I admit to being quite extraordinarily stupid. I hang my head in shame but need to share the reason – as a friendly warning to others that might be tempted to do as I did.
DON’T DO IT!
I thought I’d have a little flutter on Bitcoin a few months ago and ventured $1,000 for a share in one tiny fraction of a coin.
It was on the way up.
In order to invest this tiny amount I found a trading company called Ventera Group – their logo is below – at first very friendly and encouraging. And indeed, for a short period, seemed to be profitable – enough to lure me, stupidly, in.
It wasn’t long, as we all know, before Cryptocurrencies in general and Bitcoin in particular have not only languished but, since the adverse withdrawal of Elon Musk’s support, nosedived in value.
The Trader I have been dealing with who communicates via WhatsApp and who calls himself John Edwards, a name I am now sure is fake, managed to persuade me to pump more and more money into my “account” – “to cover my margins” and “save the situation”, hanging in until the tides turn.
How stupid could I be? I expect no sympathy from anyone but would urge any out there tempted to venture into this wild arena, not to do so.
To cut a long story short and seeing that my “account” appeared still to be in credit and having appeared not to have made too much loss, I decided to withdraw what appeared to be left using the Company’s Withdrawal Request facility online, with no result whatsoever other than a message saying my request was cancelled because to withdraw I’d have to “close my position” and this would result in a recall which I could not cover with any amount and that there would be nothing left.
In effect – there IS nothing left and after a shouting match with this Trader who called me stupid (which of course I now realise I am) and that my silly amount of money meant nothing in the sum of things, slammed the phone down and any attempt to get any sort of proper explanation has been met by rudeness and prevarication.
It was mooted that more money pumped in would help; I said there was no more; they said then that would mean I would lose everything.
I have emailed the company an asked them for some sort of clarification and received this reply:
Good day,
I have escalated this message to management for them to intervene.
At your service,Benjamin Duck
I have strong doubts as to the actual existence of Mr. Benjamin Duck and have had no response since,
Their initial promise that I could add or withdraw funds whenever I needed provided I gave them notice of seven days was a bald-faced lie.
I have subsequently discovered that this company is unregulated and that there is no recourse to any Ombudsman and no hope really of recovering a penny – it would seem. Unless I employed the services of a company that specialises in recovery but charges so much for these services that it’s just not worth employing – guaranteeing only 80% success anyway!
The other thing that came to light was that I thought we were trading Bitcoin but by yesterday it became clear we’d progressed through the newly Nasdaq-launched Coinbase IPO and now seem to be trading in Netflix and Amazon – though how one can lose money on those dead-certs I do not know. And what happened to Bitcoin en route is a mystery.
Upshot : don’t go near these people, Friends. They are scammers.
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
When I lived in Dolphin Square years ago I had a flat that overlooked the extensive courtyard garden complete with water feature and an avenue of trees. It felt very hemmed in there; after all, the building is at least twelve stories high, a sort of luxurious fortress.
Dolphin Square, Pimlico.
How they got there I do not know, but two Mallard appeared in the pond of a Spring morning and went through the rituals of courtship. I have heard that female Mallard are serially raped each season but that once a choice has been made, the final couple, if I can call them that, remain steadfast. I have heard it said that this is so among many waterfowl and other animals.
Be that as it may, Mr & Mrs Mallard of Dolphin Square hung around for a few weeks surviving on grubs in the water and the odd crumb thrown into their pond by sentimental, passing residents. The time came for her to lay – but where? The pond was too small and there was not enough privacy for nesting so they had to head out and this is where we all wondered what would happen. How would they become VTOL certified?
Mr Mallard went on an exploration round the courtyard and finally encouraged Mrs M to follow him; with breath-taking aeronautical skill their formation of two-in-line circled the courtyard, gaining height. Round and round they went, higher and higher they climbed until they finally, after five minutes, cleared the roof of Dolphin Square to disappear into the blue, across the Embankment and onto the Thames.
Several weeks later they re-appeared and stayed for the rest of the summer very happily in the pond disappearing one day in the Autumn, we thought never to be seen again – like the Snow Goose.
But they reappeared the following year; at least I assume they were the same pair; I like to think so at any rate, and the whole cycle was repeated.
Mistley Swannery
Our own nesting Blackbirds here in Mistley two seasons ago reminded me of Mr & Mrs Mallard of Dolphin Square SW1 : they had three chicks and infinite difficulty encouraging their babies firstly to get out of the nest, secondly flap bravely about on the ground while being exhorted to use they flying gear and learn to fly and thirdly, get enough lift to clear the Wisteria and back gate to the big, new world awaiting them. In the end I had to open the gate as the poor little mites didn’t have the featherage to cope. I think the parents were grateful and I remember thinking of my Mallard in Dolphin Square who had to teach their young to swim and fly.
Stour Riverside at Manningtree – an exceptionally high, Spring-tide.
It is a miraculous time of year and nature is in full swing as we have seen on our many walks.
Relics from Easter Island? No, an old railway sleeper!
At last the Jasmine is growing!
Swan Basin by John Adams
Grayson Perry : Julie’s House-on-the-Hill at Wrabness
I’ve tried to keep a mini diary and if I don’t write for about 4 days I have no idea what I did. It’s quite scary how there are so few memories and nothing to trigger the few that I have. When will this all be over…….?
So writes one of you, Friends; in fact we seem to be sharing similar experiences.
The past year has been a time for much navel-gazing, I guess. Not a bad thing I suppose, a bit of contemplation might be a good idea though often it can lead to bleaker, darker thoughts. There are certainly longer silences in the company we keep and its been generally agreed that because of the lockdown and the complete domination of Covid, there really is little to talk about beyond pleasantries. There is no news where once no news was considered good news! Now it make one wonder whether we are losing our sociability, forgetting how to engage, getting out of practice with our talents to amuse! The road map is blurring and disappearing.
No amount of zooming and streaming and webinars and binge-watching can make up for actual rather than virtual contact though I find that my anxiety levels go up when I move out of my pandemic-routine comfort zone!
