense.  We have been reading cookbooks for ages and have a kitchen packed with them, and extras on a shelf downstairs.  Nevertheless, there are several recipes that come round again and again and would feature in any cookbooks we may eventually write. 

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With a name like Feest and a cook like my husband, I keep encouraging him to write down some of his favourites.  Like the trout we had this week.  He tied the fly, caught it, cleaned it and cooked it.  It was delicious.  I for one am certain that recipe ought to make it into a book.  We shall see.

The one thing our key workers don’t deliver is take-away.  We cook everything from scratch.  Rinnnngggggg!  Hardly surprising I wanted the old fashioned doorbell back.  We live an old fashioned sort of life these days.

Keep wearing those masks, distance and wash your hands.  And when they are clean and you are ready to discover a pleasure that has no equal, pick up a book. They’ll never let you down.

Enjoy!

With Love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 28 October

Hardly surprising my thoughts have turned to the Supreme Court in the States today.

Amy Coney Barrett  has of course been appointed by the Republican controlled Senate and she will begin straight away.  That she is a conservative is not in doubt. As a Justice, she considers herself to be an originalist which means that when forced to choose between the Constitution’s original wording and precedent, as a Supreme Court justice she will go with a dogmatic interpretation of the Constitution.

The Founding Fathers who developed  the Constitution, wisely understood that any document they wrote would be unable to anticipate the changes that might be required in the future, and provided the amendment process to update the Constitution as needed. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816, “Let us provide in our constitution for its revision at stated periods.”

Amy does not believe in making any changes to the original Consitiution…hence her self described position as an originalist.  She must have missed the bit where Thomas mentions the reason the amendment process exists.

She is a member of a group and served as a trustee to an organisation called People of Praise. This is a small religious community based in charismatic Catholicism. This group, and others like it,  according to Massimo Faggioli, a theology professor at Villanova University, who has studied groups like this, “typically feature the dynamic of a strong hierarchical leadership, and a strict view of the relationship between women and men.  Amy and her family have belonged to this group for four decades. According to the LA Times, “The Associated Press reviewed 15 years of back issues of the organization’s internal magazine. On Friday, all editions of the magazine were removed from the group’s website.”

Women who are assigned to help guide other women in People of Praise are known by the term “handmaid” If the hair isn’t yet raising on the back of your neck, read this full report about the group in the Los Angeles Times.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-09-29/amy-coney-barrett-religious-group-people-of-praise

Amy and her husband have seven children, two of them adopted from Haiti. One of her sons has Down’s Syndrome.  Yet she has not been a friend to women when it comes to her judicial work.

I couldn’t watch Handmaids Tale, but I did watch Mrs. America.  Amy is a lovely woman I’m sure.  She reminds me of the Kate Blanchet character.  Who knew America could be so steeped in this sort of stuff?  Perhaps I did. I have lived in the UK for forty years.

The legacy of Amy and the rest of the Supreme Court crew will be here long after Covid is contained. Fortunately, Article Three of the Constitution does NOT set the size of the Supreme Court or establish specific positions on the court (with the exception of the Chair).  This means that should Biden and his team turn the country blue, there will be the opportunity to “pack the court” with people who might be the antidote to the views and ideas that Amy has.  Let us hope the vote goes in the right direction.  Whatever happened to the separation of Church and State? And women’s rights?

We shall see.

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 27 October

Bristol Boy does well! Banksy has to be one of the most well known names to ever come out of Bristol.  It’s amazing that the press leave him to be an anonymous character.  They surely could have outed him dozens of times but never have.  He is often in the press and he is once more.

His painting “Reflections on Monet” has just soared into the record books.  The second highest ever amount of money for a Banksy was received by Southebys last week.  The reclusive artist refashioned Monet’s Giverney garden into a bit of a dumping ground, by adding an abandoned shopping trolley and traffic cone.  The work sold for £7.5 million. 

Last month, Banksy was defending his copyright of a painting being used by a greeting cards company. The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) panel however, ruled against him because he could not be identified as the unquestionable owner of such works because his identity remained hidden. They said, “Banksy has chosen to remain anonymous and, for the most part, to paint graffiti on other people’s property without their permission, rather than to paint it on canvases or his own property.”

That’s the point of Banksy EUIPO.  I guess they felt they somehow got their own back.  Let’s see what the crafty guy gets up to next.  He certainly has a fortune to play with!

He might be as well known worldwide as one of Bristol’s other most famous sons, Archie.  Mr Leach grew up in poverty in Bristol and eventually became one of cinemas best loved stars. A frequent visitor to Bristol, he often returned to see his mother.  When he was at school, a teacher’s assistant took him to the Bristol Hippodrome and he was clearly hooked.  He wrote later “What other life could there be but that of an actor? They happily travelled and toured. They were classless, cheerful and carefree.”

