Jackie Jillings

My cultural holiday bonanza

My house-mate is away. I suppose it’s a tiny holiday as he gets his boat ready to sail, now that the marina allows people to stay onboard overnight.

I have decided that the few days on my own at home should be spent pretending that I too am on holiday, doing more reading (failed completely so far) and walking (success, but only pounding the pavements on deliveries – better than nothing of course), and catching up with television or YouTube.

I don’t allow myself to watch TV during the day unless I’m ironing. I have to be properly ill to watch daytime TV. But for a holiday treat, I allowed myself to start watching in early evening the last two nights and have binge watched the remaining 3 episodes of Little Fires Everywhere (Amazon) which was a recommendation I have thoroughly enjoyed. Plus the first two episodes of The Secrets She Keeps (BBC) and a cheeky rewatch of a couple of Fleabags so it takes them off the ‘watch next’ list on iPlayer.

This evening will be the Old Vic again – I want to see Mood Music which premieres on their YouTube Channel at 7pm tonight. Why not go to the premiere itself? I will! Snacks (silent) at the ready.

There’s also an audio recording of Shoe Lady – the Royal Court production for which I had tickets which had to be cancelled due to lockdown. I must somehow listen to that on the BBC – I think I can get it on BBC Sounds on my phone whilst I go for a soggy walk this afternoon.

So much to choose from – I am having to come to terms with not being able to see or hear everything that’s available. I’ve definitely broadened my horizons and experiences since I left full-time employment last year. Even in these restricted times, what a feast to be had.

I think perhaps I could stretch my home holiday a bit longer. I just feel guilty when someone else can see me lounging around. I need to get over that somehow. Judgment is almost certainly entirely in my own head!

Missing the theatre (the roar of the greasepaint etc)

Last night, I was part of an extended online audience watching Claire Foy and Matt Smith perform live on the empty Old Vic stage in Matthew Warchus’s adapted version of Lungs, the Duncan Macmillan play – adapted because, although already just a two-hander, there needed to be some social-distancing alterations to the staging for our strange Corona times. As I did not see the stage version (despite trying hard to get a ticket last year), I’m not sure how much it had been changed, but I’m guessing this mainly removed the actual on-stage touching and personal closeness, although thankfully it removed none of the emotion nor the sense of physicality between the two of them in my view.

Each actor was followed by a dedicated camera. The screen was split at all times and in some ways this was a shame because it made the images smaller on my TV. However, this added interest in other ways: spotting when the actors strayed into each other’s camera space, or crossed over each other, or used the two cameras to create interesting shots – for example, of their hands coming together, or of them both lying alongside each other. This was a feature in its own right and made good use of the genre.

Although the streaming was achieved using Zoom, the audience were of course centrally muted and their video cameras disabled so there was no interaction or shared experience. My fellow living-room viewer and I could therefore have discussed the performance throughout, as we might do during a TV show, but I don’t think we said a word, restricting ourselves to laughter or other natural theatre-audience reactions. This was not agreed in advance – it just happened. We allowed ourselves some silent sweet-eating (which I would not do in the theatre although of course many do) and I wore my slippers which felt unusual. I don’t dress up to go to the theatre – at least, not unless there is a particular reason to do so – but this felt ever so slightly disrespectful nonetheless. Our cats were also present, but slept or licked noiselessly throughout.

Do I think this was a good substitute for the real thing? In the absence of there being a ‘real thing’ at present, then yes. As it was live, there was that sense of in-the-moment jeopardy even on screen, although smaller than usual and perhaps with a greater fear of technical glitches than forgotten lines or other on-stage cockups. Most certainly there was a strong emotional feel – the acting was superb, their relationship compelling. I’m sure every bit of the narrative was there and conveyed just as powerfully. The pace was notably different from TV or film and this was transferred impressively to the screen, perhaps even enhanced by some of the shakier moments of camera-work.

I am so glad I saw it. Thank you.

But…

… it was so sad to see the empty auditorium as a backdrop on screen and the pre-recorded audience hubbub was strangely haunting.

