There are certain dates that stick in one’s memory and today’s date is one of them. It was the date, exactly two years ago, in which I had a bowel cancer operation  (technically a ‘low anterior resection‘) to remove a polyp that had turned cancerous. At the same time, I was given an ileostomy, subsequently reversed about four weeks later. Well, here I am to tell the tale – the survival rate over 5 years is about 80%. The one incident that sticks in my mind is as follows. My surgeon asked me, just before the operation ‘Now Mr. Hart – are there any questions you would like to ask me just before the operation?‘  I replied ‘Yes – I just have one question: when you are holding the diseased portion of my bowel in one hand and the rest of my body in the other, can you make sure you throw away the right bit!‘ To which, the surgeon replied,’I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know what question you are asking me?‘ I replied saying that it was all meant to be a joke but it had backfired. But that is enough of that.

Today, the weather had brightened and Meg was particularly looking forward to her walk to the park as she had missed yesterday. I left Meg on the park bench whilst I went to collect the newspapers and noted, upon my return, that about a dozen young mothers with attendant 2-4 year olds had assembled in the open air or in the park’s bandstand and were organising the children into ball throwing games. (This seemed to involve throwing a ball into a large sheet which was then pulled taut so that the ball  was propelled into the air and children then had to chase after it) The whole affair had evidently been organised but whether it was spontaneous or part of a pre-school group, I couldn’t really tell.

This afternoon, after lunch and a rest, I decided that the lawns needed their weekly cut, although to be honest, they had hardly displayed any growth after the dry spell we would have had for the last few days. But things do look a little neater now. I had intended to start painting my newly erected fence/handrail into Mog’s Den but I was suddenly beset with doubts that the paint I had been recommended by our decorators could turn out to look awful. So as to not ruin it, I had decided that it might be better to paint a spare timber that I have to see how it looks and whether the natural grain of the wood is enhanced (which I want) or disguised (which I don’t want). But I never got round to this because we had a long chat with our next-door neighbour who is recovering from some angina pains and with whom we have not had a chance to catch up on his latest news for several days now.

One of the really big political stories is the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol by ‘Black Lives Matter‘ protestors over the weekend. Although this was undoubtedly an illegal act, it is fascinating to see how our political leaders have responded to it. Instead of an ‘illegal but understandable’ tone, Boris Johnson and Priti Patel’s first instincts have been to condemn what they have termed ‘thuggery‘. But would the citizens of Bristol really want to see re-erected a statue of a man who was responsible for the transportation of 84,000 slaves of whom 19,000 died in transit? I turned to the web to see if there was any legal opinion as to whether or not you find a jury that would actually convict anybody in the climate of today. One wonders whether the government actually has thought of the embarrassment that would be caused by pursuing a conviction in the post  ‘Black Lives Matter‘ days. I did find the following legal opinion (which with I concur, actually) but it will be interesting to see what transpires. The leader of the Bristol City Council hit an interesting tone when he suggested that the statue might be fished out of the Bristol dock but the council had many other priorities at the moment! Here is the legal opinion:

Anyone prosecuted for causing damage to the Colston statue is likely to be tried in Bristol. Even if the case were to be transferred away from Bristol my view is that, whatever direction a trial judge might give, it would be extremely difficult to find a jury with at least 10 members willing to convict them for the destruction of a symbol of slavery.

The weather did not bode particularly well this morning as there was a smattering of rain. After the Andrew Marr show, I made my way on my own to pick up the Sunday newspapers as Meg was not feeling very well and decided to spend some extra time in bed this morning. Lunchtime included a good portion of spinach – some Dutch clinicians have discovered that a deficiency of vitamin K is often exhibited in those who succumb to the coronavirus so it is well to keep our consumption of broccoli, spinach and particularly kale on the menu from now on. After lunch, I set myself the task of cleaning up some plastic storage boxes that I use previously to grow veg in – this is all part of the rationalisation of my garden tools outfit. This sounds a deceptively simple task but the boxes I have seem to have hidden curves and ridges in them which means that no longer do you think you have one surface cleaned when other springs into view. The overall plan is to keep all gardening utensils neatly stored away so that the boxes themselves are not an eyesore and contribute to a feeling of clutter. Miggles the cat was my constant companion and whenever I had completed one box and lined it with cardboard (to keep it pristine) the cat would insist on occupying it and giving it her seal of approval.

