Autobiographical

Nothing to see here

I was playing around on my phone and created this little chap. He’s incredibly lifelike, isn’t he? I’d been doing sudoku puzzles and fancied a break. Liesel’s been doing sudokus too. It’s always exciting when we finally crack one that had seemed impossible at first sight. Usually when I get stuck, I just say there must be a misprint. Even when I’m doing a puzzle in a phone app.

We’ve had more rain and thunderstorms this week, in between the warm, sunny days. This week’s highlight was popping over to see the grandchildren. We had things to deliver, including some new items for Martha and William. No photos because the Sun was so bright, we couldn’t easily see them through the socially separating window. They’re all in good spirits, and I think Martha is happy to be back at nursery for a couple of days a week.

As it was Fathers Day, Jenny and Helen bought me a huge brownie from a local café, The Damson Tree, well, fairly local, in Cheadle Hulme. Very nice, very tasty, thank you!

At home, I downloaded a new, controversial book onto my Kindle. I probably won’t read it and this notion was confirmed when I saw the estimated reading duration! Yes, it’s about American politics and yes, I did a search on David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Hardly a mention, such is the importance of the ‘special relationship’ between the USA and the UK!

I was quietly taking my ease, reading the next chapter of The Ickabog, when from outside, I heard the strains of Old Ned, the theme tune from Steptoe and Son. We haven’t seen them for a while, but I guessed this meant the return of the local totters, the rag-and-bone men. The shouts of ‘any old iron’ confirmed my suspicion. So I ran downstairs, out to the bin cupboard, retrieved the broken ironing board that had been dumped there several weeks ago, then ran along the road to offer it to young Mr Steptoe. As he followed me back to where I’d left it, he got closer and closer, I just couldn’t walk fast enough to maintain a safe two metres distance from him. He said that old people seem to like hearing Steptoe and Son, it attracts their attention. I’m pretty sure it must have been young people that ‘donated’ the mangled bikes on the back of his van.

We’ve watched Jessica Lee Morgan and Christian Thomas a few more times, on their virtual world tour, promoting Jess’s new album, Forthright. And yes, I really would recommend listening to and buying the album. My favourite song (today) is The Less Said the Better. It’s a bit of an earworm. I’m not going to go all clickbaity and ask what your favourite is, don’t worry.

Here is Martha recreating the ‘serving suggestion’ from a box of Shreddies.

What else have we been up to then? Not much. Watching Doctor Who, listening to podcasts, CDs and radio, baking, watching the neighbours, listening to the neighbours doing DIY late at night, celebrating the Summer solstice and mourning the loss of birdsong now that traffic noise has returned to ‘normal’.

Parks and Recreation

The weather here has been as strange as it can be. Hot and muggy, torrential rain and thunderstorms, but we have been out and about, a little further afield, so things are looking up. This week saw the release of a couple of new records. I joined Anna Neale and a few other fans as she launched her new single Anarchy. I surrepticiously tried to take a picture of the Zoom screen but it didn’t really work. It was good to see the world premiere(!) of the accompanying video, even if Zoom couldn’t quite keep up. You should view the video here, not just for the song itself, but for my first ever (minor) contribution to a ‘pop video’. See if you can spot it. Answers at the bottom.

The song itself talks about the decline in societal standards including littering and graffiti. But sometimes, we see something daubed on a wall and it’s a positive message. So much better than the boring tags, however convoluted and multi-coloured they are.

It’s a bit more risky these days to walk on a golf course, but you never know what you’ll come across. I found a lawn mower behind a bank of trees. I assume the green-keeper left it there on purpose. There were no golfers around on this occasion, so I didn’t need my tin hat after all.

I walked along the river, a little beyond Simon’s Bridge and rather than retrace our stroll from a couple of weeks ago, I carried on as far as the beach. I was surprised that it was free of litter, very unusual around here, sadly. In Millgate Fields, there are ground-nesting birds apparently, but I didn’t see nor disturb any.

A few other people were out and about too, but I was surprised to see a couple with walking poles. The terrain around here isn’t that bad, really. I tried using walking poles once. Never again. Mobile trip hazards. I’m still not sure if this is the one and only local heron or if there are a few living at different places on the river. It would be nice to see more than one at a time, though!

