It’s a dogs’ life

Three little working dogs are we
Unemployed and fancy free
(Look at those devil eyes!)

We’re now a three-dog household. Dotty is the pup remaining with us after the other three have left. As I write she is wandering around the living room looking to see what she can chew next. Welcome to chez nous; our kennel.

I hope that those who’ve, through lockdown, thought it a good idea to get a dog are fully prepared for that dog being for life and not just for lockdown. They are a full-time commitment that requires a lifestyle to accommodate them; unless you’re one of those celebrities who apparently own dogs and home them in dog apartments, cared for by paid dog servants (I wish!). Lady Gaga’s poor dog-walker was apparently shot as her dogs were stolen from him (or was it a ‘her’?). I wonder how the star feels about that.

There are a lot of dog-accompanied people out and about nowadays and you don’t see so many mongrels any more. In my younger days, dogs wandered freely and you had to check your shoes before coming indoors. It wasn’t an uncommon sight to see dogs locked together on the street “making babies”; intriguing and a bit scary to a young child. The modern day trend in dog ownership results in a range of designer dogs being paraded about, often as statement accessories. I recently saw a news item about a trend in ‘cosmetic’ surgery on certain dogs’ ears - mutilation in other words. Insane and inhumane! There is also a growth in dog theft given the demand for and prices for such pooches. So many dogs are being bred for their looks rather than for what was their initial man’s-best-friend function - to help with things like guarding and herding sheep and cattle. They’ve come such a long way from their domesticated wolf ancestry. There is even a TV programme where dog groomers compete to be, not just the most skilled, but the most artistic and creative. 

I think it unlikely that these modern day accessory dogs will ponder, like I do about myself, as to what is their purpose in life. Dogs are generally quite happy to be one of the family - to love and be loved, and as long as the family which adopts them understands that a dog is a commitment and life is not the same once you have one. Unfortunately, there could be a booming dog-rescue industry after this current trend.

So now we have three. We’re outnumbered and the question is how to accommodate them in our life without becoming thoroughly canine ourselves. After removing the lint from the tumble dryer the other day and wondering whether I could spin the dog hair to knit a sweater, I’m concerned that my dog-allergic daughter-in-law will never forgive us and I won’t see her or my grandchildren ever again. The next task for us is to sell this place (if it’s still fit for human habitation) and find a more dog-suitable property. If any of you know of such a property, please let us know......before I leave home! 😜

This is my spot!

Where are we off to today?

What does this book taste like?

Ambivalence and sweet sorrows

We’ve had some spring sunshine! Yay! We’re moving towards the light at the end of a dark winter-lockdown tunnel. As I drove to the vaccination centre the other day, a rainbow hung over the place I was heading to! A sign? Surely it was a reassurance, and somehow more meaningful to me than the Queen’s assurance to us that the jab doesn’t hurt. But, in any case I’ve now ‘done my duty’ and with no apparent weird after-effect; not yet at any rate. My family are checking on me knowing that I’m weird enough already.

Today we said goodbye to one of our pups. He’s not gone far and we know it’s to a happy home where he’ll have a wonderful life with his dad. It was so hard parting with him though; his chubby little frame and his sweet, engaging little face - Reggie. 

It may not have been the best plan to turn our petite and bijou property into a kennel but at least with it being lockdown we haven’t had to worry about entertaining visitors. The amount of pee and poo that four pups can produce seems way out of proportion to the amount of food they consume. It’s a four handed operation dealing with this litter of, now very lively, springer spaniel puppies, and each grown to the extent of being more than one handful anyway. Recently we’ve been trying to detach them from their mother in readiness for leaving us. The sadness of it occupies my dreams and I’ve had to prepare myself, too, having fallen in love with all of them as I shouldn’t have done. I won’t miss the mess and the backache though; it’s a bit like the ambivalence of feelings as ones own offspring leave home.

There is an allegorical feel about our puppy-raising experience. This pandemic has entailed separations that are completely unnatural. The pups have provided the cuddles and snuggles that I should be having with my grandchildren. They have filled the emotional vacuum created by this strange moment in human history and I am grateful. I will miss them.

