Feest Isolation Days

Feest Isolation Days – 5 June

How many of you have sat on a tube train in London and read a Poem on the Underground as your train rattled along the noisy tracks? Some ideas take off and we are all beneficiaries.  Spreading poetry via tube train ad spaces was the brainchild of an American woman who moved to London and stayed. 

Judith Cherniak wrote to Tube bosses back in 1986 and outlined her plans.  She was inspired by a scene from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” when lovesick Orlando pins his dreadful sonnets on trees.  Judith thought sharing poems that weren’t in the least bit dreadful might be inspiring to commuters.  Transport for London agreed, and after teaming up with the Arts Council, and the British Council, “Poems on the Underground” was born. There have been more than five hundred poems sitting alongside advertisements since the initiative began. Cities all over the world have set up similar schemes, a real tribute to the success of the programme!

One specific poem that I encountered en route to some meeting or other has always stayed with me.  It perfectly sums up, for me, the head of the British government today.

The poem is short and fits neatly onto an ad board, as do all Poems on the Underground.  My favourite was written by Roger McGough who writes poetry and more. He holds several degrees and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Liverpool in 2006. He was Fellow of Poetry at Loughborough University and Honorary Professor at Thames Valley University. Roger was awarded a CBE in 2004.   His poem:

I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I’m the leader
I’m the leader

OK so what shall we do?

Remind you of anyone?  To be fair to the current PM, I have sat in many committee meetings with Chairs who equally had no idea how to lead.  But to give those guys (and gals) their due, they weren’t trying to lead an entire country!

If the little poem inspires you and you want another fix, you can purchase a Poems on the Underground book from all good bookstores (and Amazon).

I wanna be the leader….

…no I don’t!   I want a quiet un virus infected life and want someone to organise our way of life safely until that is possible. Boris?  Would you mind doing your job properly? You wanted it, now you’ve got it!

A first!  I never interpreted a cartoon before, but thought it might be useful on this occasion!  I only knew one of these….

–A sestina is a poem with six stanzas of six lines and a final triplet, all stanzas having the same six words at the line ends in six different sequences.

–The pantoum is a form of poetry similar to a villanelle in that there are repeating lines throughout the poem. It is composed of a series of quatrains; the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next stanza.

–Haiku is a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world.

Love the idea of a poetry industrial park!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 4 June

The rain has finally arrived.  Took long enough! At the moment the skies are grey and dark so it might as well just chuck it down. The gardener is hoping for that almost as much as the little plants. 

Visiting friends in their gardens is much nicer when the sun is shining but with an umbrella ready for the rain and wearing a raincoat, a friend and I managed tea yesterday morning.  It’s quite extraordinary how much we all can find to say about Covid 19 and the implications to us all.

The other subject none of us can stop talking about at the moment, of course, is the protests in America and the response to those marching.  As ever, it would appear that the images we are seeing are not indicative of the many, many positive images that are springing up on the internet – if you look for them.

Police taking a knee in support….

Or a Washington D.C. man sheltering eighty people who were stuck on a street closed down by police officers who couldn’t find their knees…if  you haven’t seen this report, do have a look – it is inspiring and reminds us that good people still can accomplish good things. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-52896871/george-floyd-death-the-man-who-sheltered-80-us-protesters

Here, a Pilates zoom followed by a Book Group zoom followed by a dinner party zoom the next day and on we go.

Like most people, I prefer the sun, but it feels like we were on holiday and now we are back home.  Perhaps it is time to finally get those summer clothes sorted….

…… or maybe not

Whatever you are up to, stay socially distanced and keep safe. 

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 3 June

The scenes on the local news last night were truly disgusting.  People were not social distancing, packing into beauty spots and leaving behind their mess and with no public toilets open they left their personal waste as well.  Do they think the pandemic is past?  Go Home!  That was the message they received from people who live in these small towns and villages that have been overrun.

Schools began again on Monday, but many children were still kept home by their worried parents. Presumably these are not the same people that were visiting all those beauty spots!

This stage of the virus – we are told by the scientists – is a worrying one.  In America the man masquerading as the President is creating havoc! Uneasy times!

As yesterday was the last day of summer for a bit as the highs over the country turn to lows, it was time to go on a little holiday.  At least from the news and the terrible images of the American mess.

It turned into a day for celebration.  We visited the garden of friends who have been shielding for all this time and raised a glass of champagne with them – our glasses, at a safe social distance.  A wonderful moment and a careful one too.  There is no point in going backwards so going forward slowly and easing into a few more nice things must be the plan. It is in our household anyway! There may not be hugs but there are big smiles and the air was filled with kisses …and smiles!  As we sat outside, a pilot drew a smiley face in the sky to cheer everyone up. It worked!

So a few more fun and or lovely things to view and enjoy while we are busy trying to process all the mess. 

Sport!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnibHJC-6uU (Rugby World Cup 2019)

Ingenuity!

Art! History! Italy! (A full hour of gorgeousness)

Hope something in all of that made you smile or helped you connect once more with a feel-good factor that you may have forgotten. 

The dunnocks graced us with their presence during our last outdoor breakfast for a bit.  Life isn’t all bad.  Promise.

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days –2 June

These numbers of lockdown days keep climbing! Let’s all hope that the R number doesn’t.  The weather has been so perfectly wonderful that some people have eased up just when we are at the most dangerous phase of this disease.

Socially distanced visits with friends is a plus that has meant we are taking tiny baby steps toward unlocking.  We still don’t go into shops, we won’t walk where there are lots of other people and continue to clean our own home.  Easing is not totally lifting, and we are not confident to do too much more yet.  More book groups, dinner parties, Pilates, Singing and drinks on Zoom then!

The local news last night shows hundreds of people out and about and not socially distancing.  It is as though they think the pandemic is all over!  Not only did they stray into each other but they left their mess behind as well.  This is not a pretty sight.

An airplane or two have crossed by us high up in the sky, but not an Easyjet flight from Bristol in sight, the flight trails we’ve seen are going somewhere much further away. Spain is opening up its tourism to some countries, but not the UK.  They are correct. Our rate of daily infection at eight or nine thousand means they don’t want us to visit and spike their reasonable rates.  Why is this?  I can’t understand who is getting the infection now. How come so many more people here are testing positive than elsewhere in Europe?  Have there already been too many people not following the rules?