En route across the rapeseed fields from Stonely to Little Staughton
The May Bank Holiday weekend has come and gone; our duo-bubble duly vaxed to the nines, went up to Stonely-Kimbolton to see the grandchildren also max-vaxed, care-managers and all. Our bubble floated across the fields of Cambridgeshire in on/off weather, racking up the footsteps on our androids and freezing outdoors in local pubs. The Costa-del-Sol it is not! But how lovely to see family again and they were all there to celebrate son Zac’s 49thBirthday. Astonishing that Tony has a son who’s now in his fiftieth year. I just cannot get my head around this! Where has it all gone?
Sobering thought indeed….
The weather? Well, April has been odd. Here on The Green its been a sunny month largely but a cold one. Any thoughts of martini’s and fizzy outside on the lawn in glorious sunshine are discouraged by the pneumonia-inducing northerly breezes off the North Sea and from Siberia!
To London then on Bank Holiday Monday for Medical Maintenance – dentists, audiologists, bloods; pinched nerves, scans and tests; teas, lunches and dinners in back gardens and on freezing patios in West London with some of you, Friends. How lovely it all is despite the situation, to see familiar faces once again not through the zoom-glass darkly. Roll on June for full life support and the actual, physical touch.
This afternoon we will be told which countries are to be given green-light status in the Covid Roadmap to travel-bliss; which orange, which red. Its so exciting as the digital eVouchers clunk into the electronic travel folders as any plans bite the dust. It turns out not many are green lighted and there is this anomaly – visit New Zealand for instance as that has a green light, and family & friends, but you’d still have to stopover for two weeks in a government sponsored isolation hotel at vast expense, for two weeks. Who wants that? Staycationing and what the Germans call “Balcony Holidays” are IT!
Cwytching is a new word I learned, a Welsh word, in Wales it means “an affectionate hug”. They are doing it there already; we will have to wait until June to clutch to our hearts content.
And of course the elections yesterday. What to say? Bojo and his Shudder of Clowns have been buoyed up by substantial gains in England while the Nations indicate their distrust and loathing of his mad rule. Will there be a United Kingdom and longer? Will we have a little, mini war with France over Fishing Rights? I shall have to ask Friend Roger who lives on Guernsey, what his views are and whether he is suffering power cuts!
I haven’t the faintest idea, Friends! Onward to the sunny uplands of Summer and a season in the sun.
At last the children are back at school. So refreshing to see.
The Equinox has been and gone, the clocks gone forward, the daffodils, the hawthorn, narcissi and tulips have all burst forth. It’s Easter and Spring has sprung. Oh the relief. The days grow quickly longer and the sun is warmer. A year has passed in the company of Covid and our lives have changed.
Restrictions are gradually lifting and we have walked, tea’d and outdoor’d with friends in greening gardens, a strange nervousness underlying all as if some boundary had been crossed into unknown territory with a departure from such tight and familiar routines. Like that feeling of apprehension setting off to school after a long break. Odd.
All Saints Church at Little Staughton
There was an airfield at Little Staughton for bombers. This is a memorial to their courage in WW2.
We have both now had our second jabs of Astra Zeneca and hope the rest of the world can have them all soon; after all – no-one is safe until everyone is safe. Our reactions have varied – not good for either and particularly bad for Tony. They warned us that they who had it may react badly. They were right!
“Cut flowers…….heavens!” my arty Aunt used to jokingly ape her grand- and my great grandmother who regarded such things as decorations for weddings and funerals. Why bring flowers into your home when they look better in the garden! This of course pre-supposes that all people have access to herbaceous borders in walled gardens and vast bucolic vistas across tree-lined greenswards easily viewed from drawing rooms and terraces.
My arty Aunt arranged a good bowl and thought our granny and great-granny a snob!
This is a selfie-in-acrylic by Cousins Sophia & Hugh of Cousins Sophia & Hugh, Peg and the gaminely glamorous Estée Lauder, their ageing Indian Mynah about whom I have often written.
Artiness runs in that branch. Such talent all round. My wonderful DoP Cousin turned 70 this week! Congratulations Stephen!
These are our “cut flowers” and here are Gerard Manly Hopkins’ Binsey Poplars felled in 1879:
My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow & river & wind-wandering weed-winding bank.
O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew —
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc unselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.
There has been much felling in our woods too. Some of it good but much of it ominous. More housing, more roads, more people and their cars; more rubbish for this gentle land with it’s soft, green contours, thrown carelessly down or out to lie indestructibly in ditches and on paths with dog shit in black bags being offensively foremost. But I’ve had this rant before I hear you say, my friends! Enough!
The confluence of the Roman & Colne Rivers at Wivenhoe & Rowhedge.
There has been such a lot of time for reflection, hasn’t there?
We have of course, like you, carried on with the endless films and TV programmes that have enlightened, entertained, enraged and moved.
Here are a few since last I blogged. Not all, but a few.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Rebekka Martensen
The Black Messiah
Flare LBGT Festival @ the BFI, Tove and all!
Elizabeth R
The Valhalla Murders
Keeping Faith
Ammonite
Me & My Father (Nick Broomfield’s Homage to his Dad)
Unforgotten
Hinterland
The Father
Ute Lemper on Marlene Dietrich
Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (Hungarian)
Line of Duty (of course)
Maggie Smith in Conversation (naturally)
And more webinars, Friends: Blithe Spiritwith the Oxford & Cambridge Club and a sweet interlude with the young ladies & gentlemen of the Stukeley Meadows Primary School, to whom I read Mitch Johnson’s new book Kick , a touching story of Budi, an enthusiastic supporter of Real Madrid, from the slums and sweat shops of Jakarta. The children were so appreciative and sent me this beautiful card along with 54 letters! So touching. I’ve never had feedback like that in 45 years!
While on the subject of books, Damon Galgut’s newest book has just been published in the US and the UK. It’s wonderful. Queue for a copy!
Then The Fatherfinished us both off. Achingly sad as anyone who has experienced any or all of the dementias would surely agree?
“……..What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust…………?”
When we lose our reason, we are nothing.
It’s been It’s a Sin that has most affected me though. It so reached into my memory and what I discovered there was not entirely happy. I know some of you were unimpressed by this series and found it “inauthentic” and “unrealistic” and “unbelievable”. I did not think so. It chimed with my own experiences and I found its essence all too true and sad. It was of course, heightened drama but even so, its points were clear – to me at any rate.
