May 2020 – Mick and Liesel's Antics

Lockdown week 10

Welcome to Week 10 of the official Lockdown. Liesel and I had been isolating for a while beforehand but that seems a long time ago, now. And now, despite the UK still experiencing hundreds of Covid-related deaths every day, HM Goverment want to relax the restrictions next week. Yes, even though many scientists are saying it’s still too early. Then there’s the whole Dominic Cummings (government advisor) thing last weekend: he broke the rules that he helped implement, because he feels very special and entitled. He managed to unite the country, ironically against himself. Then there was the murder of George Floyd in America, another black man killed by a police officer pretty much because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. All of these news stories, whether they affect us directly or not, slowly, slowly erode any sense of well-being. This isn’t the place for a commentary into current affairs, but if you, dear reader, detect a slight undercurrent of dismay in this post, that’s why, and I apologise. But I’ll try to keep looking up, not down.

We miss going to all the music festivals this year, like everyone else. Well, we sometimes go to one in Hyde Park. Instead, we watched the Folk on Foot Front Room Festival from the comfort of our homes. It was a wonderful, uplifting day of music. I produced a list of performers who we would like to see live in concert at some point and whose music we need to buy more of:

- - Chris Wood (he was sitting in a wheelbarrow while performing)
  - O’Hooley and Tidow (with baby Flynn) (we’ve seen them once live)
  - Gwilym Bowen Rhys (lovely Welsh songs)
  - Kathryn Tickell (Northumbrian pipes)
  - Cara Dillon and Sam Lakeman (we’ve seen these two too)
  - Duncan Chisholm (fiddle)
  - Kitty Macfarlane (guitar)
  - Rioghnach Connolly and Ellis Davies (Antrim girl now lives in Manchester)
  - John Smith (guitars)
  - The Unthanks (presented their film “As We Go”) (we’ve seen them!)
  - Frank Turner and Jess Guise (The time of my life)
  - Kate Rusby and Damien O’Kane (the voice of England)
  - Johnny Flynn (guitars)
  - Eliza Carthy (you know Eliza)
  - Richard Thompson and Zara Phillips (you know Richard)

I would recommend any of these and if you wish to enjoy the festival too, it’s still up here on YouTube.

The Sun set as the show ended and I realised that we haven’t seen nearly as many vapour trails in the sky as we usually do.

We did go out a couple of times to walk around the area, for some fresh air, for some exercise and to enjoy a hot, hot late May. It should be peaceful, but there was a lot of noise. Just up the road from us, someone was trimming a hedge and their friend was blowing the trimmings off the road and back into the hedge. Round the corner, someone was washing a car with a powerful powered hose. Up the road, there were men at work. Except they weren’t, they had downed tools for a welcome break.

The robin often appears when we walk along this path. A bit later, we were walking by the river and we heard the sound of a creaky gate approaching. It was our old friend, the heron flying by and, if the passer-by (socially distanced of course) is to be believed, it nearly gave her a heart attack.

Yes, it’s much hotter now, and there are many more insects about. Of course, I always feel obliged to count the spirals on a daisy, just to confirm they are Fibonacci numbers!

On different days, one or both of walked on and around the golf course, just for a different point of view, really. One day, a player asked if I’d seen where his ball went. I hadn’t, and I didn’t feel comfortable lying that it had ended up in the river, either.

I walked on this side of the river, adjacent to the golf course, because there was nobody else here. There were many groups of people on the other side, some of whom were having a picnic on a small ‘beach’ that I’d previously been unaware of.

To the left, the golf course; to the right, the Mersey

There’s more to golf than walking around and bashing a ball until it falls into a rabbit hole, it seems. Staircases and bells are involved too.

The duck family were nowhere to be seen, the geese have moved in instead.

Hot, hot, hot, and a good enough excuse for some folks to go out sunbathing.We just go out for a walk, keep going, however far, avoiding everyone, go home and check for mail.

We walked along the river, to Stenner Woods, then Fletcher Moss Park, on to Didsbury.

One thing you don’t expect to see in Didsbury is a squat: I apologise if this isn’t a squat, but that’s what we both thought.

We wandered through Marie Louise Gardens then back home. One thing you don’t expect to see in the Mersey is people sunbathing.

We visited The Northern Den for more coffee and Viennese whirls. The local council seem to be deterring people from sitting outside on park benches, sadly. They’d squirted tomato ketchup over them, and nobody wants to sit on that, thank you very much.

A moment of excitement soon evaporated when I realised this wasn’t a real Tardis.