I’m not in the business of creating conspiracy theories, like the one Gareth was presented with the other day - a theory that Bill Gates is a eugenicist and that his plan is to create infertility in the human population via vaccination and thereby save the planet. You surely have to ask, ‘why then start with the very elderly, many of whom have had their 100th birthday card from the Queen?’ But........

This pandemic has created a much greater dependence on digital communication and the ‘internet of things’ is growing apace (ref Jeremy Rifkin and his “Third Industrial Revolution”). That certainly seems to be the way evolution is going, with everything and everyone digitally connected. Even our pets, it seems, given the business racquet surrounding micro-chipping. (Oh-oh - shades of a sinister future if it’s true, as believed by some, that these vaccines contain micro-chips. Too late now.) I’m Libran, so for me there needs to be a balanced view on things. There is good and bad in everything. “You can’t stop progress” is a well used slogan and it remains to be seen where we end up after all of this. As I write, the air is blue around Gareth as he grapples with the paperwork to do with handing over these pups, and also dealing with the ridiculous bureaucratic processes concerned with redress for our purchase of a faulty washing machine. It’s no joy having to hand wash everything in the bath, spending hours on the phone to Curry’s PC World going through recorded option after option and ultimately ending nowhere while at the same time the hounds are baying for attention. Surely we can find better ways to employ people than getting them to build more and more complex snakes-and-ladders-type retail after-sales-service platforms aimed at making life difficult and annoying for customers. My nephew, Russ, once proclaimed that the exponential growth in bureaucracy is because its purpose is to provide work for those who’ve done courses and degrees in business studies. So it would seem. It’s the same in every sector - our very existence makes us simply a bundle of data that can harvested for many purposes. The Kennel club is at it too, with its dubious marketing attached to puppy registration.

As my wise friend Jinny said, having these pups is proving to be a life experience for us. And this pandemic with its lockdowns and multitude of attempts to make sense of “what’s going on” is a life experience that we have shared across the globe, all of us trying to stay afloat (I hope that metaphor won’t materialise given the Climate Emergency).

After my vaccination the other day I couldn’t resist a hug with my son. Yes, I know I’m still not supposed to take such a risk, for his sake or mine, but, Boy, did it feel right! It was like being given a float cushion (don’t take that the wrong way, Owen - it’s a metaphorical float cushion).

This morning I opened the curtains and was presented with a light sea mist, drifting across this housing estate. My mind wandered back to a time, not too long ago, when travel was our new lifestyle choice and I was gazing out from Hymer at a Spanish sea mist. As I looked at the red-brick landscape, somewhere from the back of my mind came the song “Everything is beautiful in its own way”.  Whether that can be said for a fast mutating virus or a theory of dastardly plots to  enslave us I’m not sure, but whatever life throws at us we must embrace it. Hugs all round......just make sure you’re wearing a mask 

Reggie

The fourth is elsewhere still tearing the place apart!

Boxing match over

Puppy love and Paranoia

There’s nothing like a litter of puppies to make you fall in love. Their tiny faces once their eyes have opened - too cute! Now that ours are three weeks old we’re into weaning and toilet training them; a messy affair, but I’m in love with them all the same.

What is it about puppies, kittens and other fluffy youngsters that make our hearts melt and photo-fuel our social media trains? If you’re a regular viewer of Spring/Summer/Autumn and Winterwatch, you will be familiar with Chris Packham’s disparagement of ‘cuteness’. It’s a bit of a presenters’ joke, but whatever - cuteness gets me every time. 

We’ve been surprised at how quickly these pups have responded to us even though they are still so dependant on their mother. Their puppy love of snuggling into our arms and tugging at our slippers is going to make it SO hard to let them go, as go they must. In spite of advice not to name them as it makes it harder to detach when the time comes, we have inevitably done so. First of all the children thought up names for them (we’ve been keeping them involved with video) and I suppose naming couldn’t be avoided once we’d been told what one would be called by his owner-to-be. They now have kennel club names too, so their pet names have followed suit - Rosie, Dotty, Teddy and Reggie (he’s the one already spoken for).

Sigh. 

