BACK IN THE COVID - The Lockdown Diary Day 22

At this rate our first month of lockdown will fly by. Today was just pleasant, very! Warmth, no more than a gentle breeze and most of it spent out in the garden. Down on the allotment things are progressing about as well as my advanced years will allow. The actual first digging is nearly complete but it will all be forked over a second time to incorporate a great mound of leafmold that I have been making for at least 5 years from the leaves of both our garden trees and those down the street. In autumn I am to be seen shovelling the leaves fallen from the Tilia x europea, which surround the school field opposite, into builders aggregate bags. They make the perfect leafmold. Light and delicate with a superb bouquet. I cannot wait to get my hands in it.



The wife of my bosom of 51 years (nearly) has had a baking day and two treats followed. Cake! Cake and there is a war on! And that was followed by one of her legendary minced beef and onion pies for dindins, another in the freezer and a couple of mini pasties. My wife is a treasure to be sure and I can recommend to anyone who must avoid gluten for health reasons to get a similar women to look after them. They are unfortunately as rare as rocking horse shit!

Speaking of which we have not, for some weeks, heard a peep out of John Deadwood, Prickly Patel, Intravenous Device Smith or Corporal Mark Francois De La Jambon. Reasons to be cheerful! social distancing works! Prickly Patel I think I can explain. She has publicly denigrated immigrants and low skilled workers and is well known for opposition to the Welfare State in general and the NHS in particular but here we are in a crisis which has brought the whole nation to understand their true value to our society even to cheer them on the streets up and down the country. No wonder the rabid right-wingers who have all expressed the same sentiments over the years are keeping their heads down. Long may they stay down.