RIP, WTF and other acronyms

When you write a daily blog, you shouldn’t ignore the big/strange things that happen. THE NEWS (with capital letters) will and should creep in. As much as I’d like to write about it being too hot for gingers and how the dog has found the coolest spot in the house, instead I’m going to write about THE NEWS.

Last night, I went to bed fuming. 

“It’s all so unfair!” I told the Long Suffering Husband.

“Oh, have you seen what the CPS have decided to do to tackle the fact that rapists get away with it?”

I hadn’t. 

He explained that the CPS had named their new strategy the Rape Implementation Plan, or RIP for short.

Suddenly, I wasn’t just fuming, I was incandescent. 

I didn’t even have time to mention that I’d looked at Matt Hancock’s Twitter feed (or WTF as I will call it in my head for ever more).

This morning, I woke up grumpy with these bits of news making me irritable.

“You shouldn’t read it, if it’s going to make you grumpy,” the LSH said.

That’s not really a solution because it’s still happened. Anyway, I didn’t read about RIP, he told me.

As usual, I’m confused about the government and how they are handling the pandemic. 

You might have seen it now, because news reporters are all over Twitter and they will have been working hard, all night to get to the bottom of WTF (Matt Hancock’s Twitter Feed).

What happened was that while Leicester were waiting for the promised announcement on whether their lockdown restrictions could be eased, believing they’d been forgotten, Matt Hancock tweeted. In a thread of 4 tweets at 9.30pm he announced that in the morning it would be illegal for people who live in the places mentioned in his photo to meet in other people’s houses or gardens.

How? 

How can government be done like this? It’s just so unfair. Not everyone has twitter. It’s confusing and there is a complete lack of transparency over why this is necessary.

How can something so normal, like going into your parent’s garden be made illegal for some parts of the countries overnight on Twitter?

You still have to go to work but you can’t drop your child off at your parent’s house or the baby sitter.

You can go to the pub and sit at an adjacent table to the person you planned to sit in your garden with but you can’t go with them.

If you live in Leicester can go to a restaurant with someone not in your household if you go to Hinckley or Market Harborough.

It’s illegal for me (from Essex) to go on holiday with someone I don’t live with if I have a cottage in Bingley but it’s fine for two households from Bingley to come to my Essex town for their holiday. 

The message seems to be, if you want a normal life (and who doesn’t?) then go. Move outside your area. Take those bugs and spread them around the country.

I wonder if there is also a little bit of unintentional racism happening too. A fear that all these Muslims will have Eid parties and not social distance. Will the same fear happen before Christmas?

I’m also confused about the data behind it. There have been more cases and the TIT (test isolate trace) system has found that people are confessing that they have seen people in their own homes and that’s how it appears to be spreading. However, these cases appear to be in the under 40s, mild or asymptomatic with no increase in hospital admissions and a decrease in deaths.

I’m quite concerned by the specificity problem of the tests. They are between 95% and 97.5% effective. So that in up to 5% of cases tested they could be finding a similar coronavirus. What if this rise in cases in the North is just a common cold? If you test more people, you’ll get more false positives and no one will believe the virus has gone away, even if it has.

Oh, I really am grumpy about the whole thing.

I think I might get back onto Twitter and look at WTF because it is amusing to see how autocorrect changes the name of the head of TIT : Dido Harding.

Re-rose

Aren’t roses brilliant?

I think it was a song that made me want a rose garden. ‘I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.’ I decided that no one needed to promise me a rose garden. I could have one all by myself but it took years before I gave myself permission to have one.

When I was a child, we had roses and I don’t remember much about where they were or what colour. I do remember the pain of falling from my bike into a rose bush. I was covered in scratches for weeks. Roses make a very particular scratch. Instead of one even line, you get little bobbles of blood down the line.  I  also remember making rose perfume from the petals. We must have stunk! The petals would have been picked, put in a bottle of water, macerated to nearly a pulp and left in the sunshine to infuse for a few days. Then we would strain out the rotting vegetation and rebottle the yellow liquid, which would be dabbed liberally behind knees and ears

The rose  is the flower of the Summer. In garden centres, country houses and on Gardener’s World they flower all summer long. Keep dead-heading, we are warned, and they will flower continuously. In my garden, however, even with deadheading and feeding they take July off. You think they are finished. Instead of the beautiful blooms you just have a prickly bush and let me tell you, no one wants a prickly bush. It coincides with the birdy babies leaving home, which makes me sad.  Aggie is still flashing at me through the window and the sunflowers are busy being tall. The  hydrangeas, salvias, buddlja and lilies  are all coming into their own but I miss the roses.

In our first house I planted a yellow climbing rose called Golden Showers. I didn’t tell anyone its name. I didn’t understand pruning or deadheading and it was a bit of a mess but I loved it. At that time, roses weren’t fashionable. No one planted roses. When we moved I didn’t have any roses. I also didn’t feel at home. It took nearly twenty years before I realised and planted some. I still don’t understand pruning.

This morning, I noticed that Gertrude Jekyll and Emily Bronte have buds on them. I didn’t make the mistake of choosing a rose I couldn’t introduce again. I was quite excited.

“Ooh look,” I said to the robin on the fence, as I put out his meal worms, “We are re-rosing.”

He clicked at me.

“I know it’s not a real word but I like it.”

He kept on clicking. I looked up and saw that Desdamona (who hides behind the apple tree) had one beautiful flower.

“Shall I pick it?” I asked Rob.

He clicked his approval and watched me as I went to get the secateurs.

 

 

I wanted my sister to be called Rosie. This was because of a book I loved. They, however, completely misrepresented me and made her middle name Rose. She has never forgiven me and I have never forgiven them. It was, however, a family middle name on my Dad’s side and my Nan was thrilled. It meant that she could continue the rhyme and game that she had started with her own daughter. It was one of those games where you bounce the child on your knee, drop them between your knees and suddenly snatch them up before they hit the ground. I like to think of it as an early rollercoaster. You probably did it with the ride a cock horse rhyme.

I am telling you all this just in case you are wondering why I was standing in the garden at 6am, in my yoga clothes,  singing to the robin. He was so judgmental about my use of the the word ‘re-rose’ that I sang.

“Desdamona Rose sat on a pin,

Desdamona Rose, rose again.”

The Robin took some mealworms and flew away.

Tall

When I was teaching a little girl how to play the flute I momentarily forgot her surname.
“Don’t help me,” I said, “It will come back. It’s good to make myself remember.”
She, however, couldn’t bear to see an old lady struggling with a faulty brain.
“You just have to think, ‘tall people’. All of us are tall people.”
I was confused because I had lowered the music stand for her but had to concede that her Dad is very tall and sh is probably tall for her age. Her suggestion didn’t really help. If her name had been Longman, Talbert, Highham, Biggens, or even Giantonio, I might have understood but it wasn’t.

Being tall is quite a difficult thing to be, I believe. I can’t speak from personal experience, being known as ‘little Julia’ by my extended family when I was growing up but my Mum was always really conscious of being the tallest in the class. It marked her out as different and made her noticeable, whatever she did. She tried to be good but if there was ever a question she didn’t know it would be written on her face, which protruded above everyone else’s and the most sadistic teachers would then pick her out, so that everyone could laugh at her.

