Author: Kathy

Feest Isolation Days -17 April

Yesterday we spent most of the day cleaning. Terry did the kitchen in that deep-down-clean-everything-throughly-way that you don’t often do. I did the same upstairs. We met for a much needed cuppa on the swing before we headed into round two. There are still rooms I haven’t finished but what has been cleaned sparkles.

With the upstairs bathroom window wide open I saw people passing by on the street below. My excitement rose as a neighbour who lives a few doors away was walking in the middle of the street, presumably taking his daily exercise. I couldn’t stop myself from yelling out,  “Hello from Mrs. Mop!” cheerily waving my marigold covered hand in his direction. It was a delight to speak to someone in person. 

“Hello!”  He replied.“It’s amazing the things we’re getting up to these days isn’t it?” He pointed towards my  gloves and mop.

“I’ve done this sort of thing in the past,” I said. “But not regularly for a long, long time.”

I discovered that both he and his wife have had the virus as has his daughter, a health care worker who lives with them. He has yet to recover his sense of taste and smell but feels better. We talked further about the virus and the lockdown, the pandemic generally, unitl it was time for him to go and me to return to my task at hand and scrub the shower.

Terry and I both come from familes who cleaned rather than were cleaned for.  His Mother had a long standing position as a cleaner. For over fifty years, she was the weekly cleaner for  a family. She didn’t stop until  the last remaining family member moved into a care home.  When she was in her eighties, Doris, Terry’s mum, still went round for a cuppa and for the friendship that had developed over the years.  Nevertheless, she would still have swished her duster around the place and run the hoover over the carpets to help Mrs. E who was a few years older.

My grandfather died when I was six and my Baba couldn’t stand the thought of living on her own forever, and another man was out of the question.  She, too, eventually started cleaning for people. Hers had always been the sort of home where you could eat off the floor it was so clean. Baba was known for sometimes whisking your plate of food off the table  with one bite left because she was so eager to wash the dishes and make her kitchen sparkle.  Finding a housekeeping positon where she could look after people and a home wasn’t difficult. Her penchant for cleaning, along with her sunny dispostion meant she soon found a family that she ended up living with and caring for. Eventually, the family relocated and Baba went to live with one of her daughters. It didn’t take her long to find another family to look after, cook, clean and care for. The head of the family was a doctor and he and his wife had three young children. They became as close to her as her own grown up children and grandchildren. When she died she was well into her nineties, and the three doctors kids who were all grown up with families of their own by then all attended her funeral. 

Cleaners don’t just dust and hoover and scrub for us, they become part of our lives. Over the years, they have enabled us to keep our house tidy and orderly when we were both working demanding jobs as well as looking after our youngest. I prefer the term houskeeper to describe the most recent hired help. They not only clean but know us well enough to order our sometimes disheveled cupboards and closests.  V visited us in New Zealand a few years ago, and although she’s now moved cities, we still keep in touch.  Our current houskeeper is her niece.  Keeping it all in the family suits us perfectly.  I hope lockdown ends soon.  M will be delighted with how well we did in her absence!  She’s part of the family now and we too keep in touch.  I can’t wait until we can see her again and after a big hug and a long chat, I’ll happily hand her my (her) duster!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days -16 April

Mattresses! You don’t have a new one for over ten years then three come along at the same time!  When I was little we used to watch a television animation cartoon called Casper the Friendly Ghost and to this day whenever I see the word Casper, the white smiling face of this childhood spirit flashes before my eyes and I smile all over again.  Now what, you may ask does this have to do with three mattresses?  I’ll get there, I promise.

Before lockdown began we decided that after sleeping on the same mattress for over ten years it was time to “throw something down” on top of our bed frame that was worthy of 2020. “Throw something down” or “the place where something is thrown” is the Arabic  origination of our modern word for what we sleep on today.  We were determined to sleep tight –a phrase which possibly comes from Shakespeare’s days when mattresses were supported on a bed frame by ropes and which had to be tightened so they didn’t sag. No ropes required these days. A NASA scientist, Charles Yost, developed memory foam in order to create a more comfortable surface for astronauts.  The man who took “one small step for a man, one giant step for mankind”, slept on memory foam on the way to and from the moon. 

Memory foam our new mattress would be.  We did our research and a key worker arrived with our big blue box (drivers didn’t yet realise in March that they were key workers). We removed the packing and waited for the squished thing to puff itself up. The smell that emerged would soon go away we told ourselves as we opened the windows in the spare room where we left our purchase for over a week before transferring it to our bedroom. After one night’s sleep, the damp chemically smell permeated the bedroom, the bed clothes and our sleep wear.  It had to go.  The company we chose guarantee that you can return the bed for a full refund within a hundred days, no questions asked and the helpful woman at Casper was indeed very friendly. She said she’d check the batch number as it shouldn’t smell like that and would send us another one. In fact, somewhere an error occurred.  Our delivery driver (now key worker) brought not one, but two blue boxes and we now have three! 

Sadly, the new one smells, not as much but it won’t do. The cartoon Casper was friendly but sometimes a bit cheeky too. He would no doubt have laughed at our developing mattress collection.  We certainly laughed, though through gritted teeth, as we humped the old mattress for about the fifth time back into our room. 

Lockdown means we aren’t going anywhere for awhile so as I drift off to sleep I spend a few moments thinking about those moon trips and smile once more as I think of Casper the friendly little ghost flying around the world making people smile. For now, we are certainly sleeping tight and can’t imagine why we thought we needed a new mattress in the first place.  Sweet dreams!

Love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days -15 April

In America it would appear that the President of the United States has decided he is King. That must be a worry to us all.  At a Press Conference earlier in the week, Trump said “When somebody is President of the United States the authority is total. It’s total. The Governors know that.”  As it happens, thankfully, the Governors not only know that this is not the case, but when it comes to deciding when to lift lockdown in any State, which is what Trump was discussing, it is the Governors who will decide.  My blood runs cold when I think Trump might be where he is for another four years.  Let us hope for the sake of the world that this isn’t the case. Trump Tweets are increasingly unhinged.

Here in the UK Rishi Sunak held the daily press briefing yesterday evening and continues to do an impressive job.  The young Chancellor, Rishi will be forty next month, and took his Parliamentary oath of office on the Bhavagad Gita. His father was a GP and his mother ran a Medical Shop.  Although he was a keen advocate of Brexit, and our politics differ, I can see that he has been putting measures in place that not only are unprecedented but actually are thoughtful.  He is willing to say that his measures won’t save every business or person.  What a refreshing change for a politician. Still, it would be good to have an opposition sitting and holding the government accountable.  If journalists can use electronic media to question the government, why can’t elected officials?  Nevertheless, a far cry from the outrageous and often dangerous press briefings in the States.