In between our trips outside, what have we been doing?

I watched ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ from the National Theatre. Gillian Anderson was in it, and the play itself was good and well performed, if a little long. But that might be because I was fully aware of and distracted by the camera work. Yes, the play was performed ‘in the round’, but that doesn’t mean I want to watch while walking round and round the stage.

We’ve been listening to lots of radio, BBC Radio 2, 6 Music, Classic FM and even local Radio Northenden is back this week!

We’ve watched a lot of TV, a lot of lot of TV. Current favourites include Killing Eve, series 3 and we’ve watched 8½ series of Spooks so far, but we have avoided news most of the time.

I’ve been watching YouTube a lot, not just folk festivals. On the Cracking the Cryptic channel, you can watch Simon solving sudoku puzzles, some of which are ridiculously complicated, but his enthusiasm and enjoyment are infectious.

We’re listening to ‘Harry Potter and the Philosophers’ Stone’ being read by a series of actors and others who have links with the Harry Potter world. Harry Potter at Home.

If that’s not enough good stuff from JK Rowling, I can recommend her latest, being published as a serial online for now, 2 or 3 chapters a day. The Ickabog shouldn’t give you nightmares, but, so far, it’s a good old fashioned fairy tale!

Many museums and galleries have put their exhibitions up online too. As ever, we can’t wait until we can visit these places in real life.

This morning, I played the album Young Americans from my phone. It was on shuffle mode, which I had a little whinge about. ‘Why does it matter?’ asked Liesel. Because it messes with my expectations, I said. And then, of course, it repeats one track and another while some tracks remain unplayed at all. To make it funnier, Liesel misheard the lyrics to Fascination as vaccination!

(Fascination) Your soul is calling
Like when I’m walking
Seems that everywhere I turn
I hope you’re waiting for me
I know that people think
That I’m a little crazy

Well, we’re trying not to go crazy in these crazy times, there’s certainly plenty of good stuff out there, but it doesn’t take much bad news to rock the boat. Stay safe, stay alert, stay at home!

Walkin’ to New Orleans

This time I’m walkin’ to New Orleans
I’m walkin’ to New Orleans
I’m going to need two pair of shoes

Well, obviously, I’m not really walkin’ to New Orleans, not with a whole ocean being in the way. Plus, I don’t much fancy going shoe-shopping either, that’s definitely not my favourite pastime. But we are walkin’ around Northenden a lot. Summer’s here and time is right for dancing in the street. No, not that. Time maybe right, but such behaviour is totally inappropriate.

The two main local attractions are the river that way and Wythenshawe Park in the opposite direction. Any splash of colour is welcome: in fact, anything that produces whatever chemicals in the brain to make us feel good. It’s all about mental health during the current crisis.

Pretty yellow weeds concealing the river

There were a few people in Wythenshawe Park but everyone was keeping their distance from each other.

There were a few dogs out for their walk, a squirrel, some horses in a field and best of all, more bees than we’ve seen all year so far. Thus concludes our wildlife inventory.

‘Wow! That bee is sooooo big!’ said Martha when she saw this picture. Well, it was quite big but mostly, I was just really close to it!

There’s a wildflower meadow that was, ironically, overgrown, so we didn’t fight our way through that. We did find an enchanted forest which we hope to take little William to ‘when this is all over’. He likes going into the ‘forest’ at the zoo, I’m sure he’ll love it here.

I chose not to leap across the stream at the point when the path became impassable. William might have other ideas, though! We’ll see.

There is no truth in the rumour that I nearly fell in the river while trying to take a picture of this swan: the bank of the river was a bit less solid than it appeared.

The new kid in town. There were lots of ducks and geese on or by the river, but I don’t think we’ve seen this chap before.

Black-headed gull (my bird expert thinks)

It’s hard to avoid the local golf courses, and there were a few people playing here today, so we stayed clear of the low-flying golf balls.

At home, I wandered into the kitchen to be greeted by the sight of a man outside the window. We’re on the second floor. He was in a cherry-picker, painting the outside of the premises.

And here’s an external shot. It’s so easy to forget that other people have jobs to go to, that not everyone is locked in, staying at home and staying alert.

Sadly, not everything is uplifting around here. There is a lot of rubbish being dumped outside the local charity shops. All they’ll be able to do is throw it all away.

But we do have a different class of park bench to rest on as we pound the local highways and byways.

Of course, it might not have been fly-tipped, maybe it’s on its way to a new forever home. At least it didn’t join its sibling in the river. Yes, that one’s still there, slowly, slowly, nudging down towards the weir.