I have avoided talking about the current American situation as it is so painful to watch. Rioting in over seventy-five cities, brutal confrontation by some of the police.  This is not history repeating itself, it is a continuation of what has gone on for decades, if not centuries.  America is at breaking point and still the Baby in Chief tweets aggressive and racist messages. A very good article in yesterday’s Guardian sums up what I think about the man and the current situation.  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/01/george-floyd-donald-trump-black-lives-matter?CMP=share_btn_link

Back in Britain it seems time to think about sewing up a face mask or two. Yet this is not a skill I have. Sewing and I were never happy companions.  Running up a dress for a party is not a skill I ever possessed and even sewing a button on a shirt is problematic to me.  I blame Naomi Bieler. Miss Bieler was a small dark haired woman who wore her hair back in a bun.   She was my home economics teacher when I was in school.  We had several strands of home economics throughout the year and I excelled at the cooking and general home maintenance.  But sewing?  Nope!  It took me ages to figure out how to thread the sewing machine properly, but that was nothing to the time it took me to unpick an entire zipper that ran the length of the dress I was making.  Thankfully, we wore reasonably short skirts in the 1960’s with our little cotton puffy sleeves and A line simple dresses.  The fabric was a lovely heavy cotton and the material was a pretty shade of lemon yellow with a blue print.  To this day I remember that dress!  Miss Bieler told me I had put the zipper in and it wasn’t straight so I had to unpick it by hand and do it again.  It took forever.  Then I carefully pinned it up again and sewed the length of my dress once more.  Nope!  She said it was still not straight. Out it came along with my irritation and resolve to never, ever make anything out of material again. I eventually got the zipper in to her satisfaction and wore the dress once or twice.  Never did I make another garment. 

Any face masks that we wear will come from someone else’s machine.  Naomi Bieler, after all these years, I still recall your dour expression and unhelpful comments.  We could all learn a little something from that couldn’t we? 

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 1 June

Monday.  1^st of June.  Kids (some of them, only in England) back at school.  We can see people in our gardens up to six at a time!  Wait.  Wait.  Wait.  That does seem to be the advice of several of the Scientific advisors.  The R is just under one.  And track and trace isn’t yet fully up and running.  Doesn’t that mean hold on a bit? Steady as she goes?  Perhaps we ought to stay as we are for another few weeks until the virus isn’t infecting up to nine thousand people a day and the R is really down. We are staying alert.  Alert to the science and at the very least some of the advisors who think it is all too early.  Who can trust Boris? 

Sir Patrick gave us clear advice on Thursday at the press briefing. I share it here in case you missed it.  It’s worth remembering.   He said, “We still have a significant burden of infection, we are still seeing new infections every day at quite a significant rate and the R is close to one. That means there is not a lot of room to do things and things need to be done cautiously, step-by-step and monitored and the Test and Trace system needs to be effective in order to manage that.”

He added: “The R remains below one everywhere, but it’s very close to one in some places and there may be, both in terms of nations and places within those nations, areas where the R is very close to one. That’s why we’ve got to be very cautious. This is not a time to say ‘Everything’s OK, we’re releasing measures, everything’s going to be rosy’. It’s a time to go very cautiously, with changes, as they take place, monitored very carefully. Being prepared that there will be local outbreaks, because there will be, and being prepared that recommendations may come to reimpose measures. I think that’s the world we’re in. The number of cases remains high.

We need to keep concentrating on R below one, that means making sure that the measures that are in place are adhered to and that we all stick to them to make sure that the right thing is done and that we end up in a position where we can get the numbers down and the R down a bit. But we are at a fragile state.”

This is the advice we got from the Chief Scientific officer.  Why do I think so many would have instead listened to Boris who said having a BBQ at home was fine from Monday with up to six people? Pass me my hot dog!  Lather on the mustard and yes I’ll have another glass of your wine.  Somehow this doesn’t seem quite the same  idea as that of the Scientists.

We shall begin to see friends carefully. No the kids aren’t coming to stay yet, and sorry my loo is off limits if you visit for socially distanced tea.  This isn’t over yet.  Listen to the Scientific advisors.  Carefully.  They are giving us the messages.  Some of us don’t want to hear them, and others of us remain cautious.

Be safe, be sensible and be kind.

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 30 May

Neighbours are so good at helping each other!  On the “Next Door” local Website I saw a delightful exchange.  “New home needed for three frogs.”  The response was instant, and helpful.  “I’ve got a pond and they can move in with me.”  How good is that? Lucky old frogs!

Frogs of course got me thinking of water, ponds, rivers and lakes.  And on a flight of fancy I decided where in the world I’d like to end up if I belonged to that frog trio. Clifton isn’t a bad spot to end up in, but my thoughts then wandered to other destinations.  A hop skip and a jump (sorry) and there we frogs were in New Zealand.  You probably guessed that would be the destination!  Specifically the Rangitikei River.  This won’t be the first time I’ve mentioned this magnificent place and probably won’t be the last.  Terry fishes, I write and take in all the splendour of the place as we amble down the water for eight to ten hours at a  time in a boat steered and rowed by our great guides who live there. 

There are frogs in NZ but like most things in that part of the world, their frogs are different and have several distinct features from frogs anywhere else in the world. They have no external eardrum and round eyes instead of slitty eyes. They don’t croak regularly like most frogs (maybe because other frogs can’t hear them?) and they develop inside an egg and hatch into an almost fully formed frog without going  through the tadpole stage.

Kermit of course must be the most famous frog ever and is only a few years younger than me!  He was “born” in 1955 and his creator Jim Henson developed an entire world around his frog. 

And of course where would Kermit be without Miss Piggy?  The two were simply made for each other.  In 1979 in a Muppet Movie, Kermit got to sing a song called the Rainbow Connection, which Willie Nelson made famous many years later.  Someday we’ll find it.  The rainbow connection.

Kermit’s song……

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Kermit+the+frog+singing+the+rainbow+connection&docid=608037888514920347&mid=3AE7E889A246644D6F683AE7E889A246644D6F68&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

My Rainbow connection for today is of a different sort.  If you haven’t yet made his acquaintance, you are about to meet Randy.  He is Randy Rainbow and this gorgeous thirty-eight year old has created some wonderful and original songs that are all available on You Tube. He takes Trump themes and rewrites familiar stage tunes to parody the man. There are plenty to entertain you.  Hard to believe but his given name is really Rainbow! His father was a musician and entertainer who changed his name from Ribner to Rainbow.  Randy was born in Florida, but raised in Long Island, New York.  A nice Jewish boy who credits his grandmother as the person who inspired him.  She apparently used to kvetch (Yiddish for complain) at the television when politicians or entertainers were on screen.  Bit like our household!

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Randy+Rainbow+singing+bleach&docid=608030767490532636&mid=363C7FD08973B39486D2363C

Frogs, rainbows, neighbours!  It’s an amazing world as our Kermit reminds us.  “The rainbow connection, someday we’ll find it, the lovers the dreamers and me”.   All these things are somehow connected, and so too are we. 

