Those of you who read my previous post about our decision to attack the marauding pigeons on our terrace with water pistols, may remember that we hadn’t actually scored one hit, despite lying murderously in wait for hours, mainly because the pigeons were, suddenly, nowhere to be seen. We decided they’d been put off by he noise of the re-started building work so this weekend, a bank holiday, seemed the ideal time to show them who’s boss.
Having now spent several days watching them, we discover there are three birds who regularly spend most of their time sitting on the roof several metres from ours. At intervals throughout the day, two of them journey to our terrace and sit below the feeder waiting for seed to drop from the beaks of the finches. The third remains on the roof opposite, looking on.
Writers being given to such fancies, my husband names the couple Leslie and Laura, decides they have been in love for many years, Leslie having stolen Laura from Lionel, her first love, who remains on the roof pining from afar, wracked with the pain of knowing she can never be his.
Leslie and Laura
Lionel
Despite having wound them them in this intricate narrative, “The Writer” is still determined to prevent the birds from visiting and continues to keep watch. Friday, gives way to Saturday and the pigeons become more adventurous as the builders’ din dies down. On Sunday, we watch their lumbering take-off as they obviously feel the time has come for them to leave their roof and venture further afield.
Leslie and Laura seem oblivious to the fact that they are living on borrowed time as they touch down on the terrace and he takes aim with the Super Soaker………
…….and misses.
…….and misses
……and misses again
Leslie and Laura evade shooting
Some time later, Lionel descends from his perch, presumably having decided that Leslie and Laura have gone for a jaunt – A nostalgic trip to Trafalgar Square, perhaps? Cooing about how crowded it used to be in the days of their courtship?.
Reckoning it’s safe for him to drop in to our place for a meal without enduring the agony of encountering the lovers, he descends onto our terrace.
There he sits, in full view, totally focussed on cleaning up the dropped seed. It’s clear he wouldn’t notice an army approaching. “Quick, quick”, I shout to “The Writer”, “There’s one here you can get”. He hurtles down the stairs from his study, grabs the loaded pistol and takes aim….. His arm stiffens in mid air, no stream of water issues from his gun and I watch his eyes mist over as he slowly and carefully lays it down on the table.
“What’s up?”, I ask
“That’s Lionel”, he says, shaking his head disconsolately. “I can’t shoot him. He’s too sad.”
Who could have guessed that my newly- discovered interest in wildlife would turn violent?
Inspired by tales of Amy and Peter’s blackbird who visits for mealworms and the sight of the two tiny green birds (greenfinches?) who chase each other around the skies above our terrace, I decided to send for a bird feeder and some feed. The feeder arrived and was duly sanitised, as was the bag of feed, a combination of seeds and nuts cutely called “peckish”. It had looked quite small in the picture but turned out to be about the size of a pillow and heavy as concrete.
My first dilemma was where to hang the feeder. I’m growing gooseberries and tomatoes on the terrace and we lost the tomatoes last year to blight. I don’t fancy losing them this year to a different predator. The feeder had to be distant from both, yet near enough for us to spot any visitors to it from our kitchen table.
I filled it, hung it and caused much amusement when the greenfinches arrived for the first time in the middle of a Zoom call with friends, who watched me become hysterical with delight. I’ve cracked it, I thought. All I have to do now is sit and wait for delightful and rare birds to turn up from all over the world.
(I had to pretend I didn’t have in mind my Australian friend’s visitors to his breakfast table last week.)
I HADN”T TAKEN PIGEONS INTO ACCOUNT!!!!!!!
They arrived in droves, shouldering the finches out of the way as they scavenged for seed the little birds had dropped from the feeder. I was reminded of what Trafalgar Square used to be like – hundreds of tourists delightedly buying bags of seed and stuffing it into scrofulous pigeons perched on their outstretched hands, shoulders and heads. Funny, we hardly noticed them go when the hawk patrol got rid of them once and for all – the pigeons, that is, not the tourists – though, of course, there’s no sign of those either, these days. But importing a hawk to our terrace wasn’t an option. We had to find another way.
It was ” the writer” who came up with the solution – water pistols.
Of course, we could have fun, get rid of the pigeons harmlessly and enjoy our greenfinches. Brilliant!
