Diary of a self-isolator – week 53

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

Sunday 14/03/2021 – Day 367

Well, dear reader here we are at the start of our second year! We get off to a flying start today with Mother’s Day. Yesterday afternoon, our one daughter and Granddaughter arrived to bring gifts cards and plants, they sat in the Garden room which is more or less outside. Our son and Daughter in law turned up this morning carrying a massive bouquet along with chocolates

I continued the pampering by taking the gorgeous Mrs H breakfast in bed this morning, well, when I say ‘breakfast in bed’ what I actually mean is a couple of pieces of toast spread thinly with wormy lime marmalade, I have never – since my childhood days – been able to come to terms with marmalade with all those ‘stringy’ bits in them, but hey it is Mother’s day and I am here to please Mrs H not have a whinge. I had managed (courtesy of my daughter) to get her a Mother’s day card which said Wife on it, that was put proudly alongside the last card Vickie had bought for her.

It’s a bittersweet day for us really, a day when Vickie comes to the fore of our minds, not that we don’t think of her every single day – there is not a day passes when she isn’t spoken of or in our thoughts – but times like today, Father’s day, Christmas and her birthday are extra special days when we miss her more than ever. We were dressed and having our second drink of the day when ‘My Girl’ played on the radio, this was one of the songs played at Vickie’s funeral, so every time it comes on we know she is near, we sat in reflective silence listening intently, it may seem a little morbid but it really does help.

So, we pottered around for a few hours when Mrs H started to think about lunch, “No need” I said, “It’s all in hand,”

“Oh my Lord, you’re not cooking are you?” she gasped.

“No, of course not, lunch is ordered and will be here at 2’00pm, a full three courses.”

The next 15 minutes were spent in conversation about her being on a diet, and that she didn’t think she could manage three courses. Ding dong, saved by the bell, and right on time too!

The young man handed her the two bags, wished her a good day and was off like the speed of light, we unpacked the well presented boxes, got the plates out and started with big slice of melon and fresh fruit, meanwhile the dinner was keeping warm in the oven. It consisted of Boiled potatoes, Roast potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, peas and roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy, they certainly hadn’t skimped on the contents, we were wondering if we would manage to eat it all, but twenty minutes later there was two empty plates, we were going to have the pudding later, but the thought of fresh apple pie and custard was far too much of a temptation to miss, it was absolutely gorgeous, in fact the whole meal from the Eagle and Spur in nearby Cookley was outstanding. My final act was to do the washing up whilst Mrs H relaxed.

She asked why I had done all that, as she wasn’t my mother, “no” I agreed, “But you look after me 364 days a year so it doesn’t hurt to spoil you, besides the fact that I love you more than my mum.” I didn’t want to say that I knew how upset she was with Vickie not being with us, but I knew she was thinking about her all day.

In the afternoon our other daughter and granddaughter turned up with a lovely pot full of plants for outside, they stayed for quite a time catching up on events, I was popping in and out checking the Rugby match – Scotland v Ireland – score.

Mrs H and I sat down on the evening and I laid back on the recliner and dropped off to sleep! But she told me later that she’d had a wonderful day, and that was all that mattered to me!

Thankfully, today’s death figures were quite low at 52, whilst new cases were also low at 4618.

Monday 15/03/2021 – Day 368

Woke this morning with the sun streaming into the room, it was 7.45, that was a lie-in for me. Had my four Weetabix (considering increasing the intake as I’m hungry a couple of hours later, need a bigger bowl) and took Mrs H her latte up, we sat discussing what we would do today, I have literally finished the Garden room until about three weeks time when – hopefully – the windows and doors arrive.

It was quite mild out side so it was decided that we’d do a Spring clean up in the garden, we only intended to clean up the part nearest to the house, which entailed cleaning off a fifteen foot stone circle and then trimming all the foliage surrounding it, Mrs H suspected that this would take most of the day, but it took just over two hours, by the time we sat down for a cuppa most of the garden was done and our Brown garden bin was almost full.

On this day in 1964 Film stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor married in Montreal. They later divorced then remarried. It wasn’t that they didn’t like each other, just that they both loved wedding cake.

Also on this day in 2003 The death of Dame Thora Hird, British actress. She is best remembered for her role of almost two decades in Last of the Summer Wine but played many other roles in her long career. She won a BAFTA Best Actress award for her roles in two of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads monologues and a BAFTA for Best Actress in Lost for Words. Mrs H always reminded me of her character in Last of the Summer Wine, especially the scenes where she would put newspaper down on her kitchen floor as her poor downtrodden husband walked across it, oh yes dear reader, I’ve been there and done that.