That is another story for another time!
A touching story from Friend Maud in Amsterdam:
“This afternoon I listened to a podcast called ‘Sterk Water’ (Strong Water, by which they usually mean alcohol/jenever in Dutch).
But this time it was about Terschelling, my favourite island.
Thirty years ago a boy from Harwich called Peter threw a bottle into the sea with his name in it. The bottle came ashore on Terschelling.
The man who found it gave it to Coby the girl next door.
Peter was 14 and Coby 15 I think. They started a correspondence.
Five years later Peter visited Coby on Terschelling for the first time. Love at first sight. They married, started a drugstore on the island and got a daughter.
In 2010 Peter died.
I thought what a beautiful story. Since he was from Harwich I had to share this with you.”
Peter from Harwich’s message in a bottle arrives in Terschelling!
Miraculous. Thanks Maud!
To London for Bloods and Dentistry yesterday!The Gasman did not cometh!
Thanks Sally Cartwright for these beautiful designs.
The Beast from the East melted away many days ago and temperatures soared into the teens. Everything has turned to mud but the sun has shone forth and we have turned the wintery corner toward Spring.
The snowdrops are out. The daffodils are peeping.
The beginnings of the glorious Bluebell season can be glimpsed as green tufts. Early. We expect them in April/May but with the weather see-sawing who knows?
Along the Stour and at Alton Water
Black faced sheep in Essex but what is Aberdeen Angus doing in Suffolk?
It’s an anniversary.
A year ago we returned from Madeira never for an instant suspecting what awaited us. The map ahead was unclear; now we look back and wonder how much like ours your map has been?
We went to London after we returned from Madeira.
On the 2nd March we went to the Park Theatre to see La Cage Aux Folles.
On the next day the opera house for Fidelio. Only on the 4th did we return to Mistley and watched Parasite at the Curzon in Colchester.
Friends Mandy and Richard came to lunch the day after that.
I see that oven cleaners came on the 6th followed by lunch out on the 7th with friends near Maldon. Could we get more mundane and, no, we don’t have an Aga!
Then to London on the 10th. Do you see where I’m going with this?
The 10th was the critical day for me I think. I attended the clear ear clinic in Harley street where my audiologist who was Spanish and had just returned from Spain, suctioned my ears; we breathed intimately over each other with not a mask in sight.
That afternoon, Cyrano de Bergerac at the Crouch End Picture House. Still no masks
No lockdown instructions had yet emanated from the Downing Street Clown Office, nor any sort of plan at this stage.
The next day, the 11th March, we lunched with Friend Helen in Hammersmith and dined with Friends Oona and Paul in Crouch End – again. They expressed surprise that we had come to see them – already we were starting to become twitchy.
Thursday the 12th saw us at Covent Garden for the ballet, Swan Lake – but we noticed a distinct thinning in the audience and started to worry that perhaps things were not right.
All this on tubes and buses and still no masks.
Friday the 13th found us in Camden’s Jamon Jamon tapas-ing with friends Rose and Rob and in the evening we hied us to the brilliant Uncle Vanya at the Harold Pinter. There our friend Jane Balfour cried off and we could find no replacement at all.
Alarm bells now started ringing!
On Saturday the 14th March we came to Mistley but the Village Quiz in Lindsey with friends Jacqui and Mali we were supposed to attend was scrubbed as Downing Street at last imposed restrictions; which we now know were too little too late. Impromptu dinner with Friends Ruth and Miranda.
Uncle Vanya was taken off three days later on the 16th March but on The Ides of March, the 15th, our 35th Anniversary, I came down with the virus followed shortly by Tony and we spent the next several weeks getting over what turned out to be a nasty experience.
I would not wish this virus on anyone.
We have been here ever since.
954+ meals have been planned, prepared and eaten.
Mounds of popcorn too.
100’s of kilometres have been walked.
Many games of BridgeBase Online have been played.
Hours of webinars and zooms and play readings.
Locktails and zoomebrates.
Books, films, mini series, documentaries and endless news – most of it bad.
Multiple Clicking & Collecting.
Deliveries, deliveries and more deliveries of fish, of food and wine.
Notional shares purchased in FedEx, Amazon, UPS as piles of cardboard boxes proliferated to be recycled.
Blogs, blogs and more blogs! (You poor people!)
Then in the summer Bojo and his Shudder of Clowns stupidly lifted restrictions with we know what result – Covid numbers through the roof.
Thank you Bojo for a brief staycation in August 2020.
A short Staycation in Norfolk was squeezed in and a visit to family at August Bank Holiday; dental procedures happened, masseurs briefly visited along with oven cleaners, again, and a plumber.
One funeral has been zoomed and I have nearly set fire to the kitchen on several occasions and cut most of my fingers during the hours and hours of food preparation! So far no-one had either fallen or been pushed into the cellar!
I bought the knife in Vietnam for about 30p. It is lethal and by far the sharpest of all my knives. There is sticking plaster kept permanently in the drawer beneath my “chopping space”!
Swathes of tickets to the theatre were vouchered off or refunded; trips to America, to Canada, to Germany, to South Africa were all cancelled and flights vouchered too, along with a proposed revisit to Madeira.
In another brief moment of madness, Bojo and The Shudder allowed us with special permission, to visit long missed family in Canada at Christmas where we all locked down in quarantine together for three weeks, just squeezing the to-ing and fro-ing between international travel restrictions.
At Heathrow on our return no-one asked to see our test certificates, take our temperature or even enquire where we would be quarantining.
The media have been full of news of these lunacies.
But, miraculously with the year not even out the wonder of science has produced a vaccine which we went to London to receive not three weeks ago!
That is the great and good news.
And Trump has gone!
Other good news has been that after twelve years the village of Mistley has finally won its fight to remove the ugly fence that was installed back in time to ruin the view over the Stour Estuary and cut us off from the river to which access has always been free for many hundreds of years.
Thank you, Misteliers for your hard and patient work. The fetes, the sales, the sponsored walks, dinners-out, cook-ins, quiz evenings, annual calendars and of course even the theatrical talents of some were stretched to their limit to raise the legal fees for this victory.