My Dad isn’t responsible for this graffiti but it did remind me of him.

His mashed potato was more lumpy than a bed at a cheap motel. And don’t ask about his gravy and his porridge.

It’s not all gloom and doom, and sometimes even the most pessimistic of messages brings a smile to the face.

Some Clever People

Happy birthday to Mormor in Ferndale. Hope you had a good day, hope you’re staying well, and we hope we can get together again, sometime, when ‘this is all over’, this plague and pestilence, isolation and social distancing.

We’re all trying to keep up our sense of mental well-being in this time of Coronavirus, and we can pick up hints and tips from the most bizarre and unexpected places. For instance, who knew that delivery drivers would be advocating meditation and reciting Buddhist mantras?

Van Gogh did some eyeball pleasers
He must have been a pencil squeezer
He didn’t do the Mona Lisa
That was an Italian geezer

There ain’t half been some clever bastards
(Lucky bleeders, lucky bleeders)
There ain’t half been some clever bas-tards

Random songs pop into my head at random times, many of which I’ve not actually heard for a very long time. This classic from Ian Dury and the Blockheads is the latest example. And he’s absolutely right. Some members of the family are being very creative at the moment. Liesel has been putting the sewing machine to good use. Let me introduce Cyril. He is the latest occupant in our luxury apartment, serving time as a draught-excluder. Why Cyril? Because I momentarily mis-remembered the name of my parent’s draught-excluder, Cedric.

We may be encouraged to wear face masks when we go outside, so Liesel has been making these too. We look forward to messing with the local facial recognition systems.

Selfie of the day: either Mick or Liesel, I can’t remember

William has been very creative with the paints. The paint was liberally applied to the rest of his body, not just his hands.

Meanwhile, way, way over there in Anchorage, Alaska, it’s good to see Asa still playing the cello.

Martha planted a few seeds in the garden a while ago and she is now reaping the rewards. She was very happy to find this radish, and eat it. She liked it. She likes little ones but not big radishes because they’re too spicy.

Both William and Martha made chocolate lollipops in the shape of animals. William was happy to share: Mum could have a tiny little bit.

There may be a dearth of fruit pickers in the UK this year, so William’s been learning to drive a tractor in case his services are required.

And the latest creations from Liesel are the front and back of a cushion. We haven’t got the stuffing yet, but it’s on order. What did we stuff Cyril with, then? About 10% of the shredded paper that I produced a couple of weeks ago, naturally.

Liesel’s cushion cover<ph cushion cover x2

So, all those resourceful, creative and, as Ian Dury said, clever… people. Meanwhile, what have I been up to? Reading, writing and doing sudoku puzzles, mostly. This one took over 98 minutes but at least I got 8 stars for it!

Again, we haven’t ventured further afield than our ‘hood. We had a cold few days, but it was soon warm enough to go topless.

We bought some goodies from the Northern Den, Viennese girls and coffee. Actually, Viennese whirls, but a bit of finger trouble on the phone and it autocorrected whatever I typed to ‘girls’. So I left it.

Isolation

We sat on the sofa in eager anticipation. There was something on the radio or TV and I was reading Twitter or a book or maybe even doing a puzzle. Liesel was probably reading too and we were both nursing our second or possibly third cup of tea of the day. Suddenly, we heard the knocking, the crashing, bashing and banging of boxes outside. But looking through the window, we couldn’t see the Ocado delivery truck. He’d parked round the corner, which meant he had to carry our groceries a little further to our front door.

Because we’re only being serviced every three weeks or so now, instead of weekly, we had a lot of shopping. Down the stairs we trooped. I thought I could carry up most of the bags in one go, no need for a second trip down and back up. Big mistake. When I got to the top floor, I was puffing and panting and one arm was now much longer than the other. Don’t let me carry that much stuff ever again, please!

The good news is, Ocado’s plastic bags are bio-degradable, but the bad news is, they’re not taking them back any more, so we have quite a backlog in the cupboard.

Liesel stowed most of the items in the kitchen, some in the spare room, and the rest was for Jenny. Yes, we went over to see Jenny with a bag of shopping as requested. Something in the car is making a loud clanging noise. It sounds like it’s coming from the boot, but we can’t see what it is. I looked underneath the car too, but nothing seems to be falling off.

It was lovely to see them all, albeit through the window. But the view was obscured by a lot of drawing on the glass, both inside and out.

