Tuesday 26 May 2020

Tuesday 26th May - How a cup of coffee and a croissant...

...can magnificently improve mood and temper...

after the previous outbursts against That Man Who Should Have Known Better...

It's been a while since a last blog post - partly because I have had telephoneconversations or zoom chats with many family and friends recently. I expect there is news - but I can't think what. Mostly about flowers coming out (clematis, nemesia, snapdragons) and vegetables growing big enough to eat (lettuce leaves, spinach, radishes).

Or deliveries - now, that's a new excitement. Today we had a le creuset pan and a set of beard trimmers arrive. A few days ago a pair of trousers for me. In the sale! They fit well enough that I shall buy some more. I'm all for mending things where possible, but inside seams of jeans is a step too far. My next delivery isn't due until Thursday next week. One has to space them out.

We went for a long walk yesterday - in 'olden times' it would have been a gentle stroll but I did find it more taxing than in days of yore. We stopped at my father's abode to deliver breakfast cereal, and went on through the path by the river towards a friend who lives across the dual carriageway. The Offsprings may remember this tree;



The banks have eroded considerably in the twenty odd years since wenused to drop you carefully through the hole to the extreme left of the photograph, playing 'Alice through the Rabbit Hole'. Nowadays the way through the huge hole on the right leads to a gentle earthy path leading down to the river. Nowhere near as thrilling an adventure, all the perils of slipping and sliding down the muddy slope into the water are gone.

 We carried on, crossing the golf course (ruined as a walk these days now that the golfers are back, solemnly hitting little golf balls and then having to go and find them by themselves - I thought people bought dogs to retrieve things that disappeared into long grass). While dodging golfers we discovered a pond that I hadn't come across before. All serene and peaceful in the sun.

The wild roses are flowering now;

  
very pale and luminous in the shadowy part of the path. 

Of course, once we turned for home and I realised how far we had to walk back... but we made it, social distancing all the way. 

Otherwise, the days and weeks have been a succession of zoom chats, zoom meetings, zoom piano lessons, knittings and crochetings and drawings and pianoings. I did get out the cello on the Thursday 'clap for the nhs' (that does sound disgusting to my ears, but that's because of knowing too much about what used to be called 'the special clinic' when my mother worked in one). I brazened my way through a bit of 'Salut d'Amour' - the opening theme before it gets all passionate and modulatory - and 'Amazing Grace'.

I've heard that the lady who started the 'clap for the nhs' is thinking that it should stop after this week - the 'exit strategy' was always going to be the thing. In our road we come out and clap and cheer and then chat for a few minutes. 

Ah well. We shall see.


 


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