And finally, on this day in 2014 We bid a fond farewell to TV Cook Clarissa Dickson Wright, at the age of 66. Christened Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright, she became famous as one half of ‘The Two Fat Ladies’. Wright and the late Jennifer Paterson travelled the country on a Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle and sidecar and would prepare meals for members of the public. (Female forerunners of Si and Dave, the Hairy Bikers) A former barrister, Clarissa Dickson Wright was, until 2013 the youngest woman ever to be called to the Bar, passing her exams aged 21.

Mrs H is sat in the lounge as I type, she has her tired feet up and is pushing out the zzzz’s, I reckon all that fresh air and being on her knees most of the day has taken its toll eh?

Well once again todays figures are considerably low with 5089 new cases and 64 more new deaths registered, these are of course weekend figures which are always low.

Tuesday 16/03/2021 – Day 369

I was lay in bed last night watching ‘Suits’ when someone explained that there is a human medical condition called exploding head syndrome, (I kid you not), it is a rare sleep phenomenon that consists of a loud noise, this thing usually happens when you are dropping off to sleep or sometimes even when you are fully asleep. It is said to be a violent explosion that has gone off in your head – but it is only imaginary. Unless of course, you happen to be lay next to Mrs H who has many of these explosions as she lies there gently snoring and I turn the volume on the TV up to maximum.

We have had another good day in the garden in this Spring like weather we are enjoying at the moment, the sun came out about nine and is still out at 3.45pm as I type this. So. the garden is now up to date, my pond is more or less sorted, Jaws and his mates have survived the harsh Winter months and all is well with the world.

George phoned as we were about to go into the garden, he is once again in the doghouse, It seems that Rose had to work on Sunday and was very disappointed that he hadn’t even bought her some flowers for mother’s day, so during her break she decided to drop a few hints’

Rose      Three girls have had flowers delivered today, they are absolutely gorgeous.

George   Oh that’s probably why then!

He still didn’t understand what he’d done wrong until Mrs H pointed it out to him.

He asked his little grandson why he had only spent £3 on his Mum for mother’s day, “That’s all she had in her purse” was the casual reply.

On this day in 1973 Queen Elizabeth II opened the new London Bridge. The old one was sold to an American oil tycoon for £1m and transported to the United States. Robert McCulloch had an expanse of land which he was developing, but he couldn’t sell it because of the heat and humidity of the area, His Real estate agent heard that London Bridge was up for sale, but it took a lot of scotch and negotiation to get a price out of the London Authorities. As a sweetener, McCulloch tacked on an additional $60,000—$1,000 for each year old he would be when the bridge reopened at Lake Havasu. In April 1968, for a final price of $2,460,000, Robert McCulloch became the proud owner of the world’s largest antique.

Good news on the figures, we don’t seem to be getting those massive surges after the weekend now, todays figures were 5294 new cases and 110 registered deaths, but the number of survivors continues to rise thankfully.

Wednesday 17/03/2021 – Day 370

Well, naughty Mrs H and I sat up until 2.30am this morning watching episodes of ‘Suits’, it was so engrossing that even at that time of the morning we didn’t want to turn the TV off, but I needed my beauty sleep – Mrs H didn’t!

To all my Irish readers I wish you a happy St Patrick’s Day. St. Patrick was born Circa AD 387 and is the Patron Saint of Ireland. There are many legends associated with the life of St. Patrick. According to one, he miraculously drove all the snakes of Ireland into the sea. He is said to have used the three leaflets of the shamrock to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity. He reportedly raised as many as 33 people from the dead.

Also on this day in 1951 The comic strip character Dennis the Menace appeared in the Beano for the first time. His red and black striped jumper did not feature until a few weeks later and his pet dog Gnasher did not make an appearance until 31st August 1968. But it started me thinking about all the comics that we had in our house as a child, Now, you’re not going to believe this, but they were initially bought for my dad!, We all had to wait until he had read them before we could, let me explain, he worked permanent nights and reading these comics in bed was the only way he could get off to sleep,

I think The Dandy was my most favourite, with Korky the Kat on the front page and Desperate Dan on the inside with his massive pies. sadly they stopped publication in December 2012. The Beano was my second best, Its characters include Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, The Bash Street Kids, The Numskulls, Roger the Dodger, Billy Whizz and Tricky Dicky, but one of my favourites was Lord Snooty.

Then there were the bigger comics like the Topper with Beryl the Peril – a mischievous girl similar to Minnie the Minx, although she appeared to have the same parents as Dennis the Menace. There was also the Beezer with Ginger on the front page, these two comics would merge later in the nineties, Another favourite was Buster who was billed as ‘The son of Andy Capp’. I enjoyed the Eagle, The Hotspur and numerous other comics of the day.

