Diary of a self-isolator – week 40

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

Sunday 13/12/2020 – Day 274

Had yet another late lie in this morning, I am turning into a lazy slob, but you nice ladies out there have put a stop to that, I asked yesterday if I should attempt to put up a canopy over the decking so Mrs H could sit out there during milder days. You overwhelmingly voted yes, there were a few ladies that felt sorry for me and kindly thought that I had done enough for Mrs H this year, but alas, they were outvoted, I thank you anyway, and Mrs H thanks all of those who voted yes. So now I have to order all the stuff which is going to be around £600, I will, of course, be lucky to get it delivered this side of Christmas, but either way the job is going to get done.

Been in the Repair shop for a few hours today, I must say that for the time of the year it is very mild outside. Anyway I have been stripping off – no not my clothing, God forbid – but the chair that Janet and John brought around last week, It basically needs re-upholstering so I had to carefully take off the existing material in order to use it as a template for the new stuff, all going well so far, watch this space!

On this day in 1925  Dick Van Dyke, actor (Rob Petrie-Dick Van Dyke Show), was born in West Plains, Missouri. I remember his show on TV in the 60’s, in those days he was as famous as Lucille Ball, on film I will always remember him for his portrayal of Bert the Chimney sweep in the adorable Mary Poppins, I personally don’t think the film would have worked without him in that role. But all the film critics ever went on about was the fact that he had the worst cockney accent they had ever heard, sort of took the edge off a great performance I thought. Happy 95^th birthday Dick, I liked you.

Also, on this day in1951 future British Prime Minister Margaret Roberts (26) wed businessman Denis Thatcher (36) at Wesley’s Chapel in City Road, London, Now despite her reign of terror in the eighties all I remember her for is stealing the schoolchildren’s milk in 1971, funny how some things stand out in your mind isn’t it.

The number of new cases seems to be flatlining at last with 18447 today, the number of deaths are well down at 144, but these are weekend figures.

Monday 14/12/2020 – Day 275

I was laying in bed at 6.00am this morning thinking, ‘I thought that getting older would have taken a lot longer!’

This new Facebook system is going to be the death of me, it now takes twice as long to post stuff on my sites, one of them is called Down Memory Lane and instead of about an hour a day posting it is now well in excess of 2 hours, with my other site this now means that I am spending around 5 hours every morning on my computer, but I am not writing my stories or poems – so much wasted time!

On this day in 1959 the shortest murder trial in British legal history took place. In just 30 seconds, at Winchester Assizes, Brian Cawley pleaded guilty to the murder of Rupert Steed and was later sentenced to life imprisonment.

Also on this day 2013 it was the death of the 81-year-old actor Peter O’Toole, who starred in Sir David Lean’s 1962 film classic Lawrence of Arabia. The film earned him the first of eight Oscar nominations, with others coming for such films as Becket, The Lion in Winter and Goodbye, Mr Chips.

It was turned twelve before I finally unlocked the repair shop, I had painting and preparation to do but there was nothing very urgent so a couple of hours later and I was back in the house looking for something to do.

Of course – had I been at work –  this would have been about the time for the Annual works do, commonly known as the Christmas party, I have had a few dodgy ones in my time I can tell you, mostly forgettable, on one occasion I was working for a company that installed Fire protection sprinklers, the boss came up to us the day before Christmas eve and said he had put fifty pound behind the bar at the pub down the road, this was 1972 and a £50 was the equivalent of £600 today, I wouldn’t have minded but there was only 12 of us! Anyway, the upshot was that all the others were drinking shorts to use up the money, me and my mate didn’t drink shorts only beer, so we were a little put out to say the least, we had to find something we could drink, so we went on the sherry, not those namby-pamby little glasses you give to a visiting Aunt whom you don’t like. Oh no, we were drinking schooners of the stuff! By closing time at 2.30 we still hadn’t had enough, At that time I was lodging at my sister’s house so me and my pal went there and raided her drinks cabinet, by 6.00pm we were knocking on the door of the public house we had vacated just three hours earlier, and my sister was three bottles of sherry lighter, the rest of the evening was a  bit of a blur, but I cannot even stand the smell of sherry to this day.

My mate George and his girlfriend Rose have been arguing on and off now for a time, he finally decided to put his foot down with her;

“Right, I’ve had enough of this, I’m off down the pub, when I come home I want my supper on the table, I want a bottle of my favourite beer, when I’ve drunk it you can get my slippers and run me a bath, and when I get out of the bath guess who’s going to dress me and comb my hair?”