Unless of course you’re an artist named Banksy.  Then you can also add anonymity to the mix.  Can you imagine Banksy having a statue in the city in recognition of his work?  I suspect it would have to include a traffic cone….

…and maybe a red heart. There is always hope….

Stay safe….

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 26 October

Some days the Coronavirus hits home and it suddenly feels very real.  A very good friend had it after an abortive skiing holiday cut short by a lockdown and now has Long Covid!  Enough said about that.  Our Grandson who is eighteen and at Cambridge has tested positive and been feeling unwell with a fever and aches.  He’s self isolating.  Another friend who I intended to walk with this week has a son who is now self isolating because someone at his work tested positive and she is being very cautious. So – no walk.

Is it any wonder I told off a girl in our local small Tesco’s who was stacking shelves with her pretty mask drooped around her chin?  I don’t often go in to the shop and when I do it isn’t for long. I stood well away from the young woman and explained through my mask that she needed to wear her mask over her nose, not on her chin. 

When I went to the checkout the girl behind the Plexiglas had her mask at chin level as well.  I suggested that she needed to wear it properly or there was no point. She said because of the Plexiglas she didn’t need to wear it.  I said the girl stacking shelves wasn’t behind Plexiglas.  This is not a joke!  Our city numbers are climbing.  She assured me they were taking it very seriously.  Good I said. Everyone in this store needs to. As I left I noticed that the girl stacking shelves had her mask back on properly.  The Plexiglas story was correct.  If there is a shield between you and the customer you don’t need to wear a mask.  The rules changed on that one three weeks ago!  Ministers change their minds and the rules so quickly it’s no wonder people are unclear about what they should or shouldn’t be doing.

My testiness is normal. Millions of people up and down the country are in lockdown again – or nearly – as they have been moved to Tier Three.  We are tucked safely in our lovely home.  We are some of the fortunate people.

Bristol remains at Tier One but the numbers are climbing.  Students returning have caused a huge rise in our infection rate.  They apparently are self isolating and that’s got to be a good thing.  Who would have thought that getting students from all over the country to move into crowded halls where sharing facilities like showers and toilets and kitchens is a given might cause a surge in infections in a Pandemic?  Or perhaps, the Universities across the country reckon the money they get from the students was worth the risk?  Students not only pay at least £9000 a year, but on top of that they pay for their accommodation.  Bristol University students are planning a strike and don’t intend to pay all of their rent.  Watch this space!

MPs voted NOT to give kids subsidised food over the half term holiday this week. The cost would have been twenty million. With all the expenditure occurring at the moment it would have been a drop in the bucket.  The MPs argue that there is plenty of money in the system for food for kids.  Yet in the House of Commons the public spends £1.7 million to fund MPs, their staff and guests in bars, canteens and restaurants. A tiny amount of money yet their crass and blatant disregard for poor kids means that over half a million people have already signed a petition to stop public spending on MP’s food. Join them if you like!

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-mps-entitlement-to-free-work-meals?share=ee6f34cf-1c75-40a7-812a-2b076cee655b&source=&utm_source=

Thankfully, restaurants and cafes up and down the country have set up local schemes to feed kids, or subsidise their meals during half term.  Does this government know nothing about PR?

Meantime, the wind is howling and the trees are shaking their autumn leaves off. And Saturday night the clocks went back!  It is no longer dark at eight in the morning…but the nights are drawing in. Something tells me it is going to be a longggg winter!

Enjoy the cosiness and warmth that comes at this time of year. 

Enjoy!

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 23 October

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

John Keats 1819

Our week in Exton on Exmoor was truly magical.  It was certainly the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.  The Autumn colours were soft and warm and subtle, every morning there were mists in the little valleys folded into the hills we could see through our windows, we ate figs from the tree by the front door, and watched apples ripen on the trees at the back – and ate them.  We walked by the coast, over moorland, by rivers and streams, through woods and fields.  The corn was high, the leaves golden and the low slanting sunlight produced long shadows and amazing colours.  This year’s lambs were grown, with inquisitive black faces, the pheasants had been released from their captivity and strolled around everywhere, beautiful birds came to the garden for food.  I do not think I have ever enjoyed Autumn in England so much.

Perhaps the pleasure was partly from escaping – Covid seemed a very remote idea from our little hamlet nestled in the hills.  There was a sense of time and permanence.  The little church was nearly 800 years old, the hills and rivers felt unchanged over centuries, for all the modern techniques in farming the seasonal rhythms are the same as centuries ago.  We were in a place that had seen the black death, the hundred years war, later plagues, Cromwell and revolution, smallpox, the Great War – and still the rhythms just continued, Autumn follows Summer follows Spring (and the fish were still biting!).  Winter comes but there will be Spring again: it was all very reassuring and comforting.