Being tall marked her out as different in other ways too. She was sitting with her Mum, the fearsome Doris and the headteacher of the school she was about to go to. Doris was a tiny Welsh powerhouse. I remember her as short when I was a child: we called her ‘little Nan.’
The headmistress looked at them and said, “She’s very tall. Is your husband tall?”
Doris, unusually, was caught off guard. Ted was not tall, either. Faced with an authority figure, she had no choice but to tell the truth, even though having to admit it was like a knife through the heart.
“Well, No! She’s adopted. My husband and I thought we couldn’t have children.”
What a moment that must have been in a five year old’s life. To find out that your younger sisters, your mum and your dad were not actually yours in such a public place with no opportunity for questions must have been very difficult.
Mum was never cross with Doris, who was always good about being open from then on in but she did blame her tallness.

It turns out that being tall makes you more susceptible to catching COVID-19 too. This information comes from a small epidemiological survey of 2000 patients at Manchester University. These type of studies should always be treated with caution and there is a tendency to leap to assumptions about the mechanisms at work but I am quite looking forward to the government’s next initiatives to incentivise people into being shorter.

Tall things are beautiful but sometimes they just need a bit more support.

This is something I’ve learnt from sunflowers.

Poor Mrs Shapps

Never has our government been exposed to so much scrutiny by the public. In the past they could go around being bumblingly incompetent, making odd decisions and generally acting like fools. If we were lucky a journalist might find out something and if we could be bothered to read it we would know too but mostly that didn’t happen. To be honest, we really weren’t that interested. However, now that there’s a worldwide pandemic, which is threatening to destroy everything about our way of life and possibly even our lives, we are watching their every move.

We can’t quite believe how much like The Thick of It or the House of Cards it actually is. It turns out you can make it up and often it’s very close to the truth.

This week has seen Boris Johnson announce that he lost weight when he was in intensive care and that we should all do the same. He believes that will save us. I can see the logic. He lost 5llbs. He survived. We should lose 5llbs. I’d be surprised if anyone has a period in hospital and comes out heavier than they went in but I’m not the one making the decisions. Being Boris, he has put a figure on it and slapped it onto the side of a bus, so that if we all lose 5llbs it will save the NHS £100 million. It’s not quite the £350 million it’s getting from Brexit but still a big number. Call me a cynic but those few pounds probably aren’t going to make that much difference. If you are overweight it’s probably by stones rather than pounds.

He made this announcement two days before the Chancellor’s BOGOF MacDonalds Monday to Wednesday scheme comes into force. I’m not sure how anyone can lose weight if they are having two  Big Macs for tea three days a week.

This week also saw the government decide that because we have taken so much of the virus to Spain on our holidays causing the cases to rise, people will have to quarantine for two weeks on their return. In an episode straight from the Thick of It, it turns out that Grant Shapps, the transport Secretary was on holiday in Spain with his wife and children. My first thought was that his department really must hate him but it turns out he made the decision and knew it was going to happen before he flew out there. Since then, he flew home, leaving his wife and children there.

If anyone from the government deserved a two week break in Benidorm with the kids it was Grant Shapps. They owed him, after hanging him out to dry in the Press Conference when he wanted to talk about trains but everyone else wanted to know about Cummings trip to Durham.

I think we sometimes forget that politicians are human. Grant Shapps isn’t anything special. He’s not a super being. He’s just a lad from Croxley Green, who went to Manchester Poly and got an HNC in accounting. He obviously came home because he felt the pressure to do what the public think is the ‘right thing’ but it’s Mrs Shapps I feel sorry for.

Poor Mrs Shapps! After 17 weeks of home educating her children she’s now stuck in a hotel in Benidorm with them.
“Why Grant? Why do you have to go back?”
“You don’t understand Belinda. I am the government. I’m needed.”
“I think you deserve a break. They can’t treat you like this. Think of your health.”
“I am, dear. I don’t think I could live with the guilt if I was needed to go into Downing Street and I couldn’t because of my own stupid rules.”
“They are your rules dear. You could just ignore them.”
“O no. That wouldn’t do.”
“Well, I for one, am fed up with all this. I need a break. Do you have any idea what it’s been like for me? There you’ve been, doing your very important work and I’ve been stuck at home with three kids. Have you any idea what it’s like to try to get a 16 year old and 13 year old twins to do their school work, while trying to run an online business? The cleaner couldn’t even come, so I’ve been doing all the housework. You’ve barely lifted a finger at home. I’m shattered!”
“Belinda, Belinda. It’s not real work, is it? Selling a few old clothes on EBay isn’t quite like running the government, is it?”
“I...I don’t believe you just said that!”
“Yes dear. Sorry dear. You are right. You deserve a break. You stay here. I’ll fly back on my own.”

Poor Mrs Shapps. It wasn’t what she hoped for at all. She wanted someone there to tell the kids what to do. She wanted her husband back. All she really wanted was to sit on a sunbed with a novel, ignoring all requests for ice cream, or money to play table football. She wanted him to play tennis in the heat with the kids, while she sipped a gin and tonic. She wanted someone else to cook the tea and to be able to sit on the balcony with her husband and a jug of Sangria while the kids were at the teen disco.

She might as well have stayed at home.

Rainy Days and Mondays

The Carpenters were genius. How could anyone have captured the feeling so perfectly in a song?

It’s the first Monday of the school summer holidays. Yes, you’ve been home schooling for 17 weeks but today is different. There are no school Zoom lessons, or expectations to submit MyMaths or practise spellings. Maybe you’ve taken a UK break and are sitting in a caravan on the North Norfolk coast. You are probably desperate for swimming pools (general splash session) or soft play areas to be open. It’s still not really acceptable to go for a browsing shopping trip. You have to know what you want, don your mask, rush in, discover that what you want is all sold out because everyone has decided to do the thing you thought would be entertaining. The world is a very serious place to be and small children don’t understand. I see you. Although, that is not my reality I can feel the sadness in the air. How dare it be a Monday and a rainy day?

“What I’ve got they used to call the blues. Nothing really wrong. Feel like I don’t belong. Walking around. Some kind of lonely clown. Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.”

Rainy days don’t stop me walking around but today I will feel like some kind of lonely clown. No one else will be out and it will feel like the beginning of lockdown, before people discovered the daily exercise. The park won’t be heaving with picnickers, the sea wall will be empty of parents saying, “Ooh look! Bird!”. The woods will lack snogging teenagers. Shh. It’s Ok teenagers, your secret is safe with me. Yes, I do know your mum but I’ll never say anything.

“Talking to myself and feeling old. Nothing seems to fit. Sometimes I’d like to quit. Hanging around. Nothing to do but frown. Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.”

And here I am, thinking about how difficult it would be to have small children to entertain today, talking to myself and feeling old. After 17 weeks of cake or Joe Wicks nothing will fit and you can’t try anything on in the shops. So, let’s all just give into it. Make it national frown day. Run and find the one who loves you and frown together.

Even the tomatoes have what they used to call the blues

Hamburger Hill

I’m confused about people. Again. You would think that being a person, other people would be easy to understand but here I am again being confused. 

I know nothing. 

, I know a lot of random things but I could be wrong about all of them. If you told me that penguins didn’t actually have knees covered by their copious amount of drooping belly fat I would be surprised and want to see the evidence but I am prepared to be wrong.

 There suddenly seems to be a rise of people who aren’t prepared to be wrong. Whether it’s not understanding Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean your life matters too, JKRowling vs Trans people, whether the empire was great or evil, statues or just whether strawberry flavoured Jaffa Cakes should exist people have decided what they think and are not prepared to consider the possibility that they are wrong.
“This is the hill I’ll die on!” they shout.

