The toast rack is back. Perhaps I should explain: proper report and all that. You see, insidiously, the breakfast routine has grown slack over the last few years – another sad consequence of the Covid19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns. Over time, the practice has been allowed to develop of the breakfast toast being served, already buttered and anointed, on a side plate instead of being presented properly in a rack for the recipient to indulge in the traditional Marmalade Ceremony at the table. I have no doubt that this ready-made approach has been deliberately instigated by the memsahib in order to control and ration my food intake: she has already commented unfavourably on my practice of asking for butter and peanut butter on my toast, and I have suspected for some time that the marmalade is also being rationed, both reductions being with the aim of reducing cholesterol and sugar in my diet. So, 2023 being but a few hours old, I decreed that we should return to a proper breakfast routine. Henceforth, I declared, the slices of toast would be cut rectangular, with the crusts cut off, and placed in the toast rack; side plates and butter knives would be placed in advance in the breakfast room, along with the butter dish, its knife embedded in the butter like Excalibur. Pots of marmalade, honey and peanut butter on saucers with serving teaspoons would complete the ensemble. Warming to my theme, I explained to Jane that this return to a civilised wardroom breakfast would not only set the high standard appropriate to my station in society as a naval officer, but also enable us to start the day properly fortified. I took the opportunity to remind her of the correct procedure: one anoints the side plate with a spoonful or more of home-made marmalade (or peanut butter or honey according to whim); one adds a generous portion of butter; one transfers a slice of toast from the rack to the side plate and cuts off a small piece; one butters it, smears it with marmalade (or whatever) and one eats it. We could, I conceded, forego the reading racks for the newspapers, which would normally be propped up in front of us, technology having invented iPads. Completing my brief, I smiled winningly knowing I could count on her full support.
Do you know, she expressed some reluctance to comply with the new directive? Moreover, she actually dismissed my proposal and described the procedure as a ‘clart’ (a Tyneside term that she clearly has picked up from me, meaning, in this context, ‘an unnecessary fuss’). I was shocked. A lengthy, but unproductive, discussion followed until I was, perforce, compelled to set the table myself, then enter the kitchen and personally set the raw toast in its rack before placing it on the table. As I sat at my place, butter knife in hand and gazing at the accoutrements with great anticipation, she had the temerity to lean over me and say emphatically,
“This is a house, not a manor”.
There is definitely an insubordinate streak in that girl; what her poor father must have had to put up with.
So here we are with the best part of January out of the way, thank heavens. We always find the month interminable because the weather usually precludes any outdoor activity: rain makes fields a quagmire so we cannot go hiking, and biting winds deter us from leaving the comfort of our drawing room. Christmas passed quietly for us. We were originally looking forward to celebrating it alone, but we felt sorry for Jane’s brother, who is single and had just broken up with his female companion, so we invited him to join us. He initially declined (God forgive us: sigh of relief), but he then changed his mind at the last minute, and we could hardly refuse. He arrived on Christmas Eve. The English weather was its usual damp self, but we did manage to get out for the traditional walk on Christmas Day during a lull, sticking to the small country roads to avoid the mud, and taking a well-tried 5-mile circular route. Half way around the circuit the heavens opened, not with the usual English persistent drizzle, but with a full steady and lengthy downpour that was clearly in for the day. Unprepared, we were totally drenched. I lent Jane my cap to keep her head dry, but consequently had to suffer the deluge bare-headed, so that my hair went all frizzy and I worried, at one point, that I might be getting split ends again. The rain soaked through my waxed Barbour jacket, ran down my neck, saturated my underwear and trickled into my boots. When we finally got back to the car it was unnecessary to remove our boots as we normally would: they had been washed clean and spotless. We did, however, have to remove our saturated jackets lest they soak into the car upholstery. Thinks: must get that Barbour jacket re-waxed.
The only snag with Jane’s brother being with us was that the two siblings have similar interests. They spoke Plant for most of the time, occasionally breaking into Bird for good measure. I did feel a bit out of it sometimes, but overall we totally relaxed, drank too much, ate well and enjoyed some good games (lost at chess three times). Brother-in-law was gone after Boxing Day and we settled into that twilight, limbo, world that lies between Christmas and New Year. As is our custom, we did not celebrate New Year in a big way, but we did force ourselves to stay awake to see-in 2023 with a drink. We thought the London fireworks display was very disappointing: more a political celebration of wokeness by London’s mayor than a disinterested welcome to a new year. Is there no escape?