Keats was only 24 when he wrote this poem.  He was already qualified to practice medicine, and had just given up training in surgery to concentrate on poetry.  He was not from the elite, his father was a hostler, then innkeeper, he grew up in North London, the family made enough money to send him to school.  He was very young when his mother died of tuberculosis, and his father from falling from a horse.  He did not live long, like the rest of the family he was afflicted with TB.  He went to Rome for a few months for a warmer climate, and died there aged 25.  Yet, in his short life he wrote poetry that influenced English poets for over a century and had a huge influence far beyond. Borges stated that his first encounter with Keats’ work was a great experience that he felt all of his life.

In many ways I think his Ode to Autumn is an essay about old age, but could he have known that?  He died so young, too young to understand.  And yet….The third verse begins:

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

This is so true from the perspective of seventy something.  I can remember the songs of spring, the youthful passions and ambitions, but they are memories.  This is not sad, because now I have “thy music too”.  There are so many deep pleasures in life, which can be enjoyed without the urgency of ambition, work, striving to achieve.  Music, literature, the garden, walking, friends, cooking, eating, travel (when we can again), (and of course fishing!) can all be enjoyed at leisure, books can be read in large chunks, there is time to sit and enjoy without the need to move on immediately to the next thing.  We are lucky, Kathy and I have so much fun together, still love each others company, and we have the time to do it.  The only urgency is that we have to acknowledge that our time is running out, but that is all the more reason to enjoy the now.

We have, and have had, time – imagine being a mayfly.  They live for a day, some for only a few minutes, it gives a new meaning to one of the overused phrases I love to hate –

Stay safe,

Terry

Feest Isolation Days – 22 October

We passed a lot of places called Fitz something or other in the past week and so of course I needed to look up precisely what that meant. Fitz means son of. Or if you look closely, it seems to mean illegitimate son of…or bastard son of.  In parts of Somerset there are several Fitz places.  Charles II named one of his bastards Fitzroy, (‘son of the king’), (one of? How many did he have?!  Well that could fill a page or two..LOTS is the answer).

Words can be  such fun!  They often carry entire worlds inside them and take us to other places and other ways of life.  If you hadn’t already noticed, I love words. 

Sadly, I don’t speak any other languages, a smattering of German and French and I suppose I can just about order a meal in Italy and ask for the bill in all countries.  Waving your hand in the air as though writing remains a universal for “can I please have my bill”.  I wonder if, when we return to restaurants and cafes that will still be a recognised way of getting the bill. The very word “Restaurant” has so much meaning!  Of course, this word derives from a French verb “restaurer” (“to restore”, “to revive”) and, literally means “that which restores”. Now there’s a word I’d like to inhabit sometime soon.

My love of words mean I am a lexophile.  I am pleased to have a label for this “ailment”.  Apparently if you have lexophilia you are obsessively enamoured of words, especially those set in a new framework. The New York Times does a contest for Lexophiliacs and my American friend Robert sent me the results earlier in the week.  It’s a lovely mid week diversion from the craziness of the world. Here are the winners – Enjoy!

I changed my iPod’s name to Titanic. It’s syncing now.

England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.

Haunted French pancakes give me the crepes.

This girl today said she recognized me from the Vegetarians Club, but I’d swear I’ve never met herbivore.

I know a guy who’s addicted to drinking brake fluid, but he says he can stop any time.

A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.

I got some batteries that were given out free of charge.

A dentist and a manicurist married. They fought tooth and nail.

A will is a dead giveaway.

With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.

Police were summoned to a day care centre where a three year old was resisting a rest.

Did you hear about the fellow whose entire left side was cut off? He’s all right now.

A bicycle can’t stand alone; it’s just two tired.

The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine last week is now fully recovered.

He had a photographic memory but it was never fully developed.

When she saw her first strands of grey hair she thought she’d dye.

Acupuncture is a jab well done That’s the point of it.

I didn’t like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

Did you hear about the crossed-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn’t control her pupils?

When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.

When chemists die, they barium.

I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.

I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can’t put it down.

Those who get too big for their pants will be totally exposed in the end.

Keep the best one or two for your home made Christmas Crackers!  What else is going to occupy you as we head towards winter?  Surely homemade crackers will be a feature of your winter?  Mine neither…Stay safe and enjoy whatever you get up to.

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 21 October

I’m liking the symmetry of my October missives.  Has anyone noticed? The date and the number of days is lining up.  Something has to!  221/Twenty One. 

I promised a bit about Exmoor.  We have booked it again and plan to go next month.  That says all I have to say I suppose.  Red Door House was a total success. We could step out from our front door which was indeed red, and walk on some fantastic paths.  I discovered that Exton is sitting in a place which means you have to crawl up out of or into it from every direction.  And what a lovely crawl it is!  I took myself walking for a couple of hours on my own while Terry was busy fishing and caught the sun. 