But my sisters preferred their own comics (which I also quietly read) In Bunty. I knew more about the Four Mary’s than I knew about my own sisters. There was also Judy with Bobby Dazzler and Mandy, I think they later combined. Jackie is another that comes to mind, but there were literally dozens of them!

There were 5758 new cases reported today whilst the number of deaths were the highest so far this week at 141.

Thursday 17/03/2021 – Day 371

Woke with a start this morning, Mrs H suddenly started talking, then she said she thought I was awake – well I was then! I got the old frame out of bed and went to make Mrs H her customary cup of latte.

I put a survey on my site yesterday and asked “Am I the only one disgruntled with seeing the same old so-called celebrities presenting everything?”, the results were astounding, the most annoying celeb by far was Philip Schofield, I never realised how many people disliked him, I had 452 responses (so far) and he had most of them, Second was Rylan Clark Neal, who is presenting a re-hashed Ready Steady Cook, Third was Amanda Holden, fourth was Holly Willoughby and fifth was Davina McCall who most people reckon has a look-alike as she turns up to everything, interesting eh.

Two years ago I broke my big toe by dropping a cupboard door on it, it snapped in two and I was off work for a while, (about 8 weeks), now that toe has come back with a vengeance, I seem to have a touch of Arthritis in it which when throbbing is almost the same as gout. It reminded me of my school days when PE was looming in lessons, I hated PE (physical exercise) as you can tell by my photograph, so I always had a bout of athletes foot when it came around, this is a sort of fungal infection that affects the feet – specifically between the toes. So, it was easy to remove the sock and agitate the skin between the toes just before a lesson, The Teacher a  Mr Reynolds must have had some sort of foot fetish because he always asked me to remove my sock – complete with holes – to inspect the offending digits. But sometimes he knew I was trying to dupe him. Another excuse was that I’d forgotten my PE kit, this never worked  and was probably the most embarrassing episode of my entire school life.

If you had ‘conveniently forgotten’ your kit, then there was a large wicker basket in the changing rooms, this was a basket that everyone avoided, even with the lid on it omitted such smells as to turn one’s stomach, it was full of shorts, tops, pumps and socks that even the lowest of the low had abandoned. That basket is where you were sent when you had no kit, I came out of the changing rooms looking like one of those Victorian exhibits in BT Barnums freak show. My top was a sort of pink which was badly mud stained and had one arm missing, the shorts had hardly any backside in them and had once belonged to one of the Roly Polys,and I couldn’t find a matching pair of socks so I had one long red sock and a short green striped sock, My plimsols were split and squeaked and flapped as I walked, I was walking down the corridor toward the playing field thinking life couldn’t get any worse when – walking towards me was the girl I was supposed to be meeting that weekend for our first date, she actually put her exercise book up to the side of her face to hide her obvious embarrassment as she passed me, needless to say I waited outside the cinema for overran hour on my own. I never forgot my PE kit again.

I’m in trouble with the local police, I had a constable knock the door this morning, he said he was looking for a man with one eye, I replied that he’d probably find him a lot quicker if he used both his eyes.

The highest number of new cases were reported today, they stood at 6303, whilst the number of registered deaths were once more below 100 at 95.

Friday 19/03/2021 – Day 372

Lay awake for a time this morning waiting for daylight to appear and I remembered something that happened in 1998, the Japanese group Sony accidentally released a Night Vision camcorder that had the ability to see through people’s clothes. … Dark clothes like swimsuits went transparent in front of those camcorders and it was in no matter of time, nude pictures of ladies were trending on the internet. Technology eh!

On this day in 1649 The House of Commons passed an act abolishing the House of Lords, declaring it ‘useless and dangerous to the people of England’, why on earth didn’t they carry on with it, mind you, had they done that then a lot of elderly folk would have had nowhere to sleep.

1969 The 1,263 ft. tall TV-mast at Emley Moor in Yorkshire collapsed due to a build up of ice. The current Emley Moor transmitting station, built in 1971, is the tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom and is a Grade II listed building. No wonder I couldn’t get my episode of ‘Till Death Us Do Part’ on that cold Friday night.

We had some devastating news today and it really has knocked Mrs H and myself about, so please forgive the lack of humour from here on.

The number of new cases today were 4802 with a further 101 deaths registered.

Had a job to drag these old bones out of bed this morning, Mrs H and myself didn’t get much sleep throughout the night, when I finally got up  I decided to clad my wooden garage doors in UPVC to take my mind off things, what was supposedly going to be a simple job turned out to be a bit of a nightmare, I got through almost a packet of buttermints whilst working it all out, this of course got me thinking about the old sweet shops I used to frequent on my way to school and what I used to buy in them.