And so we come to the most exciting day since March. We gathered up our passports and ventured outside and away from the local neighbourhood. Away from Northenden, further even than Didsbury. Our wonderful car started at the first attempt and we drove to Lyme Park for a walk. This, like all other National Trust properties has re-opened, but you have to book a time slot in advance.

The cafés are still closed and only one toilet is open, but that’s OK, we had a lovely walk, on hilly grass and, best of all, there weren’t many people, so it was easy to maintain social distancing.

Lyme Park mansion house itself is still closed too, so we had no excuse to not carry on walking.

The Cage (a folly) and to the left, Manchester in the distance

The views from the top of the hill near The Cage were pretty good. We couldn’t work out whether the haze was mist or just air quality returning to pre-lockdown levels already.

The only wildlife we encountered were some cattle. We did see plenty of evidence of deer, sheep and rabbits, but they were all hiding in the trees and bushes because they’re not used to seeing people any more.

We had a good reason to venture into Cheadle too, one day, saving ourselves 40p as car parking fees have been suspended. While Liesel conducted her business, I walked around. I think the S4G guys were a bit concerned, but I wasn’t deliberately loitering near their van while they took millions of pounds in used fivers into the bank. The housewares shop should be cautioned for their misleading descriptions.

This tub is quite clearly yellow, not red

But the floral display in the High street is magnificent.

Cheadle High Street is blooming marvellous

As I was walking home later on, I bumped into an old friend, well, old enemy. I think I’ve mentioned before that I lost my Thirty Year War with bindweed in our garden in Chessington. Well, it’s thriving well in some gardens near where we live, but I am so glad I don’t have to fight that battle any longer.

In local news, we learned that the Nat West bank, which has been closed for as long as we can remember, has been used as a cannabis farm. It’s in the middle of our main street.

And, just along the road from us, we think there was one of two drugs raids taking place in Northenden. And we found out why the local authorities aren’t bothered about all the vehicles that are parked on pavements.

The second exciting record release this week is Jessica Lee Morgan’s ‘Forthright’ album. It’s her fourth and, I think, her best so far. I can’t wait to see her live in concert again. Meanwhile, she’s been performing on YouTube, in a virtual world tour.

And in case you’re wondering, my bit of Anna’s video is at 22 seconds. It’s graffiti local to where we live in Northenden. ‘Live work consume die?’ Which nicely summarises just about everything!

PS a couple of people in real life have asked what podcasts we’re listening to. Well, I’ve started compiling a list right here, so please take a look. Over and out.

Bird watching

We’ve been to the Green Note, London’s favourite music venue (Time Out, 2015) a few times. My last visit was with Esther a few years ago and we enjoyed watching and listening to Erin McKeown perform live. Well, the venue’s not open right now so they too are putting out shows online. We watched Erin McKeown, Dar Williams and Cara Luft at virtually at Green Note and it was really enjoyable. We sat on our own sofa rather then the beer kegs that you get in real life, if you’re a bit late to the party. Of course, at the end of a virtual gig, there’s no point hanging around for a selfie or an autograph.

We’d recommend watching and buying Erin’s latest single, The Escape, which reflects what many of us are thinking about right now. And there can’t be too many songs that namecheck ‘Hydrochloroquine’!

For some reason, the video won’t load or play here, but here’s William at home, laughing at a cartoon called Bing about feeding ducks that he finds hilarious. We miss his laugh in real life.

We took a couple of nice walks by the river this week too, still avoiding people even if they don’t always try to avoid us. Joggers are the worst culprits in this respect.

Hmm, I don’t know whether we have more than one heron in Northenden, or whether this is the same one having taken a short flight.

Three girls daring each other to get into the water which was absolutely freezing apparently. It looks deeper here than I’d realised, making me reconsider my plan one day to wade over to the gravel island.

Thanks, bin, we did enjoy our walk and he had no rubbish to take home. One day, we’ll go out with litter pickers and pick up the litter that litter bugs have littered all over our little village.

Some other highlights this week. Bin day: it was the turn of all the landfill bins, the food waste bin and the paper and cardboard recycling bins. I disposed of more of the oak tree. there’s one or two dead branches and every few days, another big, dead lump falls down.

As I was putting out the bins, overhead honking alerted me to a skein of geese flying south. They weren’t in a V-formation, though. Something went wrong with the organisation, there was just one leg of the V: a /-formation, so to speak.