Our self-styled Burgomeister, Herr Villy “don’t-mention-the-war” Meston, gave us Dame Edme, an unforgettable evening in local theatre history where we witnessed a titanic performance of mirthful malapropisms unintended by the author but very funny nonetheless.
“Big bosomed, bold, becalmed benign,
Stands Dame Edme foursquare on the Mayflower Line! “
The things we did to raise a quid!
SUPREME COURT JUDGEMENT ON MISTLEY QUAY:
The Supreme Court today delivered judgement on the challenge by TW Logistics to the registration by Essex County Council of part of the Port of Mistley as a Town and Village Green.
The Court upheld the registration as a Town and Village Green of land which inhabitants of Mistley have used for lawful sports and pastimes (the legal definition of a Town or Village Green). The inhabitants of Mistley now have their village green.
The decision stems from the erection of a fence along the edge of Mistley Quay installed 12 years ago which attempted to prevent the use of the Quay by local residents. Ian Tucker, who lived on the Quay, applied for registration of the quay as a village green. Following a ten-day public inquiry Essex County Council registered the relevant part of the Quay as a Town and Village Green.
TWL challenged registration in the High Court and subsequently, on appeal, in the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court on the grounds that the registration was incompatible with commercial use of the port and would criminalise many port activities. The Supreme Court ruling confirms existing law and provides that the public activities on the Town and Village Green may co-exist with those of the landowner. The fence on the edge of the Quay will not be removed as a consequence but it is now an unlawful obstruction on the Village Green and steps can, and will, be taken to remove it.
The long drawn-out battle was won with the support of very many residents of Mistley and the local area who will now be able to continue to enjoy use of the Quay as they, and their forebears, have for many years. Success would not have been possible without the support and determination of Essex County Council.
Simon Bullimore, the Chairman of Free the Quay, said: “We are all delighted with the result after such a long battle. The next stage will be the removal of the fence which is now finally established as an obstruction on the village green. We hope that TW Logistics and Mr Parker, who owns the business, will now change his mind and talk to us about an environmentally and aesthetically acceptable form of safety barrier along the quay edge, allowing traditional use of the village green”.
Nancy Bell, who lives on the quay said: “It is such a relief that the registration of the village green has finally been confirmed. The fence went up when my daughter Daisy was a toddler; she is now 14. She has never known anything else on the quay. I am so happy that we can now look forward to enjoying the restoration of the quay to its historic setting”.
Yesterday we drove up to London to receive the first round of our Covid vaccinations. So exciting. Not just the prospect of immunity but the actual jaunt to London itself; we’ve not been there for several months and found the flat dark, dank but surprisingly un-dusty. It was like going on a foreign holiday and checking into a strange Vrbo apartment; like we’d never been there before.
Our vaccinations were delivered by the Caversham Group Practice, where we are registered – and have been for nearly forty years. The fact of our lockdown in Mistley nearly a year ago was a happy coincidence since we’d not have wanted to be locked down in London. As you all know, dear friends, from my endless description of walks and hikes, there is far more breathing space here than in the big smoke where, anyway, everything that we love is shut.
Except friends – who we miss very much; as I am sure, do you.
Caversham Group seem ahead of the game for our cohort. No such luxury has been extended yet down here and won’t until probably the end of this month. So we are lucky.
Lucky too to be in the hands of such an efficient clinic. We were impressed with the whole process from the invitation to receive to the administration of the actual injection itself. Caversham have mustered retiree doctors and young medical students to corral us in orderly fashion and herd us at the right moment into our surgical stables! My doctor was chatty; she explained everything to me; told me when I’d get the second jab – in about twelve weeks – and produced her syringe and the magic elixir, the Oxford AstraZeneca brand, with a flourish – and in it went.
We went back to the flat to spend the night and woke up this morning feeling rather under the weather : aches, sore throat, tiredness; indeed, many of the symptoms we remember from a year ago when we had the actual virus itself. They warned us there could be side effects and also said that if we had had the virus we were likely to react more than those who haven’t.
The Estuary at Manningtree.
Here we are back again in Mistley, with threats of snow, back into hunker mode, spirits raised by our adventure and the news that today the virus peaked and from now on things can only get better.
Encouraging not so?
We’ve been back from Canada just over three weeks though I can’t say really that the routines have much altered.
The Beast from the East 2 has arrived. Temperatures have plunged to 0˚C
We love Popcorn. It’s our new snack. I’ve never paid it much attention really until the granddaughters made us promise to sit through the entire Marvel oeuvre.
Friends! Sympathy please!
There are twenty-one of these massive movies filled with incomprehensible plots and so much CGI that you do not know whether you are coming or going! BUT – the best thing was that halfway through each film Libby would disappear and return with freshly made popcorn to which we are now addicted. The salted kind, not the sugary sort. I prefer making them on top of the cooker in a big, non-stick pot with a glass top. Part of the fun is watching it grow from nothing to something in mere minutes. You can’t do that with those microwaveable, brown bags where the action is unseen!
It reminds me of a job I did once in Munich. I was making a series of commercials there being “the IBM man”. It was lovely. Lots of time to explore the city and appreciate all the other privileges of commercials-making in the 1980’s, when we were given such generous schedules.
Popcorn – I was in the studio commissary alone and mind you, having no German (scripts were always learnt parrot fashion!), when an assistant to the third assistant director came in to make coffee and, here is the point, shove a glass bowl containing far too many corn kernels and no lid into the microwave oven, setting it going and disappearing before I could remonstrate.
The result was a spectacular explosion of white, puff pops that filled the entire oven and then blew off the front door cascading across the commissary in a scene reminiscent of a Laurel & Hardy movie.
There was much sturm und drang I can tell you!
Two faecal decorations…….
………..of far too many!
And now a little rant. This time about dog pooh!
Friends, what is it with dog owners and their poo? Can someone please explain to me why -and of course many of you have dogs so you will be able to put me right, I’m sure – why when dogs are taken on walks through our beautiful countryside, their owners, proudly equipped with every luxury known to a dog, from a lead, to tennis ball throwers and black, plastic pooh bags (in Canada some even wear booties to protect their pads from the ice), and the dogs attend to their toilette, the owners unravel these ghastly little black bags and go through the appalling routine of picking the mess up, tying the bag neatly and then – and this is what gets me – hanging the bag on a tree or even leaving it lying in the middle of the path? Why?
