Blog 41. And yet another three weeks to go…

Spring has come to England.  I cannot comment on Scotland or the rest of the UK.  After two days of rain, which has brought up the garden beautifully, we have returned to lovely sunshine and mild temperatures.  It is cool in the shade, but pleasant out of it.  The weather has been somewhat fickle.  Before Climate Change was invented (as the cause of everything bad in the world) we just moaned about the British weather and it was a national characteristic.  We really did have continual rain from October to March in Melbury, with the earth saturated, the crops rotting in the ground and Jane’s wellington boot stuck in that farmyard three miles away.  Then along came CV19, the sun came out every day, and we all were locked in.  There is a certain irony there.  Finally, about three days ago, with the earth as hard as iron and cracks in the garden like the aftermath of an earthquake, the temperature plummeted and down came the rain.  It is so much easier on the conscience to be stuck indoors when it is raining; you don’t feel duty-bound to be out there in the fresh air, and the noise of rain on the roof when you are warm and dry is most satisfying.

As I write, sitting outside on the patio in the shade, Jane is pottering around her beloved garden doing this and that. Her chlamydia is doing wonderfully after the rain and the forget-me-not is spreading like a blue rash. See how my horticultural knowledge is improving under the Head Gardener’s careful and persistent tuition. I am sure she feels that I am showing promise.

Of the garden, the lawn is my domain.  It is the only contribution I make unless you count sheds, fences, wires, fastenings and destruction.  There is a running battle between Jane and me regarding her plants overhanging my lawn and depriving my grass of sunshine.  Of course, I am losing.  My aim is to have a lawn like a putting green, perfectly smooth with fine grass mowed in neat parallel lines.  I have been working at it since 2013:  cutting it, top dressing it, seeding it, scarifying it, aerating it, and treating each lawn weed as a personal attack;  but I cannot say I have had total success.  The continual rain over the autumn and winter has not helped unless you count the greenery provided by moss.  Last week I warned the lawn that, unless it gets its act in order, I will hand it over to the Head Gardener for conversion into a further flower bed or a vegetable patch.  That should bring it up with a round turn.  Oh dear, I am talking to a lawn now.  It must surely be either The Virus or the confinement.

Some friends have asked if the memsahib ever reads these blogs. The answer is, “only occasionally”. Yesterday, purse-lipped, inspired by these questions, and suspicious of what was being said, she read Blog 39 regarding her adventures into sewing and covens. She has ordered asked me – on penalty of being served salad for supper – to point out that the evening dress and nightdress were, in fact, finished in the end and are now stowed away. The cup cakes at her coven ladies’ coffee morning were placed centrally on a table two metres from everyone, in the centre of the pentagram, and were collected individually. I am happy to apologise unreservedly for the confusion and any upset caused. I am also happy to report that we had an excellent jambalaya last night for supper, followed by home-made lime and ginger ice cream.

I don’t know about you, but we have never dined so well as now, in the present Emergency.  Jane really is a wonderful cook, but she has excelled herself lately.  Some stuff has come from the freezer, having been cooked previously, but most of it is a new creation.  And alcohol – well, the restriction to just the weekend went out some weeks ago, though Jane still sticks to it and – even then – restricts herself to a wine gum in a glass of tepid water.  By the way, I am now allowed back in the kitchen and, indeed, helped with the preparation of the jambalaya last night under adult supervision.  I tempered my zeal and organisational suggestions by slurping a glass of chilled Tasmanian Riesling.  Jane enjoyed having a sous chef to direct and I enjoyed the wine:  a fair exchange.

Saints be praised, we managed to get a delivery slot yesterday from Tesco. The delivery will be next Friday night. Jane pounded away on her iPad for an hour, listing everything she needed until the end of the world, only to find – when she had finished – that she was limited to only 80 items. Muttering to herself, she weeded her list only then to find that individual items were also limited to five each. So she was only allowed five bananas, five onions and so on. Fair enough, but the five onions seemed a bit silly. I said it was lucky that she hadn’t ordered any peas.

