Hurrah it’s the longest day of the year; but that doesn’t mean you cannot join in the fun if you are in the southern hemisphere. One of the features of the new WordPress BLOCKS, which not many people are aware of, is the fifth dimension, which only works twice a year at Solstice. Simply click on a picture and you can be transported to that place. A square picture will take you there in the present, a round picture will take you to the exact moment the photograph was taken. Got it? Just make sure you read the complicated WordPress instructions on how to return…
River Avon, ChristchurchWhitby, North YorkshireSalisbury, WiltshireIronbridge, River Severn, ShropshireBournemouth, DorsetThe Forth Bridge – don’t forget to take your letters to post.WestminsterCornwallThink carefully before choosing this one.Come in for a cup of tea.
How did you get on? Tell us which was your favourite place.
Friday again; each week Cassie was more relieved when Friday evening arrived. She had James to thank for ensuring she drew a line under the working week. He insisted they Facetime early and put the week behind them, they were not being paid to work at weekends, it was already too easy to catch up with work in the evenings. She opened a new bottle of wine, a glass to share with James and a glass later to enjoy with dinner as she watched Gardener’s World. Is that what her life had come to? Doris had got her on to gardening programmes, but it was to relax and enjoy the calm that she tuned in, away from Covid news and work. If a few gardening tips penetrated her brain, that was a bonus.
Working from home suited Cassie, but motivating and organising her little team was another matter. James said she should not be carrying the others, but it was easier to do extra herself than worrying. No one had sent their children back to school, even the few who could were too worried, or could see no point in sending one child back and still have to look after the others. Having seen, or more often heard, children of various sizes bouncing off the walls during Zoom sessions she thought it a miracle anyone got any work done. And then there were those who had found themselves being full time carers for elderly parents.
But that was only a part of Cassie’s low feeling this evening. She had spent so long planning and executing a move to own a proper house, have a change of interests, slip out of Giles’ life; she had done all that very successfully, but now what? The promotion had been a means to an end and now she realised it could have been a mistake. Being in lockdown made people think too much; normal rushing to and from work, out and about socialising stopped people pondering the big questions like ‘What are we all here for anyway?’
Cassie’s aunt had brought her up to be independent and secure; with no family to fall back on and the fact that ‘you can’t depend on a man to look after you’ Cassie had always sought out secure jobs, not that any job was secure in the 21st century. Now she wondered if she should have thrown caution to the wind and gone travelling properly or taken up breeding llamas. Was it too late to try something completely different?
‘James, cheers… oh some pink stuff I got from the One Stop down the road. Any news, have you been in to work yet.’
‘The good news is I got the hire car for a month and I went in yesterday, the bad news is we are no further forward. We can’t even take all the people who don’t have to worry about kids or parents. Coming in on different days, sitting three desks apart, it’s no improvement on what we have already. The boss thinks we are all doing a grand job working from home, but he’s hardly in the zone, it’s only six weeks since his daughter died and his second in command is pretty useless.’
‘That’s so sad… and the other girl, no wonder morale is low in the company and everyone is nervous of coming back to work. They were both younger than us… me and in good health. I don’t know how people can crowd down to the beach or go on protests when they know people are still catching it and dying.’
‘Cassie, Cassie, let’s get off that subject, I wanted to ask you something.’
Of course, it filtered through to her brain that he now had access to transport; the ferry was still out of action, but it wouldn’t take long to drive the hire car the long way round and over the bridge. Was he going to ask where she lived, were postcodes something modern young women kept a secret? She had not dated since Giles, what were the rules? No, she was jumping the gun, he was just going to suggest she cycle down to MPJ when he was assessing the building, stand two metres apart by the coffee machine…
She tuned back in to what he was saying
‘…and Mother would love to have you round for dinner and of course I could come and see you properly, so what do you think, would you consider being in our Bubble?’
‘Bubble!…?’
The only bubble that made sense to Cassie was the one she had created around herself and her home and she wasn’t sure she wanted anyone to burst it, or was that just what she needed to raise her spirits?
For some pre-Covid tales dip into one of my collections.
When my younger son was little he looked up at the black and white magpies in the tree and cried PENGUINS!
When I was working at Heathrow a new young chap started; his name was something like Fabrizio and he spoke with a strong Italian accent, of course everyone referred to him as ‘the new Italian bloke’. But he was furious to be called Italian, insisting he was English and had been kidnapped from England as a child and taken to Italy. As you might guess, he was the product of an unsuccessful mixed marriage.