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I don’t often walk on difficult paths on my own like that, but as we’d done nearly the same route the day before I felt confident I could manage.  I didn’t get lost once!  Two hours and about four miles later I got back home.  We took all of our food with us having prepared it in advance over a few weeks.  Everything was frozen meaning we didn’t have to cook.  A bit of rice or spuds but no proper cooking.  We didn’t and don’t go to restaurants so we’ve done a lot of cooking lately, and it was really great to have a break.

We saw some of the sweetest looking sheep!  I’ve never seen sheep with such pretty faces and amazing ears.  They are everywhere on Exmoor and are curious about you until you get right up to them.  Then they scamper.

We walked along the coastal path at Kilve, which is something we’ve never done before.  This part of the world is worth exploring and it isn’t that far from home.  We wondered why we never went there before. The beach is from a different millennium. Layers of rock that took millions of years to form.  Puts things in perspective.

The pheasants had just been released for shoots when we arrived and there were pheasants everywhere!  The pop pop pop of guns meant that some of them weren’t there for long and clearly were dinner for somebody somewhere. Pheasants make a real racket when they fly up making me gasp most times when they did. I got used to them – nearly.  

I don’t get the sport of shooting pheasants though, they are reared, fed, and then released in their hundreds, they are fairly dozy birds, and on my walks I saw at least three of them dead beside the road.  They don’t skittle across very quickly which means that the poor drivers are making decisions…bird or brakes.  They probably cause accidents from time to time as well.  But so do drivers on their mobile phones!

In Britain, the law is changing on mobile phone use while driving. You will no longer be able to pick up your phone if you are driving.  That means a loophole in the law is being closed and those many many drivers who pick up their phone can no longer do so if they are behind the wheel. If you can’t part with touching your phone, and you’re stopped, you will be fined £200 and get six penalty points on your license.  Seems to me some people ought to leave their phone in the boot!

Another week on Exmoor in four weeks time!  We are lucky folks.  Coming home was lovely too. 

As our butcher is also a shooter, I’m pretty sure we will be having pheasant for dinner sometime soon.  Sorry veggies and vegans. But it is that time of year!

Stay safe, distance, wear masks and whatever you do don’t plan a holiday in Wales in the next few weeks!  Firebreak begins on Friday. (It used to be called Lockdown!)

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 20 October

Before I go on and on about Exmoor which I promise I will do for much of the week…a different and important subject. 

The Women’s March of four years ago has happened again in cities all across America.  This weekend, women, and especially young women, are on the march again.  They want Trump out. The organiser has asked that all participants wear masks and socially distance. She said the only super spreader event should be the recent one at the White House.  (Has she seen the Trump rally photos?) The day after his inauguration four years ago, women marched across the globe. This time the women are urging people to vote Trump out.  Signs say things like “Make America THINK again”, “Girls just wanna have fundamental rights”.  I especially liked this one…sums so much up…

We were in New Zealand for the Women’s March in 2017 – the first in the world – that occurred just after the inauguration. Among the thousands who marched down Queen Street in Auckland there were more than half a dozen of us friends carrying our signs.  I carried an upside down American Flag.  We ended in Myers Park where speeches brought us all even closer together. 

The most impressive speaker talked about the “enduring pay gap between men and women” and the “staggering rates of domestic abuse in New Zealand.” While acknowledging that women were relatively well off in New Zealand, she said, “our identities and struggles as women are not bound to where we hold our citizenship. If we have rights and a voice, we will not rest until others do too.”  That was Labour MP Jacinda Adhern. I’d never heard her before and she was totally impressive. I’m not the only one who thinks so!  She has just been elected…again… as the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Jacinda, who is forty, said after the victory: “New Zealand has shown the Labour Party its greatest support in almost 50 years. We will not take your support for granted. And I can promise you we will be a party that governs for every New Zealander.”  What a woman! Well done that woman. 

There are now fourteen days until the US election.  And with that I can share some of our Exmoor experience!

Sometimes it isn’t until you get away and go to a different place that you realise what it is that has been a major stressor in your life. Covid is bad enough, but it was the election that has been bothering me for weeks now. The idea of that man in the White House again is unthinkable. 

Our house on Exmoor was perfect!  It was like walking into a hug as one of the previous visitors said, and the hug was so complete we plan to return next month.

I’ll leave you with a picture today and tell you more about it tomorrow.  In the meantime, I’m cutting down on my constant viewing of the news and especially the American election news.  I feel a lot happier and hope to stay that way.  In fifteen days, I could be happier still. We shall see.  Balance. It’s all about balance.  Let’s hope the world gets a bit more of that soon.  Take care and enjoy!  And keep those masks on and socially distance. 

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 9 October

I’m stargazing.  It’s been a bit dark the past few days. There haven’t been any rainbows as when the rains have been around the sun has  disappeared. But as it’s been dark, I thought it time to star gaze.