These faecal decorations “will be collected on our way back”, say the mendacious dog owners; but they never are. Since the start of the pandemic, the dog population has sky-rocketed – and so have the poop bags!
Why not simply encourage the dogs to crap in the bushes or off the path where their turds can naturally biodegrade? This would obviate the humiliation of collecting the turds by hand and storing them in little, non-biodegradeable (and believe me they are non-biodegradeable), schlocky, skanky blag bags?
To the miserable, selfish and ignorant dog owners who leave their charges’ turds in the middle of the path or outside our front doors along The Green I ask, “Why do you do this? Are you qualified to own a dog at all?”
Can you not see the pooper bins?
But once having tripped over the doggie-doo the walks, though muddy and slippery, continue to be wonderful. We keep on discovering new ones and view our Heimat from different and ever-changing perspectives.
The woods are old. Several of the trees date back nearly a thousand years. Old Knobbly is reputed to be 800 years old and has its own website : https://oldknobbley.com/
Old Knobbly. Not Tony – the tree!
Same Place…….
…..different weather!
Narnia in Mistley Woods
On one walk we came across signs warning us of poisonous snakes. Astonishing. I know there are adders about and have seen them a few times but they are timid and, compared to the snakes of my South African childhood, not very poisonous. Perhaps the signs are to discourage walkers, some farmers would do almost anything to sabotage our rights of way, or perhaps they are to warn horse riders?
Are the farmers putting off the hikers or warning the horse riders?
And the streaming of course continues apace. Several series are occupying us, Your Honor, Spiral, All the Sins, Call My Agent, Traces, The Serpent, to name a few; but without doubt it’s been It’s a Sin that has had quite an impact.
The Guardian reviewed it and says it better than I can and I unashamedly copy some of it here :
“Russell T Davies’s new drama, It’s a Sin is something of a companion piece, 20 years on, to his groundbreaking masterpiece, Queer as Folk. The latter was the riotous celebration of gay urban life as led by three friends broadly representing different stages of exploration as they embraced life as hot single men. In essence it was a gorgeous fantasy, designed to counteract both the historic worthiness and prejudice surrounding such depictions.
What it did not do was look much at the darkness out of which such freedom had emerged and which still shadowed the lives of its Canal Street party people. It didn’t, in short, deal with the effects of Aids on the gay community.
It’s a Sin does. It follows the lives of three young gay men, Ritchie, Roscoe and Colin who move to London. They evolve into a family (along with Ritchie’s university best friend Jill) as they commit themselves to the enjoyment of every freedom the city has to offer.
But the group arrive in 1981*, just as the first reports of a new disease are making their way across the Atlantic.
The shadows are starting to gather by the end of the first episode, which is mostly devoted to establishing the characters and their relationships in full measure. It is Davies’s great gift to be able to create real, flawed, entirely credible bundles of humanity and make it clear, without even momentary preachiness, how much they have to lose.
The most hedonistic are Ritchie – who has left a loving, unthinkingly homophobic home in the Isle of Wight to study at university – and Roscoe, who had to flee a deeply religious household set on driving the homosexuality out of him even if they had to return to their native Nigeria. Colin, from the Welsh valleys, is quieter, thrilled by his new job at a tailor’s and befriended by an older colleague, Henry a sweet, gentle man who has been living with his partner, Pablo, for 30 years.
Henry and Pablo both fall ill at the same time with … cancer? Tuberculosis? Pneumonia? No one really knows, but Pablo’s mother forces him home to Portugal and Henry is left brutally isolated in a hospital ward.
At one point, the doctors think it might be psittacosis, a lung disease contracted from, among other birds, parrots:
“You haven’t got a parrot though, have you?”says Colin.
“Of course I haven’t got a fucking parrot,”replies his friend.
This all takes on a special resonance, of course, in the time of Covid. We can empathize that bit more with the fear, uncertainty and responses rational and irrational to the emergence of a new disease. Ritchie favours denial. Jill, her slight distance from what was seen by many as “the gay plague” giving her a different perspective, begins to arm herself with knowledge. We can also identify with endless, mindless joys coming to a painful halt, the jostling within oneself of reason and unreason – and perhaps in episodes to come, the wrestling with woefully inadequate and incompetent government responses to a proliferating crisis.
As the series moves through the decade, the subject matter naturally darkens but never loses its funniness or fleetness. It’s possible some will complain that Davies does not treat the subject as sombrely as it deserves. This is nonsense. Fleetness and funniness are the essence of life, and only by making them as central to characters, as Davies does, can you convey the depth of the tragedy about to unfold.It’s a Sin looks set not just to be to Queer as Folk’s companion piece but its companion masterpiece.”
Petshop Boys: It’s a Sin!
*I couldn’t agree more with this review and watching the series has brought so many unexpected and not always pleasant memories of coming out, of loss and of the sometime discomfiture and struggle that being Gay has meant.
And then there was Pygmalion:
The Oxford & Cambridge Club usually conduct readings and other cultural events live in the club in Pall Mall but because of the dreaded lurgy we are now streaming online instead. Not nearly as smooth or easy as in real life I find, but fun.
Pygmalion has been our latest event. I gave my Colonel Pickering, probably one of the least challenging and most boring characters in the whole Shavian oeuvre! He is so ineluctably nice. It’s also nice to be in the company of friends though I am dismayed by how badly I read these days. I seem to have lost the knack somehow and made some faux pas during our webinar last week. Please forgive me, Friends!
I look forward to the next project, Lady Windermere’s Fan.
Siberia visits The Green
That was the week that was and it’s Valentine’s Day to end it!
Thank you, dear Friends-all, for your loyal support of my blog. It’s gratifying especially when you respond. What other way is there of keeping close in these strange times? I am flattered when you respond and rather surprised! I am always slightly embarrassed when I post; it’s rather inconsequential when weighed in the scale of contemporary affairs and the appalling suffering of so many. I am lucky anyone reads it at all and grateful that they do.
We got here in the nick of time and it looks as though we are going to get out in the nick of time too.
