Diary of a self-isolator – week 32

A lighthearted look at a few memories and the situation over the last seven days in our house.

Sunday 18/10/2020 – Day 217

And here we are at the start of yet another exciting week in the Harvey household, I woke quite early this morning as the new washing machine is being delivered sometime today, the problem was when we went on the site yesterday it wouldn’t allow us to see any times on the tracking until the day of delivery – typically British!

So I logged onto the site and it came up with the estimated delivery time, it was 2.45pm to 6.45pm, I rubbed my eyes – looked again – nope, it hadn’t changed, my eyes were averted to the clock on my computer, it said 5.45. The problem I had was (a) Do I go back to bed? or (b) Do I carry on with a bit of writing, I opted for the latter as I wouldn’t get back to sleep now anyway, in fact, I wasn’t even feeling tired!  About two hours later I was woken by Mrs H enquiring as to what time her machine was arriving, my computer had also gone into ‘sleep mode’.

I had already decided that I was having a lazy day and so, I dressed appropriately, I was checking my online mail when Alexa started flashing, (No Ladies, not that sort of flashing), I asked her what her problem was, then Mrs H informed me that I don’t ask her aggressively what her problem is, I have to say ‘Alexa, what are my notifications?’, Obviously as Mrs H is never wrong, this worked perfectly, I still prefer the aggressive approach as she is the only female I know that doesn’t answer me back.

Anyway, I digress, what was happening was that we were having two deliveries from Amazon, Mrs H had decided that while I was doing her kitchen update she would order a couple of extras, one was a small rod (don’t go there!) from which to hang her kitchen utensils that were forever jamming the drawer, the other was a  – wait for it ladies – egg cabinet, No, you didn’t misread that – an egg cabinet, it is basically a little cupboard with a wire mesh frontage, a bit like the cupboards you would find in old larders or pantry’s. This would hold up to a dozen eggs, as we only eat half that amount that was all we ordered from Tesco.

Later in the day they duly arrived, Mrs H was like a kid at Christmas, tearing the wrapping paper away from the deliveries, first out was the rod, it was very minuscule (I said don’t go there!) and Mrs H seemed quite disappointed:

“What’s the matter?” I asked

“It’s just – well, so small, I thought it would have much bigger!”

We looked at each other and burst out laughing in unison.

The rod was soon in-situ and Mrs h was now tearing frantically at the wrapping on the egg cupboard, once again she looked very disappoint “What’s the problem now?” I asked, I couldn’t believe what she said:

“It doesn’t say Eggs on the door”

My flabber was well and truly ghasted

But that wasn’t the end of this saga dear reader, Mrs H – having got over the bitterly disappointing fact that eggs wasn’t scribed on her gadget door – eagerly opened the egg box fresh from Tesco’s and four out of the six were cracked!

I am far too much of a gentleman to put on this page what Mrs H actually said.

A few minutes later I was on the phone to Tesco’s complaining about the eggs, the poor chap apologised profusely and immediately issued a full refund of 89p lol!

We finished the day off with an Indian takeaway which we ordered for delivery, but I had ordered the wrong one, we both like Tikka Masala but it has to be the red one, the one we got was a bit of an insipid brown, tasted ok though!

There were 16892 more new cases registered today, and further 67 deaths, but these are weekend figures.

Monday 19/10/2020 – Day 218

Well, as they say in lovely Yorkshire, ‘it’s a reet miserable old day’ here in downtown Kidderminster, looks like it could rain any time, but that won’t bother me, Mrs H has got a lovely list of painstakingly small jobs for me today.

I have some news for you all, some of you may remember ‘Bouncer’ from last March, for those who don’t bouncer is a little bird that I nicknamed after it regularly visited our memorial bench which has a large outdoor mirror above, he (or she) constantly bounced up and down on the bench whilst depositing yesterday’s dinner all over my freshly painted bench. Well, the news is that Bouncer – or at least, the son of bouncer – is back!

I saw the white tell-tale signs on Saturday whilst cleaning up, but this morning as I ate my regular four Weetabix, I saw him destroying the pristine grey painted bench. The thing is, I don’t really mind, I’ve quite missed the little chap.

George rang earlier and said, “I was having a walk in the woods this morning and came across an old suitcase with a fox and its four cubs”.

“Oh my God” I said, “Are they moving?”

“I don’t know” came the reply, “But that would explain the suitcase, ha ha ha!”

Sometimes I hate George.