Yesterday, on Twitter, that Grimey boy was being horribly anti-Semitic and even when people told him he was wrong he refused to back down. He didn’t even have many of the confirmatory voices that you often get but he just kept going, for hours and hours. He was eventually suspended from the platform for a week but you can imagine him in his bedroom spitting bile about Jews (because everyone who believes that Abraham made a covenant with God is the same, right?) and even when the cat showed him its butt he refused to stop, shouting, “This is the hill I’m prepared to die on.” He’s probably still there now, rocking in a corner.  I would feel sorry for him but I think he’s always been a bit of a twit, not turning up to gigs and generally acting like he’s the most important person on the planet.

All these people shouting about being prepared to die on a hill have confused me because I thought the phrase used to be, “That’s not a hill I’m prepared to die on.” It used to be used by people to admit that they might not be completely sure. That used to be allowed. Once upon a time, in the not too distant past people used to be able to say, “I think Churchill was a great man but it’s not a hill I’m prepared to die on.” Most humans could see that there aren’t two distinct sides, that humans are basically flawed and whilst someone did great things, they might have also done some pretty horrible things  (Boer war concentration camps).

I wondered where the phrase came from in the first place because, let’s face it, not many people actually die on hills.

It’s quite a new idiom and dates back to 1969 and the Vietnam war and a battle that took place on Dong Ap Bia, a mountain, with particularly difficult terrain. The battle was nicknamed the battle of Hamburger Hill by theAmerican soldiers because anyone who fought there was ‘ground up like hamburger meat’. This was a hill you definitely didn’t want to die on.

It worries me that the phrase has shifted. It worries me that people are no longer prepared to be wrong. We can’t know everything. We must be prepared to be wrong and open to learning new things.

I’m desperately trying to learn new things. I’m trying to learn how to teach music without singing or blowing. On a body percussion Zoom training they told us to check out their website.
“Click on the burger,” he told us.
I sat, confused. I didn’t know what the burger was.
They switched their screen to show their computer and the mouse hovered over the three little lines in the corner.

“That’s not a burger!” I shouted at the screen. Luckily, I was muted.

This is the hamburger hill I’m not prepared to die on though. I’m willing to learn. Does everyone call it a burger?

Saturday

It can’t be Saturday again. It was only Saturday yesterday. I did housework and my neighbour even cut their grass.

Some people are beginning to know the day of the week again because they are back at work but in our house with a teacher in school holidays, a retired old man and two people who work weird shifts, we are never quite sure.

Even when you don’t work a Monday to Friday 9-5 a Saturday still feels different. As a child, it was my least favourite day. Sometimes you’d be dragged around the shops, with only a fruit loaf from Cottis’ to cheer you up. Other times it would just be one long stretch of boredom without even the prospect of a Sunday roast, black and white film and bar of Dairy Milk to cheer things up. Saturdays were busy adult days. You might get to help Dad bleed the brakes on the mini (Mini brakes always needed bleeding), or stand and watch the neighbour trim his privet hedge, with its antiseptic smell. You might, if it was raining, be allowed to stay inside but only if you were quiet and didn’t mess up any of the housework that had been done.

As you get older, for some reason, you get nostalgic. There is a tendency to look back and remember only the good things but I think Saturdays have always been the worst day of the week.

Words Matter

I’ve been cross with myself for a while. Someone I know, a woman, said something and I didn’t challenge her on it. It’s been bothering me and I wonder if that makes me complicit. 

We’ve all been there. You know, when you are at a family wedding and Great Aunt Maud mutters something racist and you feel you should explain to her that it’s no longer acceptable to use those words but for the sake of a quiet life or the fact that you are shocked by her choice of language, you say nothing.

This word shock happened as we were discussing how much some children had grown seen we last saw them. This is a favourite topic amongst us old people. When you were a child you could never understand how, whenever you saw your granny, or even more distant relatives, they would coo and say, “My, haven’t you grown!”

It was obvious to you. You were a child. Growing was your job and you couldn’t understand why these elderly grown ups were so obsessed with it. You wanted to say, “My, how you’ve stayed the same!” Or, “My, how you’ve shrunk!” Or, “My, how you’ve wrinkled!” 

However, now I am older I am always surprised how quickly children grow and I realise it’s because time is a funny thing.

Anyway, with lockdown, time has been even weirder. Seventeen weeks have felt simultaneously like a lifetime and no time at all. So, children we haven’t seen have suddenly shot up.

All the old clichés appeared. 

“Looks like he slept in a grow bag!”

“They grow up so fast.”

“Blink and you’ll miss it.”

Then I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. Maybe it’s because it’s Summer and the kids are all in shorts but I suddenly noticed that with pre-teens, it’s their legs that grow first. Suddenly, their legs are six inches longer, before the rest of them catches up.  

“Look how long her legs have got!” I said.

An this person, who I should have challenged but didn’t said, “Hmmm. Jailbait.”

I should have said something. 

I’m cross with myself.

That’s not ok.

Girls should be allowed to grow.

When girls start to mature sexually it’s up to men not to have sex with them. It’s not the girl’s fault for having the audacity to grow long beautiful legs. 

Jailbait is a disgusting term, which implies that men can’t be held responsible for doing something illegal and possibly violent to a girl who has just started to develop into a woman. 

I honestly can’t believe that the woman I was talking to actually believes that the pre-teen with the long legs would have been ‘asking for it’ if she were raped but that is the implication of the word.

I should have said something at the time but now I’ve written it down. Maybe that absolves me from the complicit guilt.

Normal

 

I know I’ve said it before but I think I might be fixed. Trauma based PTSD, related to multiple close griefs doesn’t mean you can’t get back to normal.

It has only taken twenty six and a half months, EMDR therapy, bloody-minded determination, daily yoga, walking my feet off, reading every book on the subject and a world wide pandemic. Now, my emotions are pretty much like yours.

I realised this yesterday as I stood in a field, celebrating the end of primary school with year 6. I was able to wear headphones, listen to music and inspire terrible dancing: YMCA, Superman and Saturday Night, all part of my eighties/nineties disco repertoire. A silent disco is brilliant and I couldn’t have been prouder as I noticed that the singing (although from 3 different songs at a time) was basically in tune.  Later in the evening I was even able to cope with the chattering of teachers celebrating the end of term, socially distanced of course, on the field with pizza and bubbles. Just before I left I was even able to take part in a toilet selfie and I thought, “That’s it! I’m back to normal.”

If your normal is having a distanced water fight with 11 year olds,  a catapult and water balloons, or eating pizza in a field with exhausted people and you are struggling at the moment then I’d just like to say that there is hope.  

Knobbly Knees and a Glamorous Grannies

It’s the beginning of the school holidays and it’s time to think about the annual vacation. This year, it will be different for so many people. With the advent of cheap, pack-you-in-like-sardine flights, the British naturally flocked to places where the sunshine was more reliable. This year, not so many of us are going to be comfortable sitting in a metal tube in the sky, breathing the same recycled air (even if it is through a mask) with another 350 people, so we are back to the good old British holiday.

You could go hop picking in Kent, camping in a soggy field in West Wales, visit your favourite landlady in a seaside B&B to start the day with a full English breakfast, while “Barney, darling,” checks whether you want tea or coffee, or you could find a holiday camp and be entertained to within an inch of your life. The problem with the British Holiday is that it comes at the end of summer. It’s not really designed for vacations but is really time off school to help with the harvest. Despite what you read in the Daily Mail, there aren’t nice little agricultural holidays to be had. Most jobs are done by machines and cheap foreign labour, who live in caravans and work 20 hour days. There might be work if you can drive a tractor or are familiar with the workings of a forage harvester (not the place Nigel gets unlimited salad with his steak).