Until we meet again, enjoy and hold firm.  Stay safe and remember, this virus hasn’t left us yet. 

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 30 May

In case you hadn’t noticed, the editor made his every twentyfiveish or so day appearance yesterday! While he signed on and off as Mr. Grumpy, I think he was just stating what so many of us felt and continue to feel.  This household has never been apolitical.  Thankfully our shared values and principles mean that we usually agree on the political landscape we find ourselves in. 

Thursday at the Press Briefing, Boris silenced his Scientific and Medical Advisors and that was not pleasant to watch.  Chris Whitty did say (when he could) that he was delighted that he was not involved in politics.  Now there is a political statement if ever I heard one!  Well done Professor.

The walk we intended to do yesterday was around the Rock of Ages at Burrington Coombe. This is where the world-famous hymn was written in the 1700’s by The Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady. He sheltered in a storm in a cleft in the rock and inspiration struck.  Most of us have probably sung or at least heard this man’s words at some point as it’s one of the most popular hymns ever. I find it very dark, but then it was written in a cave.

Unfortunately, we were not to see the source of the Reverend’s inspiration. There were so many other people that had chosen Burrington for their days outing, we moved along.  The car park was packed with people and an open ice cream van was serving cones!  The public toilets were closed with a sign saying “sorry for the inconvenience” – love the British sense of humour. There are many more cars on the roads than there were in the previous few weeks and hundreds more people out and about.  The concern now must be that there will be more incidents of infection throughout the country as people are starting to move about. 

In our quest for a walk that would be largely solitary, we drove down a few country lanes and with the help of the ordinance survey phone maps, Terry found a place  that fit the bill.  We ambled through lovely fields with cavorting lambs and overhanging trees that gave us some welcome shade.

 In the first field we watched a farmer driving round in the most extraordinary device, cutting his hay in something that had octopus like arms and lifted and moved up and down like a whirling dervish.  In days gone by it would have taken dozens of men to do the work of his machine. 

We  passed two families splashing around an old fashioned watering hole in the river next to a stone bridge made from three huge slabs of rock.  The first family was a father and son with their two dogs, on our return trip we watched a mother and her two little children as she taught her littlest to swim.  It felt timeless. Returning past the field that the farmer had cut two hours or so before, we were amazed to see neatly made hay bundles and a pristine field. Five miles walking in that strong sun was demanding.  Home and tea were most welcome. We will head to Burrington Coombe again, but perhaps on a day which is not so beautiful and the large crowds stay away.

Home isn’t such a bad place to be!  The summer weather is marvellous and it doesn’t get dark until well after nine in the evening.  Just as well as we are not planning on going too far yet, and when we do, we will do our best to stay many more than six feet away from others!  Let’s hope the next wave is not such a big one. Happy days!

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 29 May

Be warned, grumpy old man’s rant coming up!

I have watched the British political scene of the last few days with a mix of disbelief, fury, occasional short-lived sympathy/understanding, and a sense of despair.  The PM has returned from illness, and since then things have taken turn after turn for the worse!  After a bad start with Covid ( the lockdown was clearly one or two weeks late, lives were lost, the PM in charge), I thought the government, in the PM’s absence, did a reasonable job in giving information, giving clear messages, setting up Nightingale Hospitals, dealing with a horrendous increase in demand for PPE from 30,000 nursing homes which they were not supplying before, building up a UK capacity for virus testing from an almost non-existent base, trying to support people economically.  And we seemed to crack the problem, the virus is on the decline.

Then the PM returned.  First he announced what were small but reasonable and helpful relaxations of the lockdown.  Unfortunately he announced late on a Sunday night that many should go back to work the next day, but not use public transport.  His message was muddled and attached to a rather vague slogan to “Stay alert”, contradicted by other members of the cabinet the next day, modified .  This was a presentational disaster which left many confused about the relaxations of restrictions, which when analysed in the cool light of subsequent days were not unreasonable and offered us significant relief.

Confusion was decreasing, hope was rising, then the Dominic Cummings story broke.  Enter Boris again!  He completely exonerated him without giving clear reasons, whilst casting doubt on the veracity of some unspecified statements (isn’t there another world leader similarly inclined?).  I was so angry watching I had to leave the room!  Then Cummings appeared before the press.  I had some sympathy for him as he spoke, especially when he said they were often scared in his home because of threats and he didn’t want to be there with a young child if he and his wife were both ill.  I thought he may have simply panicked and made a bad decision.  Sadly, on reflection, sympathy has gone!  He broke many of the rules, expressed no regret, or no real understanding of the people’s anger.

The saddest thing is that this has clouded the more important issues, made people angry, has suggested the rules can be broken – at least by “important” people – and there is a mood of defiance.  The risk is that this will lead to such a lack of adherence to the restrictions that we will get another virus wave.

A more able politician would have understood the public mood and the dangers and would have sacked him, with words along the lines of “I personally understand how Mr Cummings felt, but I see how people feel and how it looks, it was a poor action for a man in his position, and he has to go”.  We all know Boris cannot manage without Cummings, but he could have kept him in the background in some other nominal role whilst still getting his advice but regaining public trust.

Enter Boris again. Yesterday he came back announcing a few more welcome relaxations, but in the progress ad-libbing about some things, such as having barbecues together – which the scientific advisers subtly refuted – and thus again sowing confusion.  And then, with a straight face he told us that with track and trace, contacts must self isolate at home, this is an instruction which must be followed as our duty for the good of us all –  without any hint of irony that this was not apparently so for Cummings.

if this didn’t have such potentially serious consequences it would be the most entertaining political pantomime!

When politicians are so inept I am reminded of this quote from the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, sent from prison shortly before he was executed by Hitler in 1945.

In the UK we should be a little worried, but Americans beware!

Rant over.  On the bright side, the Covid figures here are still improving, life is a little more relaxed, we don’t have Trump as leader, the sun is shining, the sky blue, the garden a delight, we have goldcrests, goldfinches, blackcaps, jays and many other birds visiting us…and I have been fishing.  We are now able to see our friends and family at a safe outdoor social distance.  And we can go on long country walks.

On our walk yesterday we saw lambs gambol over an electric fence – not so stupid after all! They gave us a good stare

And they have a good sense of social responsibility –

Keep smiling,

Terry

Feest Isolation Days – 28 May

That feels a large number to me!  Seventy five is an anniversary of lockdown that I never thought I’d experience. Having never imagined a pandemic and lockdown would occur at all, wondering how long it would last never entered my mind either. Disaster movies have never been my thing, and although Ted Talks are, I missed Bill Gates warning.  As the days go by and we all more or less adjust to the new world we are in we continue to find the right ways of making it work for us. (Unless your Dominic Cummings – sorry couldn’t resist!)