Whether you are bird or human, how others perceive you may not be how you perceive yourself, but do we even know ourselves who we are and does it matter? We’re all human and if we all treated each other the same what a happy place the world would be. Alas that is unlikely to happen. In a previous incarnation, when we had moved to a new place – let us call it Dullsville – I turned up at the church hall for the mother and toddlers’ group. The church happened to be marooned at the end of a lane cut off when the motorway was built; a subway connected our side to what had been the rest of the old village. Anyone who has moved to a new area will know it’s like going to a new school – will anyone talk to you? They all sat in an imposing circle, mums, one granny and a dad, but I soon perceived there were two distinct groups; each side of the motorway regarded the other with suspicion.
We are all different and it would be a dull world if we were all the same. We are more different from each other than the clumsy groupings some would like to impose. Everyone has their own unique combination of DNA, culture, religion, origin and generation so why not celebrate our differences, pick out the positives in every group.
My Ancestry DNA test showed nothing exotic in my make up and only a fraction of a percentage possibly Jewish, but one of my mother’s many sayings was that the Jews must be God’s Chosen People because they are so good at everything, while my aunt said that Jewish folk seemed to have more hours in the day than everyone else. Pick a great musician, scientist or actor or perhaps a polymath good at all of those things and they will very often be Jewish; probably you wouldn’t know that because who you see on the stage or screen, who you listen to on the radio is an individual who is your favourite performer or an interesting scientist.
Every country and race has positive characteristics we recognise, whether their people are the backbone of the caring professions, natural musicians or the brains behind every electronic device we possess. But success in the modern world is not everything and we also need to recognise those who can help save the planet. The Aborigine in Australia, who has managed to stay connected to his ancestors, will understand more about nature and his ancient land than any scientist.
And how do we perceive ourselves? We can imagine what it is like to be someone else, writers do it all the time, but we still look out from one pair of eyes, inside the body that others see. Liberal thinking white men wrestle with the angst of not knowing what it is like to be another colour or to be a woman. While white British women, the only group I can claim to belong to ( and this is just my opinion and observation ) for generations have seen themselves as neutral, eager to embrace the more exotic by travelling or marrying for love into a family different ( and less boring! ) than their own. They embrace new recipes, colourful clothes, perhaps a new religion and look forward to giving birth to a designer mixed race child with Mediterranean olive skin and dark eyes or lovely Afro hair or adorable oriental features. What they do not dream of is their beloved child being treated as anything less than a unique individual equal to anyone else.
After Nelson was toppled from his column in Trafalgar Square and dunked in the fountains, the Prime Minister announced that all statues around the kingdom would be removed and replaced by more of the ubiquitous figures of Everyman created by Antony Gormley.
Margate’s man only emerges at low tide.
Angry protestors, objecting to Gormley’s exclusive use of the male human body and also the fact he is white and has been middle aged for a good while, gathered at the foot of his Angel of the North. On arrival they called for more supporters to help pull it down as it turned out to be much bigger than it looked when they were driving along the A1.
One art enthusiast gathered to protect the great work and point out that the Angel was androgynous, a heavenly not human body and had led a blameless life, so could not offend anyone.
After a petition on 38 Degrees, parliament passed a motion that all the now empty plinths would be filled with life size replicas of the Angel of the North. Buckingham Palace released a statement saying The Queen was delighted at the prospect of seeing The Angel when she looked out of her bedroom window and retiring Queen Victoria to the back garden.
Vivienne looked out of the bedroom window across the road, glad to see signs of life. The little boy in the corner house was outside again after the welcome rain, playing swing ball on the lawn. Since the family moved in a couple of years ago the house had been transformed, the noise of all the building work had been worth it and with the designer garden it was a welcome outlook in these restricted days. Young Freddy was an only child, she had felt sorry for him, such a quiet little thing, not like her grandson, but he seemed happy with his own company, playing, building tents and searching for wild life amongst the flowers and his father’s strange sculptures. She wondered if a grandparent or lost uncle would be added to their household to create one of these new bubbles, more confusing instructions from Boris. Well she couldn’t join a bubble, not with James living with her, you had to be living on your own; so still no chance of seeing Jason and Jacintha. Julia and Jack lived too far away to pop round with the twins and stand in the front garden. Even if she had been on her own who would they choose to share their bubble; she felt a stab of jealousy, probably one of Jack’s divorced parents, his lonely father or his needy mother. Unless they had both acquired new partners… Vivienne smiled to herself, she couldn’t be bothered to house train another man, even in the unlikely event of meeting someone. She imagined some dreadful man in his eighties wanting to try out Viagra, or even worse, a chap in his declining years searching for someone to look after him.