The Long Suffering Husband is ready for a break. A break from what, I’m not quite sure because we really haven’t done anything for the last 17 weeks but it’s a break he wants nonetheless. 

“Maybe we could rent a deserted shack on a beach no one goes to,” I said hopefully. I really did like lockdown. It suited me not to have to see people. He, however, has missed people and is completely sick of just me and the dog for company. 

He looked at deserted shacks.

“They’re really expensive,” he said. “Over a thousand for 3 days.”

“We should stay home then,” I brightened, “Just think what we could do with that money.”

“Hmmmmmm”

“You don’t think?”

“What about a B&B?” 

He continued to scroll through the pages of his i-pad 

“Oh, you can get some really good deals at Pontins!”

Maybe holiday camps will make a comeback. They knew how to keep you entertained on rainy days. We didn’t go to many as a child being more of the pitch-a-leaky-tent on the edge of a windy cliff kind of people but I do remember one, where we went to a Warner Camp on Hayling Island. I have no idea where Hayling Island is but it was the first time I found a fish egg case on the beach. My sister was in her element, as there were lots of grannies and grandpas to adopt. It was where I first learnt the My Bonnie singing game that I still do with classes now and where I got highly commended in  a fancy dress competition.

 I always felt on the edge of the events. Never quite joining in but always watching and thinking it looked fun. Little did I know how horrific it would be. I really wanted to join in but we hadn’t planned for this event the way others had.

“Why don’t you just enter the knobbly knees competition?” my parents laughed. “You’d win that easily.”

It’s true. It was this morning’s yoga practice where I wobbled around in a low lunge because of my knees that prompted this blog.

I didn’t want everyone staring and laughing at my knobbly knees. 

My parents were, however, very creative. 

I can’t remember exactly what I went as but I wore my swimming costume and they pinned as much litter as they could find to me and hung a sign around my neck.

I think I served as an early environmental campaign.

I remember standing there and watching people snigger. I couldn’t compete with the Princesses and Pirates or book characters with brilliantly hand sewn costumes. However, the organisers could see the creative effort and awarded me a highly commended.

I have never had the desire to enter a fancy dress competition since.

If the LSH gets his way though, who knows, I could end up with a trophy for the most glamorous grandmother (right age even if there are no grandchildren) with knobbly knees.

Beware of the Wildlife

There are some injustices that you never get over. For me, it happened when I was about seven.

It was the beginning of the school holidays and I had been out all day. The days were long and dry. The sun shined but it wasn’t too hot. It was the perfect weather for riding your bike up and down the road, joining a skipping challenge with the neighbours or just enjoying the wildlife. I remember the sounds. The birds had just stopped being manic. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it but there is a day, towards the end of July when the birds just relax. I guess their babies have left home and they don’t have to do all that sex stuff until next year.

That year I was obsessed with counting the spots on ladybirds. When we grow up we stop noticing the little things but when you are seven the realisation that even creatures as small as ladybirds are unique is quite something. I had a notebook and was keeping count of all the different ladybirds I saw. My favourites were the two spotted ladybirds, who  would whisper gentle things into the breeze. The yellow ladybirds, always with 22 spots were much louder. They shouted into the air, “Wheee!” they said as they launched themselves towards the runner beans. Our beans were always covered in black fly, so I understand why they were so excited but still, there was no need for all that noise. If only they were more dignified, like the two-spots.

The most frequent visitor, though, was the seven spotted ladybird. My seven-spot page had the most tally marks. Normally, these ladybirds were ok. Not as gentle as the two-spots but usually happy enough. However, on this day a strange thing happened.

Seven spot

A seven spot landed on my hand. It sat there for a few moments and I listened.
“Oh, you poor thing,” I said to it, “Have you flown a very long way? You must be very tired.”
Then it bit me!
I know!
It bit me!
I couldn’t believe it. I rushed inside, crying real tears of pain.
When I calmed down my mum tried to find out what had happened.
“A..a....a....l....l...lady....a ladybird.....a... a...ladybird bit me!” I said between sobs, holding my hand and pointing to the little red itchy bump that was evidence.
She laughed. Proper guffawing belly laughs.
She laughed so much that tears rolled down her cheeks.
When my Dad got in, she told him and he laughed too.
“Don’t be silly,” they both said, “ladybirds don’t bite.”

I have never quite recovered from that moment. Even when my mum apologised towards the end of the summer. It was on the news that there had been a plague of seven spotted ladybirds, brought in by new cereal crops and with the dry summer some had started to bite people.

I was reminded of this story because yesterday I was walking down the path towards Morrison’s and a little green bug landed on my hand.
“Hello!” I said to it, “How are you? What are you? You poor thing, have you flown a very long way? you must be very tired.”
Then it bit me.
“Not again,” I thought but this time I decided not to tell anyone and I was very brave for my age and didn’t cry at all.

Green bug bite

Socially Distant Hug

The socially distant hug is the thing I’m here for. At last, a way to show you care about someone from 2 meters away without touching. Perfect! I’m quite excited by it. Except that’s not what people mean.

Not me but how I feel if someone tries to hug me

We live in a very public world. Some of that is of our own making. We take photos and upload them to social media platforms, blog or vlog. If you are already known then people will take photos of you and upload them. This creates more judgement than would normally happen.

If you were on a zoom call with your mates with your wife and new baby and thought you looked cute, took a picture and uploaded it to Twitter then everyone could comment that the baby looked too big or that you didn’t look like a properly attentive father. People might suggest that the photo was doctored in some way because you couldn’t possibly be that happy.

If you went out for a Sunday morning stroll without a dog, wearing a shirt you hadn’t buttoned up properly, baggy trousers, trainers and a floppy hat with a large stick and tennis balls in your pocket then someone would take a photo and wonder if you were off for an eye test.

Dominic Cummings

As if these weird times aren’t hard enough, our every movement is being judged. And, again, those judgements split into two. You’re a masker or an anti-masker, you are left or right, you believe in a second wave or think it’s all a plot to control you. There doesn’t seem to be any room for the middle ground, where, if we weren’t so busy judging each other, we would realise that most of live.

This has lead to the rise of a new saying. It might even be a hashtag. #SociallyDistantOfCourse. This is where people do things that they think might be breaking the rules (although they’re not sure because the opticians are too busy to properly get an eye test) and say, “socially distant, of course,” to make themselves feel better.
“You can do anything you want now, so long as you say ‘socially distant, of course’” said the man in the cemetery to someone who was also grieving.
She looked at him, her eyes filled with tears and she mouthed the word hug.
It would have been cruel not to so he wrapped her in his huge arms and said, “Socially distant hug!”

Too Many Flutes

I’m feeling quite disturbed this morning. I had one of those dreams that feels too real to be absolutely certain it didn’t happen.

It was 6.06 am and my phone rang.
“Hello, hello,” the voice on the other end said.
“Boris?” I replied.
“Yes, yes,” the voice said back, “you sound surprised.”
“Well, you don’t expect a call from the Prime Minister. Ever. And certainly not on a Sunday morning at 6am.”
“Oh, that. Baby. Awake. Carrie feeding. Lots of crying. You know the sort of thing.”
“I do but why ring me?”
“Yes, yes. Right. The reason for my call. You had a question?”
“Did I?”
“Normal business. Back to business. Normal by Christmas. Orchestras. Christmas Carols. Is it worth carrying on with the arrangement of One More Sleep til Christmas? What are you going to tell the church?”
“Oh that! Well?”
“Research. You know. Waiting for research. Too many flutes.”
Then he put the phone down.

