Saturday 30th May - Five months through the year

Do you remember all those jokes back in December 2019 about the New Year being 2020, and having  twenty-twenty vision, and everything would get better? Well, who knew?

Lots of people, come to think of it, but the hard decisions proved too hard to take at the time when they needed to have been taken, so here we are. World beaters in terms of infection rates, deaths and general stupidities.

We - Himself and I, are lucky though; our circumstances are such that we've not had financial worries, and we've managed to sort out getting food delivered, and pet food, and even garden supplies. People are amazingly kind and considerate. We've been able to see my father from time to time; earlier this week we even took round some garden chairs and sat round on a grassy patch outside his block of flats for a chat, instead of standing around in the car park. He's looking well, maybe a bit bored, but is managing.

I've had many a happy hour or so while the weather has been so glorious through April and May. I've so enjoyed having time to notice the plants growing and the flowers coming out in due season. At the moment the gardens everywhere are full of roses in bloom, azaleas, peonies and rhododendrons - in our own garden and in the other gardens up and down the road.

Zoom teaching - five weeks now, and another seven until the end of the Summer term - has been a mixed experience. However most lessons go fairly smoothly now, and I have hugely enjoyed being able to teach as though I had two pianos side by side, one for the stident and one for me. Indeed, I spent an hour or so working out how to rearrange the dining room so that I could use the electric harpsichord on the fortepiano setting to replicate the setup from September when, maybe, face-to-face teaching might possibly start. It would solve any issue of social distancing, for a start.

All we'd have to do is take down these three bookcases and move them to the other side of the room

and swap them with the piano and the shelves full of music.

It would also create a little more space around the dining room table, perhaps. Himself considered it in a profound silence for a full minute and then vetoed the whole idea. I can't say I was surprised. It would be a mammoth task. Although, what else might we be doing for the next couple of months? I'm supposed to be staying home until the end of July.

I wonder how much of the music I might be prepared to part with. Last time I went through all the folders I removed about six of the several hundred music books.

Unfortunately this is not the kind of task I can do on the sly when he isn't around, like the time thirty years ago when I painted our bedroom because I couldn't bear the awful faded floral wallpaper. He was away on a business trip, so I just bought the paint, and painted all the bits of wallpaper that I could see. Number One son, then aged about three, was perfectly happy as I gave him my radio cassette player to keep him occupied. Although it was never quite the same, and luckily it turned out that the hinged door for the cassette access wasn't crucial for functionality.

I did get caught out when we rearranged the room several years later...

No, this time even I can see that moving all the furniture would be beyond me, and anyway, now he is retired and we are both Staying Home, he is always around. It would take me a lot longer than the time it takes him to nip round to the post box to post a letter, which is pretty much as far as we go these days.

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.

 

Tuesday 26th May - Two songs and a picture

To the tune of the Pink Panther...

Durham; Durham;
DurhamDurhamDurhamDurham;

and from Roger Whittaker (remember him? 1969)

and finally the picture;

To say I am seething would be an understatement. That press conference yesterday was so much along the lines of the many 'He hit me back first' conversations I have had in school playgrounds over the years.

Monday 18th May - Searching for news

Last week was almost like the week before 'lockdown' began in many ways - those days in which I dithered about whether I should just stop going into all the schools, and whether that was being over-cautious and making a fuss (heavend forfend that anyone should make a fuss!).

In the end I did stop, a week later than I would have liked, and only a few days before the magnitude of the effect of Covid19 began to dawn on people.

Now we are in the reverse scenario - should people be going back to work and should schools be re-opening? Again, I'm in the over-cautious camp - it is clear from the briefings that the 'politicians-in-charge' have absolutely no idea of what a modern infant class looks like - the days when 5-year-olds each sat at their own desk (like I did) and copied stuff off the blackboard (like I did) and sat on benches in the dining hall in rows, supervised by the staff, eating their school dinner off proper plates with a knife and fork (like I did) are long gone. Like many of the People-in-Power, I went to an old-fashioned prep school where the children were mostly constrained by middle class backgrounds and expectations of behaviour. The roughest rough-ness I ever experienced was maybe a bit of a shove at play time, or someone borrowing a pencil and 'breaking the nib'.

Time will tell - we will watch the statistics. My main aim at the moment is not to be on the wrong side of the statistics. There's nothing heroic about dying of stupidity.

So, what of my news?

In the immortal words of my daughter in reply to 'what have you been doing?' - it's 'same old same old' most of the time.