Ocado came and delivered again, as they do about every three weeks now. The driver said if we keep ordering that much, he’s gonna need a bigger lorry. Liesel wonders whether we have more food her now than we ever had in Chessington. I don’t think so because we have so much less storage space.

Car insurance. Every year, we have to buy car insurance but it seems to some round much faster. After a bit of searching, I found a policy that was less than half the price quoted by our broker of several years. They couldn’t match the new quote, so we jumped ship. Oh yuss.

These things really shouldn’t be the highlight of the week, should they! It’s funny how every day, trivial matters have acquired greater significance and importance and even entertainment value.

We’ve just started watching the whole of Doctor Who, starting with series 1 from 2005. It’s amazing how much of it I remember when I see it again, but if, out of the blue, you asked me to jot down the story lines, I don’t think I’d be able to write much. Funny how memory works. I would love to watch the classic series from the ’60s and ’70s, of course, but I’m happy to save those for the next pandemic lockdown.

We’ve both read last year’s Booker prize winning novel, ‘Girl, Woman, Other’, by Bernardine Evaristo. We both gave it five stars out of five, making ten altogether.

Next on the list is a virtual visit to Manchester Museum to see Egyptology in Lockdown, at 3pm BST, every Thursday.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, here is a short list of notable people who have all five vowels in their name.

- - (Tamsin) Outhwaite
  - Abdoulie (Sallah)
  - Jo Caulfield
  - (Simone de) Beauvoir
  - Serge Gainsbourg

Lockdown week 11

Welcome to Week 11 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 ooh hang on a minute, déjà vu or what?

To celebrate the arrival of a short hot Summer, Martha and her Daddy went camping, in their garden. Martha was so excited to sleep in a tent that first time and she slept through from 10pm to 7am.

Despite the warmer weather, we’re still not going out as often as we’d like. More people are out and about now of course, so we’re aware that keeping our distance from strangers will be even more difficult now. What a shame. The lost Summer of 2020.

I’m still doing Sandwich Sudoku puzzles and I’m so pleased that my first reaction on seeing this message was to laugh! It took well over two hours to solve it, but I got there in the end. 12-year old me polished my nails on my lapel.

Liesel is doing Sudoku puzzles too, from a book that we’ve had for a few years now.

Another kind of puzzle that I tried to solve in Malaysian newspapers last year is Slitherlink. I’d never come across such a thing before, and I never got anywhere near completing one. You have to join the dots on a diagram, the numbers tell you how many sides of the square have a line segment. The line has to be one continuous loop. I’ve found an app now for this kind of puzzle too. And I solved one. It took far too long and I’m sure I will get faster, but I’m very proud of my achievement. It was much, much smaller than those in Malaysian newspapers! 12-year old me punched the sky.

We’re not totally confined to the flat, we did still go out for our exercise a few times.

The highlight of the week was visiting Jenny and Martha, outdoors. We went for a walk around the block, Martha on her scooter.

Mostly we kept a safe distance but I did step over the invisible boundary a couple of times by mistake, especially when Martha fell off the scooter. My instinct was to rush over to pick her up, but before I’d taken one step, she announced that she was alright.

Sadly, we didn’t see William, but through the magic of the internet, we do know that he helped with the baking one day, partly by licking the bowl.

William the most diligent of bowl lickers

In terms of entertainment, I watched a political comedy, ‘This House’ by James Graham. This was a National Theatre production, depicting the Labour government from 1974-1979. It ended with Margaret Thatcher reciting, and ruining for many people, the prayer of St Francis of Assisi outside 10 Downing Street. ‘Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope’. Irony died that day.

Jessica Lee Morgan has embarked on a ‘Time Zone Tour’ of the world, performing at 7pm local time at many places around the world, from the comfort of her own home. So in the UK, each show is at a different time of day. She has ‘been to’ Anchorage and Adak, Alaska, two different time zones, Christchurch and Sydney. The tour continues and you can catch up here on YouTube.

We heard the thwack of metal on golf ball as we wanderd by the golf course. We did see a ball but Liesel wouldn’t let me kick it towards the hole.

It had rained earlier in the day but we stayed dry mostly and the Sun came out again. Until the big black cloud appeared and it started precipitating again just as we arrived home. Good weather for ducks, though.