Whether it was real or a dream it wasn’t very helpful. Life can’t get back to normal until we can have our Friday evening rehearsals.

Piffle piffle Christmas

Boris announced that we were going to have a normal Christmas.

This makes me feel uncomfortable. It feels like he might have jinxed it. Don’t mention the C word in July. I know he’s trying to give us hope. I know that nobody actually knows what is going to happen. But the C word in July!

There were people that treated the Easter lockdown like Christmas, putting up trees, eating chocolate for breakfast, doing jigsaw puzzles and drinking their way through the old bottles of booze they brought back from Spain twenty years ago. That made me uncomfortable then. Most of my reservation came because they thought lockdown was only going to be two weeks but I was also fearful of some mercurial idea that I have that mentioning Christmas too soon will anger the festive gods.

Now I’ve written a whole blog about the C word. Piffle!

Rule Breaking Guilt

I haven’t written for a couple of days.

The reason is that I don’t want to tell you that I’ve been breaking the rules. Actually, I’m not sure if I am breaking the rules. I could just be applying common sense. 

I think I’m quite on top of what we are being asked to do. The radio is on in the kitchen, filled with mutterings from Parliament. A news journalist sits at my dining room table, trying to make sense of everything, while trying to pretend her job isn’t at risk of redundancy. However, I’m still not sure and I find that difficult.

It’s the constant anxiety of not knowing if you are doing something wrong that I find hard. I don’t have a problem with breaking rules if I’ve decided that they are silly and don’t apply to me (I’m a bit like Dominic Cummings in that respect) but I do hate the idea of being caught out accidentally doing something wrong. The idea that I could accidentally kill loads of people because I didn’t really understand is hard for me. I hate the idea that someone could be resentful because they had interpreted the rules in a different way to me. I don’t think the government are ever going to tell us that we can hug our loved ones.

So, I’ve started teaching again. Individual flute lessons, socially distanced, in a well ventilated room, with a gap between each pupil for cleaning appears to be within the rules. Although, maybe it’s not because a flute is a wind instrument but we should work if we can, also there’s no financial support for this part of my income because I have another job. At some point you have to try to get back to normal.

The dog did miss flute teaching

We also had a visitor. This is allowed. You are allowed to have people in your house now. My daughter’s friend was struggling with childcare, so her little girl came to visit for the day. We had a great day. We made a papier-mâché pig, covered everything in glitter (including the dog), walked to town to demand a ‘Spikey Mikey” from Greggs (luckily she is a loyal customer and the staff in the shop are lovely and know what their regulars mean), watched Monsters Inc and tried not to cry, replanted the fairy garden (with more glitter), sang some songs, stuck stickers in a book and made biscuits in the shape of the dog. There’s nothing wrong with any of this except how do you keep a four year old safe from a distance of 2 meters?

The Long Suffering Husband had wistfully talked about having a holiday for a while, so we planned a day out. It felt like a holiday. We went to Finchingfield with its windmill, thatched cottages and surfeit of tea rooms and then on to Ely to see the cathedral, river and Oliver Cromwell’s house. We had lunch in a pub garden. We gave our contact details to the staff and she explained their rules making sure to point out the hand sanitiser.

“You do have a bathroom, so that I can wash my hands properly?” I asked. I feel it’s important to check.

It was a lovely day. It felt like a break. However, as walked around without a mask (we didn’t go into any shops) I still had a nagging doubt that I wasn’t following all the rules.

Grump

I don’t know what to write.

All I can think about is face masks and I don’t want to think about them. The government caved. They bowed to public pressure. Face masks are now compulsory.

For clarity, they’re not compulsory yet.

• In 10 days time you will have to wear a mask in a shop
• You won’t have to wear one in a pub
• You will have to wear one on public transport
• You won’t have to wear one if you are the bus driver in glasses
• It’s not compulsory now so that you have time to go into a shop without a mask to buy a mask
• The ONS infection rate survey said that the virus was prevalent in 0.27% of the population on May 14th and 0.00025% on the 9th of July and is falling all the time but we are going to wait until July 24th.
• The government hasn’t decided when (or at what level of infection rate) we will be able to stop wearing masks.
• If you don’t wear a mask in a shop the shop can’t enforce it.
• The police, however, can fine you £100
• Your friends and neighbours will turn on you if you leave your house without a mask.
• It is your fault if anyone dies - ever.
• Take some personal responsibility won’t you. Don’t be selfish.
• Don’t worry about how deaf people are going to negotiate the world.
• Don’t worry that cancers are going undiagnosed
• Don’t worry that post natal depression is on the rise because isolated new mothers can’t cope
• Don’t worry about domestic violence
• Don’t worry about any of the other things that are wrong with society.

This is not what I wanted to write about and now I’m grumpy with my brain for being obsessed with trying to understand inconsistencies.

I wonder if I could get one of those magic masks, like Jim Carey had in the film The Mask. A mask I could put on that would totally change my personality. I could suddenly become someone who only cares about coronavirus and stop worrying about inconsistent messaging.

Check, Change, Go and Pigeons

I notice that we have a new three word motto this morning.

Check, change go. These three words aren’t about the government’s position on coronavirus (and I’m sure someone has doctored the above picture) but supposedly about leaving the EU because if 2020 wasn’t difficult enough, we properly leave the EU at the end of the year.

It’s always good to check your change before you leave. I would highly recommend it, especially if you are not very good with numbers.

This government isn’t great at numbers. My evidence is this chart that I spent ages looking at before I asked my mathematically brained son to explain it.

“Oh no, not good. Someone has tried to correct a previous error but then...maybe they’ve copied that figure in there...no...the change of 480 on two consecutive days is suspicious..no...they’ve mucked that up.”

This is a fairly accurate description of what he said, except that he is 22 and words like mucked probably started with an f.

We had a very shocking death figure of 148 reported on Saturday, which was back to 22 on Sunday. It seems as though there was no second wave, only a problem of not checking the change. Most of those deaths were from weeks before that hadn’t been reported. 

It is very hard to trust a government who can’t get simple numbers right.

Now that the government have decided Coronavirus isn’t very important and have turned their attention to the economy, chlorinated chicken and Brexit I have to warn you of something.

It’s the secret service pigeons. They’ve finally lost it. It’s all too much for them. They’ve been there, sitting on statues, listening in, trying to keep a track on us but it’s all getting too much. There’s nothing they can do. The Brexit talks are too much. I want you to take care because staging a ‘coo’ or shitting on it is no longer working and so we have a bunch of suicidal pigeons. They are flying into car windscreens, tangling themselves in nets and jumping from tall buildings without flapping their wings. There are pigeons literally falling from the sky. 

This happened to the secret service pigeons in Moscow in 2016.  They weren’t happy with all the meddling in other country’s affairs and had suddenly lost the will to live. Zombie pigeons were a huge problem, as they fell on small children in parks. 

If you think this year couldn’t  get any weirder then let’s just hope the pigeons get over their disappointment and don’t go full Zombie. The pigeons have checked, tried to change and the only option is to go.

More on Masks

What is going on with masks?

Someone started a war. A mask is the new religion. You are with us or against us, pick a side, show your allegiance.

It’s playing out on social media, there are two sides and the mask wearers on the good side. People who don’t wear them are stupid and selfish. They are the people who voted for Brexit, the ‘Karen’s’, the idiots. There are videos of angry, middle aged, flabby women shouting at shop staff who won’t serve them and everyone comments. Only a little of the clip is shown, the bit where they have finally lost it and look like a ranting demon. We never know what was said before. The video goes viral, the person loses their job and everyone hates them. They are judged, tried and popped in the bin marked ‘loonies’, waiting execution. Anyone who questions the validity or efficacy of face mask wearing is assigned to the same bin.

