Meeting the neighbours

Whenever we get tired of the rooms and feel we need a change, we rearranged the house. Again. We do this often and yesterday we moved the table from the library to the sitting room, which is the new dining room. Somehow we had got it into the room, but it is a large table, and wouldn't go through the door. We took off the kitchen door to manoeuvre it round the corner and try and bring it through on an angle, but it wedged solidly. Eventually, we had to take the other door off too until finally we managed to get it through the gap.

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We celebrated with a glass of Cherry Brandy. Like the bird-table (see Forward Planning), this came from my parents house when we cleared it after their death. It was a favourite tipple of my dad, and must be at least 30 years old now, but it tasted delicious. I have now bought a new one, and the label has changed so completely I thought I might have bought the wrong brand! Let's hope it tastes as good as its mature forebear.

Our neighbour has cut down a number of trees between the properties, and we are suddenly very exposed. The other day, we were at the patio when his head suddenly appeared disconcertingly over the fence and spoke to me! Suddenly we are not alone, so we are planning how to raise the fencing to screen them off. The fencing is very old, and without the trees' support it has started wobbling even in a light breeze, so may blow down when the next gale comes. It is unclear who has responsibility for it, so Ann pushed a note through their box asking for clarity, and offering to pay all or half if we need to.

I then went to work trimming the hedging where it is growing over the pavements, when the next door neighbour suddenly came round the corner to discuss it. They haven't been there very long, and we'd barely met them before. She said she doesn't like to leave things hanging, but always like to tackle problems head-on, which suits Ann for that is her style too. Then Ann came out to join me, and her husband followed shortly after so we ended up having a big pow-wow on the road, while keeping a legal distance apart. They kindly said they had every intention of replacing the fencing and paying for it, as they are in the process of renovating the whole house and garden which had fallen into disrepair.

She intends to run a nail and beauty parlour, while he has retired from the building trade and wants to open a dog-grooming service, so they intend to build working rooms alongside their house. So now we just need to find a fast growing tree to plant to screen them off a bit.

Forward planning

tomorrow

tomorrow
will be a better day
God willing
I will put away my hating hat
find my compassionate beret
put it in cheeky fashion askew
on my very bemused head
and stop wishing myself ,
and everyone else,
would drop down dead

Annie Elliott

The Professor of Anatomy at my teaching hospital was then the current editor of Gray's Anatomy. I struggled in anatomy, but one of the girls in our anatomy classes was the great-granddaughter of Thomas Pickering-Pick who had been an earlier editor of Gray's Anatomy until 1905. She was brilliant and one of the professor's favourite students. She was also a good sailor, and I once crewed for her when she had to deliver the family boat out of Weymouth along the south coast to their mooring in Christchurch. The boat was one of the "Old Gaffers", and took part in the Old Gaffers regatta each year.

Though still in my scruff sailing gear, I was permitted to take tea with the family, a formal affair overlooking their lawns through the open French windows, when they told me a little of the history of the old place. It used to have some large oak woods attached, where the trees had been planted particularly closely together at the time of the Napoleonic wars, when many of the old oak trees had been felled to build boats for Nelson's navy. By planting them close, the branches of these new trees were forced to curve upwards as they grew, so their timber could be used for the curved frames of the hulls.

The old bird-table

Oak trees take up to 200 years to reach maturity when their wood can be used. To our present-day minds, this is unimaginable forward planning; those forebears clearly believed nothing would change in 200 years, and we would still be building wooden-hulled fighting ships of the line. Now, most of their old woods have been sold off for housing, and those valiant old trees felled.

Yesterday, our son-in-law Sam erected the old bird-table my father had built for mum. She loved her birds and fed them everyday, threading peanuts on string, or tying bacon rinds to the hooks. Dad too built things to last, and his bird-table is more than 50 years old, and as solid as he first made it. Sam also built the Saloon behind the garden, which is equally solid and built to last. These times of change and uncertainty make us long for some stability and durability in our lives, and such strength and quality are a reminder of the value of good workmanship in continuity.

In this throw-away society, the NHS dispose of everything when it's been used once, whereas they always used to have quality materials, even for the face-masks, which they could sterilise and reuse many times. Now they are running out of disposable essentials. We might not welcome the old recurrent European wars, but we could certainly do with some of their stability and forward planning. It is surely time to return to old-fashioned quality and durability.

St George's Day comes to Hundon

Today is St George's Day. Walking back through the village with the dogs, one solitary flag was raised in honour of our patron saint by David and Pam, opposite our own house. They were a family of four generations in our village; Pam was born in this house, as was her own son, who lived in the village with his own child. We are three generations now in the village; yet still we feel we are newcomers, outsiders to the old generations who were born here. Hundon life, like villages everywhere, is very cliquey, with a small group of people who are "in". We are definitely still "out", but as we don't socialise much, we are happy to stay so. St George may bind the nation, but he could never bind a village together.

