As the fine weather continues and promises to do so for a week or more yet, I have gone through the wardrobe and fished out the summer dresses and shorts and such like. After all there is every chance that this might be our summer. If it continues into June and July and August, all well and good. Mind you, there will come a point where they will start telling us to conserve water. Hosepipe bans will be introduced we’ll be told not water the gardens. We shall see! Meanwhile I am making use of the rainwater collected in an old dustbin outside the back door to water the pots of flowers on the garden wall. And I feel slightly guilty because the birds can no longer perch on the edge and take a drink. I’ll have to put shallow pots of water out for them.
In the meantime, though, it’s pleasantly warm and we can sit in the garden and enjoy it. Considering the problems that there have been with airports over the last few days, I’m rather glad that we haven’t booked ourselves onto a flight to anywhere. And it seems that cross-Channel ferry ports have not fared a great deal better. These are modern problems.
My daughter and I were talking about the flexibility of working hours these days. This was as we drove back from York the other day. As traffic queues built up and our average speed went down, our estimated arrival time according to Satnav made it doubtful that we would be back home in time for her small daughter coming out of school. So she phoned her partner and set him on standby to go to school for their daughter. He was able to do this as he works mostly from home. It was just a matter of letting his employers know that he would be off duty for specific times that afternoon.
He had already availed himself of the flexibility rule by logging on to work early in the morning in order to be able to take time out later and attend an assembly at their daughter’s school, where she was receiving a certificate of some kind. Had he been working i n a city centre office none of this would have been possible. This is one of the positive outcomes of the pandemic - probably one of the few. Our son is able to make the same sort of arrangements.
Of course, it’s not a possibility for teachers like my daughter or nurses for that matter. But, although I have heard that the government would like us to revert to the old way of working, I suspect it suits a lot of people very well.
On the negative side is this report that car owners are having more problems than usual with cracked tyres, largely as a result of cars standing parked for long periods during lockdown. It has an adverse effect on the tyres apparently.
Incidentally, in one of the backstreets of the village is an old Citroën 2CV, which appeared there mysteriously some time last year, I think. So far I have not found anyone who can tell me who it belongs to. It rather intrigues me because my first car, back in the 1970s was a red Citroën 2CV, so I have a bit of nostalgia going on there. Goodness knows what state the tyres of this old car must be. Just last Thursday, when it was the only vehicle parked there, our small grandson went to examine it, convinced that it had no rear wheels and satisfied to find them hidden under the wheel guards and half overgrown with weeds. Rather a sad end for a vehicle it seems to me. Maybe the owner is also nostalgic for a quieter time on the roads.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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