Last night, we watched the Life of Pi on the TV (story of a young boy. shipwrecked alongside some zoo animals of which the most prominent is the tiger) We had both seen it before and enjoyed it the second time around – but if you go on the web, there is an amazing amount of philosophical explanation as to which of the two accounts to believe (as depicted on the film or a sanitised version, without the zoo animals, given to the Japanese investigators of the shipwreck) Unusual and enjoyable, all the same.

The Sunday newspapers are full of speculation that the government is desperately keen to end the lockdown as soon as possible because there is a prediction that 3 million jobs could soon be lost unless the lockdown is eased quickly. But the public mood is quite interesting because three times as many people feel that that the end to the lockdown may be preceding too rapidly as want a quick end to the lockdown. I suppose there is a feeling that having come this far, then why risk the rapid emergence of a second (and more brutal?) 0r  and/or third wave for the sake of a week or so? However, it is true to say that other European countries seem to be on a faster trajectory to end lockdowns than is the case in the UK – there does seem to be a long ‘tail’ to the statistical distribution and fears that the ‘R’ rate is already exactly 1.0 in the SouthWest but greater than 1.0 in the North West (which would mean that start of exponential growth in those regions) The consensus view is that the only sensible course to follow is to allow liberalisation only if there is an excellent ‘test and track’ regime in place to immediately pounce on any hotspots. However, we now know that the ‘test-and-trace’ service is woefully incomplete and will only be fully functional in September. This implies that too rapid an end to the lockdown is an incredibly risky venture – but then it was the same bunch of politicians who have progressed with Brexit which again is an enormously risky undertaking.

The other big political story this weekend is the continuing ‘Black Lives Matter‘ protests taking place in cities in the UK and, indeed, globally. I find it fascinating that it not just members of the BAME communities that are out on the streets but the protesters seem to be drawn from every section of society – it seems from the broadcast images that there are as many white as there are brown or black faces. Of course, the original spark that lit the flame was repulsive (a white police officer kneeling on the neck of a black person squeezing the life out of him for seven minutes whilst being filmed doing so).

Today was quite a lot colder with a high wind and not very pleasant ‘sitting in the park’ conditions. We were pleased to drink up our coffee quickly and to get on our way back home almost as soon as we could. The newspaper routine seems to be working quite well, I am pleased to say, and tomorrow will be a quite big day as we have to lift up all of the supplements to go with the Sunday newspapers. No doubt, we will watch the Andrew Marr show in the morning without a great deal of enlightenment, as per usual. After I had lunch today, I set myself the task of rationalising the various bits of gardening gear that we had in a series of buckets down a ‘private’ side of the house. Why this has developed over the years is because the soffits on this particular house are quite wide and this means that little hand tools and other gardening implements are generally kept quite dry whilst also being accessible. But, I have to admit, this has created a certain amount of clutter over the years so as I had moved it all away from the side of the house to assist the decorators (whose work has now finished), this was an ideal opportunity for an element of rationalisation and tidying up. This took most of the afternoon as I have a variety of aids to help me reach hard-to-reach spots when gardening, hedge trimming or car cleaning. One of these aids is one of the once popular plastic milk crates. These were very rigid and strong and typically were much used by GPO telephone engineers who tended to upload one from their van the minute they had to do some work on the telephone control panels you occasionally see along the main roads. I had acquired one from goodness knows where years ago and enhanced it somewhat with some rubber matting on the bottom (which now become the top) and a reinforcement of my own patent design inside. If you were to check on the web, you would see that these sell for £30.00 which is a tribute to their versatility and utility. Then, of course, there are the buckets and garden tubs of various sizes used in weeding and clearing, a variety of things in plastic containers such as ant control, compost heap accelerant before we actually come onto the handtools of which I have several favourites, primarily for weeding, as well as a variety of ties, clips, string, wire – the list seems endless (as did the clutter) Anyway, eventually order was restored, bucket and tubs were brushed clean, tools were neatly oiled with WD40 if necessary and then stored sensibly at last.