On line, searching for the perfect water pistol, I found myself in a parallel universe. with its own hyper-macho language:
“Stormblaster”, “Soakzooka”, “Floodtastic” “Hydrostorm big shot soaker”, “Barracuda”
I discovered that adults – male adults, mostly- actually buy water pistols – sorry, water guns – for themselves! I even read an article headed “Watery Warrier. Best guns for grown men”
In case you’re planning to join them- the favourite seems to be “The Mayhem” (See below.) Compensation or what!
The James Purdey or Holland and Holland of water guns appears to be a company called “Nerf” which, as yet, doesn’t seem to have progressed to the bespoke gun – making offered by the best English gunmakers. Perhaps Water Warriors aren’t prepared to wait the two years it can take to craft the perfect weapon for its owner. Nerf don’t even offer to alter their ready-made guns to fit the user like the real gunmakers do – a gap in the market perhaps?
Anyway, our “Stealth Soakers” arrived promptly.
We breakfast on the terrace, guns at the ready. Lunch is eaten inside, weapons placed casually on the sideboard near the open kitchen door. Supper is a nightmare of false sightings, each of us leaping up at different times to take aim. The only thing we succeed in hitting is our digestive systems, which, by the day’s end are shot to pieces. The pigeons which normally sit jeering at us from the railings or have to hoist their overfed bodies onto the back of the terrace chairs as a staging post en route to the railings, have vanished.
Could the noise from the re-started building work have driven them away? Could they have sensed our malign intent? Might they return on Sunday when it’s quiet?
The 17 cranes we see from our terrace have been still for seven weeks.
This week, they have begun to dip and swing once again.
Part mechanism, part animal, sometimes bending as though to drink from a pond, sometimes craning(!) as if to pick a leaf from a high branch, sometimes turning their backs in a huff, sometimes leaning into one another, as though deep in conversation and today, ignoring any any attempt at social distancing, kissing perhaps?
It has only occurred to me while writing this post that one of the reasons I have always been fascinated by cranes and have photographed them quite obsessively over the years, is that, as a child, my favourite toy was a yellow crane, which, somewhat oddly, I even took to bed with me. Having looked it up in a fit of nostalgia, I now present it to you:
Wish I’d kept it. But everyone says that about their Dinky toys.
I realise this all sounds rather romantic but Oh, the hideous noise that accompanies the building work. I didn’t realise the extent to which we’ve become used to quiet during lockdown and, though my husband, uncharacteristically, urges me to see the start up of building work as a vote for the future, to me it just heralds jangled nerves and a longing for Sundays.
Yesterday, when “The writer” remarked how extraordinary it is that he hasn’t opened his wardrobe for seven weeks, I realised I haven’t either.
I LOVE clothes. In fact, I love fashion. Not in the academic since of wanting to know what political or historical event caused hemlines to go up or down or why skirts grew too wide to go through doors – more as art and psychology – the line, the way the fabric falls, how a colour or a style can affect the wearer’s mood.
When it comes to my own clothes, they are my greatest extravagance. I own a ball gown, which I will never wear because I’ve never been and am unlikely ever to go – to a ball. Parties, yes, but a ball??? But I bought it, knowing that. It was just so exquisite.
When I was at university, I spent half of a year’s grant on a jacket and in the 60s, when Carnaby Street was London’s swinging centre, I would save up to have my trousers made there by John Stephen, the famous men’s tailor of the time and “The King of Carnaby Street”. I love to wear severe men’s tailoring more than anything and when my Mother discovered my penchant for buying men’s trousers, she became worried enough to she broach the subject of my possible lesbianism.
John Stephen with one of his Rolls Royce collection
Later, Biba became my garden of delights, scented and penumbral, filled withwaving palms, gently wafting feathers in vases and purple dresses on high mahogany coat stands. It smelled deep and pungent and so did the clothes for months afterwards, scenting my wardrobe with sandalwood. And they were cut as no garment I have owned before or since. If only I’d kept them.
So, given all this, how come I’m SO enjoying NOT wearing clothes? Of course, I’m wearing clothes but I’m not thinking about wearing clothes. Neither I nor my husband has ironed anything for the duration of Lockdown. Our sheets are as unrumpled as pulling them hard between us after washing can achieve and, as for the rest, we have been wearing track suits, yoga pants, T-shirts, and rugby shirts – all of which come out of the washing machine, are hung up to dry, then worn again.