Over dinner it turned out James had his own idea about bubbles.
‘What would you think Mother about inviting Cassie to join our bubble?’
‘We haven’t got a bubble.’
‘No, but we could make one. Cassie hasn’t got any family, she’s new in the area, so perhaps she would be glad to visit us?’
Vivienne pictured having someone new to talk to, someone intelligent to chat with, not about geckos, but it sounded as if this on line girlfriend had plenty of other interests, including her new gardening adventures.
‘Or I could visit her.’
She wondered what her son had in mind exactly, how did on line dating work? It was not new, a few of her friends had had some hair raising adventures on line, or rather, when they went off line. James visiting Cassie would obviously give them privacy, surely he didn’t want his mother part of the bubble.
‘What does Cassie think?’
‘I haven’t mentioned it yet?’
‘Has she suggested you meet up in the open, now there are less restrictions?’
‘No, I sometimes think she prefers being on line, she has never exactly said where she lives. I only know it’s within cycling distance of work.’
‘And how would you get there with the ferry still being out of action, surely not on your bicycle?’
‘The boss was talking about a short term car hire. I shall have to go in to the office soon, if only to finish my assessment of who or if anyone can work in the building. Anyway, what about you Mum, you could go out a bit now. ’
‘A walk round the block is going to be my limit for a while yet, where would I go with everywhere closed ?’
‘It’s a pity you gave up driving so long ago.’
‘Because you could have borrowed my car?’
‘No, no of course not, so you would be independent.’
‘I was independent, near the town centre for my bits of shopping, meeting friends at that nice waterside restaurant, popping over on the ferry for a proper shopping day out and of course Suzanna was always happy driving me and Dee out and about on our little outings.’
‘Oh… yes, I’m sorry that must have been such a shock.’
‘…and most of us only finding out on the grapevine, Suzanna’s family didn’t know who all her friends were, not that we could have gone to the funeral. She was the fittest of all of us, the last one we expected to get Covid.’
For some pre-Covid tales, why not dip into one of my collections?
A second anthology from the author of ‘Dark and Milk,’ including recent prize winning short stories. As you would expect, some tales are light, others very dark and you will not know which are which until it is too late! Visit places you may or may not find on a map, discover the Hambourne Chronicles and meet people who may not be what they seem.
Like Japanese soldiers found hiding on remote Pacific islands decades after the Second World War, unaware the hostilities had ended, I fear I may emerge from isolation months in the future to discover everyone else has been out and about, holidaying and having fun. Scenes on the news of crowded beaches and beauty spots and anti racism protests, leave many of us wondering if we have missed a miraculous and sudden end to the pandemic.
One of my earliest memories is looking out of our upstairs window at sunshine and blue skies and feeling shut in. Until I was nearly seven, by which time my parents had a toddler and baby to cope with as well, Mum and Dad rented what they called a flat, but was really the spacious two top floors of a large Victorian terraced house. A quick glance on Zoopla reveals you would pay over a million and a quarter for such a house in that road today. But Mum had to lean out the kitchen window to hang the washing on a pulley line, suspended high above the back garden of the ‘wicked old lady’ ( mum’s words ) who lived on the ground floor. She never offered to let me play in her garden. But I certainly wasn’t a prisoner; my parents were always taking me down by the river or to Kew Gardens, Marble Hill Park and Richmond Park for fresh air and exercise. I feel so sorry for children literally locked into cramped flats because of the virus. Most children in England will not now return to school till after the summer holidays. While many are having fun and never had so many walks and bike rides with their parents, some children are isolated indoors because of their health or underlying health conditions of someone in their family.
We adults may grumble and some people have found themselves in dire situations, but we are not sheltering in a basement in a war shattered city. For writers, bloggers, artists and gardeners it’s just another day at home, an endless succession of days at home, but it’s okay. Obviously I could not survive without BBC Radio, books, music, the internet, television and of course chocolate.
When we were having our medical dramas just before lockdown, there was another patient who seemed to be following Cyberspouse from ward to ward. He had no visitors because he had a frail wife at home and no family near. I knew this because I heard all his conversations to medical staff and on his mobile, but his greatest upset was not having anything to read and nobody seemed able to get him a newspaper. When any medical staff asked how he was he told them he was soo bored. He was reduced to doing origami with the paperwork they left behind. By the third ward I made sure I brought him a newspaper and he was overwhelmed with gratitude. Boredom can be a worse threat than a pandemic.
What things have been essential for your survival in isolation?