The UK has announced that all international passengers will have to be tested for Covid no later than 72 hours before their departure; but as they have as yet not announced a specific date, in the usual indecisive manner we have come to expect from Bojo and his Shudder of Cabinet Clowns, it looks as though we are home free.
Negative test result
A golf trap in summer – on the ice at the 6th hole
Ironically, four days ago the Ontario Government announced that anyone from the UK and all those with whom they are in contact must take the test. We, by which I mean our whole Canadian family bubble, six of us, duly attended a clinic, had sticks up our noses and tested negative. It was all efficiently handled, results received online and in printable format to be easily produced for inspection if necessary.
That test of course expires before we leave on Monday but by now it is too late anyway to have one, get the results and travel. If Grant Schapps suddenly imposes a date by then we are liable for a fine of £500. I shall elect to go to prison rather than pay it! Ho-hum!
Beaverbrooke Woods
Beaverbrooke Woods
Ottawa River
Skating at Beaverbrooke
It’s -11˚C here this morning; clear sunny skies and crisp, dry air. I was meant to get a massage from John Bain (rhymes with pain), the local sports physio. Having ricked my back and neck rather badly when I fell on the ice the other day. But the results of his obligatory test have not come through yet and he is not allowed to be in touch with anyone until they do. So that was cancelled.
We have watched, like the rest of you no doubt, the appalling events in Washington unfolding in the past day or two; not to mention the soaring Covid statistics coming from Britain. Apparently our local hospitals in Ipswich and Colchester are now full and the death rate the highest ever. I offer no comment on these dismal turn of events but as we feared, 2021 looks no better than 2020 so far – early days though. As for Brexit? Well let’s see what next the Cabinet Clowns come up with. Will we be able to get tomatoes & lettuce let alone Camembert & Frisee at the Co-op? Shock horror!
Ivan & Libby & Sarah & Grandpa Tony & Anna – a New Year’s day – Canada 2021!
For us the two pieces of really good news is that we were able to be with our family at this special time and that the forces of reaction in Washington were repelled. Rejoice! Rejoice!
No skates!
Birch trees
Saturday, 9th January :
And so this morning our test clearances allowed me to meet John Bain (rhymes with pain!) at his clinic for an hour of a massage of the sports variety. No pampering here as he melted those knotted muscles. Such relief.
Spontaneous rinks
Another sunny, icy day. Some of the family went skating at Beaverbrooke. Apparently the crisp white covering will now stay until spring so there is less ice to kill yourself on!
Still no specific news from Mr Shapps and his friends so we are now passed the possible deadline of 72 hours and may well appear in London on Tueasday with no valid, negative test certificate. Ho-hum. Do not pass GO, do not collect £200, go straight to JAIL.
One journey – and for once only please – has been traversing the cosmos with all twenty-one of the Marvel epic Avengers, a Disney odyssey of quite spectacular destruction ending in half the universe being killed off by a dour, large-looking man called Thanos (I think). CGI has never had it so good; but very diverting especially while we have another set of real avengers busy trying to destroy American democracy just south of us here!
While on the subject, we’ve finished The Flight Attendant, a rather whimsical comedy thriller and the latest, brilliant Bryan Cranston series, Your Honor.
Sunday, 10th January :
Overcast today, our last day – and still no news from Mr. Shapps.
The massage yesterday has proved wonderful. Today, hooray, no pain-in-the-neck and upper back! I wish I could have another massage soon but our lovely Paul Carey in Manningtree I guess, will not be able to come out for a while.
We have to go into immediate quarantine again when we get back. Friend Willie Meston has laid in emergency stocks and Tesco’s comes with a big order the day after we arrive. Other than that there is nothing in the Calendar for the whole of 2021. Our Madeira visit is cancelled, sadly, and the Voucher Folder is now overflowing with pretty useless airline vouchers none of which can be amalgamated into a nice, single, handy amount nor converted into cash. Hey Ho, Friends.
We got here in the nick of time. Soon after we left, a travel ban was imposed on the UK by pretty much everyone and all flights to and from Canada suspended for three days. This has now been extended to the 6th January ’21; we are meant to be returning on the 11th but with the new virus strain threatening everyone, who knows whether we will be returning at all!
Canadian Christmas
Yesterday the Ontario Government extended its lockdown regulations until the 9th January so, while Tony and I come out of quarantine in four days time with the whole family, we are all still in lockdown with everyone so our status doesn’t really change much.
Grandpa Tony and Pedro-of-the-Green!
ArriveCAN is an App we have to use to report our temperatures daily and receive and send any Covid communications necessary. From time to time either a virtual or actual telephone call will come in to check on us. So far there have been no personal visits though these apparently do happen as well.
Kanata golf course – same spot, different weather!
In the end this journey will be one, long quarantine but as we came here to be with the Canadian family anyway, it does not matter a jot. It’s just a pleasure to be so welcomed by them and they have gone to extraordinary lengths to prepare for the siege. We lack for nothing. Entertainment, media & meal menus have been meticulously prepared and all my hopes of a thinner New Year have been kicked into touch!
Makeover courtesy of Libby!
Nyala the Bernerdoodle.
With Gin, Jigsaws, Netflix, Bridge- virtual and actual – games and books aplenty, we have been royally looked after. We have even played Bridge-online with friends at home and both our Canadian and English families joined transatlantically in a web game called Codenames. Technology is astonishing.
One piece is missing. We think it’s in the dog!
Best of all is just to be here after all the months of cancellations and nail-biting moments as plan after plan went south. Its been over eighteen months since we were last together.
Christmas morning breakfast and buttering UNDER the skin of the turkey!
We are allowed to walk outside. The joy of this is Nala, the youngest edition to the family. She is a seven month old Bernerdoodle with the sweetest, kindest nature and adored by all, needing lots of exercise in the freezing cold to work off her enthusiasm! She has us all wrapped round her paws and seems not to feel the cold at all.
Temperatures have ranged between -15 and +8˚C with some light falls of snow and rain on the warmer days. Today it was –9˚C with clear skies and sunshine – and no wind.
We are of course riveted by the Brexmas developments at home, the sad slide into the new coronavirus variant and the casting off of HMS Britannia, finally slipping her moorings and leaving the European quayside to journey we know not where.