When the day comes to let them go, I know I will shed tears. While giving the house a thorough cleaning and airing I will be sharing the heartache with our poor Pwdin who will have lost her little brood. I’m already wondering how she will react. Will she miss them like I miss my own brood? Will she wake at night wondering how they are faring? Will she spend her days wondering whether they still remember and love her? Will she have any paranoid thoughts about whether she was a good-enough mother? We assume that, unlike us humans, other animals detach from their young easily and ‘happily’ resume their existence without them. But do they? How can we know? Apparently ducks don’t notice the loss of any of their brood until they’re down to just one. Their numerical skills are limited to knowing the difference between one and more-than-one; so I’ve been led to believe. But it would seem to suggest that of course they notice. It’s whether they suffer a sense of loss, like we humans do, is my question. Maybe other animals are just better at stoicism. Who knows?

There’s nothing like being locked down to fuel paranoia, I guess. It doesn’t matter how many jigsaws or sour doughs one achieves, there’s still the knowledge that a world ‘out there’ is functioning and doing so without you. Ok, it’s just me; I am retired, after all, and apparently, by being older, more threatened by the virus. It’s a bit different for the younger generation, of course, struggling with trying to keep things going. But that’s how I feel - cut off, and I guarantee that there are many more, feeling the same way. 

What was it Shakespeare said (or was it Plato) about a ‘shadow show’? Gareth and I are nice and cosy in our little house (it’s a novelty to live in one after three years) but we see the world through screens now - phones, laptops, TV - shadows of the ‘real’ world. And when we do get outside....Well! As one of us has to be with the pups at all times, we go out separately. Whenever Gareth gets back from his walk or bike ride he will download all of his angst and ire about the foolishness and lack of consideration displayed by others ‘out there’ taking air and, as he sees it, filling it with virus. There’s nothing like an invisible virus that we’re told by the shadows on our walls to be deadly and highly contagious to make us paranoid about being anywhere near other people. Unless you are one who feels invincible, of course, or someone who prefers to believe that it’s fake news. 

It always takes a close encounter with the truth before taking any story seriously.

Ok, so a new day dawns. What shall I do today (apart from rearing puppies, that is)? So far the outside is looking pretty dreary, but light is coming through the curtains earlier each day and through the gloom of yesterday’s walk I heard a robin singing his Springtime song. Through the remains of a snow sprinkle, crocus and daffodil shoots were showing through. Primroses, tucked under the frosted fallen leaves in a nearby woodland are preparing for a blooming display as the days lengthen and the sun tows along the Spring. Maybe, sometime this year, 2021, we will all emerge from our caves into a more hopeful season; one with the virus safely contained (eradicated even) and one in which the only shadows are our own, as we walk companionably in the sunshine.

                                             — - - - - - - — — ——— -

In spite of my stated hope above, I can’t finish without making a point about vaccination. Vaccines have saved us from deadly illnesses; one of humanity’s greatest medical achievements, and I have enormous admiration for the world’s scientists who have worked tirelessly to find one for this present curse. But, there are people who are nervous and even sceptical about receiving them. I confess to being somewhat wary myself. What worries me more, I have to say, is the idea being mooted that there should be some sort of vaccination ‘passport’. I’ve heard it suggested by one travel operator that without such a passport transport will be refused on the basis that other travellers would be vulnerable. I don’t get the logic. Surely it’s the unvaccinated that are vulnerable and it may be their choice to be so. In any case, we are being told that social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing must continue, even after vaccination, so where’s the issue, unless it’s to do with the travel operators’ question of liability. What on earth is this Brave New World we are entering?

Within these walls

 So 2020 rolled off over the horizon leaving a nasty smell. 2021 has a familiar odour, arriving as it did in the midst of another lockdown. News of a more infectious variant of the virus put a big dampener on everyone’s Christmas plans and while it wasn’t exactly cancelled, for many it may as well have been. Here in Wales we were allowed Christmas Day with one other household and immediately after we went into full lockdown. 

For Gareth and me it’s an extension of the torpor we’d ( I, anyway) got accustomed to at the caravan except we are now comfortably ensconced in our Legoland-type house. In November our tenant left in time for us to pack up at the caravan, get our stuff from storage and move in. 