Britain is still wallowing in its nostalgic revival of industrial unrest and, so far, there has been little progress in resolving the situation. Being fairly healthy, not being regular users of the railways or Royal Mail, and having finished our academic education quite some time ago, we have not been unduly affected; but the working or sick members of the population undoubtedly have. Teachers have now joined the strikes, which will inhibit ordinary parents from working because of the need for child care, as well as further weaken the education of a generation already badly affected by lockdowns. Given the prevailing high energy prices and mortgage rates I would have thought most strikers would not have been able to afford to lose a day’s pay, but there it is. The NHS was already struggling with a backlog of patients as a result of the cancellation of treatment during lockdown; the usual annual winter crisis exacerbated it; and the strikes by staff have provided the icing on the cake – though some cynics have suggested that the service was already so bad that the strikes have barely been noticeable. Examples have abounded in the press of people left injured and untreated in their homes or on the streets, of patients lying on trolleys in hospital corridors for days, of ambulances queuing eight deep outside A&E waiting to disgorge their passengers. Interestingly, most of the examples quoted have involved geriatrics so perhaps the NHS is quietly practising what amounts to a form of unofficial euthanasia. The examples may be true, but I can only report that it has not been my experience. I recently was referred by my GP to our local hospital to investigate a possible serious condition; I received an appointment within two weeks; I saw the consultant punctually and was out again in ten minutes; I was examined, and I received an appointment for a subsequent MRI scan two days later. The scan will be at the beginning of February. In short, the whole process was smooth, efficient, prompt and (relatively) painless. Maybe I am just lucky, though Jane had a similar successful experience just a few months ago at the same hospital. As it happens, the press have reported that the ambulance queues for A&E have started to fall now, though they are still unacceptable. I imagine the public have recognised the futility of dialling 999 following the government warnings of the delays involved, and are resigned to dying in their own beds. Still, on the plus side, there have been widespread strikes in Europe too – some in health systems – so we are not alone; also, Covid is no longer on the tips of the tongues of the general public (zealots and the paranoid excepted) and the dreaded face masks are hardly ever seen now. Every cloud has a silver lining.
We do seem to be living in an age when someone somewhere in authority wants to ban things. Have you noticed? We saw the extremes in this approach in the recent epidemic, when people were banned from moving around or – in some countries – were threatened with losing their livelihood if they refused the Covid vaccine, the last despite the fact that being vaccinated does not stop transmission of the virus. We are still suffering the turmoil surrounding the right to free speech, with our seats of learning banning speakers or authors who do not conform to the prevailing illiberal woke mob view, and some academics dismissed from their posts for the same reason. The dictatorial approach has now moved on to nutrition, with all schools in Scotland removing meat from their school dinners “to combat climate change”, mirroring action by Oxfordshire County Council’s switch to “all vegan no choice” food at council events. The latest cry for banishment to emerge is by the head of the UK Food Standards Agency, who claims that taking cake into the office is as bad as passive smoking, and should be banned (reason: “excessive obesity in the UK”). This last is an odd and specious argument: passive smoking threatens the health of other people around the smoker because they cannot help breathing in the smoke; there have been no instances, ever, of someone passively putting on weight simply because someone brought a slice of cake into the office. My theory is that the power that was over-hastily invested in national and local government to combat Covid has given every petty-fogging little official, politician or zealot a taste for blood and power: a demand to ban things allegedly “for the greater good”. It is a very worrying and insidious trend in a free society where freedom of choice is paramount, and we should resist it accordingly.
The latest news on the gossip front is the Duke of Sussex’s total condemnation and betrayal of his family, and the intimate details of his personal life, revealed in his autobiography Spare (of course, actually written by a ghost writer, the Duke being a bit wanting in the literary and academic stakes). It is a book that just keeps on giving, though I think the title was badly chosen: Aah Didums would have been a better choice. I have not read the book (nor have I any intention of adding to the Duke’s royalty payments by doing so), but we have been drip-fed extracts in the national press and I have read a few of them. We have been treated to salacious details of where the Duke lost his virginity – to an older woman apparently, how exciting! (note to self: must drive over to Wiltshire and look at that field behind the Rattle Bone Inn); we have been told how his big brother allegedly pushed him over and “broke his necklace and the dog bowl”; we have been told of the squalor of having to live, free-of-charge, in a cottage with IKEA furniture in the grounds of Kensington Palace in central London; and we have been allowed to share his experience of getting frostbite on his todger during a visit to the Arctic. I thought the last revelation was undoubtedly the most fascinating, especially when the Duke further revealed that he had treated his injured member with soothing cream from Elizabeth Arden because the smell reminded him of his mother. Oedipus would appear to be alive and well and living in Montecito in California, USA. It is lucky Princess Diana was not a regular user of Vicks Vapour Rub, that’s what I say.
What a grey day! We have had thick freezing fog all day and a temperature that only managed to struggle manfully to the dizzy heights of 0C at noon after registering a chilly -5C this morning. I was up at 0-crack-sparrow this morning to take the car for a walk and to have it fitted with four new tyres (there’s £500 I will never see again). While this was being done by the skilled artisans of the Acme Tyre Company I treated myself to a bracing walk around an icy industrial estate for an hour in the fog and the dark. Jane, meanwhile, slumbered on – do doubt dreaming of pittosporum or similar – and only stirred when she realised that her morning cup of tea was missing from the bedside table beside her. Note: the tea, not me. I received an indignant text half way through my walk in the fog, asking why I had not woken her before I left. She claimed that her concern was that she might not have enough time to prepare a cooked breakfast for my return, but I wasn’t fooled: Jane’s day is simply not the same unless it starts with a mug of tepid tea that has been allowed to cool by her bedside while she struggles to rise to periscope depth. The cooked breakfast was delicious, by the way, duly enhanced by the feeling of smugness that surrounds one who has been up before everyone else in the family.
Off to the boat next week to see how she has faired over the last few months, to check out the dehumidifiers and to see how much progress – if any – has been made with the marina development. Jane reckons we might be able to take the boat out to sea as the wind is forecast to be not too strong. For my part, I shall be breaking out the trusty pea jacket, the submarine sweater and the seaboot stockings. Oh, and not forgetting the electric blanket.
Snuggle down and be patient: the days are getting longer. By the way, is anyone else still waiting for Christmas cards?
21 January 2023
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 