Zoom! Who knew? Dinner parties, Pilates classes, yoga classes the kids.  A whole different world. Connecting but in a different way.

I could do with coming out of all of this soon but I don’t think we are finished just yet.  Leaving Lockdown is a scary prospect.  We are secure in our bubbles aren’t we?  What can we safely do outside? Where can we safely go? The Downs, I’m told by friends who look over them, are now packed, including with some dreadful Travellers.  These filthy folks give proper gypsy’s a bad name.  All in all, it’s somehow easier to stay at home!

Spending so much time at home has certainly made me think about homes and houses lately.  There have been so many of them! One particular story about the house I grew up in however, seems to “take the cake” a phrase my old Mom used! Fascinating to think that an expression from ancient Greece found its way to a tiny American town!  In Greece, somewhere around 400 B.C., winning something meant getting or taking the cake – somewhere in the 1800’s it became a more cynical expression. 

Terry, Alexander and I were visiting my sister in Pennsylvania many years ago and we all decided to have a trip back down memory lane to the old homestead.  My sister lives about an hour and a half’s drive from where we grew up, but after Mom died my father sold up and moved away…at first to live with my sister!  I digress.  We packed into the car and I no doubt bored the guys no end with my memories of when we did this and that, and how it all was when we were small. The sort of thing that people who love you listen to and nod and politely smile and hope the tales are soon finished. 

We pulled up in front of our old house and sat looking at the place, my sister and I swapping a few do you remember…stories.  A man saw us sitting there and after a time came outside to the car. We rolled down the window and said our friendly hello’s.  After all, this man now lived in our old house!

 “Can I help you folks?” He asked in that helpful American way and my sister and I smiled and one of us said, “Oh we’re the Blosicks.  We grew up in that house.”  We pointed knowingly to the place he’d just come from. 

“Well if you’re the Blosick girls, you didn’t live here.” He pointed, “You lived there.”  His hand directed us to the house next door and the whoops of laughter from the back seat of the car went on for days.  He was indeed right.  How could we have got that so wrong?  I think it has something to do with the fact that we both couldn’t wait to leave that house and that little burg behind us.  Neither one of us, to my knowledge, has passed that way since. 

Perhaps Mr. Cummings might make the same mistake when he visits his family home up in Durham next time.  He was worried about his eyesight.  Ours was more about lapsed memory.  Hmmm.  Maybe we do share something after all!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 27 May

Let’s play the where were you heading this time last year game!  For the past few weeks – (I can hear the editor saying – since when has ten weeks been “a few”?!) I have thought that I would love to return to Venice.  Without all the thousands of tourists and the waters in the canal a shade of blue not witnessed for centuries – if ever, those Venetians have always been active traders. These days there are no cruise ships plying the waters, no tourist boats and not many vaporreti churning up the mud at the bottom of the lagoon, enabling the water to remain clear. It was said that porpoises were swimming in the canals. Sadly, I’ve now seen from various sources that this information was untrue. There were no porpoises. Why would someone photoshop them and say there were? Boredom?

This time last year (which seems like ten years ago somehow!)  we were getting ready for our planned trip to Venice. We were meeting our darling kiwi friends and sharing a flat for a few days with them  before they headed off on the rest of their bi-annual European adventure. We would then take the train to Desenzano and hire a car for a few days on Lake Garda.  The biennale Arts Festival in Venice coincided with their, and our, trip (no accident!). Also, a writer friend was having her novel’s Italian book launch which we didn’t want to miss, as our timing for her event was perfect.

Our bags were packed and waiting in the hall. We were nearly ready to drive ourselves to the airport when Terry thought he’d charge up the central heating water pressure just before we left, as it had been a bit erratic. As soon as he did, water began pouring out of the pipe leading to the boiler and we were not going anywhere until it stopped and was secured.  

It was late on a Saturday afternoon and the plumbers I found on line and managed to contact by phone were all unavailable. A friend came by to see if he might be able to help.  Terry managed to turn the water off and to stop the gushing pipe.  A screw had lost its thread.  While Terry dealt with the water, I headed upstairs to my study to see if we could book an Easy Jet flight for the following day.  We could. It didn’t seem sensible that we both stayed behind, so I suggested Terry go and I would fly out the following day.  There was no way I could manage lugging our bags on and off the vaporetto, and getting in from the airport wasn’t going to be easy either. The flight was a reasonable price and there was still a seat available.  

Our emergency call out service would send round a plumber!  However, the first person I spoke to at the service said our boiler wasn’t covered under the plan.  I explained that it wasn’t the boiler but a pipe leading to the boiler.  He wasn’t convinced.  Meantime, he told me I could take out a policy or extend the policy we had and it would only cost me upwards of five hundred pounds. Terry, as policy holder, would need to speak to him to authorise the change.  He couldn’t do that as I explained to the gentleman on the phone, as by now he was at the airport garaging the car. My service advisor was clearly a no can do man.  I put the phone down and tried to contact Terry.  My annoyance was rising, but at least the water level wasn’t. I phoned back the service and this time round a lovely helpful woman was on the other end of the phone. I didn’t bat an eye when she assumed I was Terry.  When I  explained it wasn’t the boiler but a pipe leading to the boiler she believed me. The young helpful plumber she sent within the hour had it sorted in about fifteen minutes. Before my husband landed in Venice, the pipe was fixed, and cost us very little. 

The next day, Terry met me off the Vaporretto in Venice. Our kiwi friends had dinner waiting.  The biennale was a total delight. 

Fortunately, we didn’t miss the Italian Book Launch either!  Julia Grigg’s debut novel,  “The Eyes That Look” is set in Venice and tells the secret story of the artist Bassano’s painting of hunting dogs. (it’s available on Amazon).

The biennale is held again this time next year. I wonder if we will all be able to safely visit by then?  It’s high on my list of things to do post pandemic! Where were you heading this time last year?

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 26  May

The Bank Holiday weather was glorious! The mood of the country however, seems more inglorious. Polls show that there remains a united agreement in the mishandling of the Cummings affair. This story is not going away.  Brexiteers, Remainers, Tories, Labour, all sectors of the political makeup of this country – except for the Cabinet – seem unhappy.  Unusual to get such a cross party representation of disbelief  and anger, but Boris managed it in one fell swoop by protecting his “aide”.