There seem to be two big breaking COVID-19 stories this evening. The first is the ‘about-face’ (forgive the pun) on the wearing of face coverings for all staff and visitors to NHS hospitals i.e. 800,000 staff at one week’s notice. It seems very improbable that adequate supplies will be on place and seems to be another example of the politicians assuming that by announcing that something will happen that this will actually take place. One is reminded that the ‘test and trace’ regime was meant to be ‘world-beating, but it now transpires that the fully-effective service that was promised will not come to pass until about mid-September! Secondly, there seems to be a realisation that bluster and political point-scoring à la Boris Johnson does not really help get effective policies implemented. Johnson is being urged this evening to cut the rhetoric and to prepare for the second wave of the pandemic that many experts believe is now inevitable and may well be on its way. The rather scary thing is that according to a model shown in ‘The Times‘, a second wave might be more vicious and more deadly than the first as only about 5% of the population may have acquired any level of immunity (leaving 95% with none, of course)

Every day has a slightly different flavour despite the lockdown and so it proved today. I had left Meg in the park to contemplate her surroundings whilst I went to pick up my daily ration of newspapers. After leaving Meg, I encountered an elderly lady I recognised as having attended our local church way back in the past. She seemed to be coping reasonably well with the lockdown but was feeling a little isolated e.g. some days she had no conversation with anybody at all. So I pointed out Meg to her on a distant park bench so they could meet up and have a good natter, which they undoubtedly did whilst I went on my way and joined them later. It might well be that another member of the congregation who often sits and chats with us may well come along tomorrow so we form a little gaggle (or is it a ‘conspiracy’?) of Catholics together.  We had to endure a shower and at one stage took shelter underneath a nearby willow tree and later on the park’s bandstand (which is open on all sides but at least keeps the rain off you) As we were walking back, the sun burst forth and we chatted with one of our friends on the journey back up the hill. Today was a day in which I decided I would make a curry which  I accordingly did (a tradition from our student days) and our domestic help was more than happy to help us demolish it (as were we to devour her rhubarb and ginger cake which was absolutely superb)

After lunch, I decided to see how easy it would be to install the capping timber on my newly installed handrail. This involved chopping off a triangular section from the top of each of the supporting posts so that they all pointed down the diagonal slope. What I thought was going to be tremendously difficult turned out to be relatively easy although I was obliged to make a whole series of little adjustments to make everything line up properly. Now for the screwing down process which I suspected might be tricky as my screws had to be quite long ones (2.75″ or 7 cm in length) and therefore quite deep guide holes were required. But all went quite well, overcoming the’normal’ crop of misfortunes that might befall one who is not a regular driller or user of woodworking tools e.g. a broken drill on one occasion or the drill leaving the chuck and getting stuck in the hole on another. However, I used the trick that I often used on similar occasions which is to use a somewhat shorter and thinner screw to make the guide hole and then finish off with the longer and wider screw for the final job. However, everything was nice and stable when I had finished and it looked good as well. I took the advice of our painters and decorators just before they completed their own work and got their recommendation as to which make and shade of wood preservative to apply and then I duly ordered the same from the web (Sandolin Classic Light Oak which I  was assured would let the natural grain of the wood shine through) I finally finished things off with a wooden ornamental owl that I just happened to have bought as a folly some months ago but as it happens a perfect emblem to affix to the start of the handrail. Tomorrow, I resolve to go through the collection of garden tools I have got into the habit of storing in buckets under the eaves and rationalising the contents of them so that the outside of the house looks a little less cluttered. Some of them can always be located down into ‘Mog’s Den‘ and some of them relocated into less evident locations.

The shocking COVID-19 statistics for today are (i) total cases now to exceed 40,000 but this figure does not take into the ‘more than expected’ deaths figures so the actual amount of deaths caused both, directly and indirectly, may well exceed 60,000. Also (ii) the death totals yesterday in the UK at 359 exceeded the death toll of 330 from all 27 European nation-states.