I still want to go back to the theatre so much. I don’t know whether it’s the audience itself – I never thought of myself as liking the crowd (will I be able to see over the inevitable huge man in the seat in front? – and I’ve had some odd experiences eg. my West End Weirdo experience), but maybe the sense of being a part of that whole is more powerful than I realised. Being so close to, and in the same space as, the actors – be they famous or starting out, be they funny or heartwarming or alarming or downright nasty; observing close up the workings of the stage-dressing and scene-changing (or planting in Albion at the Almeida); suddenly spotting character entrances from anywhere in the theatre; wondering at effects and shared props (balloons, sprouts!); laughing in the right and wrong places; having to avoid looking at people when overcome with tears; sometimes wondering what on earth other people see in this but sticking there till the end anyway; wondering at the practicalities – from spectacular aerial performances in Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Bridge to that terrifying step-ladder climbing in OV’s EndGame); tiny moments of absolute unscripted hilarity (I have never forgotten John Simm and Adrian Bower’s hysterical corpsing in Elling at Trafalgar Studios) and huge utter silences of a full house in tense or sad scenes; the elation at curtain call (the secret feeling of maybe actually wanting to be up there – oh, to be part of that team); the shuffling out hearing other people’s opinions, and running for the train.

Please don’t let the theatres go dark forever. I know I’m not alone in this. We’ll be back when we can.

How my obsession with theatre was revived

Beauty in the eye of the beholder

Woke with a rubbish headache which won’t completely shift. Drugs taken. Still not working.

Keep catching sight of myself in the mirror as I mope around the house. Looking surprisingly good! Thinking of the scene in Fleabag where she looks gorgeous for her mother’s funeral. Perhaps it’s that…

…or maybe an odd side effect of the drugs. Or hormones. Distorts the eyesight.

Sigh.

Bleak housework

Maybe it really is harder to be upbeat when the sky is grey. Today there isn’t even an exciting gusty wind rattling the window to pique my interest. Just low-grade rain.

The prospect of continuing lack of travel, or proper group singing, or actual live theatre, or employment for my kids – somehow seems more overwhelming when I’ve also got to do the housework.

Haha – there’s the thing. Housework doesn’t get displaced by reading an absorbing book or watching YouTube or a decent film. It just piles up around me.

So – I have rationed it. Half today (now done – hurrah) and half on Thursday, because I have a date for a distanced walk with a friend tomorrow and I’m hoping we’ll go whatever the weather and share our miserablenesses joyfully together.

Rainy Saturday

I don’t know which has brought more tears to my eyes this morning: watching Andrew Scott in the Normal People skit on RTÉ Does Comic Relief (singing ‘…you’d be mine’. They really will have to bring Fleabag back when she’s 50 even if I’ll be gaga by then. She’s brought up his child alone, he’s an ageing rock star…), or viewing my own old video clips of my travels (the Hong Kong light show – gah! no more travel EVER?) and my family Christmas Day living-room singing (ahh).

Get a grip!!! It’s only a bit of much-needed rain.

Put on a waterproof. Go for a walk!

Carnage at the breakfast table

It’s all very well being public-spirited, but the mess! And the angst!

I have been signed up with UK Biobank (UKB) since my last period of unemployment in 2006, when I clearly felt – a rarity at the time for me – I should ‘give something back’. Over the years I have attended one or two examination sessions, and answered numerous questionnaires.

Now, in this Coronavirus landscape, UKB has really come into its own and has launched a study, using its members and their adult children where possible, to track the virus in the UK population. They requested volunteers to supply a monthly blood sample – taken at home by the volunteers themselves. I signed up. There’s not much else I can do to help ‘the science’.

I received a pack at the end of last week with instructions to take a blood sample on Monday this week. Oh dear – so now I actually had to do this very simple, but rather daunting, task that presumably the diabetic population do all the time.

Monday morning – 8am – I experience a huge enthusiasm for washing up and carefully cleaning more surfaces than usual in the kitchen. Put some washing on. Check my emails. Check the vegetable patch in the garden in case the birds have damaged anything. Check my emails again and my Fitness App. Full sanitisation of the table in readiness. Check my phone again.

9am. I sit at the breakfast table with all the kit out in front of me.I read the instructions. I read them again. I check the various items in the kit – yes, all present and correct. I re-read the instructions – dammit, I have to drink loads of water half an hour before taking the sample.