A very rigid thought pattern has developed around the issue. It’s been quick too. Only yesterday politicians preferred not to wear them and today even Donald Trump (who probably had enough power to decide for himself) is pictured with his security guards looking like something out of a Quentin Tarintino film.

Everyone is treating this picture as though it’s the moment Trump wins the next election, or maybe found a cure for every disease in the world.

I hate how scared this issue is making me feel. I’m sure someone will tell me I’m being over sensitive  but it just feels that at any moment the non-mask wearers could be rounded up and removed from society.

I’m scared to write here that I would prefer not to wear a mask. I’m not enough of a fighter to ever stand up for that choice and if it became compulsory I would either wear one, or avoid the places where wearing it is compulsory. I wish I wasn’t claustrophobic. I wish I could cover my face and nose without an uncontrollable panic rising in my chest, tears pricking at my eyes, a lump in my throat, which eventually leads to a ringing sensation in my ears that causes everything real to fall away and running is the only option but it does, so I expect my world will have to become more limited.

I have a walkers cotton snood that I have put in my handbag just in case anyone does ask me to wear a mask. It feels slightly less claustrophobic which probably means it’s not effective but at the moment we are only being advised to cover our mouth and nose in enclosed spaces.

I was very glad I had it with me yesterday. I received a phone call to say that I could collect my contact lenses. When I got there the lady was standing at the door talking to someone, so I stayed back. When they left she looked at me quizzically.
“I’ve come to collect my contact lenses,” I said.
She looked at me darkly, so I added.
“I had a phone call.”
“Do you have a mask?” She snapped, continuing before I could answer. “I can’t let you in unless you have a mask. I’m really sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all.
“I have a face covering,” I said, “But I don’t need to come in, you could just hand them to me. They’re paid for.”
That got me in and she kept apologising for the rules. They are the rules. Rules are rules. It’s the new normal. I felt on edge as she kept looking a my snood as though it wasn’t the right kind of face covering.
“Oh, you pay by standing order,” she said.
“Yes, you just need me to squiggle,” I said in my best cheerful sing song voice.
“Oh no. We won’t do that. I’ll just write on it. We can’t have you touching any pens or anything!”
I thought about telling her that I had my own pen but instead I just smiled. Unfortunately she couldn’t see it because it was covered by my snood.

I can see how some people would get angry in that situation, however she was just scared and following ‘rules’ to keep people safe. I get that but I really want the old normal back. The normal where we ignored the risks to our lives. It wasn’t perfect but I knew how to navigate it.

Popular Mask

I’m confused. Again. I know, it doesn’t take a lot but the mask debate is confusing me.

Scientists are split about whether asking the public to wear masks is a good idea or not. Up until now the government has gone down the line of thinking that, on balance, they aren’t that helpful. We can’t actually know if they were right. If only we could go back in time and instead of locking down just make everyone wear a face mask. However, we can’t. We won’t actually know. We can’t even effectively compare with countries that have a higher incidence of face mask wearing because there are other factors at play. Some studies have shown that effective face mask wearing reduces the risk of catching flu by up to 8% and that countries like Japan with a high compliance for mask wearing have seen a small reduction in their annual flu deaths.

It seems odd to me that the government have chosen now to change their mind.

Now, when that 0.03% of the population has the virus and the incidence is consistently going down, despite people being in greater social contact, is the moment they’ve chosen to decide that face masks are a good idea. I’m confused. If, after a weekend of shopping and pubbing (I know it’s not a real word but I like it) the cases in the community had gone up then I could see the value. Rather than lock down again, just stop people breathing on each other. However, that hasn’t happened.

What did happen was that a lot of people on Twitter shared pictures of politicians not wearing face masks and said that it was disgraceful. They were disgusted that Rishi served men who were eating out to help out without a face mask. Boris was seen in a factory, not even one metre apart from people without a mask. Instagram influencers and vloggers with pretty eyes shared pictures and videos of them wearing their gorgeous homemade masks and suggested that anyone who didn’t look as attractive as them were selfish. There was a subtle shift in public attitude.

So now Boris is seen in a mask. We are to wear one, not only on public transport (unless you are a glasses wearing bus driver because then everyone would be less safe) but in shops. Not in bars or restaurants because then you couldn’t shove the food and drink into your gob.

I went shopping yesterday. I’ve worn out my shoes. There’s no surprise there but I have silly skinny feet and really need to try shoes on. For me, it was an awful experience and so I can see that online shopping will suddenly become attractive. There is confusion about the rules, you constantly feel as though you are doing something wrong and every shop smells like a hospital. I’ve told my brain it doesn’t need to run away but it won’t listen. Smells are powerful things.It’s difficult to hear the staff who are behind screens, masks and visors. You have to go around shops in the specified direction so that you can’t just pop to the shoe section. If you add mask wearing into that mix, I suspect it really will be the death of the High Street, as anyone who hates the idea of being seen as selfish but struggles with a mask, for whatever reason (and there are many) will just stay at home and only order online, if absolutely necessary.

I’m sure there will be people who read this blog who won’t understand why I’m confused but it just doesn’t seem logical to me.

Culture Vulture

“Your favourite programme is back!” the Long Suffering Husband shouted down the stairs.
He had been indulging in a spot of his guilty pleasure - watching 4 in a bed.
“Briefing at 5. Olivier Dowden. Gyms,” my daughter shouted from her four screen pretend office in the dining room, which I would like back but not if it means she loses her job in the major redundancies that the Mirror group are making at the moment. (12% is a lot of workforce to lose and it’s hard not to be worried)
“Did you say gin?” I shouted back.
One day our family will be in the same room for conversations.

I switched on the TV and there was Oliver Dowden, blinking into the camera like a naked mole rat. He was alone. No scientists. No comforting data, graphs and charts to give us confidence that it is now safe. Oliver Dowden is the digital, media, culture and sport secretary and it was his job to announce the exciting news that his wife can now get her nails done and head back to the gym with her Lycra-clad buddies for body-pump with Darren. As the culture secretary he thought he better mention the arts, so he said that they would be doing some research on singing and wind instruments and announced that outside theatre will be possible, “so, you can go to Glyndebourne!”

“You are meant to be the culture secretary you *inserts a barrage of the worst swear words you can imagine* idiot!” I shouted at the TV.

I’m not an expert but I really don’t think we can go to Glyndebourne, in the sense that he means.

Glyndebourne is a big country house near Lewes in Sussex that hosts an annual opera festival. It’s expensive, top quality and the place to be seen if you want to pretend to support the arts. You can still go for a garden tour, maybe take your smoked salmon and champagne packed by Jeeves into your Harrods picnic basket but but you will not be seeing the opera this year.

1. The theatre is indoors.
2. It’s impossible for the singers/actors in an opera to be socially distanced.
3. The live orchestra (with wind and brass players) sit in a cramped space under the stage.
4. They haven’t had any rehearsal time (together)
5. The festival is cancelled.

I’m not saying that everyone should have known this but mole-rat Dowden is the Culture Secretary!