Today we enjoyed a slight variation on the theme of our daily routine. Meg and I went to our little newspaper shop to collect The Times and The Guardian aa per usual. Then, as we had an earlier start in the day, we decided to brave a little venture into the weird and wonderful world of Waitrose. At the door, we were informed that only one of us would be allowed to enter the store but when we were recognised by the staff inside, the previous instruction was overwritten and we were both allowed in. Then we treated ourselves to some dark chocolate Digestive biscuits and some of our favourite oatmeal crackers before escaping the store as fast as we could. Then we sat by the lake in the park and drank our coffee. On our way up the hill, we encountered both of our sets of friends and exchanged some gossip as a six-some – quite legal as we were in the open air and keeping our distance from each other.  After lunch, I had determined to do a mini tidy-up of some tools and similar ‘useful things’ whilst at the same time looking for some things that might be useful for some woodworking activities. The bad news is that when I opened a large wooden chest that was filled with spanners and other bits of ironmongery ‘that might come in useful at some time’ I was dismayed to find that we had been visited by our little furry friends who had evidently been on the search for nesting materials – hence what used to be jiffy bags I used for storage had been reduced to a mass of chewed up paper clippings not to mention mouse droppings. I wondered how on earth they could have got into a closed box (which had been housing for a radiogram popular in the 1960s) until I  realised that various holes were cut in the back panel to allow for the ingress of cables and leads so the little blighters had just walked in. So there had to be a lot of washing down with a strong bleach solution, throwing away of some items rendered useless and a general sorting out which took most of the afternoon. However, there was a slight bonus to all of this because I discovered three things that I think that I will need in the next day or so when I affix a capping rail to my newly installed handrail, namely a wood chisel, a type of rasping tool which acts as a plain and a chuck for muy little Bosch hand-held drill so I had a certain amount of fortune to offset the misfortune.

Tonight was the end of the Thursday night ‘Clap for our Carers‘ routine. I went outside ready to join in with whatever clapping might take place but there was just silence in the gloomy and rain-filled evening air. The official website had stated that last week’s was to be the final one but as the lockdown was being eased perhaps the movement had run its course. It was good whilst it lasted but had perhaps outlived its purpose. Out of interest, I clicked on a map showing the hotspots of Coronavirus throughout the country (i.e. at least 100 deaths per 100,000 of the population) and there seemed to be a smattering across the South, the Midlands and the North with no evident pattern staring you in the face and Bromsgrove remained one of the hotspots. I did wonder whether the hotspots could have been made ‘hot ‘ by having more than the average share of the population in residential homes in each area and this constitutes a reservoir of infection back into the local community as we know that the sector as a whole is under-tested and not well supplied with PPE. This might have to await further analysis but perhaps is too difficult to tease out statistically. Just to keep things in perspective, about 0.5% of the population in the UK have experienced the virus whereas smallpox afflicted 1 in 6 of the population in early Georgian England (the latter rate being about 30 times more than the former)

Well, I always knew that today might be quite a full day and so it proved. Knowing that I had an Iceland delivery slot for groceries sometime between 6.00-8.00 am,  I actually got up and going at 5.00 to be in plenty of time for the delivery – the order actually arrived at about 6.40 and everything was as it should be so that was quickly unpacked and then put away. I then walked down into Bromsgrove and actuated my new ‘newspaper buying’ slot which I started on Monday. I make sure that nobody is inside the shop and today I got in, selected my newspapers and got out again all within 30 seconds. I then thought I would hunt for potatoes which I had tried, unsuccessfully to add to my Iceland order yesterday but the little veg store I thought might be open was closed and the local Iceland store did not open until 9.00 am. So I decided to try my old haunt of Waitrose – I might state, at this point, that I have a particular relationship with the staff in Waitrose as I was actually the second customer through the doors when it opened on my birthday more than two years ago. The staff greeted me like the prodigal son which I suppose I was, in a way, and we had to give each virtual hugs from a distance of two metres away. Anyway, I got my bag of potatoes and shot off, but not before ascertaining that as they opened at 8.00 each morning, then after a little early morning rush their quietest time was about 9.00 am so if I run out of anything, I can make a quick dash into the store in future, not least to get my supplies replenished of unicorn hoof oil essence which I know (!) they stock.

Today, was the day when our incredibly ‘handy man‘ who I shall call Len (not his real name, I might add) were going to erect a handrail down the precipitate slope down into Mog’s Den. I had got this job planned out in my mind as I had acquired some half-round fencing poles (round poles, split in half longitudinally and hence one curved surface and one flat surface) I had also acquired a couple of years earlier a fence boring auger which is like a huge gimlet or corkscrew and I know this would be excellent for boring some quite deep holes of just the right diameter. Then, if all works well, all you need to do is to insert the fencing pole (with a spike put on the end with a saw) and then hammer into the ground with a hefty sledge-hammer. When processing the first of our holes, all seemed to be going well until we encountered some sort of obstacle and the auger would not progress any further – on further investigation, Len felt into the hole and we discovered that at the exact spot upon which we were sinking the first hole, we would have to encounter a lump of metal which turned out to be a scaffolding shackle. The rest of the job proceeded satisfactorily and we were both pleased with the overall result which has a sort of naturalistic feel to it as befits the descent into a woodland garden. However, as it was raining (smattering) most of the morning, I was starting to feel the effects of standing around on a cold rainy day. There are some timbers left over so I may use them to provide a type of capping rail as a whole – hence, I was hunting around in the garage of drills, drill bits, chucks, chargers and the like.