And turning to a different sort of tweet…we have a pair of pigeons in the bottom of the garden that have taken to mating every morning at about the same time that we have our first cuppa on the swing.  It’s been going on nearly as long as lockdown itself and is quite amusing.  The feathers fly, she ignores him, he returns to her once more they both fly away then one of them returns and the wings flap and the feathers fly.  I never knew pigeons were such determined and inexhaustible maters.

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 14 April

We decided that as it was Easter we would give ourselves a little holiday and go away for a couple of days.  It has been a real treat!  We spent two nights (and I spent a great deal of the afternoon) in MSB –  the main spare bedroom. The vista from here  is different than that from our own room. There is a more distant view and an openness that our bedroom doesn’t have. Many many friends have stayed here over the years and I finally see why they all enjoy the room so much. It’s the sort of inviting place that makes you want to curl up with a good book and laze away the afternoon – well at least it does on a Bank Holiday Monday.

This house is a magnificent place that was built in 1860. It took us many years to develop its current style. When we moved to Bristol from Exeter we never imagined we would still be here twenty nine years later!  We looked at over fifty houses before we found our new home. We bought it as a maisonette and didn’t walk inside together until the day we moved in. Terry saw it first and said he thought I should have a look. It captured both of our hearts.  We didn’t have enough money to do things up the way we would have liked to then, and lived with an avocado bathroom and a blue bathroom for many years. Our bedroom, which was then downstairs, was painted bubble gum pink and had a shaggy minty green carpet on the floor. The first thing we did on moving in day before the furniture arrived from Devon was get rid of the pink. Our paint brushes moved furiously over the walls as we wanted to be able to sleep in our bedroom on our first night.  The green carpet didn’t get replaced for a long time. About two years after we were here, the woman who lived in the upstairs flat said she was moving and offered us the first option to buy.  Although we couldn’t afford it, we found a helpful bank manager who recognised that owning the entire house was a good investment and helped us with both a  mortgage and the deposit.  We rented out the upstairs flat to individuals instead of  a group and in addition to my other work at the time, I became a landlady. In the eleven years that followed we had many tenants meet each other, and two marriages. Not content with my role as just a landlady I became a matchmaker! We never thought we’d be able to afford to put the place back into a single home again, but times changed and our efforts were rewarded. Sixteen years ago, the footsteps overhead ceased. Our last tenants moved out and we set about the process of returning the house to its original state. Our bedroom moved upstairs, and just as  many of our friends were thinking of downsizing, we upsized. 

In all those years, the only time I’ve slept in the main spare bedroom has been when one of us was ill and keeping the other awake. I never before visited as though I was a guest for a few days. If you happen to have the luxury of a spare room I’d recommend you move in for a day or so. A different perspective on your own home is fascinating.

I miss the teenage grandchildren pounding up and down the stairs, slamming doors and generally making the house come alive. When this is all over I hope that they will come and stay, with their parents, and fill up all of these rooms again. A celebration will certainly be in order! In the meantime, I’ve enjoyed our little holiday and may plan a return visit to the MSB again. For now, it’s back “home” to our own room and the routine we have developed in the past few weeks.  As the old proverb says, “a change is as good as a rest.”  It’s still true!

And something beautiful and inspiring to watch…..

Happy days.

With love

Kathyx

Feest Isolation Days – 13 April 2020

Easter Monday!  It’s freezing!  After the splendid weather and the outdoor life, it feels even colder than I suspect it is as the wind howls around and shakes the petals from the less sturdy tulips.  Nevertheless, it’s a good day.  Prime Minister Boris is out of hospital and recovering at Chequers with his fiancée.  His message on Easter makes me think he really has found a place in his heart for the NHS.  I suspect his experience will have changed him. These tough personal plights can alter how people see the world. He said at one point it was “touch and go” whether or not he would pull through. He couldn’t praise the NHS staff enough and read a long list of names of those who cared for him.  The two nurses he especially thanked, who were at his bedside for forty-eight hours, were both immigrants.

It would seem that we’re going to be in lockdown for a lot longer yet. According to Sir Jeremy Farrar, the Director of the Wellcome Trust, the vaccine that will help everyone is coming, but it will be a long time before it’s available for the billions of people all over the planet who will need it. Scientists are working hard to produce this vaccine and may have one ready by September.  While that sounds encouraging, and of course it is, new labs will then need to be developed to produce the inoculations. Manufacturing can’t stop on the vaccines that are currently being made, if it did, and people stopped getting immunised, then there would be a new epidemic to deal with of mumps, measles etc.  Entire new factories will have to be set up worldwide in order to churn out the vaccine that we’ll all need in order to become social again. Remember all that anti vaxer talk not all that long ago? Gone quiet hasn’t it?

A programme on Radio Four reminded us why the farmers can’t get rid of all their milk.  With all those Costa’s and every other coffee shop in the country closed, the need for Café au Lait has evaporated.  People are making their beverage of choice at home and they don’t tend to drink lattes!  Alcohol too is no longer consumed in pubs and restaurants which explains the huge call on Supermarkets and off licences to provide us all with our preferred tipple.  It takes awhile for the supply chain to switch allegiances. 

We have been playing the “what will you do first when lockdown is over” game with friends.  Interesting to hear the responses!  What will you do first?  I will head to a lovely walk in the country with a picnic and walk and walk and walk and breathe deeply. When I’m finished with my walk I will find an outdoor pool and swim.  I might get rid of my exercise bike then as well.  I’m getting sick of it already and we have only been here for thirty days.

In case you’re getting fed up of being inside and  your thoughts are turning to how you could morally justify sunbathing  in the park, you might like to read the Guardian article Anthony posted  in the comments section.  I’ve copied the link below and urge you to have a read. It’s one of the finest articles I’ve read explaining our moral duty to comply.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/10/sunbathing-park-deep-moral-questions-philosophers-coronavirus-individual

If you haven’t watched it, the Boris video is also worth a peek.

More chocolate anyone?

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 12 April 2020

Happy Easter!  Despite the Coronovirus and lockdown it’s still Easter Sunday and a time for renewal and reflection.  However limiting our world might feel at the moment, we’re still here to enjoy what we have, wherever we are.

This may be one of the first Easter Sunday breakfasts that I haven’t had kielbasa with my hard boiled eggs and horseradish.  Although Sainsbury’s sells this garlicky Polish sausage, I forgot to include it in our delivery order. There won’t be poppy seed bread either. I have made it in the past but didn’t have the right ingredients this year. It’s called bread, but tastes a lot more like a cake. I remember my Polish grandmother making it; kneading the dough, then leaving it to sit and prove for  the appropriate amount of time, then rolling it out and letting me spread the poppy seed mixture all over the white circle before she rolled it up and put it in the oven as we waited for it to fill her house with the first  smells of Easter. Traditions like baking and eating poppy seed bread are often begun at a very young age, but in my experience can sometimes change over the years.

