Another sunny Thursday. Forget about spring-like! This is positively summery. I have a line-full of washing out in the garden and I might just take my book out there later.
Yesterday I sat reading in the garden. The neighbours with the visiting grandchildren had done their farewell ceremony and gone indoors. A father and his small boy from another house came out to play. After a while they came down into our garden. Our houses are arranged, I should explain, with a shared garden for our house and the immediate next-door neighbours, and another shared garden for the next few houses, with a wall between the two. I assumed they had come to collect a ball which had come over the wall but they stayed and played for a while. Okay. A little later again they came down the steps into our garden once more and started blowing bubbles. On the third incursion I politely pointed out that this was our garden, not a communal area for the whole block. I am not especially protective of my domain but in this time of social distancing maybe we should keep to our own places. The young father said he really knew that but didn’t think anyone minded. Well, he might have asked before he assumed. The outcome was that he and his little boy went indoors and I am undoubtedly now the grumpy old bat who lives in the bottom house! Oh dear!
Now, of course, the rules about where we can go and what we can do are about to change. On Facebook I have witnessed a discussion about what exactly are the current rules about going out for exercise. One poster maintained that we have always been allowed unlimited exercise while others said just one hour a day. Finally it was sort of agreed that one outing and one hour a day was just a guideline, not a legal thing. A suggestion or recommendation not a rule. This is symptomatic of the muddled way lockdown has been dealt with all along. I wait to see whether or not we get clear instructions on Monday when Mr Johnson sets out his “roadmap”.
Meanwhile, the government hasn’t met its target of 10,000 tests a day for the last few days. So Mr Johnson has decided to increase it to 20,000. I know we need more testing but I am not sure of the logistics of getting it done.
And the PPE muddle goes on as gowns ordered (eventually) from Turkey turn out not to meet requirements and so will have to be sent back. The mind boggles!
None of us know how easing restrictions is going to work out. Businesses are going crazy trying to plan for the future and keep going. And here is an article about Sicily’s plans. They want to offer special terms to encourage tourists to return to their lovely island. I forwarded the article to an Italian friend, who replied like this:-
“I find all this very strange and utterly untrue as whoever travels from one region to another within Italy, so even more from another country, must spend 14 days in quarantine and isolation. They can be as cheap as they want but if going means you have to spend your holiday in a hotel room... The article tells bollocks...”
Wow! Don’t mince you words, my friend!
There is still a lot of talk and advice on TV and radio about how people are coping with the boredom of being at home. Fortunately this is not a problem I suffer from. But musicians have done online performances, actors are streaming plays and the like. Today I read that Andy Serkis, the actor who played Gollum in the films of The Lord of the Rings, is going to give a continuous, live reading of The Hobbit – lasting around 12 hours – in aid of charity. He is asking fans who listen to the reading to donate to a fund raising money for NHS Charities Together and another charity called Best Beginnings which works to support babies, toddlers, pregnant families and new parents and aims to reduce inequality.
Very nice! Although I suspect that the really bored are probably no going to be fantasy fans.
And once again I find myself thinking that the NHS should not be relying on such fundraising events.
A number of organisations, such as banks and even the BBC, have produced mini publicity films assuring us that “they are there for us” in this difficult time. The style of choice is to come up with a script and then film a host of people saying sections of it, usually against a background suggesting that they are working from home. It’s a bit like a primary school play. Now, it may be the style of choice but it is also the style most likely to drive this blogger bonkers of she sees any more of them. They are even more annoying than the adverts for gambling, which all end by advising gamblers to “play responsibly”.
I have seen so many of these adverts because we have been watching an Italian series “La Mafia uccide solo d’estate” = “Mafia only kills in summer”. Just ine episode an evening. The commercial breaks are annoying but the series has been excellent, showing the trials and tribulations of an end-of-the-70s Palermo family in the struggle against the Mafia. It blended real events from the period with invented goings-on. As so often happens with a good book or good series, I now find myself missing that regular contact with the characters. I shall miss in particular the young actors who played the children of the family.
There we go.
My turkey hotpot on Tuesday was a mixed success as the turkey meat was disappointingly tough. So on the menu today is the potato mix from the hotpot, minus the chicken meat, served up with some other veg and some quite tasty ham. You have to do be inventive!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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