Rishi’s Strong Feminist Message

I notice that we’ve started to call politicians by their first name only. People were worried about calling the Prime Minister Boris because it made him sound too loveable. Your favourite  old saggy teddy or the family golden retriever, who sits in the corner being blamed for all the smells is called Boris. They’re pretty useless but you love them nonetheless. Now it’s the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Rishi, with the trim two tone suits, shiny shoes, who brings his own lunch to work in a Tupperware box and has an expensive coffee holder. Rishi, who found the magic money tree and sends out his strong feminist message with a completely straight face.

I listened to his speech yesterday on the radio. I was in the kitchen making biscuits. I was impressed.
“That’s clever!” I said to the cookie dough, as he announced the bonus for not sacking furloughed workers until January. It might work. If the virus is not a problem and we have gone back to the old normal then it could save the economy. Obviously, it’s risky because if there is a second winter wave then we’re all scuppered but you have to be impressed with a conservative government putting in place such a socialist package of measures.

Then he announced his plan to get the restaurant economy going again. Personally, I think it’s only confidence people need to go and eat in restaurants again, which is a hard message to get across when it’s not safe to sing or hug your friends but you can’t blame them for trying.

I confess, I have a filthy mind. I am Queen of Innuendo Bingo. When the Eurovision strap line a few years ago was ‘Come Together’ I chuckled all the way through. When Graham Norton said, “Welcome to Eurovision where we are all going to come together,” I snorted my drink out through my nose before he said, “Hmmm. I’d have liked to have been in the meeting where they signed that off.” Bake Off is one of the best programmes to watch for innuendo bingo but I wasn’t expecting to play it while listening to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s speech from the House of Commons.
“I’m announcing eat out to help out,” he said
“Oh no. You haven’t....oh my....you have.....you did....oh gosh....” I shouted at the radio.
I like to think that a disgruntled civil servant suggested it as a joke, maybe the same one that tweeted after Dominic Cummings infamous eye-test. Still, it’s a strong feminist message.

I remember when I first came across this feminist message. I was reading The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr. This book is set in 1960s England, where Mummy and Sophie are stuck at home learning how to do ‘female things’. The tiger comes to tea and eats all the food in the house and so there is no dinner on the table when Daddy gets home from his important job in the office. We were expected to feel the peril. There was a culture at the time where a man could reasonably beat his wife for being so neglectful in her duties. However, Daddy was a nice man and decided to eat out to help out and they went to a cafe for sausages.

History has its eyes on you

There’s a great song in Hamilton called History has its eyes on you. It’s a warning song from a father to a son but it’s also so much more. The earworm part of the song says, “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story.”

I have always been fascinated with this. History just doesn’t have its eyes on most of us. Whether we are remembered will depend, very much, on who lives, who dies, who tells your story. Alexander Hamilton was one of the founding fathers that isn’t remembered as much as the others. Until the musical you had probably heard of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. If you listened carefully to the musical you now not only know about Hamilton you might also know about James Madison, who even though he was the 4th President, seems to have missed entering into British memory but even Lin Manuel Miranda wasn’t interested in telling John Jay’s story.

When my children were small we liked to take them to historic properties. We would stand in ruined castles and my daughter would claim to get, “the history feeling,” which she described as a tingling of the hairs on the back of her neck, as the echoes of stories that made history buzzed around the empty building. She would always wonder what it would be like to live through a period of historical significance.
“Would you know?” she asked.

We certainly know that we are living through something now but we have no idea of how this history will be written.

It depend on who lives, who dies and most importantly who tells our story. The odd thing is that for most of us, no one will.

Oh No it’s not

Well, that cultural rescue package went down well.

Enough money to save the ‘crown jewels’ (which I think means the places like the Royal Opera House, National Gallery, etc) and the provincial theatres and galleries, so that even if you can’t get to London, you will still be able to watch a panto.

Obviously it’s not enough. Thousands of people will still lose their jobs and a lot of culture will die (or reinvent itself) but it’s something and anyway that’s not what people are cross about.

Oh yes it it.

Oh, no it’s not. Surprisingly, they are just furious about Panto, Hamilton and lefty liberals who deserve nothing from a government they’ll never vote for.

I understand that the last point but even if people won’t vote for you, they might still be a large part of the economy. Remember there is a whole government department dedicated to culture. I think it contributes 11% of GDP. They had to do something, even if they were reluctant.

Hamilton has triggered the usual suspects. How dare you have a slave trader played by a black man? Personally, it’s those aspects of theatre I love - the fact that it can challenge you to think in a different way. Nothing has to be real. A story can help you explore so much more.

Then there’s Panto. Wow! Slap my thigh! Who knew this particular form of theatre could get people so cross?

It’s got everything we need to get us through these difficult times: singing, dancing, jokes, cross dressing. One of the best things I’ve ever done in my life is Panto. I did 5 of them and wrote 4 (one is still in the drawer because teacher workload became too much) to raise funds for the school. The teachers and parents acted, the children danced, the PTA sold sweets to the rest of the school who booed and hissed and invested everything in the triumph of good over evil. Being evil, in the style of Ann Robinson, while my Dad was in hospital having another heart attack was one of the most therapeutic things I’ve ever done. Fighting giants has reminded me that I can be brave, even in my lowest moments.

Making sure I had 5 ticks per page as I re-read my scripts and ticked every possible chuckle or groan, reminded me of how important laughter is.

What we really need now is Panto. We need to be able to have Corona Eileen as the villain to be bested.

I was going to write about how important Panto was to saving the economy but you’ll have to excuse me because I’ve got an idea. I’m sure this is going to be the best way to spend the rest of my day.

Oh no it’s not.

Hopeful Doo doos

Today, the YouTube algorithm chose an ‘anchor in hope’ yoga practice. Again, there are no coincidences. I really need hope.

I spent last weekend unable to get the doo doos right. I re-wrote the words to Pachabel’s canon for the year 6 leaver’s song. No. I didn’t. I rewrote the words to Maroon 5 song Memories but like many songs it’s so similar that when I tried to record it for them to learn the doo doos all came out as Pachabel. On a Zoom call (other platforms are available) with a bubble (aka class) they said that they were having trouble with the doo doos. They smiled as they said it.
“That’s ok. My doo doos are different. You should make your doo doos like the original doo doos,” I told them and we all smiled. It’s important never to take yourself too seriously.

It was a load of hard doo doo though. Normally, I would have been able to work with them on the new lyrics. They would have learnt something. We could have watched the video that shows how many songs are based on Pachabel’s Canon and we could have turned the doo doos into a tune that reflected the memories of our school even more. Instead, I was stuck at home, pacing the living room, trying to get into the mind of an 11 year old and trying to replicate Maroon 5’s doo doos.

The DfE guidelines for schools in September also came out, which won’t make for easy music lessons and won’t allow for choir or band to happen. I’m not panicking about it yet because the numbers are still going down despite all the relaxation in restrictions, so I’m thinking that by September (or maybe October) everything will be back to normal. However, I’m lying and I am panicking and can’t help thinking that if a school ant have these things then what is the point of me. This is why I needed today’s yoga practice.

As the pubs opened this weekend I watched a drunk girl squealing with delight and pretending to struggle enough to lose a show as she was passed over the shoulders of at least eight burley men and two lads holding onto each other for dear life as they walked to “Caroline’s house for a piss” *insert little song about how that word can mean two things.* I’m determined to be hopeful that these things won’t matter and will just go to prove that the things I can do aren’t dangerous after all.

The musical theatre people that I follow on social media are even more worried than I am. They can see the imminent death of their industry and while they are grateful for it I’m not sure they think Rishi Sunak’s announcement of a  £1.57 billion bail out package is going to be enough to save all the grassroots theatres where the development happens. This ‘world beating’ amount pales into insignificance when this sector of the economy generates £10.8b a year, and provides 363700 jobs, raising more in taxation. When you compare this world beating figure to France’s £7 billion, it feels less.