My other grandmother, my Baba, certainly would understand the evolution of tradition. She was Ukrainian, and besides having the best Easter Eggs ever, she went to “her” church which was Orthodox where neither Latin nor English was spoken. 

Many years ago when we still lived in Exeter, Terry and I went to the Easter Midnight Mass at the local Orthodox Church. The celebration was splendid with the Gregorian chants and incense filling the small but beautiful church.  Of course, it wasn’t “our” Easter time because Western churches follow a different calendar. The Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar for their holy days. Easter always falls sometime between April 4th and May 8th each year. The date was determined at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. It’s always on the Sunday following the paschal full moon, which is the full moon that falls on or after the spring equinox.

When we returned home from the Easter Service at two in the morning, I thought I’d call my Baba and be the first to wish her Easter greetings.  Because of the time zone difference it wasn’t too late to telephone. This was before Skype or Face Time or What’s App existed and calls to the States were still expensive so didn’t occur frequently.  Baba answered and in my less than perfect Ukrainian I said, “Khrystos Voskres” which is the Ukrainian Easter greeting meaning, literally, Christ has risen.

“What?”  Baba responded.  “Is that Kathy?”

 “Yes! Khrystos Voskres.”  Clearly I wasn’t saying it right. On my third try Baba asked, “Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because we’ve just been to the Orthodox Church to celebrate Easter and I thought I’d be the first to wish you Easter greetings.”

“Oh,” Baba replied, “They merged Easter with our church to be the same as everybody else’s in America years ago! It’s good to hear from you though.”

So much for my pronunciation practise. I learned that even after more than a thousand years, traditions can still change.

For the past few years we’ve spent Easter with our friends who have a house in Hay on Wye. Sadly not today. No walks for us on Hay Tor or anywhere else for that matter. Easter remains firmly at Chez Feest this year. Stay Home Protect The NHS Save Lives.

We have a few of our own traditions to lay down and one of them might just have to be Strawberry Cake.  It’s the third cake I’ve baked in lockdown and most of the last one is in the freezer where this one will no doubt end up as well. It was delicious, but today after our roast lamb that is big enough to feed the entire block, we will have a Christmas pudding Terry made with his Mum’s hand-written recipe!  We haven’t eaten Christmas pudding on the day it was meant to be consumed for nearly ten years because we’re in the summer sun of New Zealand so it’s become an early December treat when we celebrate the coming Christmas with the family, and then an Easter treat. His mum’s traditional recipe makes two puddings, but we have shifted the dates. My Baba would no doubt approve.

I dyed the Easter eggs yesterday and we will eat our hard-boiled eggs and horseradish this morning. Some traditions are easier than others to maintain.

Enjoy this special Easter egg!

Hope the Easter bunny found you and you are able to enjoy a few of your own traditions whatever they may be.  As my Baba may or may not say, Khrystos Voskres!

With love

Kathyx

Feest Isolation Days – 11 April 2020

A woman could get used to this weather!  The tulips in the garden are all the colours of a rainbow with not a cloud in sight. All is quiet and still with birdsong the only sound. Lovely start to the day.  This street is normally fairly quiet, but now there isn’t even the odd car going past. The green shoots of spring are visible on all the trees.  The copper beech at the end of our garden delighted me yesterday when I noticed that the first few leaves had actually emerged.  The catkins on the neighbour’s white birch are not stirring.  The world is calm and serene.

With the awareness that not everyone’s sense of their home is like this, I appreciate ours even more, and am grateful all over again.  Easter Saturday. 

When I was a little girl, Easter Saturday meant getting out the new clothes that had been bought for us over the last weeks and placing them all together so it wouldn’t take too long to get dressed when it was time to get ready for Midnight Mass. There were usually new hats, coats, and gloves but always, no matter what else, there were new shoes.

The local shoe shop, Triangle, was the only place in town that we were ever taken to buy shoes.  Joe, the man who ran the place, always looked after our brood.  My brother and sister and I spent hours choosing…our Easter Chicks.  Each person who bought a pair of shoes was invited to choose a live little peep that we took home with us in a shoebox.  The little peeps were as colourful as my garden is now.  Green, yellow, pink, blue.  All of them had been dyed to match the Easter Eggs we made for the season. They were installed in a cage my father built especially for them and lived together in our kitchen.  As they grew, their white feathers held a hint of the colour they had been dyed.  When they got too big for their cage, my father took them off to the local farmer.  We never asked questions.

Midnight mass was filled with families like ours, all in our new clothes sitting together in the pews bedecked with ribbons and flowers.  The icons that had been shrouded in purple since the beginning of lent were now visible again and the air was filled with incense.  A heady and wonderful way to start Spring. 

When we got home it was straight to bed.  Tomorrow was Easter Sunday, and chocolates!  

Easter Chicks…but no new shoes!

My Easter Tree in our dining room

Have a great day!

With love,

Kathy

Feest Isolation Days – 10 April 2020

Good News! The Prime Minister is out of intensive care. He has clearly turned a corner and wouldn’t it be nice if that meant everyone else had, too?  If this were a novel that would be symbolic of good things. As this is life and not a novel, I suspect it means that we are still in for a long haul.

Let’s hope that even though the weather is glorious people continue to Stay Home, Protect the NHS and Save Lives.  That has been the government mantra for the entirety of this lockdown.  Now that there are, what Professor Powys  one of the government Chief Advisors describes as green shoots, people need to adhere to that simple yet demanding request, or as Matt Hancock the Health Minister put it, that instruction.

We had breakfast and dinner outside in the garden yesterday for the first time this year.  That was special.  It looks like it might be repeated again today as the weather remains warm and the skies blue.  Teasing us all and making us wish we could break free and run into the world.  But we can’t.  So stay put.