George was a little taken aback when Rose replied “The funeral director?”

Recorded new cases were up again today at 20263, deaths also rose by 100 to 232, every time we think things are improving.

Tuesday 15/12/2020 – Day 276

It was light very early this morning so I sprang out of bed at 6.00am, well, when I say ‘sprang’ what I really mean is that I gingerly put one leg out followed by the other as they’ve always been quite close.

In the Repair shop my cocktail cabinet was waiting for its final coat of paint, the stripped down chair needed another coat of paint and my daughters picture frames needed spraying, she had supplied a can of spray paint which was supposed to change the colour from cream to a silvery glitter, Well, I shook that can till my arm was dropping off, the little ball was running freely and I started to spray – I could see straight away that there was something not quite right, it was all sort of glitter and water. I stopped spraying, shook the can very vigorously for what seemed like an age and tried again, it was a bit better so I thought ‘onward and upward, then halfway through the can ran empty – oops! I was between the devil and the deep blue sea, do I wipe off the existing or leave it, it was mostly covered but just in glitter, I decided to let it dry and continued with my other jobs, I went and looked an hour later and it looked like someone had just sprinkled silver glitter onto a cream frame.

I decided to phone my daughter and give her the bad news, “Oh” she said, “That’s probably my fault, I’ve had that spray a long time now, it’s probably no good, just paint them the same colour as the other stuff”. I was elated and exasperated at the same time.

By three I had finished all the painting and papering on the cocktail cabinet, so I called it a day and went inside to join Mrs H for a cup of tea, I was all sprayed out.

It seems that the scientists and some of Boris’s advisors are now running scared of the plans for households to mingle on Christmas day, the talks between the four Nations leaders will continue tomorrow, I wouldn’t like to be the one to tell those millions of families that they cannot now visit each other, but then, those that are shouting the loudest won’t have their jobs on the line for turning the decision on its head.

The number of new cases once again hovered between 18 and 19 thousand, there were 18450 today, but once again the number of recorded deaths have risen to 506.

Wednesday 16/12/202 – Day 277

I was telling you last week about my family’s run-up to Christmas, I thought you might like to read what went on at Christmas eve’

Christmas Eve in our house was always really busy, the turkey had to be stuffed, the bachelors dried peas put into a saucepan to soak overnight, sprouts had to have outer leaves removed and those crosses cut into the stems to aid cooking, and an endless amount of spuds to be peeled, I can’t think of how my poor mother coped. On the evening Dad would be down the pub till about 10.00pm he would then feel quite perturbed that he was kicked out half an hour earlier.

Meanwhile, we would be decorating the tree which greengrocer Fletcher had brought earlier, it would be adorned with glass coloured baubles, sprigs of holly, loads of tinsel and little chocolate figures in wrapped in foil, the crème de la crème would be the switching on of the tree lights, they were quite dim compared to today’s lights but we loved them, they had to plug into the main ceiling light, this meant of course that apart from their light and the soft flickering of a lovely hot coal fire there was no other light in the room, it created a wonderful cosy atmosphere in the evening. I seem to remember that someone invented a double bulb holder which allowed you to have both the tree lights and the main light on, I never liked it though, it sort of killed the ambience.

Then the chain garlands were pinned around the room usually on the picture rail, this would be followed by the tallest child standing on mum’s best chair and pinning balloons to the ceiling. The final act would be a long piece of string on the door to drape the Christmas cards over.

With all preparations completed it was off to bed for us over excited kids, We didn’t have Christmas stockings or pillowcases, we had my eldest brothers long socks (recently washed I hasten to add), Myself and three brothers slept in one room and my three sisters (two more babies yet to come) slept in another room.

So with smell of mince pies mingling with the paraffin heater on the landing we went up the wooden hill with our hot water bottles vowing to stay awake till the early hours to get a glimpse of the jolly overweight fellow who’d bring us our presents, needless to say that never happened! I would tell my younger brother’s stories until they finally nodded off (this was to become a regular thing but more about that later) then I would snuggle down under the blankets with my torch and read comics.

Next thing daylight was creeping through the chinks of the blackouts in the room, the batteries had run out in my torch but nothing mattered, our bulging stockings were awaiting at the bottom of the bed and great excitement ensued, an ordinary child today would have been disappointed and tipped the contents out onto the patchwork bedspread, but not us, everything had to carefully taken out to prolong the excitement, firstly a red rosy apple, followed by an orange and perhaps a pear, sometimes a banana, as you neared the bottom the excitement grew to a crescendo, there would be something like a twopenny chocolate bar or perhaps one of those white or pink sugar mice, then right at the bottom would be two brand new shiny pennies.