There are warnings tonight that we need to prepare for a second and possibly a third more subsequent waves of the coronavirus to which most of the population has not actually been exposed and to which we are certainly not immune. Also, at 50,000 deaths the UK has the highest death rate in Europe. We await the result of the official enquiry in what has undoubtedly gone wrong in the UK, although the main lines of explanation are already clear (e.g. critical failure to respond with alacrity in the first few weeks of the pandemic as even starting the lockdown a week earlier might have saved about 8,000 lives)

Today, we were going to alter our routine just a little to see how it goes. But first, of course, we have to make sure that the decorators are settled and well supplied with coffee before their work starts. I think that all of us (and particularly the decorators) will welcome the slighter cooler air that is promised for us and the possibility of a refreshing shower tomorrow at some time. We occupied our normal park bench and then I left Meg to contemplate the pond (and chat with other young mothers and their children) whilst I made haste to get our daily ration of newspapers and back to the park bench which round trip took me all of 10 minutes. As we have a plethora of plastic bags left behind from several grocery deliveries, I think I will transport the newspapers home in one of them and immediately discard it once I get it home. Then I had a slightly frustrating experience traying to amend my Iceland order, due for delivery tomorrow between 6.00-8.00pm. I realised that we had just run out of potatoes but the Iceland website would amend my order and then come up with a problem when I tried to pay for the extra. A customer services number was of no use because the recorded message said they were so overwhelmed with queries that they could not cope. Eventually, I texted my domestic help pleading that she brings some spuds with her when next we see her.

This afternoon was the first date upon which I could actually get some vegetable seed sown. Last year, when I laid down the slate path on ‘Mog’s Den‘ I had purchased several of what are technically window planters and they form a line alongside the path so that I can sow and harvest the veg more easily. Luckily, I had some beet seed in stock which was not out-of-date so I used an old gardener’s trick which was to scarify (i.e. scrub the seed with sandpaper) to remove some of the hard husks and then soaked it in water overnight. I sieved some compost and laid down about a two-inch layer in the planters which I then made flat and even using a half-brick (a longitudinal half brick which I had discovered in the garden) which is excellent for tamping. Then using a piece of bamboo cane, I made a couple of pencil-like indentations before planting the seed at 1-inch intervals. Finally. I finished off with sieving (yes, an actual old metal kitchen sieve I had in my vegetable garden tools section) of compost to provide the lightest of layers over the seed before it had a final tamping and watering. If all of my efforts are successful, I would hope to see some germination within 3-4 days and then I must remember to sow at fortnightly intervals.  If all goes to plan, I can use the young beet leaves as a salad, pull young small beetroots and bottle them in vinegar and let the more mature plants grow on to their full size. We shall see!

It seems as though the government is eventually being caught out. I read somewhere that less than 50% of the population actually believe the guff which passes for information at the daily Downing Street briefings and the general public prefer to believe the scientists (when they are allowed to speak) and not the politicians. I quote from an ITV news report below:

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been rebuked by the UK’s statistics watchdog over coronavirus testing figures which are “still far from complete and comprehensible”. UK Statistics Authority chairman Sir David Norgrove said “it is not surprising that given their inadequacy data on testing are so widely criticised and often mistrusted”.

He criticised the way the figures are presented at the daily Downing Street briefings, with the headline total including both tests carried out and those which have been posted to recipients but not yet conducted.