My mother used to use that expression, just stay put!  I wasn’t ever good at listening to that instruction on any level and do wonder how I am managing to do just that now.  Several friends are finding this all really tough, and they have asked me how I stay so positive.  It’s made me think about why that might be. There are plenty of reasons for that I suppose, but there are a few that seem to work together and help when I begin to wobble.  I’ve been through tough times in the past and come out the other side.  Eleven years ago, (that time has just gone poof!) I was forced to stay in this glorious house because of a couple of medical reasons.  The first, having both feet operated on at the same time for what I always called Grandmother’s Feet, kept me benched.  Then just after I was moving again, my fractured spine meant another bout of being confined.  I was talking about this to Terry and said staying here like this was something I had to do before so perhaps  I got used to it, except this time I’m not in pain. Having a husband who loves and adores you and is always by your side does help.  Also, not only am I an optimist but as I’ve got older I’ve become a realist.  The glass is always but always half full, and mine feels like it’s overflowing.  Most of us have huge glasses filled to the brim and even then we have times when we can’t quite figure all this out and it gets on top of us.  That is to be expected.  These are extraordinary times. You are all my friends and just to be clear, you are all extraordinary people.  You are HERE and you have this gift of time.  Some of my dear friends have gone this year, and that makes me cry.  I miss them.  Dig deep, use this time to reset your internal compass if you need to and keep going. This isn’t the end, it’s just a respite from the bombardment of life for a bit. And if it feels grim today well, drink some champagne!  Churchill said that he could not live without champagne, in victory he deserved it and in defeat he needed it. I say drank champagne, it’s Friday, I intend to drink…wine.  Saving the Champagne for our Easter Celebration on Sunday – I told you I’m a realist.

With Love,

Kathy x

Breakfast…….

• 

• 

Feest Isolation Days – 9 April 2020

The weather was glorious yesterday afternoon and T-Shirts and summer clothes were the order of the day.  How hard it must be for those people who can’t get into a garden or have kids who want to run around a park or play on swings that are no longer there for them.  We were very fortunate because we missed the wet and wild winter as we spent the majority of British winter-time in New Zealand.  For those who haven’t had sun and warmth for so long, it must be difficult to stick to the rules. It’s even hard for those of us who have had summer!

Our lovely friend Deric left us a present on our doorstep yesterday. I missed a trick, I should have photographed them!  Two magnificent artichokes.  We ate them for dinner last night and marvelled at the ingenuity of the people who first discovered the edible bits. Artichokes are the flowers of thistles and have been in gardens since 8 BC and where mentioned by Homer. If you haven’t ever eaten one, it’s a treat.  You peel off each leaf and eat the very base which has a tiny bit of goodness.  As you tear off the outer bits and get closer and closer to the heart at its centre, you are also designing an artwork. Getting to the meaty bit of the vegetable needs a sharp knife and determination.  At this stage you must not be greedy. As you seek the heart, you need to bypass the hairy bit that covers it and slice lower than you may like. The subtle flavour is delicious, especially with a tiny bit of dressing.  We never enjoyed an artichoke as much! A cup of home-made broccoli soup with some salad completed our meal.  Food as art, as well as sustenance, thank you Deric!

Watching the daily press briefing has become part of our daily routine.  Is it just me or are the journalists just not very bright?  They don’t seem to know how to ask insightful questions, they keep going around a continuous loop.  We both shout answers to their questions at the television as the top team have already answered them earlier, if the journalists only had listened. Perhaps we really are getting old!  Rishi the young Chancellor was sounding very much like a Socialist today and a human being.  Wouldn’t it be great if Tories were still like this when the pandemic is behind us?  

I miss my walks and swimming a great deal at the moment. I’m working on some other writing and normally when I get stuck I swim.  Or walk.  Not today!  Yoga first thing in the morning is great but stationary biking is not the same as striding out or doing my usual forty minutes or so of the crawl. I suspect as we head into our twenty-sixth day I am getting a bit weary.  Like everyone else in the country I suspect. 

I just have to remember that there are no screaming kids desperate to head outside, and I’m not on the upper floor of a tower block.  Bound to have a few wobbles though I suppose.  Life in lockdown in the sun and warmth, even with a beautiful garden is still life in lockdown.

Time to see what’s new outside from the back bedroom window, and listen to the friends who can visit us!

With love,

Kathy  x

Feest Isolation Days – 7 April 2020

The day is golden and serene with no wind and a perfect robin’s egg blue sky.  The colour of the eggs protects the growing bird inside from the harsh UVA rays of the sun according to scientists that study these things.

We could all do with having a blue shield to protect us at the moment not from the sun but from the virus that marches on.  Boris Johnson who has had the dreaded disease for ten days is now in intensive care at St. Thomas’s hospital.  Dominic Raab his Foreign Secretary is going to be taking over from the Prime Minister “when needed”.  I’d say “when needed” is all the time that the PM is in hospital and as he recovers.  Dominic looked shocked last night when he spoke to the BBC correspondent, and in fact she said the same thing in her report after the interview.  Leaders are important to us all and never more than at a time of a national crisis.  Boris was never my top pick, but as he surrounded himself with the experts and clearly was taking their advice, I became grudgingly happy with him and his handling of this pandemic. 

Mr. Trump has said he is sending drug companies to Boris’s doctors and they are geniuses (like him!) and they will have dealt with ebola and aids and they speak a language no one understands and will be asked to help Boris.  You can imagine the PM  doctors having a conversation with these people can’t you? 

In other political news, I am finally pleased that I voted for Thangham Debonaire our local MP in the last election.  I held my nose as I did it as it meant voting for Jeremy Coryby as we elect a party not a PM, but Thangham is an excellent MP and has now been promoted to the Shadow Cabinet of Sir Kiers new opposition party.  Kier kicked out most of the Corbynistas in the Cabinet and it looks like the grownups are finally back where they belong.  Kier and his team will work with the government as they continue to tackle the crisis that is Coronavirus.

Meantime, in New Zealand, the Health Secretary admits he’s “an idiot” which we all agree.  Not only did he take himself off to have a bike ride, but he drove his family to the beach for an outing this weekend. Jacinda,  the countries PM, has demoted him but not fired him as she says he is needed for the moment.  I could give  her a few names of medics we know in NZ who would do a splendid job and follow the rules!

Closer to home, maybe Boris being in hospital will at the very least keep people indoors this weekend which is supposed to be glorious.

Time now to have breakfast and that first cup of in the garden with my husband.  Hopefully our resident robin will pay us a visit.  Thank heaven for those blue shells.

Have a good day.

A funny from a friend…

I put a map of the world up on the wall in the kitchen and said to my wife that when this was all over I’d take her anywhere in the world.  I simply handed her a dart to throw and said we’d go wherever it landed. Looks like we’ll be spending two weeks behind the fridge….

Boris being Boris!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 6 April 2020

Sunday I left the virus behind for a bit after watching some of the Andrew Marr show. He interviewed the man he called Professor Lockdown.  Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist led the team from Imperial College that has been a major influence on the government’s strategy and policy.  I fast forwarded to listen to Matt Hancock.  I am becoming increasingly annoyed at the way the press are trying to make the government the bad guys in this battle.  Andrew Marr has become more and more aggressive over the months and his interviewing technique hasn’t improved. My irritation with him led to a switch off of the telly and also the pings of the What’s App that usually send funny things my way.  Instead, I spent time just sitting on the swing with my husband with a cuppa and enjoying the sunshine while it lasted.