RightWrongCorrectIncorrectSafeUnsafeNo sign of human life – excellentToo much human life – unexcellentIsolationUnisolationYESNO!Find a quiet spotThis is not a quiet spot.
They didn’t do clapping and banging saucepans last night, did that mean Covid was going away? Freddy didn’t want Covid to go away, he wanted it to stay forever so he didn’t have to go to school ever again and Mummy and Daddy didn’t have to go to work ever again.
Freddy was good at home schooling; he did all the work his teacher set, he did lots of BBC Bites, he liked those and the extra work his parents set because they didn’t think his teacher gave him hard enough work. Even when Mummy was doing conference calls and Daddy was busy on his lap top, Freddy carried on working, looking up countries in the big atlas or writing a story. If he kept being good at home schooling then he wouldn’t need to go back to school.
At the weekend they had had an important conversation with him.
‘The Prime Minister says your class can go back to school, but we have some bad news… now don’t be too disappointed, but Daddy and I have decided you should not go back yet. We are very proud of you doing so well at home schooling and it might not be safe at school; remember how we measured two metres?’
‘Yes and our desks are closer than that’ said Freddy hopefully.
‘What Mummy means is that some of the children who aren’t as clever as you might forget at playtime and bump into you.’
Freddy knew for sure who would bump into him, purposely and give him Covid. He certainly didn’t want to go back to school if They were going to be there.
‘Are the other children in my class going back?’
‘Some are, perhaps when things settle down you will be able to go back.’
Freddy didn’t want things to settle down. Perhaps They would go back to school and catch Covid and die.
At bedtime he listened to his mother talking on the phone, who was she talking to?
‘Yes I know, it’s a difficult decision, we’re just lucky we can work from home and Freddy has taken to home schooling so well. But it’s not really fair on him, being an only child, he needs to be with other children. Yes, I heard about that, extending the end of term.
On Monday I got a Christmas letter from Australia. For a moment I wondered if 2020 had all been a nightmare and we were still in 2019. But alas, it turned out a friend from long ago had been tidying her office, no doubt a Covid stayathome activity and had found the unsent Round Robin. On the reverse side was an updating handwritten letter. But this blog isn’t about Round Robins or my friend’s ‘far more interesting than mine’ life. The salient point was that she had been reading and enjoying my website, which was pleasing and also made me wonder how she had arrived there. Had I enclosed a business card in her Christmas card, had I even remembered to send one, or had she just looked up my name on the internet – for experimental reasons I tried this and my website came up first.
An artist’s impression of my website
We started my website ages ago after publishing my first novel on Amazon Kindle in 2013, when I had even less idea what I was doing on the internet than I do now. It is a paid for website, a series of templates, a scrap book waiting to be filled in, without the glue, but for me just as messy; we accidentally created two domains, there were too many pages, which themselves had more pages… what to fill it with, lots of pictures?
My first positive step was discovering you could add a background colour, turning it yellow brightened the outlook, but what next? Over the years I have discovered skills at a slow rate, often there have been changes as soon as I got used to how things were done. How to change the size of words and pictures so people could actually see them, how to do links. At one stage you could put artistic frames around the pictures; that disappeared, but some interesting boxes turned up – perhaps I have been using blocks all along without knowing.
When I realised everyone except me was on WordPress I started this blog, the advantages are obvious, it is interactive, you know who is Liking or commenting and you can respond. On my Big Yellow Website visitors can only Like if they are on Facebook, there is also a visitor counter which records far higher numbers than the Likes. In the unlikely event a visitor is moved to comment they must make the effort to turn to the contact page and find my email address, I think only my sister and a few friends have ever done that.
If I share a link to the website on both my Facebook pages I get some Likes and lots of visits, so who is visiting apart from the friend in Australia? Of course none of this translates into actual book sales, which is why authors are told to start a website in the first place, but perhaps my website is happy in its own right, floating in yellow bliss in the ether waiting for its next visitor.
Day three experimenting with blocks. As it’s Silly Saturday it doesn’t matter what happens. So far I have managed to put words on the page and give them a nice yellow background. On the previous blog I turned my pictures round. Now I’m going to see what else I can do with pictures. If you are not reading this, it hasn’t worked.
A Whale’s Jaw
Now I have managed to shrink everything on my screen so can’t see what I am doing…
Sorted my screen, not WordPress’s fault, but have lost all the other stuff so here are some more pictures – let’s have a theme – places you could socially isolate…
Why go on a cruise when you could go on a container ship?
If you pass someone coming the other way on the footpath don’t forget to keep your two metre distance!