Are you interested to hear about the zoom piano lesson disruption for this week? Not the cat and rat scenario of last week - this time it was a Large Spider. The student requested permission to get a tissue (she's Very polite), disappeared out of view, reappeared as a blur as she ran towards the door and disappeared again. I could hear several loud 'bang crash blam' noises, then the toilet flushing. I'm hoping that neither spider nor tissue will have blocked their loo.

It reminded me of the time when Oti, our maid when we lived in Indonesia when I was much younger, was asked to get rid of some humungous cockroaches in the bathroom. She entered, armed with a broom, and then re-enacted one of the many chase scenes from the 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons, shrieks, bangs, shouts, until she ermerged five minutes later looking triumphant.

We've finally sorted out zoom for my father - the solution was to just buy another chrome book, same as the one he bought last year, but this time with camera and microphone. He has a significant  problem with the quality of his internet connection. Normally we would go round, and Himself would deal with BT and the various boxes and wires with dogged determination until it was all resolved. I'm still reeling in amazement that my father has managed to firstly install a new BT hub, get it working enough to discover that he could no longer get to the internet, and the next day re-instate the old equipment and get back online again. The thought of him being without internet drove me to prayer, all day and all night until it was working. (Well, lots of times during the day and the night). The problem is still there, but at least he can get online. 

I've 'zoomed' 23 times since the last blog post. Mostly teaching. Looking back, that does explain why I've tended to spend Saturday morning having a lie-in! Actually I have a bit of a lie-in every day; a Husband who brings breakfast in bed every day is a treasure beyond price.

Deliveries tend to be our main source of excitement, we had a real treat over the weekend. Himself managed to book a delivery with Tescos on Friday night; our first, and after weeks of failed attempts. You should have seen us, poring over the pictures on the screen. We get vegetables, fruit, milk, eggs, meat and cat food delivered and then ask friends and neighbours to buy other stuff like breakfast cereal, tea, etc. I don't like asking them to go searching for specific brands of pickled gherkins, cold meats, cheese etc so this was our chance to restock with life's little luxuries. Although we forgot garlic and croissants. Another time.

Oh well - that's my 'same old, same old' for this week in respect to news. I'm about to post on books next...

Monday 11th May - Books I am Reading

Last week, or maybe the week before - who can keep track of anything except bin day at the moment (we just watch to see what the neighbours do regarding time to put out the bin, and copy them) - we watched the film of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. It was a good film, we enjoyed it, and the characters were roughly as I remembered them fro  the book.

Out of curiosity and because I was 'between books' I thought I would re-read the original.  There were a good number of similarities, and a good number of differences, enough to make reading the book a fresh experience, richer, too.

One thing struck me, and indeed I've wondered about previously. In the GLand PPPSoc, people had very few books, which they read in depth, pondering over the story and plot and people, characters and authors. Part of the charm is the way the members of the, oh, can I just call it 'The Soc?'Good. As I was saying, because the people in The Soc are 'ordinary folk' with just a basic education, their views on Marcus Aurelius and other Giants of Literature are amusing and revealing.

Now me; I'm not like those readers, studying their books in the way that people are exhorted to 'study the scriptures' or whatever their Holy Book happens to be.

I finished The Soc this morning, but I am also part way through;

Charles Lamb's Essays of Elia (because of 'The Soc'),

'The Power and the Glory by Adam Nicholson, a fascinating history  (no really, it is, and Robert Carey, hero of P F Chisholm's Tudor thrillers appears for real, close to the beginning, which I didn't expect) um, er, oh yes, fascinating history of the writing of the King James Bible, which I came across listening to a Radio3 podcast called 'Private Passions' about people and music

First and Last Loves - a collection of essays by John Betjamin, which was recommended in a blog about architecture that I follow

The Crucifixion by Fleming Rutledge - very rich and dense writing on this topic, which I read just a dozen pages at most at a time

The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris, also takes time to read and absorb - the chapters correspond to the months of the year in which the book refers, so that makes it easy to break into chunks of reading

The Almanac by Lia Leendertz, a monthly guide to the year with phases of the moon, garden notes, recipes etc

I saw two Englands by H V Morton, travelling through England in the Summer of 1939, and later once the war had started, describing the countryside

You see what I mean? There are other books that I am reading, or about to read. Most of these books are ones I just dip in and out of; I think I'm going to settle to The Power and the Glory now as I am finding it to be quite a page turner in the way that none of my school history books could begin to match.