Two apples in the fruit bowl looked like they were nearing the end of their life, so I decided it was time to do something with them. I’m not usually a cake baker, but the blueberries that came earlier in the week blended beautifully with the apples.  Making a cake felt such a normal thing to do.  I spent longer on the internet trawling through recipes then I did making my batter.  The results were delicious and if anyone wants the recipe drop me a line and I’ll save you an hour of looking and share the web address. 

We’ve been eating two meals a day since this began and it seems to work well.  Breakfast or brunch and then an earlier than we used to eat meal in the evening.  With all those cakes though I can’t imagine that I will lose any weight.  At least I hope not to gain any.  The best one can hope for at this stage I think.

The Queen was brilliant, effective and reassuring.  Whatever you think of the monarchy, at times like this having a great grandmother speak to us who has been through so much is quite special. At ninety-three her reminding us that we have the ability to do this and “we will meet again” echoing Dame Vera Lynn from World War Two was impressive.

I haven’t heard any updates on the Health Minister of New Zealand, but there is another Health Chief contending for the award for biggest health idiot of the Pandemic. The Chief Medical Officer from Scotland thought it might just be a good idea to go to her second home in Fife an hour or so away from Edinburgh – twice.  The family joined her.  Against her own and her governments advice.  This morning the news says she resigned, well at least she got that right! 

The other worrying news this morning is that Boris has been taken into hospital for “tests”.  He apparently says he can still run the government.  Hmmm.  We will all be watching for those results Boris. Now is not the time to lose you, even though we never wanted you in the first place. Get better soon and fast please!

Let’s hope for a good week with some bright spots in it that make us remember that this too shall pass and as our Queen said, “We will meet again!”   Keep taking deep breaths, and be grateful that we are where we are and not in a third world country or a refugee camp.  Life may not be easy for all of us, but it could be a lot more difficult. 

The cake…

On the swing…..

And for amusement, the old and technology……

With love,

Kathy  x

Feest Isolation Days – 5 April 2020

The sun is shining and we are all told not to go out. Stay at home!  Matt Hancock told us it’s an instruction. We’re listening Matt!  How privileged we are to have a garden to sit in and enjoy.  The glorious tulips, now at their peak, were planted last year by my personal in-house gardener before there was a sniff of virus around and before the world was in lockdown.

We have photographed the garden several times in the past few weeks and shared the results with you.  What we notice as we spend so much time sitting outside (except for the in-house gardener who is constantly doing something out there) is that not only does the garden change daily, but almost hourly as the sun moves around and the tulips open and close.  There is a bunch of red tulips that have daffodils behind them and depending on the light, the daffodils are befriending them or waving at them or just being petulant and ignoring them. There are many tulip stories. 

Yesterday I joined one hundred and fifty other singers as we participated in a “Stay and Sing” as opposed to the usual “Come and Sing.”  Each of us were in our own homes with our headphones on.  Hilary the Bristol Choral Society Musical Director took us through our paces at breakneck speed. We sang Mr. Mozart’s Coronation Mass. Two hours of learning and then singing together.  Except we couldn’t hear each other. Instead we sang along as Hilary conducted us and a pre recorded Mass came through our headphones. We saw each other via Zoom, and could send brief written chat messages.  It wasn’t perfect but beats not singing at all.  Choir becomes something else up there with walking and swimming that I miss.  I’m sure we will all get together and do more of this sort of thing on Zoom.  We singers are fortunate that it’s possible for us to practice our hobby from anywhere. 

The key is to do enough and not too much of whatever it is you enjoy, as  our young next door neighbour the batsman discovered. The thud thud of the ball on the back of the net had been absent for a few days, and I discovered that the silence was due to the blisters on his hands.  Invaluable lessons continue to be learned throughout all of this. 

The NHS has now placed everyone who retired in the past six years back on the Medical Register.  Terry is once again a Professor of Medicine.  He hasn’t yet heard how he can help from home, but will happily do so.  He has a way of calming people down with his deep and reassuring voice, and would be a welcome presence at the end of a phone disseminating information or mentoring young stressed doctors.  Watch this space.

The Queen is going to speak to the Nation today, and according to the BBC, she is going to tell us among other things, “that the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good humoured resolve and of fellow feeling still characterise this country.”

The psychologists tell us to keep taking deep breaths, and most importantly stay connected. 

As it’s Sunday, here’s a heart warming video. Some firemen from the Czech Republic

And I couldn’t resist this Sylvia Plath poem called Tulips. 

Yet another photo of red tulips and their friendly daffodil escort. One can never have enough pictures of flowers!

Happy Sunday.

With love,

Kathy

Feest Isolation Days – 4 April 2020

Saturday used to mean going to the market and eating the most wonderful croissants ever- brought to us by the people at Farro. The queues around the stall in the middle of our local market on Apsley Road suggests we weren’t the only family who loved these delicious weekly treats.  Sadly, the Farro website says they are trying to figure out what to do at the moment and will be closed until further notice until they have a plan.  There are only two bakers! The picture on their website of a young man with a never-ending smile means, hopefully, that the two of them will be able to figure out some way to carry on baking. I hope so!

We watched the National Theatre production of Two Guvnors on Thursday and in my gloomy mood yesterday I forgot to mention how funny it was.  Honestly, we laughed till we cried.  The opening scene didn’t grab either of us and I wasn’t sure that it was going to translate from the theatre to our living room, but by ten minutes or so in, we were hooked.  It’s slapstick and may not be to everyone’s taste but we loved it. The dining scene is a tour de force!  (Surely “Tour de Farce”! – Ed)

Hmmm. What is it about food today? Last night was Friday and so it was a dining room meal.  We had lamb with rhubarb and mint and poached plums for desert. The candles were lit and the wine was poured. These routines aren’t so bad really are they?

For the past two days the Health Minister, Matt Hancock – or as Terry calls him the Prime Minister in Waiting – has been chairing the Number Ten press briefings. He answers all the questions, has a clear strategy and agrees that they may not get it all right, but the plan is in place.  He has been off with the virus and has returned full of energy and vigour. The people around him are articulate and honest and it is refreshing to see.  The Tories are not the Tories at the moment.  Thank heaven.  He wiped out over a billion pounds of NHS debt, in addition to all of the other plans now in place, and that didn’t even make the headlines.  Strange times indeed.  There will still be frontline workers not yet tested, or properly gowned up in PPE, but there is hope for the future. Matt’s honesty and humanity is evident.