It’s 11.00 am and I have just put up the first of three mirrors for today, Mrs H has finally (after 83 minutes) got off the phone to our daughter Gemma, she is now following me religiously with a duster in one hand and her small hoover in the other – I am a nervous wreck every time I drill a hole anywhere inside the house!

Onto the next job, which is some lighting around the top of the built – in wardrobes – wish me luck!

My third job was altering Mrs H’s Dressing table mirror, she has decided that she wants it landscape and not portrait, mine is not to question why – mine is to do or die!

While all these little jobs were going on we received the quite large mirror we had ordered,  It is 1200mm x 800mm (4’ x 3’) and was to go above the new wooden mantle I made last week, I have to say it was really well wrapped, and had the word fragile taped all over it.

We eagerly opened it and all was well until I spotted the splintering on the inner-corner, fortunately we hadn’t fully opened the packaging yet, Mrs H got her phone and took a photo of the damage, Then it was down to me to phone the place and tell them, in all fairness no-one asked to see any proof or accused us of the damage, in fact Amazon were doing really well until we tried to return the item, Apparently if you have to return anything – then you have to do it yourself and Amazon will pay you back the postage – eventually.

What a process, what a rigmarole, it took me ages to finalise the return, my eleven plus exam was a lot easier! I had to join Hermes, print off umpteen items and rewrap the mirror, that is two hours of my life that I’ll never get back.

The good news is that I only have to hang one more mirror, and I told Mrs H in the politest words that I could muster under stress that it would just have to wait until tomorrow.

There were 18804 more new cases registered today and sadly another 80 deaths were recorded. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said the situation across the country “remains perilous,” particularly due to the rising rates in over-60s. Referring to the stricter measures, he said it was “unethical” to allow the virus to rise. Yet the government still give no mention of shielding for the over 60’s and the vulnerable!

Tuesday 20/10/2020 – Day 219

Very mild out there today, I came out of the Repair shop and the heat hit me! Reminder to self, leave the workshop door open!

I put up the remaining mirror in the hallway, it is one of those big overmantle type mirrors that weigh pretty heavy – still, it won’t be going anywhere – those six inch nails down the side secured it  – Just joking!

On this day in 1720 The English pirate of the Caribbean, John Rackham was captured by the Royal Navy. He is most remembered for two things: the design of his Jolly Roger flag, a skull with crossed swords, which contributed to the popularization of the design, and for having two female crew members, Mary Read and his lover Anne Bonny. (She were a bonny lass) All three are now working for the government overseas department.

Also, on this day in 1946 ‘Muffin the Mule’, a wooden puppet operated by Annette Mills (sister of actor Sir John Mills) first appeared in a children’s television programme on BBC TV. The sexual connotations from future generations would know no bounds lol!

And Finally, on this day 1996 Oscar winners ‘Wallace and Gromit’ disappeared after being left in a taxi in New York. Both the life-size plastic models from Britain’s award winning animation film were later found safe and well, It was way back in 2017 and Wallace was found to be leading the country, while Gromit his able side-kick became rich building walls on the Mexican border.

As it was so mild I decided it would be appropriate to tidy up the front drive, we have five one hundred foot trees opposite us, and they do insist on sending all their unwanted leaves onto our drive, it was a bit blustery but being the brave chap that ii am I went out and got on with the job, do you recall as a child the sycamore ‘helicopter’ seeds, if you remember we used to throw them into  the air and they would spin as they descended, I used to love them – until now – there must be a hundred thousand of them stuck amongst the gravel on my drive. I wouldn’t mind but I can’t see a Sycamore tree in sight!

Anyway, I persevered, gave the old dormant soil the once over with a hoe and sucked up as many of the leaves as was possible, I was standing back admiring my work when a gust of wind blew all the hidden leaves from under the car and the drive looked like it had never been touched.

As I was sucking the last leaf up a big lorry pulled up outside, and a chap lifted a big parcel from the back, it was our replacement mirror, that didn’t take long! We took it in the house and gingerly took the wrapping off, I got Mrs H to take a picture of the damaged cardboard – just in case, she then disappeared into the kitchen while I unwrapped the excess cardboard, polystyrene and tape which had the word ‘Glass’ in great letters all across it, I removed the last bit and gave it a close inspection, it was fine.

But we still had to hang it, I took all the necessary measurements, marked the wall and drilled it putting in the appropriate screws, and then Mrs H had to give me a hand to lift it onto the screws, to watch us it looked like we were handling liquid nitrogen not a great lump of reflective glass, within seconds it was secure to the wall, straight away the glass cleaner was out, Mrs H rubbed so tenderly as she insisted that I hold on to the mirror – Oh ye of little faith!. Finally, we could stand back and look at our work, and it was well worth the time and effort.