Last night we got to hear Mr. Cummings account first hand as he made a statement and then took questions from reporters for over an hour.  It would seem that he shifted some hearts and minds in his direction.  I actually felt sorry for him!  I’m still not convinced he should have travelled when he did, giving his position, but I understood more about why he did so.  As far as being seen half an hour away from his isolation place at his parents’ house before driving back down to London, that’s another story!  He said because his eyes were a bit strange his wife suggested he do a trial trip in the car.  Hmmm.  Eyes not functioning properly – so a test drive?  Not sensible in my book but he used the excuse to account for his journey.  A great opportunity for a new Spec Savers ad!

It is difficult to let this sort of thing go, and the morning papers continue to be filled with the country’s collective annoyance. It remains to be seen after the Cummings situation how many people will decide they won’t bother anymore with the “advice” from the government and undo all the good work of weeks and weeks. 

On the home front, another Sainsbury delivery means more washing of pots and tins and glass jars and the rest.  How much longer will we carry on doing this one wonders?  And who will we trust to tell us that we won’t need to do this anymore?  Perhaps the medics and scientists could do their own briefing without the government.  We will need to read between the lines more than ever.

We spent hours catching up with friends and family on the phone over the past few days, and it was a treat.  With all the zooming and face timing, sometimes, the good old fashioned phone is a nice way to remain in contact. Each call does seem to last nearly an hour!

Our friend working in health care on the frontline in Wales tells us that the work is tough and the medics are burning out after six weeks of dealing with the Covid patients in their care.  It isn’t easy when there is no cure and there is no respite from the pain and many deaths doctors have to deal with.  While the numbers are falling, the relentless wave of support required by those still in hospital is not.  Hardly surprising the medics are on their knees.  Let us all hope that there isn’t a second wave.

A bit of frivolity always helps in these uncertain and sometimes depressing times.  When I was looking out a photograph to share yesterday, I found another one that made me laugh.  Some things never change! Many years apart and still doing the same sort of thing…..

Many a key worker has caught me out…!

• 

• 

See what I mean?

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 25 May

Boris Johnson decided that he couldn’t live without Dominic Cummings. I’m not sure the rest of us can live with him!  Terry was so upset after Boris told us all that Dom did what was “instinctually” the right thing to do and that he would be staying, he couldn’t watch anymore of the briefing. I kept yelling at the television. Up until now we thought the Tories were too late off the mark but hadn’t done such a bad job. No more.  It started a few weeks back with Stay Alert and has now become dreadful. Perhaps leopards really don’t change their spots!

Bank Holiday Monday today.  I’m not sure this one is going to feel any different to any other Monday during the past ten weeks…and yes it has been that long in Lockdown.  As we enter our eleventh week of this way of life, we are having our Bank Holiday while the States celebrate Memorial Day.

While in High School in America, I was in the band. During concert season my bass clarinet was played, but during the marching season, my white tasselled boots appeared along with my short(ish) woollen skirt and white military(ish) top With a few other majorettes – including my sister for a few years until she preceded me out of high school – we led the band, down football fields in the autumn and on the streets of the town for several parades.  Memorial Day meant marching to several cemeteries and standing at attention, baton held in the salute position while the trumpeters played taps (the last post in the UK!).

Memorial Day in the States began after the Civil War.  It was originally called Decoration Day as people were asked to decorate the graves of those who had died during the war with flowers and other tributes.  More American lives were lost during the civil war than all other wars added together which America has been involved in since. 

Memorial Day was widened to include honouring the dead of all wars after the American losses of World War I.  The day became fixed as the final Monday of May in 1971 so that Americans could have a three day weekend. 

Pennsylvania can be very hot at the end of May. The band took buses to a particular little town – Freeburg, located a few miles from our school. The cemetery there was a crawl up the hill, and our woollen jackets were not the best attire for the event.  My sister and I would gently complain about the Freeburg part of the day because it always took place in the afternoon when the sun was beaming down on us.

If anyone is in any doubt that American continues to be a place still affected by the Civil War of the 1800’s, consider this: Confederate Memorial Day is still celebrated in several states – Florida; Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina. There are published dates for these celebrations which attract white supremacists.

How can that still be?

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 24 May

He’s got to go!  Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s unelected Special Advisor features in all the papers this weekend as he breeched lockdown rules. When he became ill instead of staying at home in isolation he and his wife and family drove 250 miles to his parents in Durham. That’s a long way from staying in your own home!  It will be very interesting to see if he stays or if he goes. I’m betting on the former but truly would prefer the latter. We shall see. How is it that people who are making rules think they don’t apply to them?  The mind boggles. I have coronavirus- I know!  I’ll visit my elderly parents! Really Dominic? 

Apparently it’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow. There won’t be anything different to distinguish this particular Monday for us from others since coronavirus arrived. Nevertheless, our key working fish and meat delivery man Peter tells us the queues are around the block at our local Waitrose.  Why?  Again the mind boggles. What difference in food terms does this Bank Holiday make to families?

Food has become an important component of the lockdown experience. All of our friends share our experience. Three meals a day are coming out of home kitchens.  There are no restaurant meals, no snacks out at cafes with that long black. Cappuccinos and lattes are no longer indulged with a slice of some yummy morsel from the counter. 

For those working parents it just means more work.  Working from home with kids means more, not less, work for parents. Besides home schooling, there’s the cooking and cleaning as well. It takes more time to do everything as there are no helping hands.

We retired folks once again have it easy.  We may not be able to dine at our favourite restaurant, but we aren’t home-schooling and trying to work. 

We zoomed with a difference on Saturday night.  Friends who are working got a break as I made the main course and delivered it to their door. They have two adult kids living with them at the moment and the kids indulged in a take-away. The first home cooked by somebody else meal the parents have enjoyed! 

We started our zoom evening talking about a play, a solo performance, both couples watched – Fleabag.  Highly recommend this amazing play. I wish I had seen this before the television series as I couldn’t get the characters I had seen out of my head. But an outstanding performance by Phoebe.  It’s a National Theatre production, put on the Soho Theatre website amongst other places, it’s worth the four pounds!

Our friends that zoomed with us are our theatre pals and we so enjoyed the evening, and won’t it be nice when we do this sort of thing in person and we don’t spend the lion’s share of the evening discussing the damn virus!

 Eventually… it will happen for us all…eventually!

In the meantime three hours pass as they normally would and we find ourselves offering our “guests” more wine! 

Try it if you haven’t. It’s a great way to meet up friends!

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 23 May

Then there are those weeks when improvements come thick and fast and the new normal becomes a little more like the old normal pre coronavirus days. This week was one of them!

Our lovely housekeeper can’t come in at the moment, but she can take away the ironing!  Our wonderful ironer of over twenty-five years is shielding and won’t be able to leave her home for a time yet.  When she is ready, the ironing duties will be passed back to her, but for now, I don’t have to do it anymore!  The back isn’t quite up to that task.  That’s my excuse anyway.  Actually, I realised that when we put the sheets and duvet on the bed that I had ironed; they didn’t look like they’d even been done.  Some people are better at some things than others.  Ironing duties have gratefully been handed over. Our housekeeper earns a few pounds and we are delighted. Win win.