Contrast him to the in a spot of bother Health Minister in New Zealand.  The PM there must be spitting tacks.  The Health Minister jumped into his car with his bicycle and went off to a mountain bike park so he could get some exercise. Not a good example.  Bet they have a new Health Minister soon!

A bicycle sound treat for you today. Enjoy!

And greetings from dinner last night.

Love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 3 April 2020

A sneeze!  A cough.  Oh dear.  Is it the dreaded disease?  How could it be?  We’ve been indoors for twenty days.  It’s just a sneeze.  Why am I getting jumpy?  Bristol is not in the top ten for cases per 100,000 people.  I’m not sure where we are but this top ten is a pleasure to avoid. Most of the time we manage our worries and just get on. We clean and disinfect everything that comes into the house, don’t go out, no one visits. Yet sometimes that feeling of anxiety arrives and we’re reminded that our new lifestyle is not one of our own choice but came upon us courtesy of a virus that is trying to find its way into lives all over the world.

There are plans to develop a new hospital in Bristol, like those springing up all over the country. It helps me to discover the source of my current anxiety. Creating a new hospital at a Conference Centre at the University of the West of England that could take up to one thousand ventilated patients brings the epidemic into sharp focus.  Lots and lots of people are going to contract this disease. I always knew that, but reading about the local plans no one wants to talk about shakes my hard won equilibrium. There is no news that doesn’t include the words coronavirus.  Newspaper headlines (read online) screech about masks, personal protection equipment, and the television network presenters sit in front of graphics of the virus that are seared into our brains.  Daily reminders are something you learn how to process and then something new comes along and you have to recalibrate and

refocus attention on whatever it was that got you stable and coping in the first place.

There are going to be days like this I suppose. Stuck inside, unable to help. We’ve only been indoors for twenty days.  We probably have at least another hundred or so to go. We all have to dig deep.  A friend told me yesterday all the jokes were beginning to wear a bit thin.  Perhaps too much of a good thing can be just as unhelpful as too much of a bad thing.

A next door neighbour’s son whacks his cricket bat against something that makes a thudding noise and he expresses the frustration we all share.  My heart goes out to kids all over the country living their lives indoors and unable to go to school, meet their friends or do any of the things kids normally do.  Still haven’t heard from my friend about how we can help organise something for those who haven’t got the resources to buy the things that will help them through this.  I will chase that up!  Something positive to do.

I heard from a New Zealand pal yesterday. She spoke about drinking a very nice bottle of wine and I remembered the generosity she and her husband showed us when they cracked open a very expensive and gorgeous wine for a special dinner she had cooked for the four of us.  Chicken cooked outdoors on top of tea tree leaves and branches. The delicious smell of the smouldering leaves permeated the outdoor dining area. We peered over the treetops and tall palms down to the sea and watched the boats gently rocking on their mooring as cool jazz played on the Ipod and the sun set.  The evening was warm and the food and wine were as special as our human connection. That seems like another lifetime.  Actually it was only two months ago.  Those memories of the smell of the wood smoke and the cool breeze of the evening and the delicious friendship are worth tapping into just now.  And they always will be.  What memories do you have to get you through your trickier days?

Time for a few deep breaths and to get on with the rest of the day in our magnificent home. Sitting in our spring garden, it’s easy to forget why we aren’t going anywhere. And sometimes that isn’t such a bad thing.

Something beautiful to look at! – from the garden now….

• 

• 

• 

A little something for your exercise…

Enjoy.

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 2 April 2020

Book group last night! Six of us sat around my house and discussed our book. Except no one left their own home.  We were all on our preferred devices in our own homes using Zoom.  It wasn’t near as nice as being all together in the same room and sharing a nibble and a cuppa or a glass of wine, but it beat not having book group at all. We plan to “meet” again at the end of the month. Some of the group are still working and they’re all working from home and getting quite proficient at using Zoom and other methods to do their jobs.  It doesn’t take too long to adapt!

Our modern technology opens up so many possibilities!  Tonight, we plan to watch a You Tube National Theatre production at 7:00.  I like that they state a time, and you can’t just watch it anytime you want.  Nice to have a bit of shape to the evening, and I love writing a few things in the diary again.

Another observation from Grumpy of Clifton…We listen to the daily Number Ten press briefing which is on every day at about five and often learn something from the experts.  We don’t learn much from the journalists!  They keep asking the same old questions and expect a different response. Yes, there needs to be more protective equipment.  Yes, there needs to be more testing.  They could cleverly give us all a bit more information if they asked their questions in a more considered way. They all ask the same things over and over and clearly haven’t read the information that I have about why Germany is testing more for instance.  Can I please ask a question?  Maybe I’ll write to Laura at the BBC or Robert Peston with a suggestion.

Food occupies our thoughts a lot more than it used to.  Having to order weekly and not go into the shops ourselves has its benefits.  We sit down together and plan what we will have for a week and then go and order online from Reg the Veg or via text to the butcher.  Our next grocery delivery is still a few weeks away, but with Amazon to fill in the gaps, we seem to be just fine.  There is plenty of fresh food in the house and the freezer is constantly getting replenished. Nothing goes to waste.  We use every morsel of food we have in one way or another.  Roast chicken becomes left over salad and then the carcass is boiled for stock and becomes soup.  Although we’re ordering weekly, we are careful and aware that we may not have this luxury in a few months time.  Who knows what the supply chain will be like in May? Not much is thrown away.  It reminds me of our beloved Doris, Terry’s Mum, who lived through the war and never let anything go to waste. Finding uses for each and every drop of anything that came her way was second nature to her.  I always marvelled at the plastic bag she had tied onto her slow dripping bath tap.  She wanted to save the bath from  the rusty streaks that the water caused.  But one day I saw her, bag in hand with the few drops that had fallen watering one of her plants.  Nothing  wasted. Hope none of us waste food, water or the opportunity that this enforced time at home is affording us. 

This may be just one tiny step too far using technology!  But it made me smile, hope it does you, too!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 1 April 2020

All I can say is that we are finally through March and into April!  Maybe this month will be a better month for the world.  We are getting a bit fed up at Chez Feest and are thinking of doing things slightly differently.

Possibly a fishing trip will feature.  What the heck?!  All these people who are not listening to the advice when we are is silly. I might join Terry even if I don’t fish.  I could just sit in the car and read and watch as he catches some trout. 

Really, why should we stay stuck in the house when everyone else round these parts seems to be stepping out?  I read that the joggers are taking over the parks and not paying any attention at all to the walkers.  Fishing is an isolation sport surely? We won’t run into anybody or cough on them.  And we’ve been self isolating for eighteen days now!