Little did I know when we booked our holiday to Exmoor National Park next week that we would be there during their fourth annual Dark Skies Festival.  Suddenly, with my renewed interest in stargazing and a desire to look to the heavens, I discovered this to be the case!

We have booked a holiday which is in itself an amazing experience and one that I will share with you when we come back.  We have booked a self contained house for a week.  There is fishing nearby and writing inside and plenty of long walks in our plans no matter the weather.  We are taking all our own food which we’ve been making and freezing for ages in preparation.  There will be no meals out, no breakfasts or lunches in a pub somewhere with a roaring fire, but the place will be different and we will be away for a whole week!  A first for months and months and months. 

I didn’t expect the extra benefit of stars though! 

We have been to the most extraordinary place in the Southern Hemisphere to see stars.   Great Barrier Island, a short flight from Auckland in New Zealand has very little light pollution.  They are not on the electricity grid which means there are not many lights.  Each home owner and business runs a generator in order to manage their electricity requirements.  This means on a clear night you can see more stars than I’ve ever seen anywhere ever before.  We had the most exquisite evening in the summer (last year’s winter here) when we returned from the pub to our hotel.  It was pitch black and the stars were literally falling into the sea.  It was hard to tell what was sky and what was sea.  I shall never forget that stargazing evening. 

Don’t look for me for  again until the 20 of October as I will be

ON HOLIDAY !!!

When we get back home I might have something to say again…for now though….

We’re off!

Stay healthy and enjoy.

See you on the 20^th October!

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 8 October

There was an article on the local news last night about a chap who owns a barge and has loaded it up with old vinyl and is docking up at places around the West Country selling records. Remember those?  The reporter said remember when we had to change the needle?  How many young people would even have a clue what he was talking about?   It got me thinking about how we listen to music and the many, many changes since I was a child.

The car radio usually had some boring string music playing which would in time come to be known as elevator music. Or the big radio in the kitchen would have the local news and smooth talking DJs who played boring music as well.  Then my darling Uncle Joe bought me a transistor radio one Christmas.  I must have been about 12. It fit in the palm of my hand and had earplugs so I could take it to bed and no one noticed I was listening to WABC and cousin Brucie in New York City!   Cousin Brucie introduced me to the Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Motown, Surf Sound.  I was in love with those sounds that transported me out of Shamokin Dam!  Hardly surprising I eventfully moved to New York City.  Have a listen to Cousin Brucie from the 1960s.

Cousin Brucie told me which 45s I should buy. I had two grey and white boxes that stored my record collection with dividers so I could keep them in alphabetical order.

I played them on my own little record player in my bedroom, or sometimes used the stereo in the living room. That was a huge cabinet affair that had a radio and was mostly used to play bigger 12 inch vinyls. It was hard to get the plunger type adapter to fit properly on the turntable to change it into a 45 player.  We had little yellow plastic thingies that fit in the hole in the middle of the 45s making it possible to fit them onto the turntable. My parents had one similar to this..

The big stereo was largely reserved for my Mother’s Andy Williams albums, her favourite crooner (We NEVER had a wall that colour, or a lamp like that!).

The 45s were replaced as I got older with more 12 inch records. Having a few odd jobs meant a few more pennies for these more expensive records.  I scooted them over on top of Andy Williams when no one was looking or home. The Monkeys was the first album I bought followed by the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five.  I was always destined for England! 

The vinyl stayed with us for quite a time. It wasn’t until tapes came along that music listening devices changed again.  The next big step after tape was CDs.  Our house still has vinyls, tapes and CDs around the place. We moved onto ipods and have a Bose dock and a Jam that is blue toothed to our phone and Ipads. They are nearly extinct already.  I hope you’re keeping up?

Now we also have Mr Google in the kitchen on a speaker who I ask to play what I would like to hear.  And my study has my favourite internet radio station playing most of the time on my computer. But I can change it in a second to a zillion others. Or get up any music I’d like to hear. And sometimes I find myself getting slightly irritated that I can’t just speak to my computer and tell it what to do like I can with Mr. Google in the kitchen.  Mind you he doesn’t understand me much of the time, which is more funny than irritating. 

Lately, we have had a bit of a problem listening to our favourite New Zealand Station RNZ Concert with Mr. Google.  Sony and Warner’s Music took Tune In Radio (who tell Mr. Google what’s what) to court, and now, sadly, we cannot get him to play RNZ. Sony and Warner won.

However, with a clever husband who knows how to do these things, we can once more listen to RNZ over breakfast.   Apparently Mr. Google thinks we are in the Netherlands and with a VPN we are! 

All those years ago I was transported by my little transistor to New York City, now I can stay home while the sound bounces through the ether and comes back to me – happily where I want to be.  Isn’t life grand?

