Diary of a self-isolator – Week 5   

A lighthearted look at the situation, please don’t take it too seriously.

Sunday 12/04/2020 – Day 28

Well, today sees the end of our fourth week in isolation and – dare I say- it all seems to be going spiffingly well with Mrs H considering the dire situation we all find ourselves in. Today is of course, Easter Sunday, a day where traditionally we would have the grandchildren round for the traditional Easter egg hunt and lunch with all the family, obviously that won’t be happening this year, but we had a lovely surprise when the son in law turned up with two of the grandkids on their bikes, Ok, he had only come to cadge some potatoes, but he did bring me some Old Speckled Hen (Beer ) so after checking the sell by dates we did an exchange from a distance, it was like one of those stand offs on TV – you put yours down first, No, you put yours down first – but it’s the thought that counts and it was great to see the lads albeit from a distance, so, no Easter eggs for any of them just money put into their bank accounts which I daresay has been gobbled up a lot quicker than eggs would have been.

The light of my life Mrs H has been banging on for a year or two about getting one of those infernal hot tub thingammyjigs, It is no secret that I haven’t had a bath for the last eighteen years or so, I much prefer a shower, by that you can take it that I don’t like lying in my own muck, I mean, you ladies should know, it’s you that have to clean that ‘tide mark’ off the bath when he gets out, so this is my point, why would I want to sit in a tub of scummy water with two other people and Mrs H if I can’t stand my own scummy water. With the exception of two best friends I wouldn’t sit with other friends anyway, for a start there wouldn’t be room for four of us! (oops). I have told Mrs H in the politest terms possible that she is welcome to dangle her feet in my nice cool fish pond, but I cannot repeat her reply on here.

The new turf is settling down nicely and seems as though it’s beginning to take, we give it a really good watering everyday and it seems quite happy with its new home.

Spoke to my old mate George for the first time in 10 days, he said his elderly neighbour had been in his well laid out garden cutting him a cabbage for Sunday lunch when he fell and broke his wrist, “I’m so sorry to hear that George what did you do?” he replied innocently, “Well, I had to open a tin of peas”.

Best news for a few weeks was that Boris was well enough to come home, although not well enough to return to his demanding job yet, he will continue his recovery at his country home Chequers in Buckinghamshire, in the past 24 hours there were a further 737 deaths taking the total  well over 10,000 to 10,612. We still haven’t peaked yet and there is a lot of talk of nurses and Doctors having to beg, steal or borrow PPE (Personal Protection Equipment}, I listen to the news avidly and in my humble opinion the BBC are not being totally fair in their reporting, they have a knack of finding the hospital that hasn’t yet had it’s full quota, then they put them on the news and twist their words. I watched a BBC interview this morning where a reporter was interviewing a nurse and a doctor from different hospitals, the reporter blatantly tried to get both of them to say that they were short of PPE, neither of them would, they just kept saying there were adequate supplies. Is this the BBC getting revenge on the Government for trying to scrap the TV License, sadly, yes I think so, and you will never hear me mention politics again on here, it’s soooo boring!

Monday 13/04/2020 – Day 29

And here we go, into the start of my 5^th week of self- isolation, am I bored, am I restless? Well that depends on your outlook on life, I am one of those rare creatures that actually enjoys the company of my other half, we both like doing the same things, we both like the same TV programmes, more importantly we have been in each others company for almost 50 years and married for 47 of them, so we both enjoy life to the full. (Mrs H said I am a very good boy for posting this and will let me have my Buttermints back later).

Lake Superior made a return out in the road last night so there won’t be a need to get out the sprinkler for the new turf thank goodness. On the subject of turf I have decided to treat myself to a new mower, the one I have at the moment is terribly cumbersome, I don’t like straight lines so our garden is all curves and round features, that includes the lawn and using my existing mower is the equivalent of pushing two sumo wrestlers around in a wheelbarrow laden with housebricks!

I will however donate the cumbersome mower to the son in law, I know, my generosity knows no bounds and I have to get my own back for him drinking all my alcohol!

Very windy today so it looks like spending a few hours in the Repair shop, inspired by the TV programme of the same name where lovely people take their items to be restored Mrs H has filled my workshop/garage with items needing urgent repair, these include a bird bath, a sun dial, a weather vane and wait for it – a two foot stone Minnie mouse – which has started to disintegrate, this was sited outside a memorial garden for my daughter so it takes top priority.