Half an hour later – I again sit at the breakfast table, hydrated and ready to go. This time I’m quicker to action – open the tiny vial and stand it precariously upright on the clean bit of table. I’ve washed my hands, of course, but have to soak one of them in warm water, then wipe clean with a special wipe, then – oh dear, here goes – stab my chosen finger! They provide a lancet for this purpose. It looks harmless enough – I can’t see a blade at all. It’s somewhere inside a minuscule device. I am brave and decisive here – not going to be feeble and muck about. I select a spot and press hard. I’m not sure why I’m surprised that it actually hurts quite a lot. I assumed I was just being a complete wuss about it and that in fact it would be painless. It isn’t.

The next bit was – with hindsight, and to be honest even at the time – quite funny. The instructions describe how to massage your hand so that the blood flows better out of the hole you have created in your finger (a hole I can still see three days later) into the bigger, but still very small, hole in the top of the collection vial. When looking down on my hand, I can’t really see exactly where the blood is forming a large globule at the end of my finger. I don’t position it accurately over the vial, which I am afraid of overturning anyway. Most of the first drop goes on the table, and almost all of the rest is around the side lip of the vial.

I massage some more. A big drop lands roundly in the vial – hurrah, and it is almost up to the required line already. What fat drops I create! Just one more… but once again, my hand has moved and the table gets some more. Probably best not to soak it up and squeeze into the vial?

A bit more massage and a better aim, and I’m done.

Just as well no one else was around to witness my apparent breakfast massacre.

In the end, this was a completely successful venture and I managed to clean, label and package up the collection tube and the used lancet, as instructed, and post it in its special sealed envelope, to be analysed for the greater good. Sadly, I will never learn – through this sample, at least – whether I carry antibodies to the Coronavirus.

I’m inordinately proud of myself. The National Blood Transfusion Service banned me from giving blood years ago because I faint, despite the fact that blood comes so easily out of me. So, in some ways, this was an act of defiance on my part.

Trouble is, now that I know it does actually hurt, the next 5 months’ tasks will not necessarily be any easier…but at least it’s not an ‘armful’.

Thanks Jenny – or whatever your name is

Sometimes I despair.

Well, quite often, but here’s the latest.

In the knowledge that the offspring would visit to surprise their father on Fathers’ Day, I had surreptitiously purchased (and mostly hidden) some suitable snackable foodstuffs. The crisps and cakes were in my usual hiding place to prevent aforementioned father’s discovery and early consumption. I produced these immediately my daughter arrived, dumping them ceremoniously on the garden table (offspring don’t expect any sort of attractive presentation from me – it would make them laugh), and produced a bottle of chilled rosé.

I had also purchased healthier items, intended to offset the crisps, cakes and alcohol. Needless to say, with the excitement of seeing the offspring (and their father) happily chatting at a suitable outdoor distance, I completely forgot that these items were still lodged at the back of the fridge.

Until Monday evening, when I rediscovered them and realised that it will take me all week to consume them by myself. Or rather, three days of concentrated eating if I am to achieve this before their Use By dates. I spent the rest of Monday evening convinced that this is yet another sign that I don’t have long before dementia takes me completely.

Then this morning I read an article by Jenny Eclair in the Sunday Times Magazine which reminded me that memory loss is one of the many symptoms of the menopause. Her article made me laugh out loud at breakfast – an almost unheard of occurrence, although possibly underlining my mid-life madness to the other occupant of this house.

Although I have a sporadic determination not to believe in the menopause as an actual thing, perhaps I will reassess and at least allow myself to classify some of my failings this way, rather than simply assuming my family history of dementia is charging towards me ever faster. Of course, I will have forgotten this by tomorrow. Or will find it immensely annoying. Or be too bloody hot to care!

Meanwhile, falafels for breakfast anyone?

Delivery supremo

I’ve always wanted a world map on my wall and to stick little markers in it for the cities I’ve visited. I have one rolled up under the bed in my office. One day I’ll get round to putting it up. Maybe soon – seeing as I have all that non-travelling time on my hands.

Except, I don’t seem to have time at the moment. No time for writing this week – I’m a delivery supremo!