Watching the mic drop on our homemade big screen

Over the weekend, like many other people, we watched Hamilton and now have different doo doo stuck in our head. You are meant to cry. It’s a sad story but you’re not meant to sob, “What if we can never sit in a theatre and experience the full emotion of this ever again? What if 1500 people can never be encouraged by a foppish King to sing, ‘doo doo doo do, doo do doo do doo do doo do doo doo doo doo doo do,’ all together ever again?”

I really needed the yoga this morning. I’m hoping for more doo doos.

Gestures

I don’t really have anything to write about today. I had a great day yesterday: a couple of walks, one with a camera and one with a friend, a book (Three Women), chips and Frozen 2 on our homemade big screen. (my brain at 3am is Olaf.)  People who liked going to the pub went and I’m sure it all got a bit wild and non-socially distanced but that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Alcohol makes you hug strangers (that’s its superpower) And the lowest death figures of just 44 were reported.

However, at 3am, my Olaf brain woke me up.
Water has memory, wombat poop is rectangular and Boris Johnson doesn’t do gestures.
How can anyone say they don’t do gestures?
He seems to gesticulate more than most.
What was the 4th of July Independence Pub Opening Day, if it wasn’t a gesture?
Why was Downing Street bathed in blue light, if it wasn’t a gesture?
What was all that giving carers the clap about, if it wasn’t a gesture?
What were the pushups for the Daily Mail?
The Brexit Bulldozer?
The zip wire?”
The tim tams?
The painted aeroplane tail?

But kneeling down because you’d like people in authority to treat people with dark skin the same way as they treat people with light skin and not kill them is the one gesture he doesn’t believe in?
The implication then, is that it’s the message he doesn’t agree with.

To be honest, if I was him, I’m not sure I’d want to get down on one knee. It’s not a very dignified position. It puts you at a disadvantage (which I’m sure is the point) and would make most men in their fifties fear they’d never get up again. I’m not sure police officers on duty should ‘take the knee’ because it would make them less effective at their job. They are much less likely to be able to protect people from that position. Maybe, he would be better off having a conversation about the gesture, rather than saying he doesn’t believe in gestures. It’s time to stop judging people by the colour of their skin and judge them by their actions. The world is not binary. It’s not them vs us. People come in many shades of skin and behaviour.

I have a good gesture in response to his suggestion that he doesn’t do gestures.

       

Compassionate Independent Drinking

I’m late to my blog this morning because the YouTube algorithm chose a really long yoga workout that was about fostering compassion. There are no coincidences. I needed to be more compassionate

It’s the government’s chosen Independence Day. Our government is all about the messaging, with its three word phrases and easily quotable lines that seem like common sense until you actually try to make sense of them. They really wanted this 4th of July to be our Independence from the virus day. Pubs open, shops open, spend, spend spend.
The virus had other ideas. It liked Leicester. It was almost enough to make it forget the horrible Dominic Cummings experience. It had Walkers crisps, Foxes glacier mints, Melton Mowbray pork pies and multi-generational households filled with love. Instead of going away it had found a reason to stay.
This was a bit of a problem for the government, who don’t like to back down, so they ploughed ahead to opening everything. Not everything if you like music, theatre, cricket, less bushy eyebrows, swimming or hugging your family but everything that matters like haircuts, holidays to Croatia and pubs.
Poor Chris Whitty looked like he was going to be sick again as Boris gave the impression he had been on the lash since early morning while announcing that pubs could open from 6am.
“Combined with contract taste..er..contact tasting..er..testing..tracing..forgive me contact..contract..contact tracing....”

I always thought that picking a Saturday to reopen pubs after such a long time was a silly idea. Exhausted A&E staff must be really looking forward to a ‘normal’ Saturday night shift. However, I’m not going to judge people who want to go to the pub.

My social media feed this morning was like a branch of the temperance society. People were rushing to outdo each other, supposedly taking the moral high ground over someone who had been fixing roads all night and wanted to pop to Spoons for a full English and a pint at 6am.  Even Samuel Pepys was at it.
“The taverns are full of gadabouts making Merry this eve. And though I may press my face against the window like an Urchin at a confectioner’s. I am tempted not by the sweetmeats within. A dram in exchange for the pox is an ill bargain indeed. diary S. Pepys. Great Plague of 1665.”
Clearly, this is a fake because Pepys loved a good early morning drink at the sign of a woman with cakes in one hand and a pot of ale in the other (I like to think this Holloway pub was called The Bread n Bitter). 1665 also wasn’t a country-wide lockdown. The rich moved out of London, leaving the poor to die on the streets. People who stayed were confined to their homes to die or recover without help and a red cross was placed on the door once one person in the family had symptoms. There were 68596 officially recorded deaths from the Plague in London in 1665.

I know people are scared and time might tell us that this was a mistake (or it might not) but people who own these business and the people who frequent them are just doing their best to get back to a normal life.

Barge Tearooms getting Insta ready 

I hope you have a happy compassionate Independence Day. I’m going to read and go for a walk because I’m hoping for normality too.

Dove tails

How long does it take before your finally start something you really don’t want to do?

There must be things you keep thinking, “I must do that!” that always get pushed to the bottom of the list. Maybe there’s a drawer that’s always a bit cluttered that whenever you open it you think, “When I’ve got more time I’ll get that properly organised,” or there might be a button you’ve been meaning to sew on that you never quite have time for, so that outfit never gets worn again. I’m not talking about the big things, like writing your first novel or inventing a face mask that doesn’t steam up glasses but I can now confirm that it takes about fourteen weeks to get around to the bottom of the list.

There is a job that I’ve been putting off. I did start it ages ago but decided that it wasn’t something I wanted to do after all. I inherited my Dad’s Mac and as my laptop is on its last, tired but loyal legs I thought it would be worth cleaning up and using. I did half a job and started to use it before deciding that I didn’t like the keyboard (too small) or the apps it runs. I started to think about cleaning it up, to sell but that was a job that always seemed to be at the bottom of my list.

To be fair, 14 weeks probably wouldn’t be long enough if I hadn’t found another reason to do the job. I’m going to try to learn how to edit music. If I can’t do live music anymore then it might be time to get into technology. Apparently, this is what Macs are good for.

Yesterday, I started to delete things to free up space, to get the thing running as well as it can and to make sure everything was as up to date as it could be. You’d be surprised what you can learn about your parent by looking at their computer.

My Dad had great taste in music and was nothing if not thorough.

I’ve already been through the music so decided to start on the photos and while I say he was thorough I can’t say he was organised. His photos are not in neatly labelled folders. I didn’t want to just delete them all because I might have found a gem of a picture of great Aunt Mabel that I hadn’t seen in years. So, I’ve been looking through every picture.

My parents were a two-shed couple. They said it was the secret to a long and happy retirement. Dad used his for woodworking projects and Mum’s was a printer’s art studio. What I didn’t realise was that he took a photo of every part of every project he ever made. Yes, I do mean, every part. I deleted, holes, joints, drill bits, apple crushers, marble machines, chair legs, candlesticks and light pulls. There were pictures of every hole that every drill bit could make. Every type of joint was photographed from every angle in every item he made. There were butt joints, mortise and tenon joints, hinge joints, biscuit joints, finger joints and dovetail joints. I deleted 450 pictures labelled dovetail and there wasn’t a picture of a bird in sight.

The photo I was hoping for.