Penny sweets were the buy of the day, with threepence deposit back off an old pop bottle you had found on the tip and cleaned up you proudly walked into the sweet shop, you would of course have to allow at least 15 minutes to absorb what was affordable and what was not, Our sweetshop owner was the most patient and kindest lady ever, never in a rush to serve you. My most frequent shop was the one nearest to St Mary Junior and was situate on the corner of Duke street and Churchfields. The top shelves were normally the jars of more higher priced sweets, out of reach of anyone who wanted to help themselves.
But all we were interested in were the penny sweets at the front, designed very cleverly to attract young boys and girls and relieve them of those big brown coins getting very warm as they were held in a clenched fist, Mrs Simms hovered patiently – much like Auntie Wainwright in Last of the Summer wine, or Arkwright in Open all Hours, – either way you walked out with a handful of sweets and an empty pocket!
For a penny you could buy Blackjacks, White mice, Flying saucers, liquorice wood. Pontefract cakes, Liquorice allsorts,  Raspberry drops, Dolly mixtures,  sherbert fountains of which there was an art to disposing of the dip, you either bit the end off the liquorice and sucked up the sherbert, or you simply sucked and dipped which normally left you with a soggy mess. The bargain was always the penny gobstopper, or indeed Aniseed balls which could be sucked on all day, then you had the everchanging gobstopper which as you sucked changed different colours, you could be digging around in the dirt or messing with worms when absent-mindedly your fingers went into your mouth to see what colour the gobstopper had become, it was then popped back in along with every germ known to mankind, such innocence!
Remember the candy necklaces worn with pride by your little sister, or the liquorice catherine wheel which stretched out forever till you got to the bobbly sweet in the centre.

For a penny (2d) more you could imitate your parents by buying a pack of Barratt’s sweet cigarettes with their little red ends, the sweet itself didn’t taste too good but you felt really grown up riding home on your little red three wheeled trike with the sweet cigarette precariously shoved between the two fingers Churchill and Harvey Smith had recently made so famous. If you wanted to be seriously old of course you opted for the liquorice pipe and the blob of mottled sweets in the end that resembled the bobbly and squashy liquorice allsorts.
Or of course you could be really adventurous and stay with a quarter of boiled sweets like Rhubarb and Custard, Pineapple chunks, Pear drops, Sherbert lemons, or if you had toothache you went for Dolly mixtures, Wine gums or little gems, definitely not those chocolate chewy nuts with hard toffee centres, I lost quite a few baby teeth to those. Drumsticks were raspberry and milk flavoured chewy lollipops. They were created by the Swizzels-Matlow Company in 1957, Derby, England. At the time it was created, it was the only chewy lolly in the world.

For the whole threepence you could buy a packet of Rolo’s or Spangles, the trouble with spangles being that you had to make sure you weren’t given the Aniseed, Liquorice or treacle ones, Ughh!Then there were Love Hearts with all those quirky little messages on them like Kiss Me, Tease me, Hold me,  I adore you and be my friend.
If you were lucky enough to have more than threepence you were into the big stuff, a Mars bar in those days would cost you 4d, but they were a lot bigger in those days, or a Marathon (Now known as a snickers). Five centres was great as long as you liked all the sections or had a mate who preferred the ones you hated. The 4d chocolate cream bar had orange, coffee, lime, blackcurrant and raspberry fillings. I remember when I first saw the ad for Rowntrees fruitgums, i was a bit shocked that he was telling his mum NOT to forget them, I know I wouldn’t have dared!

Of course chewing gum or bubble gum was the thing of the day, every shop had a machine outside with penny bubblegums in them, drop the penny in turn the handle and out popped the gum – supposedly! Then there was the flatpacks of gum which also gave you a free card which you had to collect, this assured that you went back for more when funds were available.

Should you have a desire to quench your thirst there was always the good old Jubbly which gave you brain freeze, or a tasty orange Kia Ora (the same as you would buy in the Cinema), But the best Orange juice I ever tasted came courtesy of the Co-Op milkman, a taste I have never been able to replicate to this day. The drink of my day was of course Corona, delivered on a Saturday afternoon, the various flavours included lime and lemon and one of my personal favourites Dandelion and Burdock. Of course, if you were lucky enough to go to the pub with your Dad then it had to be Vimto to wash down those crisps with the little blue bag of salt.

The new cases today numbered 5587, so the total for my week was 37,451 just over 3000 down on last week, the number of registered deaths were 96 for today, my total for the past 7 days is 659, almost 400 down on the previous week. The good news is that there are 3,650,226 recoveries to date, that is 226,134 up on last week.

Well, That’s all I have time for this week dear readers, except to tell you that our family crisis has not improved much, this basically means that I won’t be on Facebook for a while and therefore cannot reply to any of your comments, I apologise in advance.

It really has been emotional.