Over the past few days, instead of a world map, it would have been useful to have a massive street map of the local area with all the care homes, GP surgeries, schools, hospitals and other charity locations to which my sewing group needed to deliver. We seem to have moved proper industrial quantities of our locally crafted goods to such places this week – 3400 in fact.

Oh, the feeling of power (after – of course – the feeling of confusion at the long list of orders packed and ready, and the feeling of panic before any of the drivers accepted my invitation to help).

I was at mission control – choosing which orders to put on each route, deciding which driver to ask to do each one, and then imperiously directing my team of driving volunteers hither and thither. Now we have a WhatsApp group to monitor access to our warehouse, I could see progress as each driver requested the key or checked with the others whether they were already there.

I was a small child again, directing a game. Running the pandas on Z-Cars (show your age, why don’t you?). Or at the control centre on Ambulance (Is the patient breathing??)

Even better, it involved transportation – I always loved journeys and map plotting.

Better still, when the deliveries are confirmed – I mark each order on the spreadsheet Green. I love a good spreadsheet – stats, colour-codes, numbers, targets!

My fellow volunteers are teasing me about this now.

I’ve clearly found my calling. All I need now is a bigger warehouse with robust shelving and a fork-lift truck (or better, an automated picking system) – and DRONES!!!!

Sorry, I’ve gone too far there. How would I be able to have a joke with a drone?

Pounding pavements

I’ve spent the last few days using an App to track my walking trips. Whilst I’ve been a slave to Fitbit for years, I thought I’d like to see those little maps of my walks, like I see friends posting from Strava on their Facebook pages. I do not want to post mine anywhere (er, probably…), but am keen to have a record of my perambulations around the neighbourhood in these continuing strange times for my own reference.

I am using Endomondo – the free version. I don’t need bells and whistles – just so long as I have a map and it creates a nice one plus some simple stats.

I’ve also already been awarded two gold cups. These leave me cold, to be honest, although sometimes prompt me to share with my husband so he too can be suitably unimpressed that I went further than ever before (on Day 3 of use – hahaha). Fitbit has given up awarding me things – I reckon I’m past it now, but no doubt I will soon have walked to the moon and back so perhaps they’ll let me know when I do.

In addition to checking my progress mile by mile – which annoyingly interrupts my podcast or audiobook whilst I’m marching along (note to self, there must be a way of switching this bit off – research needed) – I have an extra distraction this week: spotting all the different inspection covers in the pavements! Oh dear – I really wish I was not doing this, but one of my friends has taken to posting pictures on social media of these covers in unusual places (well, in Richmond Park where you might expect it to be more wild). Someone commented that there should always be an indication on the cover of what lies beneath – hence I keep glancing more closely at the wretched things as I go past. I will stop this soon (I hope).

Anyhow, I am pleased to report that I have achieved the following*:

Thursday 5.07 miles in 1 hour 31 minutes
Friday 4.74 miles in 1 hour 27 minutes
Saturday 6.18 miles in 2 hours 1 minute
Sunday 4.63 miles in 1 hour 50 minutes (split in two ambles)
Today 5 miles exactly in 1 hour 41 minutes (some of it hiding under a tree in the rain – yes I know that’s not a good idea but the thunder didn’t arrive till later)
In total I have seen 473** manhole or inspection covers

*I promise not to share this again

**this is a completely made-up number (otherwise known as a lie) but I have certainly seen a lot.

Monster tears

In my ongoing quest for thespian cultural kicks, I watched the Old Vic’s production ‘A Monster Calls’* yesterday.

Thank God I did not attend in person when it was staged. The blubbing was immense.

I had intended to watch Acts 1 and 2 separately, but realised I needed to plough straight on because I would need to steel myself too much to log back in for the second half after a break.

I watched on my laptop and listened on headphones. By the end, I was proper sobbing – sniffling, my whole face wet and runny. I reached into my bag and wiped my eyes and nose on the nearest soft article I found inside. I’m not even going to admit what it was, but I promise to be a lot tidier and hygienic with my handbag organisation in future!

I needed a very long walk and several podcasts to get over the whole experience.