(Did you know why the traditional Christmas stocking had to have shiny new coins? It all began with St Nicholas the 4^th Century Greek saint.

Nicholas liked giving presents to people who were less fortunate than him. He preferred to give gifts anonymously. He heard a story about a local nobleman who had lost both his wife and his money. The nobleman had been forced to move into a peasant’s cottage with his three daughters, all of whom were of marriageable age. At the time, a bride-to-be needed a dowry to offer her groom’s parents. Sadly, the nobleman couldn’t afford to feed his daughters, let alone give them a dowry. St Nicholas knew that the nobleman would be too proud to accept charity. So when he spotted that the girls had hung their stockings to dry on the chimney ledge, he decided to climb down the chimney and put a bag of silver coins into the oldest girl’s stocking. The next day, St Nicholas climbed down the chimney again and placed a bag of coins into the second daughter’s stocking. The day after that, St Nicholas tried to do the same for the youngest daughter, but the nobleman was hiding in the room and caught St Nicholas in the act. St Nicholas begged the nobleman to keep it a secret, but word got out and soon everyone was hanging stockings on their fireplace. (So, our new shiny coins are supposed to represent the gold!)

That was our waking hours, we would sit there gleefully tucking into what remained of our stockings with no thought about spoiling our appetites, or to the fact that our mum had already been up a couple of hours ago to put that gigantic turkey into the oven. Unlike the kids of today we wouldn’t have dared run into the parent’s bedroom jumping on the bed to wake them up – they would have killed us!

We waited patiently till we heard mum downstairs, she would be savouring the short spell of silence. As soon as we heard the slightest sound that was our call to go quietly down the stairs to the best room and discover what lay under the tree.

As I said we weren’t well off but Mum always made sure that every one of us had something to open no matter how small, the presents usually comprised of Compendium sets, which basically was a box of games including Draughts, snakes and ladders, ludo and the impossible tiddlywinks, I can’t ever remember getting that damn tiddly into the cup and even to this day do not believe it possible lol!

There may have been a box of paints, thankfully we didn’t have carpets in those days – just linoleum – because the mixture of coloured water in the jam jar would inevitably end up spewed across the floor! There may have been toy lead soldiers or cowboys, the other favourite for boys at that time was the ‘Magic set’, this comprised of a magic wand and a host of tricks that never worked, you would always lose one of the main parts before the day was over, perhaps the only thing that survived was the squirty flower which you got someone to sniff as you gave their face a dose of cold water. Another favourite was the cowboy outfit complete with cap gun, the only problem was mum would always forget the caps (a bit like forgetting the batteries today) the shops weren’t open for another three or four days either, so you sat forlorn at dinner wearing your cowboy hat with an empty gun and not a cap to be seen.

My sisters might have a nurses outfit, or maybe a doll that could be dressed and undressed, things like dolls prams, dolls houses or bicycles were always well out of Mum’s price bracket, but then, there was always some lucky child in the street who wanted to show off and eventually share theirs and that was what we mostly looked forward to.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Christmas eve ramblings, I’ll share our Christmas day with you next week if you like.

There has been a sharp increase in new cases today with the total going up by almost 7000 to 25161, there was also a rise in the number of deaths recorded , there were 612 in the last 24 hours.

Thursday 17/12/2020 – Day 278

Another very frosty morning today, I was up at six, I didn’t intend to, but my stomach was rumbling and I needed my four Weetabix, it was cold downstairs as the heating hadn’t kicked in yet, but not as cold as it was outside on the walk down to the fridge in the shed to get some more milk, I wish I’d have looked last night!

I had a couple of hours on the computer and was contemplating going into the repair shop when Mrs H informed me that the Health Secretary Matt Hancock was about to announce the new tier system for the country, so I thought I may as well wait, but – up there for thinking, down there for dancing – I popped into the repair shop to put on the heater in readiness, on my return I raided my favourite cupboard and helped myself to three mince pies, I was going to have another but I managed to stop myself, actually, truth be known it was Mrs h who stopped me with those immortal words;

“You’ve already had three, surely you’re not having another?”