As I write, it’s the early hours and I am on watch for the arrival of puppies as Gareth takes his turn for an an hour or two’s sleep. Knowing that we wouldn’t be travelling this winter we decided to let our Pwdin have a litter before she gets older. As a mother I am relating to her as her body prepares to bring new life into the world and Gareth is like an anxious father as he diligently checks her and studies whelping articles. We are equipped and prepared but at this moment, Pwdin seems a bit reluctant to produce. Our preoccupation with her is a welcome distraction from the fact of being separated from family and friends. We had a lovely reprieve by having Christmas Day at Owen and Jess’s; a sparkly day shining brightly in my memory like a star in what would otherwise be a gloomy winter. Contact with the rest of my brood is virtual and scarce.

In my last blog I admitted to my spectacular lack of achievement through the autumn. Apart from our period of home-making I can’t thrill you with any novel accomplishments. I have enjoyed the thinking time, however, with plenty of opportunity to ruminate on the meaning of life. I can’t offer you any stupendous revelations but I will share a couple of my thoughts (they aren’t necessarily my own thoughts, of course - I have been reading a bit).

For instance, back in the summer we picked up on a podcast that intrigued me into buying the book it was based on,  “Sitopia - how food can save the world”  by Carolyn Steel. The podcast was a vision of society, post-pandemic, that realised the significance and value of food after issues of supply and distribution (we’re now witnessing those issues as a result of Brexit, too, as it happens).  The book skilfully presents the idea of how we need to rethink our attitudes to food given the way our monetary economy has, after 5000 years, got us up a creek without a paddle. 

The book is giving me pause to think, as I often do, about the ‘olds’ that have passed on, so recently it feels; my parents, Gareth’s parents and two very dear aunts, my god-mothers.  I am glad that they didn’t suffer the same fate as so many of their generation in this pandemic, though they lived through WW2 and came through many a crisis, personal and societal. The book has caused me to think of how food featured in their lives and to what extent their lives were shaped by the foods available to them. Although I was too young to remember, I had my own ration book as a baby, food shortages still being a problem in the early fifties, but I do remember some of the tales my  parents told about what foods were available to them through the war, and how precious something like an orange was, or a piece of chocolate. My father’s recollections of fresh milk at the mid-Wales farm he was evacuated to, left him with a life-long love of a cool glass of milk. My mother, my sisters and I developed a finely tuned ear for when Dad had sneaked a swig from the fridge. Much to his bemusement we could even tell from his voice if he’d ‘been at the milk’. 

It may have been the lack of anything food-wise to get excited about in my mother’s youth that led to her being a less-than-adept cook. Like most housewives in the fifties (yes, it was a woman’s  job then) my mother fell in with the trend in convenience food and as children a large part of my sisters’ and my diet was tinned or dried and rehydrated. My father liked his meat very well done which is just as well because that’s the only way my mother could cook it - burnt.

Gareth’s parents both grew up in rural Gower, in the same corner of the peninsular, the war being a bit less apparent perhaps than it was to my Swansea town-dwelling parents. Gareth’s mother was from farming people and farm life, with its food-based economy and close community ties. It definitely shaped her to the effect of her being unable to adapt happily to the life-on-an-estate that marriage took her to. Raised on a hard-work ethic, in retirement she had to make work for herself, including for her retired teacher husband whose preference was for more cerebral things than manual labour. With no fields or flocks to attend to the only labour available to her was cleaning and cooking, with knitting for leisure. Food played a deeply important role in Val’s life, central to her need to nurture relationships and cement her place in the community. 

Many of us today are finding meal preparation a pleasant distraction from the sense of incarceration inflicted on us by this pandemic. With restaurants closed, home cooking is having a resurgence. My own cooking is definitely not Masterchef worthy, but I am enjoying the kitchen in our Lego house (Taylor Wimpey actually) having managed in our caravan kitchen or the motorhome for the past three years. It’s nice to have our stuff around us again too. Christmas surprises for us consisted of rediscovering things that have been packed away in storage since moving from Bay View. Rediscovering my cookery books has been fun. I’ve been able to whip up some of the old favourites with the book propped up in the kitchen instead of having to work my way through someone else’s blog on my iPad to follow an untried recipe. You’ll have to ask Gareth about the worth of my concoctions.