See amid the winter snow………….
We come out of Quarantine tomorrow, the 30th December straight into an Ontario lockdown similar to Tier 4 at home. Apparently the new British Covid Variant has arrived here now. It remains to be seen what the new developments mean for our flights home on the 11th January. Air Canada have not cancelled us yet but we are expecting they might. This is certainly a spontaneous, flexible journey, who knows what 2021 will bring.
Mad King Ludwig II’s Schloss Neuschwanstein takes shape
In the meantime yet another jigsaw puzzle bites the dust as Schloss Neuschwanstein, that 19th Century vanity project to honour Wagner by Mad King Ludwig II comes together. This time with all the pieces.
And not a piece missing – even in the dog!
It’s -15˚C (chill factor) this morning. Yesterday we played transatlantic bridge with Friends Edward & Jane, our third stab at transatlantic gamesmanship. It snowed in the morning, rained at midday; during our bridge the snow melted completely; after bridge we walked Nala and Granddaughter Libby into a blizzard and over the day the temperatures ranged from 3˚ to -9˚C (wind chill -11˚C). Astonishing swings. It was my first blizzard. A small one but quickly re-covering the ground in white.
Kanata Golf Course
Nala
The Blizzard came later!
I was going to run this until New Year but think I’ll close 2020 here.
A very Happy New Year to all our dear Friends everywhere – may it be Vaccine-filled, healthy and safe.
We have just returned from Snape where we listened to and watched the wonderful Nicola Benedetti playing works by Biber, Bach, Paganini and Ysaÿe, whom I’d never heard of but glad I’ve now met. She has a charming presence and took us through the works with such warmth on her £2,000,000 Gariel Stradivarius, that the hour flashed by far too fast. We wanted to hear more, especially Paganini, but with a concert immediately following, there was no time for an encore.
They certainly don’t grow on trees. A Medici-style patron loans her the violin.
Here is an interesting link. Nicola chats about her violin.
Speaking of violinists, Jorge Jiménez, our wonderful composer/virtuoso and neighbour, has just released a new CD, Lunaris featuring his own compositions and works by Ysaÿe, Berio, Bartók and Merula. Along with Anna Stegmann, the Recorder player, has created an eerie, moody Lunar soundscape in the pattern of the 28 day moon cycle: New, Crescent, Full and Eclipse. It is rather esoteric but fascinating – and certainly creates atmosphere.
Jorge continues his work with the Hanover Band on their project to complete the full set of Beethoven Symphonies recorded in the Mansion House in London. All eight of them have now been presented and the 9th will be streamed next week. Here is Mark Elder talking about the symphony which he will be conducting. Jorge is the lead violinist. It has been beautiful listening. All the instruments are period pieces:
I thought I should mention this 1-MINUTE-FILM-ABOUT-MARRIAGE. We’ve not been streaming only escapism only but trying to find other insightful creations too – “art baby!” There’s a limit to how far MAR DE PLASTICO and BARBARIAN can take you! Have a look at this, it is very sweet and only takes a minute:
Our walks continue. 22 kilometres was our biggest one since my last post. On this subject may I have a little rant? Forgive me, but today it’s farmers!
As you know we walk a great deal all over the Tendring and Shotley peninsulas taking advantage of the literally hundreds of specially marked pathways that crisscross farmland, through woods and along riversides. Most of these we have memorised over the years but we have a set of survey maps of the area to make sure we do not stray into forbidden territory or get lost. East Anglia is flat and low lying and once you’re out there it can be confusing despite the smallness of the landscape in these islands.
Why are farmers so grumpy always? Our experience is purely anecdotal of course and I have no statistical evidence to back me up here other than what we see and hear around us on our walks, on the television and the radio.
With Brexit coming up and all the lunacy surrounding that, the farmers are now holding their collective breaths. Gone will be the protections of the Common Agricultural Policy and who knows what will replace it? Yet it was many farmers that wanted this; they want ‘out’ but want the privileges of ‘in’; they never get enough subsidy or if they do its unfairly distributed; the weather is too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry; the public are a nuisance; the public should not roam the land; they don’t want immigrants but can’t find migrants to harvest their land, to pick their cherries and apples and fruit; English labour is useless we have been told; they don’t want immigrants but are not prepared or are incapable of doing, themselves, the grubby, back breaking jobs that migrants do.
Winter ploughing and the annual pathway obliteration!
Llama or Alpaca?
Farmers plead poverty but seem in many cases to be able to afford public schooling for their children and, one hears, private medicare, Bupa and so forth. I know this is not universal but it happens.
One of the things they frequently do around here is obliterate the pathways and even maliciously destroy signposting so that you can suddenly become lost in a clod-turned field, reminiscent of the muds and clays of the trenches of world war one! Short cuts become long doglegs turning for example a ten miler into twelve or thirteen; what was there last year has gone this. It can be infuriating.
Then there is the evidence hidden in ditches of carelessness with rubbish. Driving along in a car you see a beautiful landscape, hedgerows, avenues of trees and immaculate fields. But walking slowly along these routes you see evidence in the ditches and under the brambles of detritus strewn about. Not just coke cans, burger boxes and bottles (which could be passing cars) but empty plastic containers of fertilizers and chemicals and other farming detritus just dumped in ditches and concealed by brambles.
Well that’s enough rant for this post! At least we get to walk the routes and draw sustenance from this beautiful landscape – despite the farmers, not because of them.
Dark November brings the fog Should not do it to a dog. Freezing wet Dember then… Bloody January again!
We are going to Canada for Christmas – seeing our family there at last. It has entailed the most extraordinary skill navigating the labyrinthine eVoucher and airline schedules; the restrictions, the quarantine regulations – all an exciting travel adventure on their own. There are no direct flights to Ottawa; we fly via Toronto being one of the three airports open in Canada for Inbound international flights. We have had to fill in special quarantine forms which, in Canada, unlike here, are properly policed. So the entire family will lockdown at home for two weeks. Stocks have been laid in and all measures to survive the siege are in place! It remains to be seen whether we are all sane at the other side! Watch this space, dear Friends.