Faro, a bakery that used to come to our market on Apsley Road every Saturday morning has opened once again for collection and delivery.  They make the best croissants in the world!  How could such an event make someone so happy?  How indeed?!  One bite and life is as it once was, and we are grateful the young folks got their business back up and running. The queues on a Saturday morning at their stall are legendary.  I must remember to get my order in every few weeks for more wonderful taste treats. They are best fresh not frozen.

Not only do we have the joy of a splendid remembered taste treat and no more ironing (yea!!) but we can finally see out of the windows!  Our window cleaner has returned to work and the glass is shiny and we can see out onto the glorious garden.

My favourite cut flower of all time has to be lilies.  They last for ages, and not only are they upstanding and look great in their designated spot in the hall, but they perfume the entire downstairs with a scent  that I love.  This week, when our neighbour was doing her Waitrose shopping she spotted the first ones she’d seen since lockdown and kindly remembered that they were my favourite.  They were dropped outside our front door by one of her kids.  Sweet!

We also visited our neighbours for tea. We took our tray laden with cups saucers and tea and went across the road to their garden where we sat miles apart in the sun and chatted.  Wonderful to do that normal (ish…we don’t usually take our own tea tray…) activity and catch up with the news.  Of course, none of us can stop talking about the coronavirus but if we were at war that would be all we discussed.  This may be war of a kind, but it is totally different. 

All these events no longer seem like small steps but big giant leaps towards our new normal.  Refashioned and repurposed for these Covid times.

Will we ever go back to our old ways entirely again?  I hope not!  We haven’t all come through all of this without learning some lessons to take to the new place where normal will reside. What will you take? I hope we all take a gratefulness for what we have and an appreciation for all those around us that is amplified by our experiences.  I’ll take a lot of words with me, too.

Lillies!  Ironing done!  Windows cleaned!  Croissants! Tea with neighbours!  Words!

What more could one want? ** I’ll let you know when it comes through the door.

With love

Kathy x

** –  more fishing!  Ed.

Feest Isolation Days – 22 May

Oh dear!  It would seem that my musings have given the impression to several of you that I am sad. The life we once lived is gone for now and from time to time that makes me sad, but only until I bounce back once more.  I’m naturally an optimist!  In fact, at a social distanced meeting with a friend this week, I said Terry and I were more than surviving, we were actually thriving.  Thinking about that made me wonder why that should be.  For starters, it helps to be living with someone you love and respect and have fun with! Especially in lockdown! Another reason is because we express the emotions that we feel when life is not always perfect.  Not only express them, but share them. And then once announced to ourselves and others, we can let them go.  

Having been called a Pollyanna in the past is not something I ever minded.  The heroine of that story, the young girl who played the glad game that her father had taught her was a woman for our times.  She didn’t ignore the dreadful things in life but she did try to find the good somewhere in everything. That seeking out the good bits means that life, on the whole, is splendid. If we didn’t ever notice or acknowledge the grim bits, it wouldn’t be life though would it? 

The death rate from this retched virus is higher than it should it have been, now that really makes me sad!  Had the government acted sooner, there would have been far fewer deaths. The Staying Home message worked.  It just needed to be applied sooner. However, I don’t blame the government for not doing more testing at the beginning.  They didn’t have the capacity.  Perhaps instead of creating the Nightingale Hospitals in record time, they should have got factories up and running to do testing and tracing.  Can you imagine though if we had not had enough beds and ventilators if we needed them?  They didn’t get it all right. Hind-sight is a wonderful thing.  However, the worry now is that they haven’t yet learned lessons.  The virus isn’t interested in blame or politics.  It needs cold hard facts and a calm cool head to outwit it.  I believe that will happen!  You see?  I am an optimist! 

Yesterday was a beauty. A perfect spring English day with a light breeze and warmth. We had breakfast in the garden. I never tire of the garden. The flowers, the trees, the birds and their friendly song, the gentle rustle of the leaves of the beech tree, the perfect blue of the sky – all of these things offer a gentleness and a hopefulness that is welcoming and enduring.  The tulips finish, and the roses now bloom. The cycle of life goes on.  We enjoyed Terry caught trout in the garden for dinner.  Not bad eh?

Apparently, according to the Psychologist Martin Selig, who is considered to be the father of Positive Psychology, we are able to become optimists.  We aren’t born that way! In my case perhaps it was my childhood role models – I guess I always believed that things get better, that happiness is something we can choose and love is what matters to all of us more than anything else.  It doesn’t mean we don’t cry or feel unhappy ever, but like Pollyanna we are able to choose to play the glad game. There is something besides optimism and pessimism though, and that’s where I increasingly find myself these days.  That’s realism.  Not a bad place to be.  I’m also prone to playing another game frequently these days – the grateful game.  There is SO much I’m grateful for!  And if you are reading this, you are one of the people I am grateful for.  Sadness arrives sometimes, but I promise, it never hangs around too long.  There are too many flowers to welcome, and people to reach out to and love. Big hugs and many kisses! 

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 21 May

Some parents with young children are worried about sending their kids back to school on the first of June.  Surely the evidence needs to be more transparent so that they feel confident? Teachers have been educating key workers kids for weeks now and there must have been lessons learned.  Couldn’t those teachers be tested for antibodies and/or at the very least couldn’t the data on how many teachers became ill with the virus be released?  Wouldn’t that help?  It could certainly provide a bit more reassurance to concerned parents and teachers .

Working parents are understandably keen to get back to work, but they need to be certain that the decisions they take are appropriate, and importantly, safe for their kids.  That’s what good parenting is all about.

Over thirty years ago, when I was a single parent Mum, and my son was in Primary school, I worked as the Manager and Director of a free weekly newspaper in Exeter. We were distinct from the daily evening paper, but owned by the same group – Northcliffe.  At the time there were two other free papers in town, and my job was to see them off and keep the advertising revenue stream flowing into the Northcliffe coffers. It was a busy and demanding job. There were no relatives I could call on to help with child care, although there was plenty of support from friends which was invaluable and we managed well. We had a great deal of fun, and the job was fantastic!  In time, we saw off the other weekly papers and the Exeter Leader eventually became the only free weekly newspaper in Exeter.

During the working day, there were lots of phone calls, meetings and discussions that often went on for ages.  One day, my secretary told me there was a phone call I had to take. 

“Mrs. Vanags?”  (as I was then)

“Yes” I replied.

“This is Miss S, your son’s Primary School headteacher.”