It was quite a while into Lockdown before I realised how much of my life I have spent planning what I will wear to go out. Trousers or a dress? Pretty or cool? Sexy or comfortable? (No, I’ve never possessed a garment that was both). Would I be over- dressed, under dressed? Do I care? (No).Why can I no longer stand in high heels? Do I care? (Yes). Does my stomach stick out in this? Do I look like mutton dressed as lamb in that? To bright? Too dark? Too short? Too long?
For weeks I haven’t had pains in my ears from my earrings, I haven’t had pains in my feet from my shoes, I haven’t felt constricted by my waistband after eating, I haven’t felt a weight round my neck from whichever trinket I’m wearing round my neck, I haven’t had to plan exactly when to wash my hair so it will be at its best for a particular event, I haven’t been able to hide the grey in it, I haven’t carried a handbag or a document case or a shopping bag – and I feel LIBERATED!!!!
“The writer” does some radio work from time to time. The first piece since Lockdown began, was finished yesterday. Like most radio presenters during this weird time, he was asked to work from home. In this case to record on his mobile and transfer the file to the radio station from his desktop. Easy, he thought, as he sat down in his favourite chair, held the phone in front of him and spoke. Sending it off was harder as the file containing the recording was, at first, nowhere to be found on his desktop. Eventually, we tracked it down, despatched it and relaxed. Job done.
A few hours later, the producer emailed to say the recording sounded as though “The writer”had been sitting in a swimming pool, so great was the echo and hardness of timbre. She suggested re-recording somewhere with lots of soft furnishings. “The writer” explained that we live in an entirely steel and glass building with wooden floors throughout. Soft furnishings are scarce, to say the least. We had several more goes – sitting on the sofa with cushions piled around, lying on a rug, speaking into the clothes in an open wardrobe – all no good.
Then, we remembered that the bedroom, although it has a hard wood floor, also has velvet curtains. All we had to do was drag in a chair and place the phone on a pile of books. Sound straightforward? I brought a pile of books and arranged them in a tower of appropriate height on which to balance the ‘phone so it was close to “the writer’s” lips but not too close for fear of sibilence, only to discover him sneaking back to the bookcase and returning them to the shelves, before removing several different books and reconstituting the tower.
When I enquired what was wrong with my choice, he explained that he felt books by authors he didn’t like – or liked too much – would be a distraction were he to catch sight of them while recording. He re-iterated his usual, only half-joking, explanation for insane behaviour around writing – that writers of fiction are like Gods, creating and re-creating the world. What’s more, they are Monotheistic Gods who can’t bear any Johnny-come-lately deity muscling in on their territory. The consequence of this theory is that the work of few writers is tolerable to other writers and, frankly, I’m surprised he could find enough acceptable books to create a pile.
I think you’ll agree that the eventual solution to producing perfect sound quality had nothing especially God-like about it.
Going out for the first time in seven weeks was quite an experience. The nearest sensation to it I have felt in my life was that of stepping from a ship onto dry land. It’s no exaggeration to say I felt not quite steady on my feet and as though I might collapse and fall. I had intended to aim for natural beauty in St. James’s Park but discovered, as a true urbanite, that what I really wanted to see were our Soho playgrounds.
The first shock was not empty streets but boarded up frontages. I had no idea the Dean St. Town House, whose staff feel like family, where I ran when evacuated from home on the day a WW11 bomb was discovered on a building site next door to our apartment, where we have spent some of our happiest, most raucous times with friends and with each other, now turns a blank face to the street along with The Groucho Club and Cote.
Dean Street Town HouseThe Groucho Club
Curiously, I have spent a surprising amount of my Lockdown time thinking about the brightly- painted doughnut shop that opened barely a week before we self-isolated.
Who are the owners? Will it survive? How excellent that they didn’t spell it “Donut”. We have watched so many small businesses come and go since we’ve lived here. It’s heartbreaking to see proud owners standing in the street, hands on hips, surveying their brave new world, and even more heartbreaking to know they may not have sufficient backing to survive even a lean first couple of weeks – and that was during the good times. To my relief, Doughnut Time is there, closed but with a notice on the door saying their doughnuts can be reached via Deliveroo. Maybe they’ll make it.
We’ve lost count of the number of restaurants we have seen installing many thousands of pounds-worth of gleaming kitchen equipment, only to see it torn out and tossed into skips as the new owners decide on different ovens, fridges and sinks – more thousands of pounds, for who knows how long this time.