*I would recommend this production if you have clean tissues ready and want a good cry, but it was available only for one week streaming until 7pm 11th June. There is also a film but I have not seen that (and probably won’t bother now). I love the fact that there is so much theatre available to watch online. Not really a substitute for being there in person but a great way to catch things I’d missed, and a poignant reminder of how we hope it will be again in the theatre after all this is done.

Fitbit fanatic

I have mentioned that Amazon recently sent me COMPLETELY THE WRONG ITEM. I had ordered some replacement wrist-bands for my Fitbit. The old one had started to fail. This is very common, but they are inexpensive to replace and it’s nice to have a different look from time to time.

I was sent instead some sort of screen protector for a phone – not even the size of phone that I have. Clearly just some stupid admin error and of course it was perfectly easy to send it back and request the correct item again – just a faff and a couple of extra anxious days wondering when the Fitbit would fall off into the washing up water, or be lost on a walk without me noticing.

Got me thinking how reliant I am on this device. My whole life is ruled by its ‘targets’. In particular at the moment I focus on the calorie usage and on the resting heart rate. I know that the accuracy is almost certainly dubious when compared to a proper medical assessment, but relative to my own history, it is interesting to monitor nevertheless.

I pride myself on having an Excellent resting heart rate for my age and gender – right at the top end of the scale apparently (do they say that in fact for everyone? I hope not). I can see when I have had a bad night when the rate doesn’t come down enough whilst asleep. In fact, if I am unwell with something, this is often the confirming evidence. I am still wondering whether I had the Coronavirus before lockdown because I had several weeks of elevated heart-rate. But this coincided with our holiday travel: staying in hot countries and the stress of constant moving on/air-travel etc. Who knows, but for the first time I can remember I lost my sense of taste – before that was registered as a common symptom. Perhaps just as well I stayed at home for a couple of weeks almost exclusively when I returned. We’ll probably never know.

The calorie usage on the Fitbit interests me. Housework is clearly a good way to use up the energy, as is running (although I rarely do that, to be honest). Even standing up while doing my singing Zoom on a Monday helps a little.

Of course, it’s also important to monitor the calorie intake. I did this religiously a few years ago when I was on my first ever Fitbit and it helped me to lose nearly a stone and a half. I think just registering what I ate was a way of tempering my intake somehow. There’s something about writing it down – admitting it – which perhaps puts you off eating it in the first place.

I cannot imagine not having a step target. For several years now I have set this at 12000 steps per day. I rarely fail to achieve that even though it is not my main target now. I guess it’s hard to eat up those calories without taking many steps as well. I reckon that the counter over-counts a bit, but as I say, the actual step-count is not really important, it’s the relative performance day on day and week on week.

I am the sort of person who does not seem very competitive (I think!) but actually I am HUGELY motivated by targets and I will compete with myself endlessly to improve my score. Many a time I have set off on a ‘short’ walk or run, only to increase the scope part-way through, to beat a previous time or distance. Nuts, but so satisfying…

Supper’s ready

I am destroyed. Teary eyed again.

Listened to the Genesis* track ‘Supper’s Ready’ for the last 23 minutes of my long walk in the park. It brought back yet more wracking memories of teenage years. I found I could remember most of the words and certainly all the melody. Including the time-signatures, recalling my father’s fascination with it (well, even if it was feigned fascination, it gave him something to talk to me about. He was not much enamoured of the music itself I recall).

Why am I so fragile with these memories at the moment? I guess there’s a lot of life-assessing (navel-gazing) going on in these strange restricted times. And an escape today from a hectic and stressful morning on the phone and email.

The track miraculously finished as I reached my front gate – what judgment! (High)

Sadly, there was no actual supper ready. (Low)

*Wondering why I’m listening to Genesis recently? I’m working my way through Phil Collins’s ‘Not Dead Yet’ autobiography on Audible, and every so often I just have to add a soundtrack.

Arm first?

Todays’ challenge: how to put my top on ‘right arm first’.

Since falling over a couple of weeks ago, most of my limbs have healed. But my right elbow graze was deeper than I realised, and has been tight and uncomfortable because of being on a bendy bit. Someone gave me a manuka honey dressing*, which was very messy and has required a bulky bandage.

