Every day seems to get chattier than the last! We were fortunate, though, to see a friend of the recently deceased Clive who gave us some intimation of when the funeral is likely to be. Evidently, because of the restriction upon numbers, we will not be allowed to attend but we do wish to position outside his house and give the funeral hearse a good send-off (by clapping) when the fateful day arrives. Then we had another long chat with two sets of friends who are themselves neighbours (making a potential little meeting of six of us – will this be actually sanctioned next Sunday?) Again, we met several acquaintances in the park (normally a dog runs up to us expecting to be fed some tit-bits and this provides an entree for a conversation with the owners) Finally, we chatted with yet another acquaintance on the way back who was extolling the virtues of James O’Brien on the LBC Radio Show. Apparently, he hails from Kidderminster which is just down the road from us. After lunch, I made an early start clearing the gullies in the garden which I really want to get finished before the weather breaks. I found a child’s rake from Aldi to particularly useful in this regard as it has only eight prongs and is about a metre in length i.e. easily manipulated in one hand. Aldi does a whole range of children’s garden tools which are not cheap, plastic bendy rubbish (as you might expect) but real and miniaturized tools (including a rake, a lawn rake, a long-handled shovel, and so on) Although they are designed to be used by children they are just as useful for adults as well as they can easily be used one-handed and they only cost £2-£3 piece as far as I can remember. Then to finish off my gardening activities, I located the exact spot in the wilderness bit of garden we have inherited (and which we call ‘Mog’s Den‘) and dug the hole ready for the tree planting tomorrow. I lined it well with a tub load of my own 2-year old compost and then, as a bonus, thanks to Amazon my mycorrhizal fungi (for the tree roots) arrived so I am all systems ‘go’ tomorrow.
As it was a Thursday evening, our household and all of the neighbours participated in our ‘clap for the NHS’ ritual. This is really quite heart-warming and I hope that the tradition persists for a long time into the future. After this had ended, we paid a visit to our near neighbour to ensure that all was well as we understood that she had not been feeling too well in the last few days. Afterwards, we had a pleasant wander down by the side of the communal grassed area ‘Meg’s Meadow’ and I checked that the little beech saplings I had transplanted about 10 days ago were thriving and I am pleased that they were – even more so, after a good downpour, I would imagine. Actually admiring your handiwork in the garden in the early summer evening is one of the most relaxing things I know.
It looks as though two big scandals are emerging for any post-Coronavirus enquiry to handle are emerging. The first of these is the rampant non-preparedness for the pandemic as it has now emerged that the stockpile that had been built up had been allowed to diminish and at least 50% of the items in it were all past their ‘use by’ date and had to be re-tested or were otherwise deemed unusable. In some cases, new ‘Use by’ labels had just been stuck over the old ones! And the second scandal-to-be is the issue of care homes where it was known that any pandemic would be an immense problem and to which patients were transferred from hospital, perhaps infected with virus, but with no testing at all before reception into the care home. Needless to say, the staff had found it difficult to be tested and were suffering a severe shortage of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) as they were evidently the ‘poor relations’.
© Mike Hart [2020]