I see hardly anyone on the streets. Occasional knots of delivery men, leaning on their pushbikes and motor bikes, gather on corners chatting and paying no attention to social distancing. I am masked and most people smile at me benignly, except for one squat man who deliberately bends down to unleash his even squatter bulldog right in front of me, hoping, I feel, to scare me. I smile at them both behind my mask.
In the windows of padlocked sex shops, once the mainstay of Soho, are reflected the patisseries and chocolate shops that have taken their place. I was sad about that gentrification once but today I’m glad to be back on Soho’s streets, whatever their character, and long to see them thronging with life again.
Chocolate, chocolate is all I can think about. Well, not quite all. There’s also the Pret –A-Manger smoked salmon sandwich I used to eat for lunch at least twice a week before Lockdown and the Itsu sushi we had on the other two days and, on the weekends, when we were feeling over-stuffed, the Pret tuna salad.
I’m noticing how our eating habits have changed during Lockdown and wondering whether we city folk are having a different experience from those in the country. I know Trisha and Tod, for example, are still shopping at the local bakery and eating food without the added flavour of Sanitizer. Friends in Wales are doing the same. To be fair, so are some people in London, though many, like us, are depending completely on deliveries, friends or both.
“The Writer” is craving pizza but won’t have it delivered because of the cardboard box it comes in and I’m dying for linguini from Vapiano, our local Italian slow food chain and Sen Chen Pad Thai from Busaba, neither of which are doing Takeaway.
Before Lockdown, we were horrified by the outrageous sums of money we were spending to eat in smart restaurants, though that didn’t stop us doing it – but it’s the food from the more modest chains we long for now.
We’re trying to eat a balanced diet but every time we fancy a treat, like the shortbread biscuits in the painted tin we were given by the Scottish Hotel in which we spent Christmas, we think, “Why not?” and then, “We deserve it”. But we don’t “deserve” it. We have done absolutely nothing but stay happily indoors for a few weeks in our comfortable apartment. And, though my husband is losing weight through not eating baskets of restaurant bread and not drinking wine with every restaurant dinner, I’m putting it on because all I want to eat are sugar or fat, or, preferably, both at the same time.
Scottish shortbread tin
Porridge or fruit with yoghurt are what we always had for breakfast and still do, sometimes with the addition of honey from our beekeeper friend in the next door apartment. Lunches are harder because, pre-lockdown we used to drop in somewhere while out walking or bring something in. Nowadays, baked beans, sardines on toast, tuna or jacket potato are the staples of our lunch menu. And, on Sunday, we were so missing going out for breakfast with friends as we usually do, we had to re-create it at home. I have to say, it wasn’t the same.
Dinner can be a bit hit and miss, because, when I order the ingredients to make something and only half of them turn up, I’m not a creative enough cook to change course.
We have had roasts – a chicken with all the trimmings cooked by “The Writer” and I cooked a slow-roasted leg of lamb, seethed in middle-eastern spices, which looked so fabulous when it came out of the oven, I forgot to photograph it in my excitement!
(Strange how reluctant we are to have a roast on any day but Sunday. It’s as though our weeks retain some vague imprint of their pre-lockdown shape – like the muscle -memory of an exercise or a dance).
Our favourite salad has always been Greek, mainly because it’s an excuse for “The Writer” to turn a healthy salad into a fattening cheese dish. And, since Lockdown, we’ve added Italian Caprese salad, because so few people seem to eat Buffola Mozzerella, I can always get hold of it. Sadly, my basil, such a vital part of the look and taste of Caprese, has given up the ghost, as you can see below. The chives are doing OK though, and turn up almost all the time time in our favourite standby, the Omelette. A more daring friend who goes out for her shopping, reports that eggs are hard to come by, to the extent that her local supermarket hides them, bringing them out, surreptitiously, for regular customers only. So far, I’ve been lucky and had no problem getting them delivered.
In order to accommodate the umpteen tins of sardines we feel will give us at least a bit of Omega 3, we had to have a big cupboard clear out last week. These are just a couple of the tins we found. Look closely and you’ll see the date.
We do well for fruit, mainly because I’m doing the ordering and I love it. And, we were given a fabulous fruit box by “The Writer’s” family. Less well for vegetables because I don’t love them. In an effort to cram some veg down us, I’ve made so many batches of soup – butternut squash with creme fraiche, vegetables with barley, pea with yoghurt, spinach, leek and courgette – I’m now having to wear a wrist brace as a result of too much chopping.