So, I have been taking great care getting dressed, so as not to disturb the bandage or rub the increasingly weepy wound. This involved putting my right arm into clothes first. Now I have seen people dressing like this as though it was completely normal, but I’m afraid it is equally completely alien to me. The more I thought about it, the harder it seemed, with or without a mirror. Slightly better with the mirror perhaps.

Oh well, if they allow me to go arse over tit in the street, then what do I expect from my pathetic coordination skills.

Did a 2 hour walking delivery today though, so there’s an element of satisfaction about me all the same.

And my daughter appears to have marched shoulder to shoulder (at a 2m distance I’m sure) with a film star today, only realising at the end when his mask slipped, so that made me smile too.

*The dressing was actually 8 years out of date and originally for a dog. Desperate measures for desperate times.

All het up?

I was out making sewing deliveries to hospital and GP surgeries yesterday, my trusty fabric face covering in use as I approached each location.

By the time I got inside the last surgery, I was quite hot and bothered, having just negotiated a busy road and a complicated entry procedure to get to reception.

I was then asked to submit to a temperature check with one of those gun thingies. Slightly nervous now – would I fail? I felt as though I was well above normal. As it happened, my reading was low! 32.5°C! Perhaps it had something to do with being out in the chilly breeze for half an hour. Or perhaps it’s just me…

Clearly I’m hot, but chilled.

Ticking those boxes

As a follow up from my last entry, I seem to be emerging from a few days of general miserableness, hurrah!

I am delighted to report that I did indeed find something to do with the cherries from our tree. Despite being in a foul mood, I created three jars of cherry and raspberry jam, using the remaining frozen raspberries from last year’s crop. Only slight burning on the pan (can’t taste it, honest) and a residual disgusting brown colour on my fingers from the cherry pitting. Small price to pay.

From the seemingly impossible list on Saturday, I achieved the steps and calorie consumption before midnight – escaping, as usual, for a march around the neighbourhood which helped to ease my mood a little. This is the most reliably achieved of my regular targets – my Fitbit is my master!

I deferred the other items to the next day, although I was in no better mood then – in fact, probably worse. But, ever the determined old grump, I …

planted the tomato seedlings into bigger pots outside – on a lovely table left by my departing neighbours
did my ironing whilst catching up with some mindless TV, and
also managed to finish watching Normal People one whole day before the scheduled broadcasting of the final two episodes.

I didn’t finish my song, but have forgiven myself for that. I sang something else instead.

I don’t seem to have saved the world yet though. Maybe tomorrow?

Fragile humour

For some reason I woke up totally miserable today. Happens sometimes – got to just get on with it, but it has been harder than usual.

It helps to tick things off a list when this happens. It’s now 3pm and I have successfully achieved the following so far –

eaten breakfast
spent over an hour working out the next couple of days’ worth of deliveries I need to arrange for the local sewing group, and securing drivers for the next three , whilst avoiding (just!) resigning or throwing a grump-fit
fathomed how to return an Amazon delivery of COMPLETELY THE WRONG ITEM (at least it was not another unwanted garden pond – which is still gathering dust in our front porch)
achieved return of COMPLETELY THE WRONG ITEM via a local convenience store, including appropriate social distancing and trying-not-to-be-smug-or-arsey wearing of my cloth face-covering
delivery of food-bank items to local drop-off address (and subsequent realisation that nearly all the items were on the latest list of “we have enough of …” Well, I don’t want pasta and beans either, I suppose)
eaten lunch – Scotch egg and a gluten-free cherry bakewell as a special treat
read the newspaper in the garden

Still to achieve:

Planting out of my tomato seedings – to be achieved without appropriate compost or canes
Walking more than 6000 steps, or some-other-how burning more than 1000 calories before midnight
Ironing – my clothes may be clean, but I have no more tops which are presentable without an iron over them
Writing a song for a performance tomorrow (OR – thinking of a way to avoid the performance)
Working out what I can do with the few cherries the birds have left us on our cherry tree
Doing whatever it is that I find can be done with the few cherries the birds have left us on our cherry tree – quickly, before they all rot
Catching up with the many TV box-sets I decided to watch but have fallen behind with
Saving the world (obvs)

I have, however, been cheered by an email which has just popped into my inbox inviting me to a Quiz by the Alzheimers Society. I am sure this is inappropriate, but I am assuming they will ask questions such as “What is your name?” “Who is the Prime Minister?” “Do you know what month it is?” etc. And already I am having fun concocting answers which will fit our ridiculous current times whilst trying to avoid being ‘diagnosed’ immediately.

