personal

Horrible Times 14: Day 200

Well I promised I would write again at day 200 of Covid isolation, and here we are. That’s over 6 months of house arrest and confinement to barracks.

Well not quite, as I have been out beyond the front gate twice in the last month: on both occasions to go to the dentist to get a broken tooth fixed. And what a surreal experience that was, with the dentist and nurses all bedecked in space-suit style PPE. It was all approached very professionally and efficiently: obviously they’re finding it hard but they’re managing and seem able to be their usual cheerful selves (at least outwardly to patients). It’s good too that I’ve had the same excellent dentist for around … I can’t remember but it must be at least 15 years and maybe more. So we know each other well; I might have been rather more worried if I’d had to encounter someone totally new.

Back in the real world we’re now undoubtedly seeing the second wave of Covid-19 infections. I find this no surprise at all: restrictions have been lifted; the unthinking section of the population thinks it’s all over and have gone back to drinking and socialising; they also all went on holiday to Spain for more drinking and shagging, and to bring back more infections; and now the schools have gone back. Who would have guessed this was going to produce a second spike? Clearly not our apology for a government, who couldn’t find their way out of a wet paper bag – I doubt they could even lie their way out of said wet paper bag, at least not without managing to break the law or piss off everyone as well.

But enough of my ranting. Here are a few things (good and not so good) that have happened since my last report on day 150.

Good Not So Good
  • So far we’ve had half a dozen marrows from our 3 plants. Some have been stuffed and eaten, and a couple used to make chutney.
  • We’ve made 5 or 6 batches of chutney: a couple of apple, red tomato; marrow; plus a small batch of crab apple cheese. (Scroll back a few posts to find my recipes.)
  • The small number of apples on our new (container planted last winter) apple trees are ripening. I picked one a few days ago; it was delicious. Harvest time coming soon.
  • I’ve been doing lots of family history, trying to untangle knots back in the 17th and 18th centuries. That’s taken me down numerous fun rabbit holes, but solved few puzzles.
  • We’ve also had great fun putting together a Christmas quiz for the Anthony Powell Society Newsletter. It’s never all literary and includes lots of general knowledge style questions. And it’s always amusing to see what sneaky questions we can think up, especially as this one will be a competition.
  • I actually quite enjoy trips to the dentist (due to a combination of a really excellent dentist and interesting conversations) but it is a treat I, and my bank balance, could happily forego.
  • We lost all our tomato plants to some sort of fungal/viral pestilence: everything went black, almost overnight. It seems to have happened to a number of people round here this year. Although we’d had some fruit this was very annoying as there was a good crop of super fruit coming along.
  • And then there’s the pestilence which is the Box Tree Moth (they destroyed our two boxes last year); but the other week I had a dark morph in the study – really quite pretty
  • We’ve remained in quarantine; and it seems we will be for the foreseeable future. This is not helping my depression at all; I’ve been especially struggling for the last couple of weeks.
  • Which is why I’m continuing to fail at writing letter (well, emails) to friends an family – some of which I should have done months and months ago. But then I never was a great correspondent.
Box Tree Moth, Dark Morph
Box Tree Moth, Dark Morph; Greenford; 6 September 2020

So what next?

Well I reckon we’ll still be in lockdown at Christmas, by which time the flu season will be in full swing and everyone will be going stir-crazy and morose at the thought of a miserable Christmas. But before that I’ll try to report again on day 250, which will be mid-November and we’ll have a much better clue as to what is actually happening.

Meanwhile, be good and stay safe!