It is early afternoon and that glass of Pimms on the patio is overdue.  I was re-reading one of my blogs from the QUEEN MARY 2 voyages the other day (recalling happier times) and, in particular, my comments about cocktail parties and the failure of people in QM2 to meet and converse in that setting.  When I was still serving in the Royal Navy, we held a cocktail party in every port that the ship visited, and I like to think that we did it very well.  The aim was to “show the flag” and promote British interests in the visited country.  Contrary to popular belief,  the parties were funded almost entirely by the wardroom and, hence, officers’ mess bills,  Her Majesty’s Government making only a parsimonious contribution by way of a small grant.  Large iced jugs of gin and tonic or Horses Neck (brandy and ginger ale) were prepared beforehand and served by stewards in a suitably large ship location, internally or externally according to the weather.  For simplicity, apart from soft drinks, no alternative drinks were offered.  Junior officers, known as “hookers” would meet guests at the gangway and escort them to the party, introducing them to a group of officers before returning to the brow for another guest.  As I have alluded to in earlier blogs, the chatting was all done standing up and guests circulated.  No one got drunk, but it was amazing how many guests could speak English by the end of the evening and a great deal of goodwill was generated.  Of course, all the guests were by invitation and comprised the Great and the Good (and perhaps sometimes the Bad) of the port.  I met Mr Carlsberg of Carlsberg Breweries at a cocktail party in Copenhagen once.   I daresay these occasions were also used by the guests to do some networking.  I well recall the cocktail party we held in Curacao when I was serving in HMS NONSUCH.  The sun shone, the heat was hot, and we held the event on the for’d missile deck under the shade of an awning, with bunting blowing in the wind and providing side shading [this setting has little to do with the story, but adds a touch of atmosphere in austere times].  We stood in a group of six officers and a guest was brought to us in the usual manner.
“How do you do?”, said my boss, shaking the guest’s hand.  ”My name is Commander John Snodgrass and this is Lieutenant Commander Horatio Shacklepin; this is Lieutenant …” and he introduced each of the officers in turn.
The guest smiled benignly at each of us, said nothing, and moved on to another group.  We found it a very humbling experience.

Well, a further three weeks to go and still no idea what will happen after that. I find the social distancing a far bigger ‘pain’ than the enforced isolation. I don’t mean when walking down the street – that is fairly easily dealt with – but the need to queue two metres apart when entering supermarkets, and the ‘one out, one in’ policy. I really do not see how that distancing can be applied in a practical sense either at work, at school, or socially when the lockdown is lifted (whenever that is). The requirement to wear masks when in close proximity now seems likely (the journalists will be pleased; they can declare it as a government U-turn). Which then leads to the question, “Which masks, and whence do they come?”. The proper surgical masks, to N95 standard, are disposed of after one use and are unobtainable, priority being given, quite rightly, to healthcare professionals. So any old mask that constrains one’s breath or saliva will probably have to do. Some very innovative ideas are available on the internet. One woman on Youtube demonstrated how a thong could be used (a ‘thong’ as in ladies’ underwear, not an Australian flip-flop). We do not have access to such exotic lingerie in the Shacklepin household, the memsahib being of the view that they are not kulturny, so we will have to try alternative sources. In anticipation of being ordered to dress like bandits, we have ordered a couple of reusable masks made by a family firm that normally manufactures hosiery, and we will see how that works out. If all else fails, I can always use my field dressing pack, left over from that last time we had Action Stations in HMS NONSUCH; I knew I would find a use for it one day.

There is much more to muse about (the devil makes work for idle hands), but this is getting rather long and that Pimms is looking more and more attractive.  Next time I will write about Women as a species, I think.  Or maybe not.  Some people know my true identity and I have to sleep for eight hours in 24.

Here’s to Pimms…

19 April 2020