I would be remiss if I didn’t share something funny, topical and yet Beatleish with you.  I didn’t know James Corden had it in him……have  a look.

Stay safe and enjoy.

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 7 October

My oh my, don’t these days go rolling by!  Here we are 207 days into this lockdown.  The virus is beginning to rear its ugly head again.  There  are many of us who have been so scrupulous that we aren’t going to be changing very much at all. As we don’t do: restaurants, pubs, clubs, school, shops (three times since March!) not much changes. Several of our friends have said they are beginning to roll back on some of the things they had begun to do.  One by one the small steps we allowed ourselves are being withdrawn again.

I agonised a bit over going to my book group this week but holding it inside someone’s house with six of us just didn’t seem right. So I declined to go. The numbers of people testing positive rises and so does our level of caution. 

Still, we carry on with the things that we can. We have our bubble friends that we visit for meals and they can come here.  That hasn’t changed. There are three couples and that’s that. Who knows if that will have to stop soon too.

We do what we can. We had our flu jabs this weekend.  If you want to feel old, pitch up for a flu jab at our surgery!  It was brilliantly organised. Go to the back entrance up the slope walkway and use sanitizer when you arrive with your mask already in place.  When we got inside ( we both went) we were asked if we were over 65.  Yes.  Straight ahead. No stairs and out we went quick jab and that was that. Under 65s went down the stairs. And then of course had to walk back up the stairs. Honestly if you want to feel old…

I always love learning a thing or two, and Zoom choir last night was Zoom Quiz.  I didn’t do too badly but sure learned a few things and of course I thought I’d share just a bit of my new knowledge with you.

I liked this one possibly the best.  Who shared a house in Brooklyn with Benjamin Britten during 1940 and 1941?  (W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Gypsy Rose Lee and more!) The house idea was set up by a former fiction editor at Harpers Bazaar, George Davis an unemployed gay man who was missing the creatives he had worked with.  He invited two of his most recent authors to join him, McCullers and Auden and it grew from there.  Britten joined the bohemian group in order to write an opera with Auden,  Paul Bunyon. The opera never worked, as Auden said, “It is a forest full of innocent beasts,” he wrote “It is America, but not yet.”

The house no longer stands as it was demolished in order to make way for the Brooklyn Expressway.  That seems to be a worrying metaphor.  In any event, you can read all about this time and these interesting authors in the book “February House” by Sherill Tippins. I shall be ordering it any minute now from Abe Books!  (the antidote for all of us readers to Amazon)

Stay safe and keep your mask on!  I shall say no more about that, you know who I’m talking about.  Makes me furious….

Enough of the fury, more of the enjoyment.  Try this one from Saturday Night Live.  

https://screenrant.com/snl-best-skits-ranked/

Enjoy!

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 6 October

Trump is still in the hospital although like a spoiled kid with nothing to do, he has tweeted eighteen times in an hour.  He placed Secret Service lives at risk.

“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days. They might get sick. They may die. For political theatre. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theatre. This is insanity,” Dr. James Phillips tweeted. He is a non- military emergency room doctor at Walter Reed Hospital and an Associate Professor at Georgetown University.  He says medically the President would have been advised not to leave the hospital, and that there would have been pressure placed on the medics to allow his drive by photo op to go ahead. No one it seems can control this man.  Let’s hope that the American people can when they go to the polls in less than a month.

Here, 16,000 Covid Test and Trace cases went missing and did not show up in the data, nor were they passed to contact tracers. 

Having wildly unqualified people like Dido Harding in charge of such a complex project was always going to be a recipe for errors. These individuals who tested positive will not have had their contacts identified which means that all their contacts may have become infectious and unknowingly spread the virus.

In other fowl news, Turkeys are being downsized for Christmas! With the rule of six firmly in place – for now – and who knows if that too might shrink – farmers have a tough choice to make.  Do they cull their turkeys sooner or put them on a diet?

 The big fat turkey will not be required as the numbers gathering to eat Christmas dinner are no more than six.  Whatever they decide, we won’t be having turkey.  I will miss the fresh caught snapper we have often had on Christmas day in New Zealand.  What will be on our table here?  We shall see.

Are parrots fowl? Well not that sort of fowl but apparently there are some parrots who have become very foul!  A Lincolnshire  zoo removed five parrots from public display when they started shouting obscenities at zoo goers.  The five African grey parrots were donated to the zoo all in the same week, so were quarantined together. In the time they spent in quarantine, the birds taught each other how to shout profanities.  We know exactly how they felt!

No profanity just inanity from The Dead Parrot sketch here.

Enjoy!

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 5 October

Storm Alex did indeed rush in over the weekend.  It wasn’t as bad here as some of the forecasters promised. It rained most of the weekend, but it wasn’t as windy as we had feared.  Still, we took the precaution of taking in some of the blooms from my favourite hydrangea to enjoy indoors, saving  them from being beaten and battered.