Guaranteed to stop a chap in his tracks. Anyway, I digress, we waited, and waited and waited, I was just about to clear off when they announced Hancock was in the house, I remember thinking ‘shouldn’t he be in Parliament, I haven’t got all day! He stood up and I swear I saw mince pie crumbs on his lapel, either that or he had bad dandruff. The upshot was that he told us absolutely nothing! It was just a mish-mash of what Boris had said on TV yesterday, he did announce that some counties were going up to tier three and that our neighbouring county Herefordshire was going down to tier one, I spent the next half hour trying to find out what tier Worcestershire and in particular Wyre Forest was in, after all that it seems we are staying in Tier two until the end of December.

I went out to the repair shop slightly deflated and thinking to myself ‘I just knew that this year was going to end in tiers’.

I opened the door and the heat hit me, I’d forgotten that I’d left the heater on, it was hotter than the Gobi desert in there, I stood and wept as held the door open and let all that costly heat out, Cheers Mr Hancock, you’ll be getting my bill.

I thought yesterday’s new case figures were steep but they have almost doubled since Wednesday and stand at 35383 for today, that does not tell us that things are improving, those figures do include a missing 10000 from Wales. there were also 532 new deaths registered in the last 24 hours.

Friday 18/12/2020 – Day 279

Well, my son Mark who is a local builder, is all over Facebook at the moment after the local newspaper picked up on his story, back in November Mark got very upset after watching an article about people who could not chat to their parents in Care homes. He dipped into his own pocket and made one for a Care home that was desperate, he soon had three more to build, problem was that they were £200 each and he had to pay for the materials to make them, Then someone found out and started up a ‘Fund Me’ page, within a week there was enough to build another five pods which he has done since. To say I am proud of him is a gross understatement.

Did I tell you that I have a mate who works for the Royal Mail? Well, part of his job is to process all the mail that has illegible addresses. One day last week, a letter came to his desk, addressed in shaky handwriting, to Father Christmas. He thought he should open it in case it was from a distressed child. He opened it and it read:

Dear Father Christmas,

I am a 93-year-old widow, living on a very small pension. Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had £100.00 in it, which was all the money I have until my next pension money. In a couple of Fridays it will be Christmas day, and I have invited two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with. I have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope. Can you please help me? I could really do with you delivering anything before Xmas Day.

Sincerely, Edna

My mate was so touched that he showed the letter to all of the other workers. Each of them dug into their wallet and came up with a few pounds. By the time he made the rounds, he had collected £96.00, which they put into an envelope and delivered in the post the next day to the woman. He told me how all of the workers felt a warm glow for the kind thing they had done. Then a few days ago, another letter came from the old lady, to Father Christmas again. All the workers gathered around while the letter was opened. It read:

Dear Father Christmas,

How can I ever thank you enough for what you have done for me? Because of your gift of love, I am now able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends. I’m sure we’ll all have a very nice day and I’ve told my friends of your wonderful gift. By the way, there was £4 missing. I think it must have been those thieving sods at the Royal Mail …

Sincerely, Edna..

Even if you take into consideration the extra 10.000 new cases from Wales yesterday, today’s figures are still very high again at 28507, there was also a further 489 registered deaths.

Saturday 19/12/2020 – Day 280

One week today it will be Boxing day and it will all be over, pity we can’t say the same about this pandemic, amid concerns of worrying figures in the South East the Government ministers have been meeting this morning, Boris has called a special press conference at 4.00pm today.

On the lighter side, as I said earlier, we had a bit of a vote last week on whether or not Mrs H would get a canopy over the back patio, now I don’t think some of you quite grasped the situation correctly as you voted overwhelmingly in Mrs H’s favour, there were a few common -sense answers that said I needed a rest, but sadly, it was but a few. Anyway, I won’t go on about how most of my lovely readers have dumped on me from a great height, I will tell you though, that the completed canopy will be fifteen feet long and ten feet wide, in fact it is so big that the Tories have approached me to make preliminary enquiries about holding their next party conference in it. The good news is that it would cost over £1500 pounds to buy one that big, I have ordered all the materials and they have cost me £450, Just need to build it after Christmas – any volunteers?

The figures for today are not good, there were 27052 new cases bring the 7 day total to 173,273, the number of recorded deaths was the highest this week at 534, the total for the week is 3049 an average of 436 a day, that’s a lot of families who will have a very sad Christmas, my heart goes out to them all.

As I said, the next time we meet it will be all over, so may Mrs H and I take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you and your families, a very Happy Christmas, just enjoy the day but please stay safe.

It’s been emotional.