Emerging from lockdown diary - days 3-4

The cast:
Me
'The undertaker' (husband)
'Office darling' (daughter)
'On the ground in France' (son)
'Just 90' (mother)

I think I can be forgiven for skipping a day in my emerging from lockdown diaries as it was 'nearly 90's' birthday. As I had to gently point out to her, 'I'm afraid you can no longer be referred to as 'nearly 90'. We settled on 'just 90'.

The gazebo looked absolutely splendid even though I say so myself. There were four of us seated carefully round the table each following the guidelines religiously. The bottom line is we can't afford not to. My twin brother reports that a friend of his has just died from covid in Spain and is utterly puzzled why the English police are letting people gather in large groups to protest and even more puzzled by the scenes from Durdle Door last weekend. 'Lets move onto 'just 90's' birthday' I suggest wanting to rapidly change the subject because there are a lot of strong opinions out there on any number of issues...

Coloured fairy lights twinkled, large balloons with gold bits inside swung precariously from the metal framework, candles flickered inside Bonne Maman jam jars whilst leaves from the crazy vine adorned the table. 'just 90' doesn't partake of drink anymore but that didn't stop us raising a glass (or two) of fizz. The candle on top of the cake was more like a firework and very impressive it was too. Obviously we couldn't have had candles that you blow out... We had a live link up to 'on the ground in France' and sang 'Happy Birthday'.

On the return walk home from seeing 'just 90' safely inside her house we come across a poor bedraggled looking fellow looking distinctly sorry for himself and leaning in a drunken fashion against the library wall, some 200 yards from our front door at least. Everyone knows you never interfere with a baby hooded crow (or any other baby bird for that matter) unless it is under imminent attack (which it wasn't).  Its parents may well have put it there on purpose. (I didn't know that...BTW I had to google it). After commiserating on the poor bird's plight we thought nothing more of it until we opened the front door this morning. There he was sitting on the front door step and observing us with his beady bright blue eyes. Without waiting to be invited in he hopped straight through to the back garden where he started hollering for his parents. I filled a large bowl of water for him from which he immediately took thankful sips, prior to pecking at the English strawberry I had also provided . His parents soon seemed to find him, its true to say the calling of crows aren't an attractive sound but to watch them all communicate was truly fascinating. It distracted me for longer than I care to admit.

'The undertaker' and I flexed our muscles to go and do the weekly shop for all the golden oldies. By now we've become pretty adept at whizzing round with strange shopping lists. The cashier gave me the most enormous bunch of deep pink peonies for ''just 90'. 'I miss her' she says thus demonstrating  the beauty of cashiers as opposed to self check outs.  On our return, blow me down,the little fellow is waiting against the back door and is completely unconcerned by our movements. It's all rather endearing until a black and yellow police helicopter appears right overhead hovering menacingly in the clear blue sky. It's all too much for our chap and he hops inside and promptly does a poop.

We have to laugh, here we are being provided with live entertainment simply by being in our own garden.