Help: the 5G nutters are loose in Hundon

UK Deaths from CV-19 to 20 Apr 2020

Life in Hundon has always been quiet and uneventful; indeed we may have been the oddest people in the village, for once when Edwin was lying in the front garden behind the hedge reading, he heard some passing people comment, "The people who live there are very strange."

In Saltburn, we used to live next door to a refuge for people whose IQ was a little less than average, and who needed sheltered accommodation. They were pleasant, quiet people, whom we would see sometimes walking in small groups with a carer to make sure they didn't wander off or come to harm. The only interaction we had was with one man who used to wait on the doorstep, and greet us with, "Am I alright?". We would invariably answer, "Yes, you're alright!" and this seemed to satisfy him, for after this little reassurance he'd give a delighted grin.

Now we have a new contender for the title of Hundon Oddballs: one of our own local residents. Her Facebook page is filled with links to the 5G telephone conspiracy, which seems to be the current crackers-craze. New Scientist always called this stuff "Fruitloopery", but their taunts were usually against companies selling wonder water or magic pillows, often with the words quantum or resonance in their adverts: such things as "energised oxygen", though usually the only energising thing about them was the price. But as long as they didn't claim to cure cancer or coronavirus, such nonsense was generally harmless except to the credulous pocket.

The stuff the local Hundonite is promulgating is not harmless; it is vicious and dangerous. Besides the usual rubbish trying to correlate CV-19 outbreaks with the location of masts, and inciting everyone to "burn them down", her latest video shows an obviously well-educated, well-spoken woman haranguing two harmless foreign workers in London who were installing a fibre-optic cable. She demanded to know what they were doing, and when they told her she said, "You do know that when you switch that on, everyone will die!" She then asked if they had mothers and children, and told them "Do you really want to kill them? I hope they are paying you enough, because you will kill them!" She then added for good measure, "All those morgues they are building round London now are for all the people you're going to kill." The workers looked bemused as they just tried to do their jobs under this tirade of abuse. I don't know what school the woman went to, but her parents should sue that school for giving her such an appallingly low level of basic education.

This week, the chart of deaths from CV-19 has shown a dramatic drop to less than half its peak, and the total cases are levelling off. I know the government do not wish to trigger a second wave of infection, but at some stage they are going to have to let people return to at least limited normality. Now surely is the time to begin the process, and at least reopen some of the small shops and places where people can work in isolation from each other. I don't know how the nutters will link a fall in CV-19 cases to 5G, but one day it will be gone. Perhaps they'll switch their intolerant nonsense to some other mythical cause: TV waves, or ordinary 4G radiation, or telephone land lines, or alien invaders. Indeed, it could be anything that involves fanciful ideas with no logic or science behind them.

Getting out while we may

Bronte and Byron told to 'Stay!'

Seizing the fine weather and my right to walk, I exercised the dogs by walking round the fields. Border Collies are built to run all day and need exercise,  Most of us in Hundon are still following the instructions of the Stasi to avoid travel, but there were a good number of cyclists enjoying the day, plus other walkers and one on horseback. To stay in on such a fine day would be too cruel; the whole of nature is waiting to show off her finery, with the trees in bursting leaf and the hedgerows thick with blossom. Certainly, this time is drawing us closer, and everyone I pass shouts a cheery "hello", from their safe distance across the road, or retreating into a leafy layby off the path till we pass.

We all try to stay in touch in different ways. In Telford, son Ben and grandson Luke too are out enjoying time together. Living in separate households they cannot physically draw close, but very sensibly both happen to walk at the same time, meeting by coincidence in the same place, but keeping a legal distance apart. Last night, many of the family joined together for a quiz on the HouseParty ap. They are planning another for next week, which we hope to join. This clever ap allows everyone to be seen simultaneously in their own little corner of the screen. Very clever.

The Burial of the Free

A previous post (Set me free!) bemoaned our loss of freedom and the ready compliance with which we are following constraining, draconian instructions without protest. That piece quoted a poem by Browning, but a number of people have suggested The Burial of the Dead from Eliot's The Waste Land:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

Mixing memory of freedoms lost with desire to be out again in the spring weather is surely apposite. An article in the Telegraph today reiterated these views. As usual, the pliant press kowtow to the government line, constantly repeating their refrain and transmitting the daily propaganda campaign on all channels, unedited and without criticism. We are told the government are curtailing our freedom in arbitrary ways, while dissenting scientific views from other epidemiologists or medical specialists in other European countries are dismissed and ignored.