The Sun was out and it was a gorgeous day, what a shame we couldn’t socialise more closely. We’ll have to learn how to hug all over again. It was a joy to hear Martha and William both chattering away, though.

Meanwhile, in Manly, Auntie Helen is keeping busy with her jigsaw puzzles. This is a holiday cottage, but who knows when we’ll be able to visit it in real life! Actually, seeing a Cotswold in the flesh would be quite exciting: certainly something to look forward to.

More walking this week, part of the hour of outdoor exercise we’re allowed each day. I was ambling through Kenworthy Lane Woods, along NCN 62 and in order to keep my distance from other people, I went off piste and discovered a secret encampment. It looks pretty cosy in there, if not entirely waterproof.

But this is Northenden, so inevitably it has attracted some fly-tipping.

May 8th was the 75th anniversary of V E Day, the day Germany surrendered, ending the second World War in Europe. My Dad was in the Navy at the time, in the Mediterranean Sea, I believe. (To be confirmed when I get around to checking out the records.) He said that as soon as he’d finished off the Germans, they set off to deal with Japan. And that, ladies and gentleman, is all I know.

The day was commemorated locally, not with street parties as originally planned, but a few people put up the flags and some bunting.

A couple of days later, we wandered over to Rose Hill Woods. It was another nice sunny day that we took advantage of because cold weather was coming our way. A fallen tree across the path would have deterred lesser mortals than Liesel and me.

We found the golf course but until we checked, we didn’t realise it was part of Didsbury Golf Club, on the other side of the motorway from where we usually find it. Previously, I’d not wanted to walk on this ‘private’, well-groomed lawn, but Liesel had no such scruples. So we walked around and avoided the other walkers, including a pair actually playing golf.

With a little imagination, you can see the distant mountains in the background. We did come across a small lake but we didn’t scale the fence for a closer look. Loonts Lake is the site of an old Brussels sprout field where a V1 flying bomb landed during the aforementioned WW2.

Elsewhere, we walked across a bed of cotton fluff on the fairways.

A few days later, on another little walk the neighbourhood, it was confirmed that Northenden is the fly-tipping capital of Manchester, if not of the UK. They’ll dump anything except the kitchen sink. Oh, Hang on…

But the balance of the universe was restored when I saw the heron halfway up (or halfway down) the ramp below the weir.

This isn’t the place to knock the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, so I’ll just congratulate all those other governments that have performed so much better, especially those with a female leader: New Zealand, Germany, Taiwan, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Anyway, the latest advice in the UK is just as confusing as it always was. Liesel and I will be staying indoors for at least the next few weeks. One of the local pubs has opened up, but only for one customer at a time. The trouble is, all the customers are meeting up in a group over the road.

Either that, or one customer is buying himself several pints at a time and then not managing to consume them all.

We’re afraid of everyone
Afraid of the Sun
Isolation

As the days go by, more and more mournful, sad songs are coming to mind, such as Isolation by John Lennon, which I haven’t heard for years, possibly decades. Not that we’re afraid of the Sun, we’re just very cautious of going outside with everyone else when the Sun’s out.

Keep on keeping on

We strolled up to the Northern Den to collect our brownies plus the coffee which we enjoyed while sitting on the wooden bench close to St Wilfrid’s Church.

One night, to convince myself I could still focus on something for long periods of time, post Liesel’s retirement to bed, I decided to sort our CD collection. Hercules would be very proud of my nine hours of more or less continuous struggle.

The Sun rose before I went to bed, one welcome, if unexpected bonus.

We decided not to invest in this mobile burger business. I’ve hidden the phone number: we might reconsider sometime.

The recycling centre round the corner re-opened but they’re restricting its use is determined by vehicles’ regnos.

No queue in sight, but Mr Jobsworth forced one even-numbered vehicle to turn round, go home. Ridiculous.

We’re still seeing weird things in the streets, together with some pretty flowers.

Lost Shoes (not to be confused with the 70s prog rock group correspondingly titled)

Pretty Flowers (not to be confused with the 70s prog rock group correspondingly titled)

It’s quite perilous strolling too close to one of the neighbourhood golf courses. My soft titfer definitely wouldn’t protect the bonce, I confidently predicted.

My new friend, the heron, introduced me to his chum, the crow, before flying off up-river.

Most fortuitous sighting of the week? The red growth in our hedge, complemented by the brightness of the Sun.

Red Hedge (not to be confused with Red Wedge)

Thus concludes the newest post. Short, but sweet this time, lovingly typed up without the use of one single letter ‘A’. (Well, just the one.)