Boris came on for a TV special to tell us that the area of Greater Manchester will be forced into tier three on Friday, no agreement could be reached with Andrew Burnham the Cities Mayor. As feared the figures for today are horrendous, the number of new cases in the past 24 hours were 21331, but it is the number  of deaths that are causing most concern, there were 241 recorded today, this time last week it was 137.

Wednesday 21/10/2020 – Day 220

Still very mild for the time of the year, is this the calm before the storm? Believe it or not I have temporarily reached the end of Mrs H’s list, this basically means that I have a free day!

There are other larger projects to do like flooring the loft floor, I strengthened it some years ago and never got around to completing it, my office furniture also needs cheering up.

I don’t know if you can recall what you were doing on 21 October 1966 when 144 people, 116 of them children, were killed in the small Welsh mining village of Aberfan. It happened when tons of slush, from a nearby coal slag tip weakened by rain, slid downhill and engulfed the village school, a farm and a row of terraced houses. The tragedy occurred at the beginning of the school day and on the day before the school closed for the half-term holiday. The children are buried in Aberfan’s cemetery, on the hillside above the valley. I wrote a poem about this disaster, but it is far too long to post on here.

May all those poor souls rest in peace.

On this day in 1960 D.H Lawrence’s controversial novel ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ put Penguin Books in the dock at the Old Bailey, London. They were accused of publishing obscene material but were eventually found not guilty. When we were schoolkids and a bunch of wily 14 -year olds we used to pool our money and buy five Park Drive tipped from the machine on the wall. That was one of the crazy things about that time, the grocer couldn’t serve you with cigarettes, it was against the law, but he could give you change and you could pop outside his shop and purchase them from the machine. These cigarettes were the cheapest and hence the worst ones in the world, especially when five or six of you were passing it around, that tip got so hot that the last drag was actually liquid tar.

Anyway we  used to gather over the road in a mates entry for our pre-school smoke, the lad whose entry it was came out quite excited one day, he was clutching a copy of ‘Lady Chatterley’s lover’, We had all heard about it but in those days for incorrigible young lads like us it was the nearest thing we got to a sexual revolution. We didn’t even have to read the whole book, as all the best bits had the corners of the pages well-thumbed by the lad’s Dad.

Today’s new cases shot up to 26684 this is the highest to date, the deaths continue to hover around 190, today they are sadly 191.

Thursday 22/10/2020 – Day 221

Been raining on and off most of the night, I know this little fact because the lovely Mrs H dug me in the ribs a few times during the night, the ‘dig’ was accompanied by a harsh voice in the dark saying, “You’re snoring!”.

So, the upshot was that I was up at 5.40, I thought it would be a good idea to let Mrs H have a bit of sound sleep without being woken by my dodgy adenoids.

I had one of those ‘Wogan’ moments today, I went into the Repair shop and couldn’t remember why, but I’ve learned two valuable things in life, the first one I can’t remember, and the second one is to always write everything down.

News has got around on the Harvey grapevine that I have finished Mrs H’s list of jobs – albeit a temporary thing. So, my darling daughter Gemma – who is the spit out of her mother’s mouth – has put in a couple of orders. Firstly, she needs a footstool for her lounge, now when I say footstool, it is actually one of those things that can double up as a coffee table or seat, so it is quite large, she also needs a chopping board and  matching board on which to plonk place her Tea Coffee and sugar cannisters.

Well that took about four hours and by 2pm I was back on my computer wondering what the rest of the day would bring.

Mrs H is going through the ‘Royal We’ stage once again, allow me to elaborate. When the lovely lady is looking around for work for my idle hands she will always use the term ‘we’. For example, she was looking around the dining room where I have just put a new mantle, she then says that WE ought to re-paint the white woodwork, WE should also – whilst WE have the paint out – re-paint the windowsill in the lounge, oh and WE should renovate the office, I think you have the idea by now dear reader.

A further 189 people have lost their lives to this virus in the last 24 hours, the Government openly admit that the worst affected  are the over 60’s yet they continue as normal, meanwhile another 21242 new cases were registered in the same period.

Friday 23/10/2020 – Day 222

Raining again this morning, that really fine stuff that soaks you through, I was laying in bed about 5.30 am contemplating on whether or not I should get my backside out of there, but the central heating hadn’t kicked in yet so I started to think of my childhood as often happens. My mind drifted back to when we used to go pea picking, in the fields.