Post-script: I wrote the above just after the New Year came in, as we waited for Pwdin to deliver her babies. On January 5th she produced four pups; two males and two females. They are now one and a half weeks old and more than twice their birth weight. Pwdin has taken to motherhood beautifully and Bess is looking on carefully, looking forward (I assume) to being a playful aunty. Their eyes will start opening soon and once they start running around it’s going to be very busy here (that reminds me - I need to get a new mop and bucket). It will be fun, but tinged with the disappointment of not having the grandchildren around to see the process. Children are so detached from the natural world these days, compared with previous generations, and this pandemic is cutting them off from so many other things, now, too. 

Ok, 2021, do your worst, but get it over with so we can gather and hug again. 

Here we go again

 

Image from Sciencenews 

Mark Drakeford, our First Minister, last week announced that here in Wales we’re having a Fire-break to halt the spread of Covid. It means that for two weeks we have to keep away from each other and not light any fires (something like that). We can’t even buy candles, apparently, as they aren’t essential goods. Let’s hope we don’t get any power cuts, then, as the remains of hurricane Epsilon (what a name!) howl around us. Menstruation is banned too, I gather, as sanitary goods are considered in one Tesco Store to be non-essential.

As for whether the halt to events like Halloween and Guy Fawkes that through the dark nights would keep us going (the children anyway), it remains to be seen whether a firebreak will have the desired result. Compliance remains an issue. We’re too ready to keep a welcome in our hillsides and vales, so we’re our own worst enemy when it comes to a pandemic.

Wales has reverted to previous ‘form’ too. In the ancient days of little princedoms across the country, princes were always bickering and sulking if another princedom got one over on them. Because Pembrokeshire doesn’t have as many infections as South East Wales they don’t see why they have to be locked down too. We’ll see how they feel when those of them that do need hospital care find the hospitals they’d be flown to, overflowing with Covid (unless I’m mistaken about there being a pandemic of course).

It’s all a funny, not very ha-ha, business. It’s the only thing to talk about most of the time and now that the clocks have gone back, the nights are long and the weather is sh** there’s not much to get up for. “Strictly” is back and how nice is it actually to watch people having a glorious, glamorous time of it while the rest of us slouch in our pj’s? It simply reminds me of how very unglamorous I am these days and how unlikely it is that I would ever be waltzed around a glittering dance floor. Tbh, even if, in the hugely unlikely event, that Gareth would suggest doing so, my arthritic limbs wouldn’t cope with it anyway.

Here I am, grumbling again. It’s what I’m good at. I’m looking at the clouds in the hopes of seeing a silver lining but all I see is the birds buffeted in their flocks trying to make their way south to sun and warmth.  We’ve packed the moho off to storage and it gave us such a look as we left it, as if to say “Hey, what happened to winter travel? You’re just gonna leave me here?” 

But seriously......(yes, there are some serious things to talk about - US elections I’ll avoid for the moment, though)  I recently listened to a radio discussion about whether it’s the younger generation taking the brunt of all this; economically and sociologically. How does their future look? There may historically have been worse times but it’s not our young people’s fault in this day and age if they’re not prepared or equipped for this.

The pandemic (if it’s real - there are those who think it a conspiracy) is also making us think about what ‘freedom’ means. Are we free to do as we choose; sovereign in our decisions about what is good for us? Or, is our freedom limited by the needs of those around us, and indeed by those who are not close to us? Through modern times we’ve come to think of ourselves as individuals with divine and unassailable rights. ‘Responsibilities’ are of a lower order, unless it’s the responsibility of someone other than ourselves and then we can get quite vocal about it. There’s also the big question about ‘truth’, but I won’t go there.

I’m glad of my little blog-reading community here. You give me the opportunity to blurt my silly thinking. Knowing that you’re out there keeps me sane.......well it keeps me writing anyway.