It is now 3.30pm and Minnie is back to looking her best, a couple of repairs to the stonework, a coating of PVC and a new paint job and Mrs H says it looks better than when it was first  bought, a fitting memorial for a beautiful daughter who loved everything to do with Disney.

I just managed to get my first delivery slot from Tesco’s, it was for between 2pm and 10pm on Wednesday, filled everything in and only 4 items not available, not too bad.

Boris has been joined at Chequers by his fiancée Carrie Symonds, they are expecting their first child in the Summer, Carrie had also shown signs of coronavirus a few weeks ago but seems to have recovered well, there were a further 717 deaths in the UK yesterday taking the total to 11329, these do not include those who have died outside hospitals.

Tuesday 14/04/2020 – Day 30

While I was giving everything a lick of paint yesterday, I asked Mrs H if she wanted me to tidy up the duck water feature. I just have to tell you how the ducks came to be, about ten years ago I was a prolific home wine maker, I had stocks of about 80 gallon in Demi-johns in my shed (Hic), I entered competitions and won quite a few with my home made plonk, I was quite well known for ruining a Judges taste buds (they kept spitting it out) anyway I had just finished  clearing 5 gallon of red wine, knowing my neighbour Albert (name changed) was partial to a drop we invited him and his wife round to sample it, He is a big chap around 20 stone at the time, so he was always a bit self-conscious of sitting on our garden chairs, but we had just had some new ones so thought it was ok. Well Mrs H knew better than to drink my wine and the neighbours wife didn’t drink alcohol so I filled three bottles thinking that was plenty for myself and Albert, he absolutely loved it, or he just didn’t get out much! Within an hour two bottles had gone so I dutifully visited the shed and filled them back up, an hour and a half later I did the same again. You need to know at this stage that this wine wasn’t your usual 10% plonk from the European market, oh no, this stuff came out at around 15%. I was sat there feeling very squiffy when – like a slow motion film – I watched as Albert leaned to one side and just kept going and going until the legs of his chair cracked and all 20 stone of him smashed into the empty chair next to him, at the time we roared with laughter not thinking that he might be hurt, we managed to haul him onto his feet and sort of wobbled back to his front door, his wife said “ He’ll be ok  now Eric, I’ll get him to bed”. Well I thanked God under my breath, I was feeling quite ill myself so went straight to bed’

Next morning I ventured down the garden to inspect the damage, I was feeling very delicate and my tummy was doing a wonderful impression of a tumble drier, there were two broken chairs completely beyond repair. As I picked them up someone shouted “I hope they’re not too badly damaged” it was Alberts wife, “How is he “ I asked, she told me he was still on the landing halfway up the stairs where she had left him last night  sleeping like a baby as she couldn’t budge him.

It was three days before I saw Albert again, he came round to the house wheeling a concrete water feature in his barrow, he was apologising profusely, saying he had looked everywhere but couldn’t find replacement chairs, so he had brought this as a gesture. I told him he needn’t worry. He said “I feel like a right dickhead, I’m so sorry”.

When Mrs H saw them her first question was “What shall we call them?” Everything in our garden has to have a name and Mrs H normally names them, the big fish in my pond is called Jaws, the lazy pig reclining at the edge of the pond is called Eric (yes I know, I have no idea how that happened).  I thought for a moment and shouted Eureka! ( well not quite) and that my friends – is how the ducks came to be called Dick and Ed!.

Mrs H finally got to see the bottom of the chest freezer today, there were fish fingers there that we considered donating to the Museum of Natural history, they were so out of date.

I sit here waiting patiently for our friend in the white van and the space suit to once more abuse my front door and bell as he leaves another box of groceries from Boris. Ah there he is, Crash, bang, wallop and the box has landed. It will be nice to find out who the cheerful chap is when this mess is finally over, I would sincerely like to shake his hand.

Having what myself and Mrs H call a lazy day today, lounging around, busy doing nothing, working the whole day through! But, that didn’t do it for me, so I finally finished off the woodwork on the Summer house.

In at five to hear the daily missive from Downing street sadly 778 lost their lives in the past 24 hours taking the UK total to 12107, is there no end in sight?

Wednesday 15/04/2020 – Day 31

Woke up this morning with a mission, to finish that damn Summer house!