No, we don't want to overwhelm the Health Service, but now we have gone too far and many beds lie empty and idle. Freedom is the right to choose, and people should be allowed to choose their own risk level. I am at high risk and would not wish to mix in crowds, but I should like to go for isolated country walks or simple drives to alleviate the tedium. Other people should be restricted if they are infected, and their contacts limited in their movement. But the majority of young, healthy people should be allowed to choose if they wish to meet their families, go to work, or open the shops on which their livelihood depends. Toby has opened a new website, Lockdown Sceptics, where people can share their views on this. Unlike many proponents of modern woke who blindly "no platform" anyone they disagree with, his site is not a blind rant and welcomes reasoned discussion from both sides.

Oh no!

splash
went my phone in the loo
I closed my eyes
and gave out a big sigh -
it was a doubly sad sight to see
for I had, just minutes before,
unfortunately had a huge wee.

Annie Elliott

On another note, I think Ann must have taken my plea to turn away from our reliance on China, because this morning she threw her iPhone in the toilet. Well, to be strictly honest, it was an accident. The phone was in the side pocket of her cardigan and fell out when she stood and turned round. The poor woman had to fish it out and wash it in the sink as thoroughly as if it had contacted the dreaded CV, but happily it seems to work again OK now.

Hares behind Hundon

Hares behind Hundon

Farmers used to burn off the stubble at the end of harvest, until the fire in one field grew out of hand and spread to some nearby woods. In another case, dense smoke from a field billowed across a main road like a thick black fog causing some accidents, and after that parliament banned the practice. Thereafter, they generally buried the stubble with deep ploughing, but even that seems to have gone out of fashion now. In the fields round us, farmers merely seem to flatten the stubble with the harrow, then plant the seed through it. Now the new crop is pushing up in neat green rows between the rotting remains of last year's crop. This must be more efficient, and leaves the fields a deep russet but dirty ochre, rather than the heavy brown loam of the bare soil. This is much better for we walkers too, for they often ploughed their deep furrows right into the footpaths, making it hard to walk even round the edges of their fields. Now the land is quite flat and hard after the long dry spell, and the walking is pleasant and easy.

Walking the dogs in the fields behind us, two hares were chasing each other in the spring sunshine enjoying last year's stubble. They were the other side of the field before I could point my camera, so could only be taken on the highest magnification, blurred and shaky, yet still worth capturing to remember a moment of nature's freedom. Seeing the speed of their race, I can well understand the saying, "run like a hare!" Country people used to set dogs coursing after hares, but it must have taken a fast breed of dog. Perhaps that's what the whippet and greyhound were bred for; they still chase a hare on the dog tracks. These dogs are called sighthounds, for they rely on visual pursuit rather than chasing a scent like foxhounds. Our Bronte is a scent dog. Whenever M-A has visited, Bronte picks up her scent, sniffing the path and following hoping to see her again. But it will be some months before that happens.

This afternoon, I asked my granddaughter to draw me a rainbow to celebrate the NHS. This evening, true to her word, she posted it through our letterbox, complete with clapping hands! Thank you so much - we love it, and it is going to get pride of place in our front window.

Rainbow over Hundon

SET ME FREE!

I do not want to die this month. April is a month for the return of warm days and flowering hope, not for dying alone in some forsaken hospital ward or nursing home. Amongst the fragrant flowers and cherry blossoms it is hard to remember how confined we are. But other countries are faring even worse, and perhaps Robert Browning would still plead his desire for home from his confinement in northern Italy.

Home-Thoughts From Abroad

Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England - now!

As the lockdown continues, the economic cost of the devastation grows ever more huge. Thousands of shops and businesses may never reopen; many hundreds of thousands of people may be permanently unemployed; airlines are going under and even some universities may be forced to close through loss of fees. Surely it is time to reopen some shops and factories with shoppers and workers isolated by distance as they are now in supermarkets, rather than break ourselves completely on this catastrophic economic iceberg?

We are all being watched now…

ssh
ssh,
curtains
curtains twitching,
watch and tell
someone's not isolating
at least not very well,
phone
phone
the police
someone's cheating
in our very street.
Someone laughed-
I distinctly heard-
call the paper
spread the word
better still,
social media needs to know
shame your evil neighbour
to Facebook friend and foe.

Annie Elliott

I do not wish to die, and Ann and I would remain self-isolating as would most sensitive, vulnerable people, yet I yearn to leave home. People sitting alone in parks or walking the lonely moors should be granted that freedom. Surely it could do no harm to allow limited travel? To drive in the car to a remote place, for a quiet sandwich or flask of coffee with a change of view? To buy fuel from a self-service automated filling station? It is frightening how rapidly the English have become subservient, obeying arbitrary rules without question. Even worse, it is scary how we are being encouraged to become narks, spying on each other, reporting our neighbours to the thought police who are only too eager to attack basic liberties. How easily the Gestapo must have found it to impose control; how the Stasi would rejoice at the way we roll over at the slightest intimidation of a fine. No need for torture or reprisals here; at this hour, I think even Robert Browning might have second thoughts about returning to England, ex-land of the free.