Valleyman’s blog: still lockdown 30th May 2020

30^th May 2020

The garden is over-flowing with daises, birds and sunshine. I’m under my breeze-rippled canopy, appreciating my favourite coffee mug. It has a picture of a cunning, handsome fox on it. I’ve done the shearing. It’s a long hedge and I feel totally justified in taking a break. One more in these months of many breaks. The bees have moved back into the gap under my bathroom’s flat roof. They come every year, and as far as I know they do no harm to the house, but they do good for the flowers. I like to watch them in their black and yellow jerseys like a determined football team hanging around the goal mouth. They ignore me. Unlike the wasps I had in the shed! The boxer dogs next door begin to make a ‘woo, woo, woo’ sound. I smile as I wait for it. At least three minutes later I can hear a faint siren. ‘Woo, woo, woo,’ a police car shoots along the main road. The dogs have got the emergency services down to a tee.

The boys, or young men as I should call my sons, are having a lie in after a night of on-line gaming. They have hordes of friends in the ether of the internet, and the other day a Norwegian called Henning even turned up on our doorstep! Lovely bloke. I have been blessed to even know my sons, never mind to be their father. We make a solid team, a good-humoured blokey household.

In the garden I’m surrounded by colourful beach buckets, a sandpit and a paddling pool. The only thing missing is my wonderful two-year-old granddaughter. Kept away to protect me from the virus. But very, very soon I hope to hug her, and help her through the list of things she does when she comes to Bampo’s house. Every toy must be operated, every tap must be turned on, every light-pull must be pulled. She’s so bright, and so beautiful. I may be biased. But it’s true! And her mam and dad are pretty special too!

Shock phone bill! I call my partner on her mobile every other night. We have separate houses, she would never cope with me twenty-four hours a day! I assumed the calls were free after seven in the evening, but alas, no. They are only free to landlines, and now I owe three-hundred pounds! Well, we did have some good conversations I suppose. I’ll just have to take her essential food supplies more often. In her garden we do the dance of the socially distanced, ‘after you,’ ‘no after you,’ and so on.

The local tea-rooms have re-opened to provide a takeaway service. I was distantly queuing when the lady behind me sat down heavily on a bench. She told me her back was in a ‘terrible state’ and there was no physio service due to the virus. Makes you think about all those cancelled appointments and all those folk who should have gone to hospital. I hope we can catch up with their treatment once normality returns. (If it does?)

Nigel Havers (The Charmer) was on the radio. He said something like, ‘not knowing what the future holds makes us appreciate more what we have now.’ Indeed, the future can be uncertain. It always is. But I’ve always been aware how lucky I have been. I’ve grown up without being in a war, and enjoyed the lifestyle of the prosperous West. I’ve always had food to eat and a roof over my head. Although I must say, it took my dad a long time to invest in an inside toilet, a television, and central heating!

A bee has just flown up the sleeve of my jumper, which is dumped on a chair. Bees! Who’d ‘ave ‘em?

Next time: A trip to Tesco’s Click and Collect! Be careful out there!