I don’t really like Round Robin Christmas Cards and have sent real ones this year to as many as I can but for those who are in parts unrefreshed by my postal enthusiasm I want to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and, please god, a very Healthy, Prosperous and Vaccine-filled New Year. Great Mistley talents, Derek & Nancy Bell designed the Christmas Window here. I love it because it is both Festive and Hopeful. Their home overlooks the ghastly fence along the quay which we have all protested about for twelve years now. At last the Supreme Court will rule and we are all hopeful that we will win and the monstrosity will be removed. So the little fence at the bottom of the picture will perhaps not appear in next year’s festive greeting!
The fence is at the bottom and we really do have black swans in the Stour River.
For those of you watching the Good Ship Britannia slipping itself from its European moorings on an unchartered course to who knows where, we ask your prayers!
And here is a wonderful Christmas Carol by Friend Jo Michie in Scotland to be sung to the tune of the 12 Days of Christmas:
THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS 2020
The first day of Christmas Covid gave to me
A pandemic level tier three.
The second day of Christmas Covid gave to me
Two hand sanitisers …and a pandemic level tier three
The third day of Christmas Covid gave to me
Three potential vaccines ..and a pandemic level tier three.
On the fourth day of Christmas, Covid gave to me
Four in our bubble ….and a pandemic level tier three!
On the fifth day of Christmas, Covid gave to me
Five flimsy face masks ….and a pandemic level tier three!
On the sixth day of Christmas, Covid gave to me
Six pairs of gloves …..and a pandemic level tier three!
On the seventh day of Christmas, Covid gave to me
Seven shops going bankrupt….and a pandemic level tier three!
On the eighth day of Christmas, Covid gave to me
Eight pubs a ’closing …and a pandemic level tier three!
On the ninth day of Christmas, Covid gave to me
Nine Zoom meetings ….and a pandemic level tier three!
On the tenth day of Christmas, Covid gave to me
Ten exhausted medics …and a pandemic level tier three!
On the eleventh day of Christmas, Covid gave to me
Eleven MPs faffing …and a pandemic level tier three!
On the twelfth day of Christmas, Covid gave to me
Twelve more days of lockdown …and a pandemic level tier three!
Jo Michie
We went walking in crisp sunshine yesterday, along one of our favourite paths into Copperas Wood, along the south bank of the Stour, past the actor, Clive Owen’s beautiful arte deco home near Ramsay. He is one of our local celebrities and the walk is about 8 kilometres long. In all the years we have been coming here we have never seen so many people and the small, shaded car park was full; we had to drive a while along the road to find a suitable place to park.
It is a reflection on our lockdown status that more and more of us are using local amenities and it is amusing to notice how many visitors have clearly never walked like this before. It’s extremely muddy and slippery underfoot and many were wearing completely inappropriate clothing for such an outing! One person was wearing patent leather shoes with heels
which reminded me of the scene in THE CROWN where Mrs Thatcher is utterly humiliated when she turns up for deer stalking at Balmoral with the Royals, dressed in a blue twinset, black patent leather heels and her obligatory handbag. She didn’t last long as you can imagine – poor woman!
Its Remembrance Sunday today, a beautiful, sunny, crisp, cloudless late-Autumn day and we are in our second national lockdown of the year. No formal gathering at the village memorial this year and Tony and I walked up to Furze Hill across the rugby fields and into the woods where we stood quietly for two minutes, reflecting together. You could hear the birds singing and in the distance the excited chatter of children, the sweet sound of innocent youth; we thought how fitting that theirs was the only sound other than nature’s, to be heard. For was it not for these children, our hope for the future, that toil and strife, pain and death was endured? That our world would be safe?
Mistley War Memorial at the entrance to the village
That at any rate is the hope that sustains humanity. Hope that decency, good will, understanding between the nations and religions of the world would banish fear, greed, graceless selfishness and evil?
The news from the United States today can only be a fitting coincidence to this day of hope and remembrance. That Trump is gone, hopefully to languish in a jail in due course, where I firmly believe he and his Trumpfia belong, must surely be a cause for rejoicing?
Goodbye to Trump but not Populism I fear?
Then why is there a lingering feeling of anxiety on this sunny day? 70 Million Americans cannot all be monsters, racists and bigots and so it is surely true that many of their concerns, their issues must be real and will have to be addressed by the new President if he is truly to “heal America”.
There has been a fundamental change with us here since my last post. The American election and the new lockdown have had a depressive effect. That the world is not in a good place at present cannot be doubted. We are lucky because not a lot for us has changed other than swathes of travel plans; but that of course is not true for millions of others all over the world who most certainly are experiencing difficult, sometimes life-threatening times.
To the pandemic, to the rise of new populist leaders and their nationalisms, to extremisms, to hunger, need and fear must be added concerns with our climate.
We belong to a small chat group on WhatsApp which was sweetly set up eight months ago by some of you when Tony and I were laid low with the Covid virus. It acted as a contact group and we monitored each other’s health situations and lent moral support to each other; with the passing of the illness it became more of a platform for comment and debate on current affairs and as we fundamentally agree with each other on almost all issues, so it has become a bit of an echo chamber – reflecting, as one friend wrote, “an existential anxiety” devoid of optimism or hope.
We have noticed that long silences have fallen between us. They are companionable silences but in our long relationship extremely unusual. Ours has been an animated partnership and these silences have arisen since Covid, since the unending bad news has unfolded and we have become paralysed by events to the extent that there seems little more to say or do other than to look inward.
Perhaps that may not be such a bad thing but it’s not really a happy development in the long run. I wonder, dear friends, whether you have perhaps experienced anything similar? A sort of ghastly emptiness underlined by anxiety? What is this? An indulgent middle-age, middle class crisis-of-no-importance? Perhaps.
Forward, Friends, forward! Into the sunny uplands of winter!
30 September, 2006.
Our walks continue; and the streaming, binge-watching and the reading – and the cooking! Exactly a year ago my brother David and I were on a two week cruise through the Panama Canal and I started A LITTLE LIFE by Hanya Yanagihara, a story in my opinion so over written that it could easily be told in half its 720 pages; but so compelling that I must get to the end of it – after a whole year!
Which is not to say there have been no other books in the interim: there have and I have been multi-tasking.
Lots to help encourage optimism in the long month of lockdown. After all its not as though we have had no practice!