But how much of any of the books in the list will I remember in any detail? And why is it that I still feel that I've got nothing to read at the moment?

I sort of blame Kindle for the ease at which one can obtain books. I've taken to downloading the free samples, partly to see if I like the book, and partly to create a list of books that I am interested in reading at some time.

Anyone got any recommendations for when I can;t find something to read? 

   

Tuesday 5th May - Ten days have passed...

Where have I been these past ten days?

Here, actually.

My zoom piano teaching schedule is now at capacity; 18 students a week over three days since I last posted. It makes Wednesday, Thursday and Friday very intense, and Saturday and Sunday a bit of a blur. Monday and Tuesday I raise my head and see what's going on, and then 'how did that happen?' it's Wednesday again!

But, as I thought, after a couple of weeks I have managed to create a system that roughly works  for keeping my lesson notes together, the music together, and the admin running along parallel. The bit I hate is checking my bank account to see if the payment has come through... have they forgotten to pay? Or is it just a banking processing delay over the weekend... I'll remind them next lesson that the last lesson's payment hasn't appeared...

I have rewarded myself by spending nearly all my earnings on a loverly superduper ridiculously extravagant large red leather folio to hold notebooks to record everything in. It was so expensive that having my initial gold-blocked in the corner hardly seemed to add to the cost. They did throw in a little tin of leather polish and polishing cloth, all in a little bag, for free. It makes the admin a little less admin-ish.

Strange things happen in zoom lessons. The child suddenly disappears from view, and reappears brandishing a pupppy at the screen. Or her younger brother.  Put the puppy/brother away, dear, and show me how you should sit at the piano, no, not crosslegged...

My fiend's daughter works in a kindergarten, and zooms lessons to the three and four year-olds. children. She says they spend a good deal of the lesson shouting 'David! David! David's Mummy, are you there, we can't see David on the screen anymore, we don' know what he is doing'. Or 'Sarah's Mummy, Sarah's Mummy, Sarah is jumping up and down on the table...'  I don't know why the parents think that the teachers can do crowd control from the screen. Once this lockdown ends and they go back to the school, she and her coleagues should really spend the first few weeks training the children to react like well-trained dogs to whistles and commands, like those amazing dog trainers on television.

I would be almost unable to remember anything much about last month if I hadn't kept a diary, taken photographs from time to time, and done all the daily thumbnail sketches.

   
It was a Johanna Basford post that gave me the idea; she suggested you pick out one word, which I did for the first few days, but after that I mostly just sketched a picture. They are only the size of a large letter stamp - just enough to trigger a memory of the day.

I've set up a page for May, and already I am two days behind. Sunday was quite a dull sort of day - I spent most of it creating this page and trying not to wander round whining 'I'm bored'.

I did make a cake with leftover fresh pineapple. Himself ate the last of it today. I've discovered that a two-egg sponge recipe fits nicely into the little panikin that you can use in our air-fryer. It is a great thing for cooking cake - heats up in less than five minutes, and switches off once it has finished cooking.

Monday - pottered about in the morning - what did I do? No idea.

I did discover a new composer; I was reading in bed when this extraordinary music came on. It is composed by Kaija Saariaho, and was one of the movements, called 'Moss' from 'Six Japanese Gardens'. I think I will order the CD if there is one.

And now it is today, Tuesday. We have worked out that this shrub

that burst into flower a week ago is a Virburnum, 'Japanese Snowball'. It is very pretty, glowing in the rain or the sun near the bottom of the border. This border is the setting for a series of surprises; James the gardener didn't get round to telling us everything that he planted when he dug out and replanted the whole length last Summer, or what it would do, or when it would do it. We just have to go and look and see what is happening. That tiny red dot to the left of the shrub is the first of the Salvias, 'Hot-lips' coming out - I had no idea that they would start flowering so early.

You can just make out the little daisies in the corner of this bed; we bought two pots from the National Trust property Standen one hot Summer's day last year, and planted them in the raised bed where we tend to have coffee in the morning once it is warm enough (not today, for sure). They are everywhere in Cornwall - a weed, I expect - but we love them because they remind us of all the times we were down there when the children were small. 

I want to buy lots of pink and white fancy tulips this autumn and plant them everywhere. And blue cornflowers. And irises. I've seen them everywhere on a short walk to the post box on, let me just check the thumbnail pictures, the 26th April.