On Sunday afternoon in the driving rain we headed to the sea, to Clevedon.  We walked along the empty prom and on part of the costal path which is paved and not muddy.  A good bracing walk with rain and wind bashing us and the sea pounding onto the shore was most invigorating!

Although the entire weekend wasn’t filled with quite as much bluster as we expected, it was filled with some news that is impossible to avoid discussing.  President Trump tested positive for Covid.  He was taken to Walter Reed Memorial Hospital where he remains.  He is being given drugs and according to his doctor he’s doing well.  According to the White House spokesperson who thought he was speaking off the record, he is more ill than anyone was letting on. 

The timeline of when he became ill is now under discussion following his personal doctor’s statement.  The world was told at a medical briefing, that Trump had been ill for 72 hours. That differs from the timeline suggested previously.  This makes a big difference to those people he would have spent a great deal of indoor unmasked time with him during those hours.  He won’t be leaving the hospital for a while yet.  The next few days are the most important.  What does seem to be proven without a shadow of a doubt given the number of Republicans who work or have attended parties at the White House, is that they have not followed recommended guidance on masks or social distancing. 

It was the party in the Rose Garden that later moved inside the White House where Team Trump were announcing their pick for Supreme Court Justice where the spreading seems to have come from.  It is hard not to feel a bit smug.  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg may have her last wish fulfilled.   She didn’t want her Supreme Court seat filled until after the election.  With many Republican Senators contracting Covid, and Trump in the hospital it may well be that her wish will be granted.  Not it would seem if Mitch McConnell has his way.  We shall see what happens.

While Biden has stopped all of his attack ads on Trump, Trumps camp have not stopped the attack.  Less than thirty days to go to the election now.  We will all be watching the news with great interest over the next days and weeks. 

“Pray for Trump – Vote for Biden” seems a good way of dealing with the current situation!

If this is all a bit too much to ruminate about…have some fun with this…

Politically incorrect no doubt, but funny and we all need some funny at the moment!

The Sketch Show from 2004 and Phobias….

Enjoy!

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 2 October

As the weekend approaches, the Met office promises us wind rain and cold all weekend! Storm Alex is on its way!  It must then be time for a little bit of comfort food.  (As though we haven’t been having any of that for the past seven months!)  Still, it’s a new month and we only have another few weeks before the light fades, the heat is permanently on and the clocks go back.  Oh goodie.

In preparation for these inevitabilities, memories of a few dishes that keep us all delighted with food seems in order.  Who needs restaurants and pubs with lovely log fires and warmth and yummy food? Okay, we do. But as we can’t have them just now, we can indulge in a few of those meals that make you feel comforted along with a good book or two and then hunker down. 

Different polls have different results of what constitutes the nation’s favourite comfort food.  But in three different UK polls of over 2000 people each, the only food to be mentioned in the top ten of all three? A Bacon Sandwich!

Two of the lists also shared Fish and Chips in second place (nice – no cooking required- the fish person can do that for most people) The other shared foods on the list were Pizza, A Roast Dinner, Crisps and  A Full English Breakfast.

Haven’t these people heard of Cauliflower Cheese and mashed potatoes? Or Cod in cheesy sauce with mashed potatoes?  Or indeed Ice cream! 

Apparently, the British pallet when looking for comfort goes first to savoury food then sweet.  Except one survey where chocolate came first.  That was conducted by The Lady magazine.  I didn’t even know that was still being published.  I suspect its readership tells you a lot about those putting chocolate at the top of the list.

This magazine has been published continuously since 1885. The readership, it would appear, is largely female and chocolate remains their go to for comfort.

When asked why people wanted to eat comfort food, each survey had the same reason on top of the list.  Stress!  We all want to be comforted from our stress by food.  (I thought that was what wine was for?)

As Friday night is wine night, I will be imbibing.  Not that I feel particularly stressed at the moment.  But when I am, it will most likely be cauli cheese and mash.  My top of a long list of comfort foods. What’s yours?

Helen Reddy who sang one of the anthems of my youth died this week. Helen co wrote with Ray Burton – and I especially love that sort of inclusivity – “I Am Woman”.

She said all the songs about women at the time (1970s) were about dainty women and she wanted to redress that balance.  The first words of the song, “I am woman hear me roar!”  certainly did that! She eventually won a Grammy for her performance and when she accepted it said at the ceremony, “I’m thanking God for this because she makes everything possible.”

My kind of woman….

Rest in peace Helen…or maybe just ROAR!

Have a great weekend and see you next week.  Enjoy!

