Lockdown from Bridport - Part 3 - Day 22

 

For two pins I could have stayed in bed this morning. There was nothing to recommend it, only the fact that I had actually woken up, being married to an undertaker one learns to be thankful for these small mercies.

He brings me a cup of tea although it is still early and dark, informing me we have logs being delivered at 8.30am. The log man rings on the doorbell the second I am on my way up the stairs to the loo, the call of nature waits for no man but in this case it had to. 'Hello' he says 'I'm Rob the Log' and he has such a jolly kind face and cheery nature I'm suddenly ashamed of feeling grumpy. With a quick deft movement the large heavy bag of logs is deposited by the front door and it is then that I notice he has a steel hook for a hand. I'm intrigued by the fact he can heave such a weight so, you know, one thing leads to another, and he removes his arm. Quick as a flash he pops it back on again and challenges me to try and pull it off, which of course I can't. We both laugh. 'Nice to meet you' I say and he proffers his hook out. I shrink back, not because I am alarmed by his false hand but by the action itself, which of course is alien these days. 'You're alright' he says, 'this is allowed'. I am amazed. I have laughed out loud twice before 9am with another human.

I position myself at the kitchen table so I can survey the comings and goings of the bird table (slight sarcasm applied here) The RSPB is organizing a 'Big Garden Birdwatch' from the 29-31st January, billed as the world's largest wildlife survey. All you have to do is spend an hour counting the birds you see outside, it even urges that you make sure you take some snaps of the beauties you see. I'm going to take part, even if its to inform the RSPB that all I saw was two herring gulls and two fat pigeons...

I refuse to watch daytime television, to my mind it is the slippery slope to slovenliness. I may be wrong but in an odd way I enjoy silence and solitude in the house. The ash needs emptying out of one of the fireplaces. Nothing beats the slow crackle and warmth of a real fire in the home. Because its so bleak outside I get a fire going immediately in the downstairs room. There's no air so it starts smoking. 'The Undertaker' pops a firelighter up the chimney breast to warm the chimney and draw the smoke. It keeps him busy and focused for awhile fighting the battle against being smoked out. 

The daffodils are out fully now in a pretty blue and white jug on the kitchen table. I admire them and remind myself that before long they will be fluttering daintily in the spring breeze. There will be clumps dotted around in MIL's orchard, so many that I will fill the house with them. Pale lemons with white trumpets, deep yellow with treble frills, smaller dainty varieties with delicate pastel colours. There will be snowdrops to carefully pluck, wild violets to admire, the bright green young leaves on the trees will begin to emerge from their tight buds. Soon I keep reminding myself, soon all this beauty will begin to awaken.

A book has arrived in the post from an artist I had met whilst doing a 'sabbatical' on the Isles of Scilly one summer. She has cleverly produced a book of watercolours combined with text. 'The holiday that never was 2020. I hope and pray she doesn't produce a 2021 version...