UNREAD People are reading less in these infected times. Nobody, but nobody, has admitted – to the TV cameras at least – that self-isolation offers a wonderful opportunity to turn to books. Perhaps everyone’s a library-goer: libraries shut, minds shut to print.
EGG GONE VR bought me an Easter egg, a first in sixty years of marriage. “It was cheap,” she said. I saw why. The sweeties (Americans call them candy) were separately wrapped and not entombed in the chocolate shell. I wrote a thoughtful piece on the PC, occasionally breaking off bits of choco-shell. Suddenly it had disappeared.
Like snow upon the desert’s dusty face,
Lighting a little hour or two – is gone
It’s easy to become a Rubaiyat bore.
IMMOBILISM The terms of my car insurance state I will not exceed 10,000 miles annually. Fat chance! The policy is in its fourth/fifth year and the odometer reads 36,658. Covid has been good for cars. Male neighbours – clearly non-readers – desperate for digressions soap their cars weekly. Their minds blank (Whoops! Some do read and their minds are far from blank).
BEFLOWERED A neighbour, with his grandson, has tidied up our garden. For ready cash. I’m not a tea-drinker but brought out mugs every hour, revelling in not having to pull out the weeds. Primroses, released from a rubbishy jungle, have flourished. If only I could spray the horticultural newness with some kind of lacquer, ensuring it stayed like this for eternity.
WRETCHED SCRITCHERS Cutting toe-nails in old age. A massive DIY tome could be written. I contort… and fail.
Vaccinations: Have you noticed that no one actually looks at the needle going in. All stare straight ahead.
ReplyDeleteI agree about our national service jabs - we queued in a long line and were jabbed by a production line process. The same needle was used many times, although they did wipe it between jabs (!)
Reading; I am reading much more during lockdown, mostly books bought on Kindle, although I am revisiting my real book shelves frequently.
Easter Eggs: Not something enjoyed by either of us and our great grandchildren are not "available" at this awful time and have sensible limitation to sweet treats by their parents.
Car Insurance: I dropped my limit to 5,000 annual miles after the stroke and this last year of lockdowns have only used up less than 3,000 of that. I do more miles on the ebike.
Gardening: Still manage to mow all my lawns myself - although I have just bought, at great cost, a new electric battery mower which is self propelled. We don't have flower borders, just plants in many pots - far easier to maintain.
Toe nails: How I do agree with you. I feel as if I have run a mile after I have bent over, breathless, cutting them with clippers. I cannot actually see what I am doing, I just use "feel". "Scritchers", a word not in my lexicon but so appropriate.
Avus: You were lucky not to have overseas jabs. Having been done for yellow fever, etc, I woke in the billet at about 2 am to a babbling roar of feverish erks.
DeleteEaster Eggs: Good grief, surely I'm allowed one over sixty years without such high-horse denunciation.
Gardening: I made a strategic decision twenty years ago and had all the tiny patches of grass removed. Never regretted it.
Hypodermic needles have come a very long way since. It's quite difficult to feel anything with a short jab, they are so fine nowadays. If you are afraid, have a look here and ask for this method: https://youtu.be/jSeO62o6V2o
DeleteSabine: My criterion for any jab is the one I received at the American Embassy in London in 1965 when I applied for my green card. Not only did it not hurt I was looking elsewhere at the time and I honestly was unaware it had happened. I'd like to say it was delivered by a nurse but it was from a doctor in an expensive suit. Well-paid I suspect.
DeleteAnd no, I am not afraid. My criterion here is the hour I spent on a wooden table without the benefit of any anaesthetic as various members of the Swiss medical profession (five at the finish) yanked at my right arm, trying to reposition my dislocated shoulder relative to a scapula that had also been chipped after a heavy fall ski-ing.
The wooden table had wooden legs. The floor was tiled. The table and I squeaked this way and that as misapplied force brought no blessed surcease to the pain. A nurse, straight out of one of Dickens grimmer novels, shrieked repeatedly "Relachez, monsieur." and I shrieked back, "Mais c'est impossible." I'm proud of the fact I never resorted to English throughout. Eventually one of several doctors took off his shoe and thrust his be-socked foot into my armpit to change the angle and eventually my body resumed the shape it had enjoyed earlier in the day.
Interesting. The spectators knew the joint had gone back before I did.
The Garden is lovely Roderick! The COVID Vaccines didn't hurt when given, the Needle was large too, so that was odd... but, by the next Day the Arm sure hurt like Hell, both times.
ReplyDeleteBohemian: Most of the Americans I've polled have suffered reactions from jab; none of the Brits. Virtually all Brits (ie, elderly to old) had the Pfizer vaccine.
DeleteI'll pass on your compliment to the gardener.