End of an era

Our adjoining neighbours moved out today. The house next-door is still and quiet while it awaits its new occupants who arrive next week after a brief social distancing pause. The silence makes me feel sad. Perhaps the house is sad too to lose its large family.

They were never noisy but we could usually tell that there was someone there. We were not close, but we shared experiences, often saw in the New Year together, and enjoyed quite a few shared interests – occasionally sharing theatre trips or walks. Not in each others’ pockets – but reliably there.

For nearly seventeen years we have lived so close together. That’s longer than I’ve lived next door to anyone else ever.

We re-exchanged our front door keys.

No hugs or handshakes to say goodbye. Thanks Corona!

Wishing them well.

Hurt

Returning from a short walk this morning, nearly home, I broke into a run as it began to rain.

I immediately tripped and threw myself at the pavement. Of course, I could not have been moving at any great speed – I am 58 and not really in practice – but I certainly seemed to continue travelling forwards at high velocity as I hit the ground. Every one of my limbs made contact with concrete. I was spreadeagled and more than a little shocked and sweary, when I realised that, even worse, I had been witnessed by not one, but two people in their separate front gardens.

In this day and age, they did not rush to help me to my feet, but they did show a decent measure of concern and – horror – one of them called me by name when asking if I was ok. That’s just typical – not only was I properly hurting, but now also embarrassed to be seen by someone I actually know. Oh lord, I really was not dressed for company, I could not recall which particular profanities I may have uttered or how loudly, and there was now quite a lot of blood.

I was close to home. I explained that I would be fine once I could sit down and ‘have a little cry’, and limped off as quickly as I could.

Several hours later, the wound on my right arm is still gently bleeding, my left knee has a tiny scab but is wonderfully swollen and stiff, my right shoulder aches a little, my right thigh looks completely ok but there’s a horrendous pain when I touch it (I remember that was the part that hurt at the time so it probably took most of my weight).

I am pleased to say that my fourth limb has no more than a tiny scratch at the base of my palm. Yay for the left hand.

Counting my blessings though –

my beautiful face remains untouched. Just red with ridiculousness, and
I didn’t faint, despite it being a bit of a family habit to do so in such circumstances. Maybe I’ve outgrown that.

FFS – why can’t I be a bit more coordinated?

Summer memories

I live about 12 miles from Heathrow Airport. Not quite under a flight path, but near enough to be aware of planes, particularly when they take off to the East.

Currently, with so many flights grounded, our skies are clearer and the noise pollution is a little less. One unexpected change though – the occasional appearance of light aircraft overhead. I assume these are usually not allowed due to air traffic control restrictions so close to the airport. I’ve certainly not noticed them before.

The sound of a small plane droning overhead reminds me so much of my childhood summers in rural Gloucestershire. Long hot summer days, running wild in the fields. I expect those days were actually much more limited than I like to remember – who knows.

Strange how things can instantly transport you back though.

Give me a tedious mechanical task

Whilst it was too hot to go outside today, and unusually I had the house to myself, I offered to help with packing some face-coverings for the sewing organisation I’ve been working with recently.

Strangely therapeutic. Sanitising the table, careful washing of hands, donning of my own face-covering – then to work with boxes of sealable freezer bags, ready-cut pieces of paper with instructions on usage to insert in the bags, and then the beautiful face-coverings themselves in a box by my side. A tiny production line all of my own. The resulting larger box of neatly packaged items was so satisfying. This was a practical task I could actually do, even with my two left hands – miracle!

People have taken great care in sewing these, to adhere to patterns which give the greatest protection (presumably still giving that protection mainly to others rather than the wearer, but hey-ho) and many of them were so lovely that I wanted to keep them. Some of the material they have used is charming, some utilitarian, some wacky, but if love and care could protect us, then these most surely would.