Contents of a fabulous fruit box sent to us by “The Writer’s” mother and sister.
Since “The Writer” is actually writing, I undertook to be in charge of food, though he is dishwasher- loader and microwaver in chief. (I think he believes only men can do those things anyway). I confess we’re both getting tired of thinking about what to eat twice a day because we were so used to lazily eating bought sandwiches and salads. I’m now looking for Ready Meals wherever I can find them but their quality varies wildly. The one we like most of all is Marks and Spencer Cod Mornay. Trouble is, since they don’t include that range in their only recently-introduced deliveries, we’re dependant for these on kind people offering to make a special trip.
But, I digress. I have digressed from my favourite subject. Behold, I present the shrine to my beloved – our chocolate drawer. We both pretend this doesn’t exist, never go to it at the same time so we don’t have to discuss it, and never mention the fact that its contents mysteriously diminish day by day, or that they get equally mysteriously topped up when I bag the next delivery slot.
Ignore Bertie Bassett (Top Left). He belongs to Tod, who loves liquorice. Bertie will lie there until we, with Tod and Trisha, re-convene our Saturday nights together watching “Strictly Come Dancing”, while listening to “The Writer”complaining loudly throughout, “Do we REALLY have to watch this rubbish again?” Both his moaning and Bertie are part of the tradition.
Oh, and I missed out a bit of chocolate. Here is a traditional ‘Before” and ‘After”shot of my Easter egg. The only reason the milk chocolates inside it remain uneaten is that I only like plain chocolate. Trisha is the one who likes milk and she and Tod are still leading their normal-ish life in the highlands. No doubt within sight of a less colourful version of our bovine friend on the biscuit tin above.
It’s a shameful thing to admit but I have never cleaned. I don’t mean just wiping down kitchen surfaces or making sure the lavatory is up to scratch, I mean cleaning a whole place from top to bottom. My mother was too house-proud to allow me to botch jobs in the name of learning, not for her a rota where the child played her part. As far as she was concerned, children did children’s things – and that didn’t include housework. At University, I found myself sharing a house with three male students, not one of whom was known to have lifted a cloth. I joined in enthusiastically with the household regime of leaving the dirt to bed in. As soon as I had a job, I paid another woman to do the work I hated. Of course, like most middle-class women, I felt guilty about this and, of course, like most, I rationalised that I was at least giving someone work she needed.
When we waved a sad goodbye to the lovely Margerita, our cleaner, the last remnant of our civilised existence before Lockdown, “The writer” and I looked at each other in the horrified realisation that at our advanced age, and with stiffening limbs, we had to take on the apartment.
We’ve had various different cleaners during the time we’ve lived here and I’ve always suggested that, if there’s a cleaning product they prefer to use, they should ask and I would get it. Thereafter, I haven’t taken much notice so the sight that greeted us when we explored the cleaning cupboard came as something of a shock:
The next shock was realising that one should always use tools oneself before giving them to other people to work with. Lugging our massively heavy cylinder vacuum upstairs nearly wrenched my shoulder from its socket. I had thought it was the best implement I could buy for the job but didn’t consider that Margerita is the same height as me and about the same weight. How could I have done that to her? I invested in a shiny new Dyson, decided to throw out the old vacuum, then worried that Margerita may have a comfortable relationship with it, and be so horrified not to find it when she returns, she would leave. The solution was to put it in the spare room ,which has gradually filled with things we can no longer be bothered to cram into cupboards, on the grounds that we are bound to be needing them again “soon”.
During the first week of lockdown, in an effort to become the perfect hausfrau, I carefully wiped all picture frames, standing on chairs where necessary, removed every item from every surface before dusting and disinfecting, and sprayed every mirror with noxious substances before rubbing at it hard enough to dissolve my reflection. But then salvation came in the form of an ostrich-feather duster, bought from an ostrich farm in Argentina where I actually saw my duster, or at least a relative, galloping across the Pampas. They’re big buggers, Ostriches, and quite fierce, and I’m not sure how he would have felt about the depths to which he has fallen, with his finery hanging from a stick. Anyway, the feather duster is now my implement of choice – I swipe the picture frames, dust surfaces without moving ornaments and promise myself, I’ll do it properly next time. I’m pretty sure all feather dusters do is move the dust around but I’ve dealt with any guilt by moving on to the next room before it has chance to settle again.
I dropped Margerita an email yesterday, ostensibly to ask how she was but, Oh, how I wished she could drop by.