We made a fairly early start to the day this morning because our decorator had come to undertake the external painting of the house – we like to have it done every 5-6 years. Naturally, we had to have a walk around to ascertain that access for ladders was maintained in all of the relevant places and, of course, we have to ensure that relevant supplies of tea and/or coffee are made available from the word go. Well, the day has arrived on what might be billed as the start of the unlock-down and one wonders what social changes might be evident. On the ground, there was not much apparent here in Bromsgrove although the TV channels report that the Birmingham IKEA has experienced a huge queue as the lockdown appears to be easing. It is reported that some people starting queuing at 5.45 in time for the store opening at 10.00. I must admit, I didn’t think that IKEA was judged to be an essential store like a supermarket or a pharmacy but apparently the government has ‘tweaked’ the definition of essential retail shops so that furniture and hardware shops are now to be allowed to open. I had thought that shops could only open in a fortnight’s time of June 15th but apparently, hardware and homeware stores are now regarded as essential – subject, of course, to rigid social distancing rules. Actually, today for the first time in about 11 weeks, Meg and I decided to buy our newspapers directly instead of relying upon our son and/or daughter-in-law to do it for us. As it turned out, the process was ridiculously easy as we choose a little newspaper shop in a not particularly busy street in the town. Having ascertained there was no one else in the store it took all of half a minute to enter, choose the newspapers, hand over my vouchers and then leave. This will be our routine form now on – although I had taken the precaution of having a face mask and disposable gloves with me, this no longer proved to be necessary. The park was delightful today, as it was certainly not too busy and there was a slight  breeze to make the day feel really pleasant. On the way home, one of our ‘friends-who-garden’ had consulted their RHS book to ascertain what plant (portion of a plant) some other friends had donated to us. It turns out that it is ‘Lychnis coronaria Abrosanguinea Gp‘ which a quick Google search reveals has the popular name of a rose campion and our little plant is now flowering beautifully.

This afternoon turned out to be a pretty hot afternoon and the early morning breeze had abated, I had started what I call ‘routine’ edging/gully clearing from the edge of our communal grassed area and managed to get about two-thirds done of what I had hoped. These days, I find that having low expectations of what you set yourself to do is the way to happiness – otherwise, you are only dissatisfied with what have you have got done rather than satisfied with what you have achieved. I particularly wanted to get my tasks finished by 5.00 pm so that I could watch the Downing Street briefing but why I bother, I really do not know as it only sends my blood pressure sky high. Today, the Health Secretary was asked the perfectly reasonable question of ‘how much use has been made of the Coronavirus test-and-trace’ regime since its inception. Every kind of evasion was being deployed although Hancock claimed that the system was ‘up and running’ and was ‘successful’. However, there are several reports from the front line that many of the 25,000 testers recruited to do the job (all employed by private-sector agencies’) were sitting around all day twiddling their thumbs and perhaps only 25% of the 8,000 or so new cases each day are getting caught up in the system. When pressed for some statistics, the Health Secretary eventually admitted that the figures would be ‘forthcoming’ in a few days’ time – the truth probably being that the whole thing has been botched from beginning to end with ill-trained contact tracers manning call centres, a promised app that has not seen the light of day and the experienced local authority workers who do have experience of dealing with communicable diseases sidelined. You couldn’t really make it up!

We speculate how busy our local park is going to be in view of the weather and the release of the lockdown sentiment in the country – as it turned out, it was the most pleasant of days with a gentle breeze keeping the temperature a little cooler than in recent days and the numbers of people in the park being quite tolerable, A few days we watched whilst some of the local authority workers dredged the pond which only has about 8″ of water in it but acquires a certain amount of dead branches and other debris falling into the water. The park caretakers had carefully arranged for the detritus to dry out when no doubt it would easier to dispose of. Our enjoyment of the pond was marred somewhat by the sight of a couple of teenagers, evidently quite bored, who hunted some of the biggest sticks that could find and threw them back into the pond. In circumstances like this, does one intervene with a reprimand? Whilst contemplating what to do, the youths got bored and ran away. In the early afternoon, we got a text from our domestic help with the red-hot news that Asda was selling off 70-litre bags of forest bark at 3 for £10.00. Actually, this was very good news to us as we had engaged one of our neighbours in conversation who was giving his garden a makeover and had unsuccessfully toured some of the local supermarkets (who typically have supplies of forest bark with their gardening requisites outside the store) Accordingly my daughter-in-law and I went down to Asda where they had a well-developed system – whilst I loaded up my trolley with the forest bark, my daughter-in-law went inside and paid for it with crisp £10.00 notes (which the staff preferred not to handle even though virus does not survive for about 11 weeks on crisp new notes) Nonetheless, this was a very welcome little venture as we had contemplated doing it a day or so ago but it all depends upon the local supply situation.