“Is he all right?”  I was on my feet and already out the door filled with worry.

“He’s fine.  He’d be much better if you were to come and pick him up though. School finished nearly an hour ago!”

I had no idea of the time! When I got there I felt as small as the furniture. The gaze of Miss S turned into a kind smile.

My son was happy to see me but had had a great time sitting in the headmistress’ office.  He was holding a cartoon of juice in one hand and a candy bar in the other.  We shared a big hug.

Never, ever, did I miss pick up time again! 

Getting kids back to school is important.  Working is required.  Let’s hope the government and the teachers can agree what is safe for the students.  Our kids deserve the best we can give them even though sometimes, with the best will in the world, we sometimes make mistakes.  Let’s hope they get this one right!!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days –20 May

The R number remains important to all of us. We take in so much information about the coronavirus that sometimes we forget to just leave it alone and have a little down time; a few of those moments when we just kick back and relax. The worry sits on our shoulders and we discuss it endlessly. All the unanswerable questions need to be left sometimes so that we don’t miss the abundant birdsong and the smell of the fresh cut spring lawns.  Or the roses that are filled with such beauty.  We still have tulips to enjoy and the weather means we can sit outside and enjoy warm, welcoming sun.

While we must indeed go forward I find myself looking back!  My reminiscences yesterday of Richard Burton, the man from Wales, reminded me once more that my father’s family were coal miners.  Although my grandfather didn’t work in the mines because he had become ill as a young man, all of his brothers went down the pit.  My grandfather raised and supplied the men with the canaries that warned them if they needed to quickly make their exit and get above ground. 

By the time I was in my early twenties, the mines that my relatives worked were closing. Friends and I visited a closed mine on a tour, and retraced the steps that the men would have taken most days. It was dreadful. The little train that took us down, down, down through the cold and the dark nearly touched the walls on either side of us. After we got past the layers of cold, we were then blasted with intense heat.  The little train stopped and we got off and stood hunched over, the headlights of our helmets illuminating the seams of anthracite coal that was the black gold my Uncles were aiming to extract.  We had to crouch down to see where the seams were, and there was little space to do that. Richard Burton talks of the skill of the miners and the respect and love they had for the mine.  For some, it became a magical creature and for the talented, they could make their mark.  A coal seam called the Great Atlantic Fault, begins in Spain in the Basque country and crosses the Bay of Biscay making its way to Wales and crossing underneath the Atlantic. The anthracite seam ends up in Pennsylvania.  Welsh miners could be dropped down a mine in Pa and would instantly recognise the four-foot six seam.  If struck by a powerful man who knew his job, one blow from this seam could produce a fallout of up to twenty tons of coal.   

I couldn’t wait to get back up on the ground and stand on top of the coal once more.  We went up and up finding first the cool layer of air then the cold layer before we alighted on the ground. When we arrived, we were taken into a huge room where the men headed when they left the mine.  They stripped and placed their work clothes on metal hooks that had been lowered to the concrete ground, before they headed to a communal shower.  Their filthy clothes were raised into the air and they would wear them again for the next days until the week was over.  Pay day meant they changed gear and took the filthy clothes home to be washed.  These images are not kind or gentle.  The men were tough and resilient.  They worked and lived closely together.  Their shared experiences bonded them to each other in ways that no one else could ever know. The man from Wales tells us that every young man’s ambition was to become a miner and to learn the “arrogant strut of the Lords of the coal face.”

Many years ago, I found myself in Abergavenny sitting in a restaurant on my own in one of those places where people share long tables.  The gentleman and his wife sitting next to me started speaking and the conversation turned to mines and mining.  He had been the foreman of a mine all of his working life, and lost a few fingers to the coal.  When I explained I grew up in Pennsylvania, and my ancestors had been miners, the shared connection was complete. 

After they left, I went to the counter to pay my bill.  The girl behind the counter told me that she was told to say, any relative of the miners is one of ours, wherever you are in the world.  My bill had been paid.  I felt an overwhelming sense of how communal the miners’ world was.  It was humbling.

If there is anything that the coronavirus has reminded us, it’s that we, too, are indeed all interconnected.  Some things never change, if only people would remember that!

With love

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 19 May

The theatre and theatrical folk have always been an important part of my life.  Several years ago before the cuts to funding, there were some great reasonably priced workshops in Bristol at the Tobacco Factory that were open to all of those people who wanted to keep their theatrical senses sharp and limbered up for whatever reason.  Often, I was the oldest person at these groups by a long way but that didn’t stop me from learning and enjoying the experience.  As I still dabble with writing plays from time to time, I continue to belong to a group of actors. Being with these folks always feels familiar!  Coronavirus remains a worry to people who have often lived their creative lives fairly close to the edge as they live from job to job and fill in with other short-term work that is also no longer available. The theatre and theatricals will need help to keep afloat while physical distancing remains in place. 

At the workshop where I was the oldest member, at the start of the weekend session, we began by sharing a story about  a theatrical experience that had touched us in some way  The tale was to be either one that occurred when we were an audience member or from our own performance experience.   

When I lived in New York City in the 1970’s, I went to drama school and although I had very little money, I wanted to see everything I could that was on Broadway.  We poor young drama folks used to wait until the interval and then mix with the crowd and eventually make our way inside to find that there was always a seat we could slip into.  Going with a friend made our illicit activity easier.  I have seen rather a lot of second acts!

There was one performance however that I was determined to see from beginning to end.  Saving up the money for the ticket was worth it.  I was sitting in the middle of the front row watching Richard Burton in Equus.  When he came on stage, I could smell the alcohol on his breath, and watched as his hand trembled.  The rest of the audience could hear the tremor in his voice and twitched uncomfortably in their seats.  After about five minutes into the performance, you could see him visibly pull himself up and we watched as he delivered one of the most riveting performances I have ever seen.  He delivered each line to me.  And that is what everyone in that theatre thought as well. Each line was spoken directly to them.  The sort of performance that only a great of the theatre could manage. 

When he finished and as the curtain came down, I noticed his hand trembling again.  He had woven his magic and it was time for another drink.  He said he wasn’t drinking when he was working – that meant only drinking a bottle of vodka a day.  When he was drinking, he’d have three. The hugely talented actor was born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr. in Pontrhydyfen, Glamorgan, Wales, the twelfth of thirteen children.  His father was a coal miner and his mother a barmaid.  Burton had cirrhosis of the liver when he died at the age of fifty-eight.  The miners’ lives were tough but for Richard, so was acting not to mention life itself.

When I finished my tale of this fine actor at the theatre workshop, one of the young would be thespians piped up and asked,

“Who’s Richard Burton?” 

Who Indeed!