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More notes from readers about their symbols of lockdown:
Sharon writes:
‘This is my best moment of lockdown life. The seeds I dried from a couple of tomatoes have sprung into life. I’ll have to prick out a few and plant separately – when we have sunshine again. And I planted some slices which I think may be doing the same – I’m watching daily, could soon be overrun”.
“The writer” has decided to plant a cheese sandwich. As he says, you never know………
After yesterday’s post about my wanting to go out for a walk and reluctance to break the Marital Pact (Yes, I do see it with capital letters), “The Writer”decided he obviously wasn’t keeping me well enough entertained at home and yesterday evening announced that he was in the process of devising a quiz utilising one of his least-known and most impressive talents. He promised it would be ready by this morning.
After our morning walk – on the terrace – he calls me to look a a sequence of pictures featuring the titles of well-known novels. I am to guess which novel is represented by each picture.
I reproduce , here, what greeted me:
“Guess,Guess, he demands.
“Watership Down”?
“No”
“The Velveteen Rabbit”?
“No”
” Duck! Rabbit!?”
“No”.
“Raising Rabbits for Meat by Eric Rapp?”
“That’s silly”
“Wolf Nation?, the Company of Wolves?, Wolf Hall, Kavid the Wolf Dog?”
More notes from readers about their symbols of lockdown:
Sharon writes:
‘This is my best moment of lockdown life. The seeds I dried from a couple of tomatoes have sprung into life. I’ll have to prick out a few and plant separately – when we have sunshine again. And I planted some slices which I think may be doing the same – I’m watching daily, could soon be overrun”.
Today looks like the day for pricking out, Sharon. Lots of sun.
Seven weeks ago, while passing the pelican cabaret in St. James’s Park, “The Writer” and I were discussing Covid-19.
“Absolutely the only way to be a hundred percent safe”, I suggested , assuming it was a preposterous idea, ” is to lock oneself in and not come out until there is a vaccine”
“Right, said my husband, “Then that’s what we’ll do.” And that’s what we did. We have depended on food deliveries, seen two people on neighbouring terraces, talked to groups of friends and our trainer on Zoom and FaceTime, and exercised both in the house and by walking up and down the terrace. We have not been outside our front door since that day.
We agreed then, that if one of us feels strongly about something Covid-related, the other would go along with it, and my husband felt, and continues to feel, very strongly, that we should keep ourselves as safe as possible. Most of our friends take advantage of their daily exercise but they are not in London. And things are undoubtedly worse in London.
What we never did on that first day, was agree our criteria for going out into the world again. I’m not talking about the Government’s easing of Lockdown. That’s irrelevant. We, not the government, decided we would not take our hour’s exercise outside and we, not the Government, must decide when we are prepared to change our own rule.
When I first broached the idea, a few weeks ago, that we should discuss our exit strategy, my husband said that, for him, it would be when the hospitals were not so pressured as to be on the point of collapse, that there should be spare capacity in Critical Care units and that the death rate should be falling.
I felt this was reasonable and agreed.
It seems to me these criteria have now been more or less met and I would like to go out. My husband doesn’t feel they have, is perfectly happy exercising on the terrace and can’t understand my urgency. I realise that “I just want to go out now” is not a convincing argument but I am worried he may be nearing the foothills of agoraphobia.
I point out to him that there is no need for both of us to go out. I am perfectly happy to walk in the park or round the streets on my own – in fact would rather do so. He is a few years older than me, therefore slightly more at risk. He is male, therefore slightly more at risk and he is naturally a more anxious person – though I’m bad enough. I would far rather go alone than be responsible for making him feel uncomfortable or nervous. I’m pretty anxious myself but I can deal with that.
I’m sorry to put this pressure on him but now I worry that if we don’t take the plunge, there may never be a reason to go out again.
But there is our pact to consider. If I continue to cajole, leave optimistic statistical reports lying around the house, chat, casually, about our friends’ happy excursions into local shops, I’m breaking it by emotional blackmail. And suppose I persuade him to go out and the worst happens, and he catches it and is terribly ill or worse, it would be my fault and I couldn’t live with that. And, if he did suddenly agree, would I panic and be too scared to open the front door?
To sum up: I can’t break the Marital Pact. So welcome to another few weeks(?), months(?), years(?), of this Lockdown blog.
Meanwhile, I think I’m staying relatively sane, compared to some!
Locked down in London 