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 1 October

When Kathy suggested I post Day 201, I didn’t know what to write about. I have already written about the coronavirus, and had a rant about the state of the world and our own government’s inability to govern.  Now Covid cases are rising and we are facing the second wave, American politics look so bad that some kind of civil unrest looks quite possible, and we still have a government which cannot make clear and reasoned decisions.  Faced with all that something light seemed appropriate!

Yesterday I spent virtually all the daylight hours on my own, fly rod in hand, on a lake in a small open boat buffeted by the wind in the pouring rain.  Some might say that is taking social distancing to an extreme.  Kathy suggested I write about fly-fishing!

“The great charm of fly-fishing is that we are always learning.” ~Theodore Gordon

Many of you know some four or five years ago I took up fly-fishing, and it has become an almost obsessional pastime which gives me enormous pleasure.  It is great to take up something new at my stage of life.  I am of the age when progressively all the things I have been quite adept at, I do less well!  If you are a longstanding golfer (which I am not), at my age your handicap declines.  If you ski you cannot do the difficult runs so well.  If you cycle your stamina is less.  A basic fact of old age is slow decline, we are doing well if we can just mark time and not get worse at the things we are skilled at.  So, take up something new, something you cannot do.  As you learn you get better, very satisfying!  In time you will plateau, but for me the fishing plateau is still some way ahead, there are many skills to learn and practice, so improvement continues and makes me feel a little younger!

“I go fishing not to find myself but to lose myself ”  ~Joseph Monniger

The first reaction of the majority of people when they hear I am a fly fisherman is along the lines of “How nice, it must be very contemplative or meditative”.  It is not!  you are always doing something, always concentrating, that is why it is so pleasurable.  Why would I want to take up a hobby that gives me more time to think about Covid, or politics, or climate change, or getting older? The essence of a good hobby is that it takes you into another world.

I had not quite realised before how much I love that other world of being by water, whether it is a small lake on a farm, a huge lake on the moors, a small burbling stream or a great rushing river.  With the subtlest changes in wind and light everything changes on and by the water

“To go fishing is the chance to wash one’s soul with pure air, with the rush of the brook, or with the shimmer of sun on blue water. It brings meekness and inspiration from the decency of nature, charity toward tackle-makers, patience toward fish, a mockery of profits and egos, a quieting of hate, a rejoicing that you do not have to decide a darned thing until next week. And it is discipline in the equality of men – for all men are equal before fish.”  ~Herbert Hoover

Some current presidents and prime ministers could do with some of Herbert Hoover’s humility!

Fly-fishing is irrational.  Tossing a metal hook covered in feathers and fur into a swirling river in the hope that some passing fish will take it, is an act of faith and hope, not reason.  To be a fisherman you have to be an optimist. 

“If I fished only to capture fish, my fishing trips would have ended long ago. Zane Grey.
It’s not even clear if catching fish is actually the point. J Gierach

There are many days when you catch no fishat all, you are just practicing casting!  And then it rains, or is cold, or windy, or all three at once (just like yesterday!)  and we still go on doing it, trying to make the perfect cast, find the perfect spot.  And then there are the occasional days when everything goes right, and you know why you go on!

The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.  John Buchan

Somewhat to my surprise, I found that fly-fishers are predominantly men.  Perhaps I had been fooled by the fact that one of the more famous fly-fishers was a woman, the late Queen Mother.  Nevertheless,  my fly-fishing hero is not a hero, but a heroine!  I needed to learn to cast properly, and after extensive searches for book and video/web tutorials I discovered Joan Wulff.  At the age of five or six she was often taken fishing by her father on a rowboat – father fished, mother rowed, Joan helped.  She formed the firm opinion “that it was better to be the fisherman than the rower” – and so she became.  In 1951 she won the American National Fisherman’s Distance Fly Casting event – she was the only woman competitor.  The next year they changed the rules to much heavier tackle, too heavy for her to manage!  She had won not by power, but by technique – with elegance!.  Every sport has the occasional superstar who makes it look effortless, who is graceful – Sebastian Coe running, David Gower batting.  Such is Joan Wulff.  Now in her nineties she still teaches and is still elegant!  I have learned so much from her books and videos, my casting is much improved, but I am still a huffer and puffer who gets by!

• 

• 

If you can handle heat, cold, wind, rain, and biting insects, with dignity, you will love fly-fishing.  Joan Wulff

It is hard to explain why I get so much pleasure from this hobby.  There is certainly an element of the primaeval hunter gatherer experience.  And then no two fishing days are the same, there is constant variation, constant learning.  But in the end it is all a matter of taste, I like White Burgundy and not Sauvignon, Beethoven and not Berlioz, lamb and not pork, fishing and not golf!

 

I hope your other worlds give you as much pleasure as mine does.

Stay safe,

Terry

“I fish because I love to; because I love the environs that trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, …because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience; …..and, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many other concerns of men are equally unimportant — and not nearly so much fun”   ~Robert Traver. 1964