Idiots we are not, and so we figured out that we need to have pen and paper in the car with us so we can write notes to any policeman that may stop us. We can leave our windows up, stay safe and write them a note saying we are going for food.  Well fish is food isn’t it?

Look, some of you may sense a change in our tone, and that’s because we really are going stir crazy. It didn’t take long…just eighteen days!  I thought we’d make it longer than that but I’m not so sure any longer. Terry has been playing with his fishing line just this morning and it has been, quite honestly, a bit worrying to see. 

Frequently we have people walking by our house and yesterday I had a note through the door asking why there was fishing going on in our garden. They didn’t say who they were and when I cleaned and disinfected the note I seemed to have rubbed out their name, but whoever it was wanted to know if we had fish in our garden!

Of course, we have always been the kind of people who follow the rules and I must admit we are surprising ourselves with our desire to throw caution to the wind and to get out there and fish.

Often, it happens around this time we’re told.  When people have been confined throughout most of March, they begin to reassess, especially if they’re over seventy.  They may no longer draw on the resilience that they acquired over their lifetime and wish to throw that caution as I say into the wind…or in this case into the fishing lake.

Lucky for us, after thinking these thoughts and getting the fishing gear ready to load into the car, we went back outside in the garden, sat on the swing and came to our senses.  Who wants a criminal charge at this stage of our lives?  We hope you understand.  We changed our mind. But we really thought you might just like to hear that sometimes, yes, even the Feests can be foolish.   We thought we’d give it to the afternoon and see what we thought by then. Are we just morning fools?  Hmmmm.

Check that date again at the top of these words.  We’re not going anywhere but out on that swing with our cups of tea.  Enjoy your day and don’t forget to smile. If you read down the left hand side of this missive you will also notice another great big  (non fishy) clue – our bold beginnings tell a tale! Enjoy.

I wrote the above and then discovered that April Fools in France is all about fish! Some French folk began sending out invitations for New Years Eve parties for the first of April. Should you be foolish enough to attend one you were called an April Fish.  Apparently an April Fish is a recently spawned fish, an inexperienced youngster vulnerable to trickery and for a fisherman…easily caught.

These days in France, April first is “Poisson d’Avril” April Fish! French kids tape a paper fish on the back of their friends. If and when the fish is discovered, the prankster yells, “Poisson d’Avril!” April Fish! Who knew!!

The family below are unmistakeably British, and they are just fun to watch!  No tricks…enjoy…

Meanwhile in Clifton………..

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 31 March 2020

It seems to me it’s easier to stay happily at home when the sun shines and there’s a bit of warmth outside instead of when the wind blows and it’s chilly. Sitting outside in the garden three or four times a day does make a difference!  However, in order to sit outside at the moment with our cups of tea, we have to bundle up so there are fewer excursions into the outside world.

I have seen many complaints online from young people who couldn’t get slots for grocery deliveries and I must admit it made me cross.  Seeing totally healthy, young folks not going to food stores means that oldies like us can’t get a delivery.  Taking into account youngsters who are buying for older folks, there are still too many just getting home deliveries!  Perhaps all the supermarkets need to set aside some delivery slots for oldies.  Yes, there are queues, but I’m told it doesn’t take more than twenty minutes, usually far less, to get in the supermarket door and do the self distancing shop.  Oldies are more at risk.  Full stop. Period.  Maybe the kids don’t have warm clothes to wear as they stand outside?

We’ve been told over the weekend and again today that we are going to be at home for a long time to come.  Probably until the Autumn.  That’s a sobering thought, but also freeing. It means we can all begin to make some longer term plans.  Instead of staying stuck without some information to guide us on how long we’ll be here for, we now have a pretty good idea of when we’re likely to return to something that may sort of resemble normal.  What will we have accomplished by then?  Our most important goal must be to return to the world as was in good mental health with fit bodies.  Whatever you do, and whatever goals you set, that’s got to be top of the list.  Everything else comes after that.

Be careful what you get up to though!  Spare a thought for the poor astrophysicist who was trying his best.  I don’t think this chap got a first at Uni…..

Enjoy!

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/30/astrophysicist-gets-magnets-stuck-up-nose-while-inventing-coronavirus-device

With love

Kathy x

aka “Grumpy of Clifton”

Feest Isolation Days – 30 March 2020

This weekend I asked Terry to give me a basic tutorial on viruses as I had read quite a lot about them online and some of the information was contradictory or I thought just plain wrong.  He kindly wrote the following which includes a helpful account of how we deal with items that are delivered to our door.

Handing over these daily words to my dear husband means I can go out and meet my mates for a coffee, or go for a swim, or visit a National Trust property….or perhaps just make a cup of tea, sit on the garden swing and dream about these eventualities!  Have a great day.

With love,

Kathy x

Humour for the day…..

Rita, my elderly neighbour is a little hard of hearing. She chatted to me over the garden fence and said she was just back from Asda. She said she bought all the sausage rolls, Swiss rolls and chocolate mini rolls she could carry. When I asked why she said she didn’t want to be left behind.  She heard on the news that people were talking about there not being enough rolls and picnic buying!

A Virus, The Basics……

The Covid virus, like all viruses, is a complex structure. We have no idea where viruses come from.  It’s like asking where we come from. But just as we know what we are made of, we know what makes up a virus: a mix of protein, RNA, DNA , and lipids.

Viruses have no life of their own. Left alone, they don’t multiply but over time simply decompose and become harmless.  However, if they enter a living cell, their RNA, or occasionally their DNA, can take control of the cell and make it produce more virus and the cell eventually dies.  That’s when they become harmful.

Each virus has a “target cell”, a cell whose structure the virus is uniquely programmed to attach to: this may be any plant or animal cell, and viruses are responsible for a wide range of plant, animal and human diseases, including cowpox, smallpox, mumps, measles, polio, rubella, influenza and the common cold.  The target cells for the Covid virus are human upper respiratory tract cells.  Somewhat similar, but less damaging, corona viruses are responsible for some common colds.

Covid infection is spread by aerosol droplets coughed from infected people and inhaled by others. To catch it like this you probably need to be within two metres of an infected person.

In addition, when these coughed droplets land on a surface and dry, they leave an active virus. When people get them  on their hands, then touch their faces they enter through the nose, eyes and mouth and infect their upper respiratory tract.

Viruses  are usually protected and held together by a lipid fatty coat, and when this is damaged or decays the virus disintegrates and becomes inactive.  If they haven’t invaded a living cell, viruses don’t remain active for long.  In the case of the Covid virus, it probably lasts longest on hard smooth surfaces such as stainless steel, hard plastic, possibly glass. It’s thought they can remain active and therefore able to invade cells for three days or so.  That’s why it’s important to clean these surfaces.  On softer, less smooth, surfaces such as cardboard and paper the virus probably decomposes in hours, or perhaps up to a day.