Nothing to blog about

The other day my friend Gill asked me what had happened to my blog. Well, dear readers, what can I write about.......? In my last blog I expressed the hope that the flow of the still-with-us pandemic doesn’t become a torrent. But it seems that things are starting to pick up speed again; the infection rate rising and nightly news reports of a rising death rate. Sigh. We’re into a phase of local lockdowns this time where rules are different depending on where you live. The rules keep changing too so no-one really knows what they can or cannot do. Confusion and frustration reigns.

Things are also starting to fracture. We’re all starting to blame each other now. Old are blaming the young, The North (wherever that is) is feeling picked on by the London Government (ref Andy Burnham, mayor of Manchester, for example), the devolved government leaders each think that their solutions are better than Boris’s and here in Wales, Mark Drakeford is planning on rebuilding Offa’s Dyke to keep the English out...... something like that; police stopping people coming in from highly infected areas, anyway. I’m Welsh and proud, but I don’t want my friends and family barred from entry; not that my Midland-abiding brood can visit in any case - they’re having to self-isolate after contact with a Covid victim.

I didn’t intend for Covid19 to be the focus of this blog even though it becomes a central topic in most of our social exchanges these days. And now that Donald Trump has shown that Covid19 is nothing to worry about, why indeed should we worry? He’s now immune, apparently, and has promised to freely provide the drugs that cured him. How generous! How very democratic; socialist even! His miraculous recovery seems to suggest that all that death was of no real consequence. Silly us to be so concerned! How is Melania, by the way? Anybody heard whether she’s recovered too? What the heck is going on?

So what else is there to talk about? I’m not inclined here to add my four penneth to the ferment about ‘what should be done’ (I’ve just realised that any younger readers, if any younger readers follow this blog of mine, might not know what ‘four penneth’ means. It’s old currency, old English and an old saying, folks. That shows my vintage, doesn’t it?)

What is worthy of comment, I’m wondering. One great piece of news is that David Attenborough and Prince William are offering a big money prize to anyone coming up with good solutions for our Climate Emergency. Bravo! That cheers me up! (not that I’m likely to come up with any clever, prize-winning solutions myself, of course) And new technologies will surely provide lots of new employment opportunities for the future and help us to recover from the effects of the pandemic on our economies (Uh-oh, I mentioned that flippin word again!) In the meantime, HS2 works are chomping through some of the best of what remains of Middle Britain’s woodlands and pastures. It’s a train line that’s intended to connect ‘The North’ and ‘The South’ (aka London). I won’t say “Let’s see how that goes” because I’d rather the project was stopped in its tracks (pardon the pun). My feeling from the outset of the thing-I-said-I-wouldn’t-mention-again is that a brake on our modus operandi was an opportunity to do things differently, and rethink our treatment of Nature and each other. 

So what am I doing differently, you may well ask. Well, apart from mask wearing and social distancing (see, how do you avoid alluding to ‘it’?) life hasn’t changed a great deal for us. We’re still at the caravan, waiting for our tenant to give us our house back. We walk, we bicker, we toss a coin to see who’ll make dinner or wash up. I experiment with making things like tofu and sour dough; mixed success there, I have to say. Luckily Gareth enjoys the breads I make even though he needs his axe and band saw to get through the crust. 

My reading is like my comfort eating - a grazing approach of alighting on whatever is lying around and taking a few nibbles. Unlike my figure my attention span is much reduced and my memory even more so. I couldn’t tell you whether I’ve learned anything much and the best way to describe my daily routine is not to call it a routine at all; it’s very random.

So what haven’t I done? I haven’t learned to play the guitar or another language. I haven’t used the opportunity to Pilates myself to full flexibility. I haven’t got further than a few pages into writing a novel. I haven’t caught up with the box sets people rave about. I haven’t delved into my family history. I haven’t built up a stash of beautifully crafted items to sell on Etsy. I haven’t taken Gareth’s ‘advice’ to clean up my phone and iPad. I haven’t sorted my cupboards or painted anything with Frenchic paint (a new thing, I’m told). I haven’t achieved recognition for any mastery of mouthwatering meals, nor have I cleverly utilised ingredients that I (haven’t) foraged from the wonderful outdoors.