The afternoon was quite a busy one. The principal task was to plant the lilac tree that had been bought for me as a birthday present and I had a green 75-litre pot which certainly ought to be a sufficient size for a young tree. Fortunately, during my make-over of Mog’s Den I discovered that I already had a bag of topsoil as well as one of compost and already had some ‘normal’ soil put by ready for a large planting. As I am always running out of both bonemeal and Blood, Fish and Bone, I had recently bought from Amazon some 10kg bags of both so it was quite easy to make a nutritious mixture (bonemeal at the base, blood fish and bone as a general fertiliser) and planting was thus incredibly easy, I have decided to locate it against a wall of the house in the back garden so that all members of the family can see it from the kitchen window. To make space for it, I relocated the (pot-grown) Corylus avellana which is a hazel bush/tree. My final job of the afternoon was to relocate all of the dustbins, gardening impedimenta away from the sides of the hose so that our painter and decorator has a free run of the outside of the house when he starts off at 8.30 in the morning.

I might point out that in my various activities, throughout the day I have been assisted and supervised at times by Miggles the cat, who has variously supervised my hanging out of the washing, planting of the lilac tree, relocating the hazel tree and preparing for the decorator. At one stage when I had just planted the lilac the cat investigated the pot by standing on her hind legs and then jumped in to roll in the soil (a trait she has exhibited many times before!)

We thought that today the park was going to be exceptionally busy as people were anticipating the end of the lockdown. But, in truth, although it was a little busier than normal, the park was busy but not teeming. We decided to vary our route on the way back through the park and encountered one of our ‘old lady’ friends that we had not seen for several days and hoped she was OK. The husband of this particular acquaintance had worked for the Parks Department and, upon his demise, the family had donated a bench to the borough council and upon this bench, we often sit. The old lady in question can see this bench from the vantage point of her own home as she lives adjacent to the park – and she is always delighted to see that the bench is in use. We had not seen her as she had varied her routine and got into the habit of going around  the park very early in the morning to avoid the heat and the crowds. She was having a few problems with her health but at least she had some hospital appointments lined up in the forthcoming week, although the logistics were getting to be a bit of a nightmare as under the Coronavirus rules one couldn’t be accompanied into the hospital. Still, we were pleased to see her. On our way up the hill, we exchanged news with one of our oldest friends and then bumped into an acquaintance who was visiting his parents and who we often see at the weekend. As it happened, he was engaged in the most humdrum of tasks (sieving through a bucket full of slate chippings to remove the bits of leaves and twigs) What was so coincidental about this is that I had detailed myself to do exactly the same task myself in the afternoon. Last year, I had taken the pains to lay down a whole new path along half of the length of ‘Mog’s Den‘ and, to keep a naturalistic look, I had laid down some weed control fabric and then had a ton of slate chippings delivered in the customary large plastic/hessian builder’s bag in our driveway. I had then made the journey down with loaded buckets of slate chippings to lay the path. This is generally quite maintenance-free but although the weed control fabric prevents the problems of annual weeds growing from below, one still has the problem of dried leaves accumulating on the top. This maintenance job didn’t turn out to be particularly arduous and I finished off the whole job with a Bosch blower that I use just to disperse dried leaves and the like. This now completes the makeover of ‘Mog’s Den‘ and whilst there will also be ‘pottering about’ little jobs to be done, at least it is now looking fairly shipshape and should be easy to maintain for the rest of the season. All it needs now is a good downpour of rain, but we will have to wait a little longer for that.

The political news this weekend looks interesting. It seems that the ‘love-in’ between the scientists/health chiefs on the one hand and the politicians on the other has finally broken down, particularly with the added irritant of the Dominic Cummings affair. In particular, they feel that trust has been badly damaged by Cumming’s failure to stand down and the prime minister’s refusal to dismiss him. In addition, they feel that the failure to set up an effective test, trace and isolate regime means that the safety and well-being of the general public are now certainly at risk. Today was a day when I missed the Downing Street briefing but for the first time, one of the senior scientists has made his feelings known. The government’s deputy chief medical officer Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, with Dominic Cummings in mind, laid his criticisms on the line thus : “In my opinion the rules are clear and have always been clear. In my opinion, they are for the benefit of all and they apply to all.” And so say all of us (or over 80% in an opinion poll published over the weekend).