My first ever memory of the fields was very distant, It happened when my Grandmother organised a trip back to the hop yards of Bromyard where most of the locals went to pick, they would stay in huge barns for eight to ten weeks while the hops were being picked. I was around 16 at the time of the trip and we went by coach, as soon as we got to the Hop yard I could remember the smell of the hops, it was really overwhelming, I asked my Mum about it later and she said that she and Dad had spent a lot of time hop picking when I was a baby, and that was what had probably triggered off my memory.

So it was my Grandmother who introduced me to life in the fields when I was just seven years old! In those days there was always a head picker, in this case it was a lady called Nora who lived on the estate, if she didn’t like you then you had more chance of knitting fog than getting on that lorry!

My Nan was born in 1888 so would have been aged around 70 and was still going in the fields for a few bob to fund her regular Brown Ales and her 20 a day Woodbines.

I went quite often on these ‘picking’ days but my first ever experience was a memorable one. I was so excited that I hardly slept that night, this of course meant that I was really tired as I left home with Nan about 7am clutching my pop bottle full of cold tea and some fish paste sandwiches wrapped in the greaseproof Mother’s Pride wrapper. For an old lady my nan was very spritely and I struggled to keep up with her on the walk through the estate but  I was a big boy now – and when I went back to school after the Summer holiday I would be at the Junior school. My shoes were protected on the heels and toes by Blakey’s steel half – moon protectors which were hammered on, the ensuing noise made me feel like a miner at the pithead,  I used to love scuffling along and pretending that I was off to work and would still have that wonderful feeling 8 years later when I eventually did start work.

My lovely old Nan showed me the ropes and by the end of the day she and Nora had a long line of nets stretching behind them, I had two! I had almost broke my back and those two looked like they hadn’t done anything.  But I was still half a crown richer, when I asked the chap for my money – he laughed:

“No payment till Friday young un”

He pressed a token into my hand which my gran cashed in for me at the end of the week. Times were hard back them but there was always a way to make a few pence for anyone willing to work.

We were so poor when we were kids that one night when a burglar broke into our house looking for money, we all woke up and searched with him!

Went downstairs to a bit of a shock, the toilet was blocked! On closer inspection it was blocked on my neighbours property, there is a large tree out in the avenue close to his sewer, sometimes the roots are invasive and make their way into the pipes causing a blockage, I have left it in his very capable hands – if you know what I mean.

There was a slight decrease in new cases which were recorded as 20530, but the number of deaths continued to rise and in the last 24 hours there had been 224.

Saturday 24/10/2020 – Day 223

One of our dull as dishwater days today, cloudy and murky with a strong breeze which isn’t going to help the job in hand.

My neighbour rang this morning saying that he’d had the blockage cleared in his sewer outlet – but mine was still blocked! So, it was out with the brand new rods I had recently purchased in anticipation. I won’t go into too much detail in case you’re having breakfast, but with a big whoosh it was clear.

After a shower it was back to the repair shop to give my daughter’s chopping board and tea stand a final sandpapering and another coat of Danish oil. It will all be ready to deliver when Mrs H can find time.

We are both really excited today – The Rugby Union is back! We were sort of left in the lurch in march when there were still 4 matches left to play in the six nations series, England were on top with France, but anyone with the exception of Wales and Italy could still win it. Ireland are playing Italy today, good luck to them, but we have to wait until next week to get the final result with England playing Italy away, France playing Ireland and Wales v Scotland.

Meanwhile, I have a six pack of Guinness chilling in the fridge.

George phoned just before the match sounding really exasperated:

“Twenty minutes I’ve been waiting for Rose, we’re supposed to be going shopping, I’ve just realised that a woman’s – I’ll be ready in five minutes – is exactly the same as a man’s – I’ll be home in five minutes”

I saw this ad in the lonely – hearts section of the local paper today.

‘Young single male with stock of toilet rolls would like to meet young single female with hand sanitiser for mutual acquaintance’

In the words of my old mate Victor Meldrew “I don’t believe it”.

It has been a bit of a devastating week for almost everyone in this country, but we soldier on, not sadly with the same gusto our forefathers had eighty years ago, but we must try. Today’s figures show yet another rise in new cases, the total was 23017 with the total for the week being 854,010. Deaths were recorded at 174, bringing the total to date to 44,745.

Well I am at the end of my tether time with you dear readers, God willing and with a good wind behind us we can do it all again next week. Meanwhile stay safe and well, I will leave you with that wonderful Latin phrase ‘nil carborundum illegitimi’. I’ll leave you to work that one out.

It’s been emotional…………..