Well it’s been a week of video calls and conferences, phone calls and other physically distanced conversations. Some of my calls went about as well as the one below, but most were much better.
You can also see one of mine that was recorded for my review of The Cabinet of Calm, which was posted last Saturday and can be found here.
Outside of that I’ve enjoyed extra dog walks, now back to at least twice a day since Wednesday, but otherwise our routine has been the same and we’re still observing the previous lockdown rules, although sometimes it feels like we’re the only ones who are. It seems to me that the muddled and confusing messages from government about returning to work, not using public transport and reopening of certain businesses are likely to lead to a resurgence of cases if the VE Day street parties and BBQs where people were getting pretty pissed and behaving exactly as they would pre-coronavirus don’t.
How are your lockdown locks doing? I think it’s nearly a 100 days since I had a trip to the barbers for my usual haircut and actually it doesn’t seem to growing as fast as it normally seems to between shearings. It was suggested that I was looking a little “Grizzly Adams” this week, but I think that was more in relation to the beard than the scruffy hair. As things go I doubt I’ll be attempting a home cut any time soon, but then I also can’t see me that keen about returning to my barbers if things stay the same, even if they’re not likely to be able to reopen until July.
How are you doing have you gone for the home haircut or complete buzzcut or like me are you just letting it do it’s own thing?
I finished reading London Rules by Mick Herron, and it was pretty damn good. I started reading Grave Importance by Vivian Shaw, but haven’t made that much progress with that at this point. After that I have a pile of things to read still not to mention a kindle that is bulging at the metaphorical seams.
If like me you’ve been struggling to read, artist Austin Kleon had some thoughts on this last week.
I’ve been enjoying listening to a new (to me) podcast this week. Field Recordings is a short daily podcast of – yes it’s exactly what it says on the tin – audio recordings made in the “field” (not necessarily in an actual field).
With various other things going on I’ve not spent that much time on the allotment this week, although the allotment shop is now open again, with a nifty little one way system in operation and only one customer allowed inside at a time.
We also had our first harvest of broad beans of the season. They ended up in a pasta dish with some feta cheese, onion, pepper and garlic dressing. They were lovely. I love eating broad beans, and we’ll have plenty more to come by the looks of things.
It looks like the weather will be warming up again, so it might be time to plant out some of the plants that are waiting to go. I also need to try and cover up the gooseberries and loganberries. It looks like being another good year for them and if I don’t cover them soon, the birds will get them as soon as they’re ripe.
Television gardener Monty Don reported the death of his dog Nigel this week.
There have been a couple of particularly poignant posts on the Last Word on Nothing this week:
One or both will likely make you cry.
Contrary to internet urban legend, what Neil Gaiman has actually been doing.
That’s about it for this week. Stay Safe.
Electronic Scrapbook 