Viruses are inactivated by things which damage their lipid coat – and soap is superb for this, hence the advice to wash hands thoroughly and regularly with soap, better than supposed hand disinfectants.  This link is to an excellent article on this – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/12/science-soap-kills-coronavirus-alcohol-based-disinfectants

Our practice at home Is to clean down EVERYTHING that enters the house, wearing household gloves.  A good soap and water clean should be affective, but some other cleaners, such as 10 to one diluted household bleach are very good. This latter should be left in contact with the surface for a few minutes before washing off. 

Our other strategy is to leave things in the entrance hallway for up to three days or even longer, depending on the surface, giving the virus time to decay.

And of course we wash our hands thoroughly after initially handling anything that has come into our house!

Feest Isolation Days – 29 March 2020

Sunday! Definitely feels a different day to other days of the week.  It always has and perhaps that’s why it always does.

The pandemic rolls on and the NHS prepares.  The UK has had a few extra weeks, as we’re just behind Italy, Spain and France.  Our friends who work in hospitals tell us that they are preparing for the storm that they know is about to hit. The effort is mammoth and has been well thought through. Rotas are built with teams of people with the expectation that up to twenty percent of staff might be off at any one time.  Electricians are fitting sockets this weekend in large rooms normally reserved for meetings. These former meeting rooms will soon be full of beds, and in the not too distant future, patients.  A ward of eight will become a ward of thirty. People are pulling out all the stops. We are all doing our bit by staying home. The numbers of anticipated deaths we’re hearing about can wear us down and the constant barrage of information we keep hearing about the corona virus can become overwhelming. Cruising the news channels and seeking the latest information can be depleting. 

So too can our attempts to find our way through the maze of possibilities as we try to find our lives again and live differently than we did a few short weeks ago. Going online is both a joy and another source that can swamp us and divert our attention.  When did we move from the awe and excitement of choice to becoming submerged by so many options?  When we used to go to the library as kids there were so many books to choose from, yet all that choice didn’t seem scary – not to me at least! I couldn’t wait to get home and dive into the pile that was always waiting (my flashlight was a staple feature of bedtime). When I’d finished the heap of (mostly) novels and we were back in the library, the excitement would begin again. Which books should I choose this time?  I never felt overwhelmed by what I would never manage to read, just sheer joy at discovering all the novels I was going to get through. How do we hang onto that feeling of wonder and awe and excitement and not let ourselves be overwhelmed by choice?

Do a quick search on the internet for almost anything  and the morning can slip by as you devour yet another article about how to …fill in your blanks. Many of us are still at the stage where we tend to spend more time seeking than doing. What’s the point? Somebody’s already …fill in the blanks.  Perhaps it’s time to remember those things we loved as kids and work towards them once again.  Our staying at home life is going to be the norm for several months. For those of us fortunate enough not to be in one of those hospital beds, what will we do?  Will we fill our diaries with virtual activities or find something once more that fills us with the awe and childlike wonder that we once had? The choice is ours!

Doing the same thing again and expecting a different result is the definition of madness……

– I’m not sure the grandkids will get this one!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 28 March 2020

Boris our Prime Minister has it, as does Matt Hancock the Health Minister. The Chief Medical Officer is also self isolating with symptoms. And on it goes. Let’s hope it doesn’t cause them too much grief.  Our son in London has it, as does one of his two flatmates. He is self isolating in his room with his meals brought to him and left outside his door by his healthy flatmate.  Sensible to choose your mates wisely!

Yesterday was a day of deliveries. Our sweet nextdoor neighbour brought us some bread, apparently she received more than she could fit into her freezer and was distributing them around to we “elderly”.  Reg the Veg arrived again with a box of fruit and veg and flowers. Thank heaven for Reg the Veg!  Each day they plan to supply thirty boxes of veg and fruit of their choice and twenty boxes filled with specific orders from their customers.  I’m not ready to give up choosing what vegetables we’ll eat so am delighted that we are one of the lucky twenty! Long may that last.

Peter, our butcher brought fish, eggs, cheese and oh yes meat!   We are well stocked for awhile. He stands in the garden and talks to us for a time as we remain safely inside; Terry in the upstairs window, and me in the downstairs window like a scene from a play.  Peter tells us some of what is happening in the outside world.  Although people are no longer meant to travel for their allotted exercise, some still are getting into their cars and travelling.  Although he hasn’t seen evidence of this being enforced, In Devon and Cornwall police have set up road blocks and are stopping people from travelling.  He says stores are packed with people, if not all the goods, and the veg shop down the road from his butcher shop is no exception. They tried delivering but couldn’t cope when they had seventy requests the first day. The manager shut the shop for a bit but has now reopened and sells just from the shop floor which means long queues. Peter’s shop is set up so people can’t come in and loiter,  There are two people serving from just inside the front door. He’s thought it all through and has two people working at the back, one chap whose wife is having a baby in May, so he has kept him away from the customers just in case. Having a conversation face to face has become a treat.

Our day includes many conversations, but all by face time or telephone or skype.  Yesterday I spoke to seven people on the phone which totalled about three hours.  Plenty of emails are keeping us connected with people. What’s App and text messages also add to the mix, so our social lives continue to be active, just different. 

The piece of halibut Peter delivered was so magnificent Terry brought it to my study to show me! He then turned it into a delicious Chez Feest exceptional meal. We had figs to begin.  Life in self isolation can be delicious.

My exercise bike and I are well acquainted, and I haven’t missed a day for ages.  The mat work is also getting easier to do as my body begins to realise there are not going to be any walks for awhile, so might as well settle into these Pilates and yoga moves for now. 

Terry and I are fortunate as we have each other, and our routines before this isolation began have expanded as going into the outside world has ceased. Three or four times a day we sit together outside with a cup of tea and devices are not allowed.  The experts advising on how to stay calm and not let the situation grind you down all seem to agree that time like that is well spent.  They suggest that staying centred and “in the moment” helps. Several years ag,o while flying to somewhere or other on Virgin, I discovered Meditainment, a guided story that’s both relaxing and uplifting. Meditation and entertainment. Perfect!  For the past several years, I have listened to these tales on and off and they are now freely available. I recommend them for twenty minutes of real relaxation and a time to drift into a very pleasant place! Here’s to venturing outside while staying in our own minds……..

https://www.meditainment.com/free-meditainment

Have a great weekend.  I miss the Saturday market.  And walks. And swimming.

Time for something funny….

With love

Kathy x