The latest local news is that the sofa has now been removed from the river. I informed the local radio station, Radio Northenden and I think they’ll be putting out a special programme about it soon. More exciting news is that another local coffee shop has opened for takeaways. Salutem is also on Paltine Road and we (I) had our (my) first coffee there yesterday. We’ll be supporting both them and The Northern Den, just over the road.

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.)

Busy doin’ nothin’

We’re busy doin’ nothin’
Workin’ the whole day through
Tryin’ to find lots of things not to do
We’re busy goin’ nowhere…

Another few days locked down and locked in, and we’re still trying to develop some sort of routine, but really, we just busk each day as it comes. Last Friday night, I tried to observe the newly lauched Starlink group of satellites but missed them. I was probably looking in the wrong direction, but as a consolation prize, Venus was looking good in the late evening sky.

Liesel’s been quite busy, phoning some of her new WI friends for a chat, cooking, baking, housework, laundry and I thoroughly enjoyed watching and I appreciating the fruits of her labours. Thanks, Liesel 😉

This week’s news is that we have new neighbours in one of the flats below us. And that’s the end of the news. Good night.

Thank goodness for the Internet, it has been keeping us entertained in so many ways. I can’t wait to visit these places and enjoy these things in real life, but until then, here’s a quick look into our lives this week.

Dame Vera Lynn with West End Stars performed We’ll Meet Again 2020. We all sang along with Alfie Boe, Gyles Brandreth, Maria Friedman and lots of other folk, some of whom I’m sorry to say we hadn’t heard of before. This message of support for UK theatre can be seen here.

Christian O’Connell doing very well down under

Meanwhile at the other end of the world, ANZAC day was celebrated in New Zealand and Australia with a Concert from the Home Front for the fight against Covid-19. When I played the show back, I thought my phone was ringing. Yes, I still have the kookaburra as my ringtone from last year in Australia. The music was all home-performed: it was especially good to see Crowded House and Bic Runga performing at home. Here it is.

This morning, we watched Rachel Unthank perform a couple of songs from home, via Facebook. We’ll get songs from a different Unthank every morning for a short while. Here they are. Liesel and I agreed that to support these artists, we need to buy more of their records. That’s the sort of online shopping I quite enjoy!

Thanks for coming to watch Twelfth Night

I watched a fantastic version of Twelfth Night from the National Theatre. It featured Tamsin Greig as Malvolia: I wonder what Miss ‘Ma’ Abbott, my old English teacher, would think of that? Sadly, we missed Treasure Island, a recent performance in the series, but we are looking forward to watching Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch this week. Highly recommended.

We have enjoyed our online visits to Chester Zoo and Taronga Zoo, with their talks and videos and if watching elephants wallowing in mud following a rainstorm doesn’t cheer you up, there’ll almost certainly be something else to make you laugh.

We haven’t seen much of the outside world of course, but it’s always nice to get out and see nice, pretty things, signs of Spring slowly turning to Summer. I had to get down low to take these pictures of dandelion seeds. I no longer consider them my enemy, but instead, a photo opportunity. Crouching down low is one thing, getting up again afterwards without going ‘Ooh, ahh’, like a really, really old person, is another. Thank goodness only one bloke walked by giving me a funny look, but at least he kept his distance.

Yes, not everything is very nice to look at. But I did see some wildlife which is always exciting.

Again, this fox took me by surprise as I walked by. We haven’t seen any actual, live, wild foxes since we moved here to Northenden, so all the discarded chicken bones and pizza boxes were probably dropped by humans. And of course, we do miss the eerie screech and howl that accompanies nocturnal vulpine coital activity, honest.

The horses are probably wondering why there are fewer people around at the moment. This one was watching, but didn’t come over for a neighbourly chat.

This family of ducks didn’t care about the rain, as they swam up and down and across the river. Four chicks stayed close to mama most of the time, but number 5 was always a bit behind, always playing catch-up. And it caught up really fast when a (presumably strange) mallard swam by.

And, because we can, here is this week’s obligatory photo of the family. Sadly, Helen won’t be joining us from Manly today, as originally planned, which is probably the most heart-breaking single effect of the virus so far, for us.

Stay safe, stay in, #stayathome, stay connected, stay healthy, ♫ stay, that’s what I meant to say or do something, but what I never say is stay this time ♫ Yes, time for a David Bowie record, I think.