A clip from Equus

!!ERRATUM!!

The editor has misinformed us about his Twenty first birthday present scooter!  A friend who reads these pages, described by his wife as a “petrol head” says in fact the gift was a Lambretta and not a Vespa…..

This is a Vespa

This is a Lambretta…

This is the editor’s scooter…

So now you know.  Thanks eagle eyes!

Love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 18 May

Monday morning and the beginning of Week Ten of the coronavirus pandemic.  As though we needed reminding!  Sunday is a day for speaking to friends family and neighbours we are keeping in touch with and connecting with via the telephone. Old fashioned technology!  Our lovely neighbour who is eighty-eight has had no phone since Bank Holiday Friday and apologised for not being in touch.  She received a piece of that homemade apple cake and a posy from the garden. We spoke over her garden fence and she said it was wonderful receiving the posy especially as it made her feel part of the world again.  Sometimes she says she doesn’t believe what is happening as the cars are parked the way they always are, the street looks exactly the same as it always does, and it all doesn’t seem real or possible. As she is shielding it will be a long time before she will be able to return to having a walk outside of her home.  Yet she still smiles and copes.  As she says, what else is she to do?

Our neighbours across the way dropped some very special small pastries off to us from one of our favourite Village shops. They were consumed along with our afternoon cups of tea.  We are indeed fortunate to have the people around us that we do!

Memorabilia keep heading in our direction. Terry received some photographs in the post that Gillian, his first wife, had found whilst using her isolation time to tidy up!.  The photo of his Twenty First birthday present was special. His parents, Syd and Doris, bought him a Vespa so he could get around.  He was in his final year at Cambridge, and they sent him the photo with a note to say that the wheels would be waiting for him when he got back to the family home again.  Loving parents who cared so deeply about their son brings a tear to my eye, as well as a story about his lovely Mum and a scooter of hers many years later.

Doris was the treasurer of a Church group for years and when she was ninety we discovered that she was still sitting on her mobility scooter and driving herself to the bank with the weekly takings.  When we discovered that she was doing this, we suggested that perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea.  We had visions of her being knocked off her perch by some local kids if they ever discovered her regular Monday banking mission. She eventually agreed to stop making the deposits.

 On our monthly visits, she and I would always go shopping together.  Her scooter circled round Debenhams and many other local dress shops as we sought the latest style that she might wear to one of the many church meetings she attended. When she eventually moved to a care home in Bristol, we tried to keep up some of the routines that we had previously shared together. There was a place downtown in the shopping centre where we could hire a scooter and so the two of us set off.  Debenhams of Bristol was our first stop.  Unfortunately, her eyesight had diminished and she slammed into racks of clothes that I couldn’t move out of her way quickly enough.  Down on the street as she manoeuvred through the crowds, it was clear that her vision was much worse than she had let on.  It’s impossible to stop an independent woman driving a mobility scooter or change their direction other than with a loud shout.  She aimed her scooter straight at a queue of people waiting at the bus stop and they fled in every direction as she clearly wasn’t about to swerve away. The apologies I proffered to those whom she displaced were largely greeted with knowing smiles.  “No harm done”.  It was however, the last time Doris and I went shopping with her riding a scooter!

Now in the time of coronavirus, there are no bus queues of people to run into. No friendly knowing smiles from strangers. Neighbours on the other hand make us smile, and we try to pass our smiles onto others where we can.  Life goes on!

With love,

Kathy x

Feest Isolation Days – 17 May

Do you see how many days this is? What must absolutely come to your mind on hearing that number? Of course I hear you say -The Beatles!  When I get older losing my hair many years from now…will you still need me will you still feed me when I’m sixty four!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCTunqv1Xt4vhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v

Just listen to these lyrics… no wonder we loved these guys so much!  YES is the answer I will still love you at sixty four (days) and as the years are many, many more than that we are doing just fine!  I bet you are, too!

A friendly voice called over our garden wall as we sat on the swing drinking our morning tea yesterday, Kathy!  Terry!  We were delighted that friends stopped by on their daily walkabout.  We carefully opened the side gate and they arrived in our garden. The first people inside our property in nine weeks.  We kept ten feet away from each other and chatted the way old friends do – but kept returning to discussions about the damn virus.  What a bore and what an all consuming topic of conversation. Remember when we used to talk about other things?  Seems a long time ago.

We shared nearly forty-five minutes of conversation and laughter and left each other with kisses blown across the physical gulf we’d necessarily created between us.  I didn’t realise that what we were doing was not within the new rules. Apparently, we were okay to meet with one other person in a park, but not two.   It seemed perfectly acceptable to social distance in our large garden.  We were keeping to the spirit of the rules, if not exactly to the letter of them.  We haven’t had a knock on the door or been told we would be fined, so I think we got away with our digression from the rules. 

The press is filled with reports of people travelling a long way to England’s beauty spots and we are already worrying that their actions are not going to be helpful in keeping down the “R”.  In Devon, there are no lifeguards at the beaches and the police are telling people to stay away.  Yet, in the Peak District car parks are full.  If we aren’t careful, the lockdown will get heavy handed again.  Our sensible garden visit pales into insignificance by comparison.

Our friends in New Zealand went to a stunning restaurant for dinner and when I looked it up on the internet I had to stop myself. The amazing range of food and the beautiful surroundings with someone else doing all the cooking opened old memories of a different way of life, and I could feel a sadness creep into my day. I clicked off the website and realised it will be a long time before that sort of dining is possible in this country.  We have a way to go.  Thank heaven for the lovely visit with our friends that countered that heaviness of heart.

New Zealand gets so many things right!  Jacinda and her man pitched up for brunch at Olive, a restaurant in Wellington, and were turned away as the place didn’t have any availability.  The restaurant staff did soon race down the street after the couple and when they returned they were given a safe socially distanced space that had become free. No hissy fits, no using one’s office to get what they wanted.  My kind of woman! 

We decided that each week from now on, we would make a new dish that we haven’t ever cooked before.  As we enter week ten of lockdown, it seems a good idea to vary the routine a bit.  This week I made a frittata for the first time. Simple, delicious and to be repeated.  Our evening meal last night was also a first. Chicken with dates and orange and coconut milk.   Yummy and definitely to be eaten again, as there was plenty left over! As I haven’t made a cake in quite a few weeks, it seemed it was time for baking again.  The recipe for my Dorset apple cake came from a friend in Kenya and was delicious!  Let me know if you’d like a copy of any of the recipes I’ve tried and please feel free to send any you adore.   Several friends have asked for some of them in the past, and sharing feels a particularly good thing to do at the moment. 

See you again tomorrow as we head into week Ten.  Oh my! 

With love

Kathy x