I haven’t completed any jigsaws (I don’t have any jigsaws). I haven’t got past level 68 on my Languinis game ap. (For the past three years I’ve been stuck there because I refuse to pay for the coins I apparently need to move forward. Yeah, ok, I’ll just get a new game). I haven’t initiated any on-line interest groups and I keep forgetting the Zoom meetings I am enrolled on. I haven’t sorted my photos, I haven’t given the caravan a deep clean and I haven’t found a Pinterest-perfect use for the stash of tiny bottles I’ve collected. I haven’t done anything worthy of a televised Big Thank You on the One Show and I haven’t even had a hair-cut since October 2019 (I’m wondering whether, by doing nothing, I can achieve the beautiful long white locks that my great grandmother wore tied up in a knot and which awed my sisters and me when she let them down). So far I don’t have luscious lockdown locks and I look more like a witch from one of Roald Dahl’s story books. Gareth is sporting a very amateurishly achieved hair-style (guess who the amateur barber is) and neither of us have made much effort with our personal grooming since, oooo, I can’t remember.

So, in sum, I haven’t done much of anything at all.

If you’re interested I could go on and on about my under-achievements, and I’m sure I will have many more not to brag or blog about as we creep into winter trying to hide from the virus.  Given that another lockdown is much on the cards I should have plenty of opportunity to do nothing very much again. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Image from: unlvfree press.com

No Fixed Abode

Seb said, “You’re a gypsy, aren’t you, Ma?”. Oh, dear. For a start I knew he’d probably heard that description from his father. I sincerely hope he doesn’t describe his grandmother in those terms when it comes to a “My Family” writing exercise in school. The consequences for him of his family being newly labelled or of being taken to task for the language are rather heavy for a seven year old.

Yes, the language police would have something to say about his descriptor. I learned in one of those work-related conferences that the word ‘gypsy’ is off limits to those outside the Roma community. Nevertheless his perception of me and ‘G’ (Gareth) is that we live in a caravan and are always off to new places, like ‘gypsies’.

“You don’t have a house”, he added. “Well, we do, but someone else is living in it at the moment”, I told him. He understands the idea of a tenant as his parents own their next door property and rent it out.

He seemed a little concerned that we don’t have a house where they can come and stay with us comfortably. Ivy, too, often asks “Can I come to your house?” She is four now; too young to remember crawling around the sitting room at Bay View. Seb, however, is old enough to remember what he calls ‘the big house’, running around it with Reuben; lots of space to play with the dogs and so many hide-and-seek opportunities. Margot was still tiny when we sold up.

“Remember the crying lion, Ma?” They had visited one last time before we moved out and he noticed a tear in the eye of one of the concrete lions that flanked the steps to the front door. A raindrop, of course, but surreal nonetheless and a perfect projection of Seb’s sadness at saying goodbye to ‘the big house’.

The conversation left me thoughtful as we went our separate ways from a couple of days rendezvous in the Peak District. As much as I didn’t miss the vastness of that house for B&B cleaning purposes and on Gareth’s behalf recognised the scale of maintenance it required, I had loved its ability to accommodate family; to have them all together comfortably, and to host important occasions. I also loved its ‘big duvet’ quality when the weather turned ugly. Stormy days in the caravan or motorhome are reminders of our human vulnerabilities, especially in a Climate Emergency. 

Another spur to our thinking is this flippin pandemic! Winter travel is now something to be more cautious about. What if one of us gets ill while abroad? What if there’s a lockdown wherever we are? How might the Brexit debacle affect us? So many concerns.

After lots of talking about it over the next few days we decided that we need a fixed abode. Slim pickings available as regards dog-friendly, suitable winter lets, we’ve had to ask our tenant to leave. However, a new law to protect tenants from eviction during the pandemic is that they are to be given a minimum of six months notice. Ho-hum. 

So while the September sun shines here at the caravan park we wait to see what happens next. Watch this space, folks; things are about to change again for us. But this is a strange time for everyone, isn’t it? We are all being carried along in a fluid situation. Let’s hope it doesn’t become a torrent.