We don’t call it the Summer house because everyone else does, oh no, ours is called that because I started it at the beginning of last Summer! It came second hand, our son was working at a property where they had an octagonal greenhouse that needed dismantling and taking to the tip, he sent us a picture and I told him to drop it off here, yes, it needed a few repairs and a lot of TLC, but I didn’t see a greenhouse, I saw a wonderful 8 sided building that Mrs H and myself could relax in during those long cold Winter months. First thing I did was remove the glass from the roof, (we didn’t want to end up like a couple of fried eggs in the Summer,) I replaced it with feather edge boarding. I did all the necessary repairs on the frame and we were ready to go, first of all we needed a site for it, I could envisage it next to the fish pond on some existing decking.

It has to be said at this stage that Mrs H has no sense of  size (don’t go there) she sees a massive building and a small decking, whereas I see a perfect place to plonk a 9 foot wide octagonal building, it had to sit on slotted concrete sections which basically gave you the shape on which to erect the sides. Well that’s a doddle I thought, one week later (ok, so I’m a slow worker, it just wouldn’t fit!) and it is done. By this time my overwhelming enthusiasm has dropped to a ‘couldn’t give a toss either way’ attitude.  I had lost all interest in the damn thing and move on to something else, meanwhile there are 8 newly painted sides partly blocking the side entrance. Around September time my enthusiasm for the project had returned, with the hindrance sorry, help of Mrs H the sides were erected, admittingly the last one was a struggle but within a week it fitted. Then it started to rain, and rain and rain!

It was late January 2020 before work resumed on the project, it was a particularly fine week and I was sick to death of looking from the bedroom window at something that resembled the wall of death in a fairground. But how to start the roof? There was only me and Mrs H, she’d have to do, reluctantly I passed her the specially made prop which she would use to hold the first section ready while I put in a couple of screws – what could be more simple?

Have you ever watched a snooker match where someone in the audience coughs and the player loses concentration and stands up chalking his cue for the umpteenth time, well it was like that  with Mrs H, she might as well have been holding a jelly up there, every time I went to put a screw in she moved it! I was beginning to think she was doing it on purpose to enact some sort of revenge on me for a past demeanour. Her language was so bad that even the neighbours went inside lol. Thankfully, we eventually got the first and final panel in and my dream was coming true. Over the last 3 months I have insulated and lined the inside and put shiplap cladding on the outside, we went in there at the beginning of March, it wasn’t very warm outside but in the Summer house it was just like – well Summer!

Today I finish the painting outside, Mrs H has already furbished the inside with a couple of easy chairs, coffee table, lamp and radio, it really is home from home and all that effort was worth it, and the cost? With refurbishment and bucket loads of patience £650. Almost £300 of that was for the easy chairs.

All done by 4.30 pm, just in time for the Downing street update. Scotland’s first minister has reported today that 25% of total deaths are from outside hospital,  if they know their figures then why don’t we? There were a further 761 deaths in the past 24 hours leading to a total in the UK of 12,868 to date.

At 8.45pm the Tesco’s van pulled up outside and Mrs H went out to bring in the hoards of carrier bags dropped by a really nice chap, we have had orders from Morrison’s and Sainsbury’s in the past six weeks, but I have to say, this is the first order which has had good substitutes and excellent dates on things like milk etc. All in all an excellent day.

Thursday 16/04/2020 – Day 32

I had been up a couple of hours when George called me, no Good morning, how are you, glad you survived the night! “Got to tell you this joke” he said, (George does this a lot), “If you must” I replied wearily,

George      What can you eat when you’re young that’ll make you miserable and upset you  for the rest of your life

Me               I have no idea.

George      Wedding cake!

This was followed by roars of laughter and his terrible impression of Frank Carson’s ‘It’s the way I tell em’. It must be said that this is why George is no longer married, he has been divorced 12 years now and shows no sign of remarrying.

I did a job today that I have been putting off for ages, I trimmed my balls! They are my topiary balls placed inside a garden wall at the front of our house of course, they don’t call me Eric Scissorhands for nothing, I mean, if you think trimming your topiary balls  like Vidal Sassoon does a ladies hair is eccentric then yes I am both of those aforementioned descriptions, mind you, I did get a couple of funny looks from a couple passing by as I trimmed, stood back and fluffed up my balls (apologies ladies). We also have a large bush in need of attention, but that is the wife’s favourite,  so while I trimmed my balls Mrs H got on with trimming her bush.

Apart from that we have had quite a boring day, just lounging around in the sunshine and drinking copious cups of char.

Sadly, the number of deaths has once again risen today, 861 people have died since yesterday, the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has today announced a further three weeks of lock down. Some will not like this but most will welcome it, I too feel it is far too early to even attempt to try and return to normal.

Friday 17/04/2020 – Day 33

Today is what we would have described years ago as a ‘Dull as dishwater’ day, it is mostly overcast and the temperature has dropped heavily, but, me being the old stalwart that I am jumped out of bed, shoved all negativity aside and then stubbed my big toe on the bed! cursing and cussing I made my way downstairs.

The first thing I notice that has changed through all this is my morning routine – no, not that – I have always risen far too early, but I use that time to do  things like write my stories, or write my poetry, then I would always take Mrs H a  cup of latte up before I got ready for work, for the last five weeks there has been no work  and dear Mrs H has joined me downstairs for her coffee – completely killing my creative flow!

No deliveries today and not a lot of work to do, so I thought I’d take you back in time to my youth.

Friday was always payday in the late sixties, I was working as a creeler in one of our local carpet factories, In those days wages were put into brown envelopes with your name and all deductions on the front, they would then be sent to each individual department and the foreman would take them round to the employees, we would eagerly await the arrival, he would have a large wooden tray full of envelopes which in turn were full of cash, can you imagine that happening today? Anyway, as soon as you had got it there were bills to be paid, the sandwich man who had brought you breakfast all week, the football pools collector, the local sweep where you had a selection of teams and the first to reach 21 goals won the lot, there were probably a few more which have now slipped my memory.

Then it was home time, pay your Mum your housekeeping and out on the town with your mates, suffice to say that by Saturday morning if you had a quid left in your pocket you were a rich lad. There was a TV ad at the time which said ‘Thank Crunchie it’s Friday’ referring to the chocolate Crunchie bar, I still use that saying today, but only in my head you understand.

Still no sign of Boris returning to work, but this virus takes a very long time for the human body to get back to normal, The amount of deaths increased by a further 847 yesterday, all those poor families, my heart really does go out to them. There are now doubts as to whether or not the Chinese Officials are actually telling the truth about the number of deaths in their country, it seems to have been grossly wrong and the figure should have been  lot higher than reported originally.

Saturday 18/04/2020 – Day 34

Woke this morning to the sound of heavy rain reverberating on the bedroom window, didn’t bother Mrs H though as she gently pushed out the Zzz’s, I looked down at the alarm clock and nearly had a heart attack! It said 8.40am, I rubbed my eyes to make it go away and opened them again, it was 8’41. I haven’t slept in this long since the last time I drank 14 Guinness in one session, what on earth had happened to my body clock!

Really boring day today, pouring down outside, all inside jobs done – then the doorbell rang – Mrs H and I looked at each other just like when the phones ringing and you say ‘who the hell’s that at this time of day’. Answering the door in her dressing gown the smiling goggle- eyed postman left a very wet box on the doorstep. It was some garden lights we had ordered way back in the Ice Age, Now I am going to have a good whinge here so scroll past, but why do all these companies send the lights without the bulbs? That is so infuriating! It’s like sending a hammer without a head on it, or a chain saw without the chain! Surely it would be better to add the cost to the product or at least tell you that the bulbs aren’t included, I have ordered the bulbs but by the time I get them Summer will be over and hopefully – so will this virus that everyone is using as an excuse for poor delivery at the moment, rant over, carry on reading.

Heard a rumour going around today that overstretched Dr’s surgeries may ask for the help of their Veterinary colleagues, I’m not too happy about that, have you seen how those Vets take an animal’s temperature, so,  if you want to stay safe, keep your nose damp and your tail wagging lol!.

On a brighter note it is only 32 weeks to Christmas.

Sadly a further 888 people of all ages lost their lives in the last 24 hours, the government officials are saying that the final total could reach as many as 40,000, we pray that doesn’t become reality.

Well that’s another week of a 12 week period gone, if you are enjoying my weekly diary then I’ll see you all next Sunday – God willing.

Until then, please stay home and stay safe.