Zoom being the key word here. Has it entered our vocabulary like Hoover and Google? Life is returning to normal everywhere – because of, or in spite of, what the Government has to say. Yesterday, traffic on the Ridge was back to pre-lockdown levels. The weather continues hot and sunny as it has been for what feels like for ever.. Day after day of cloudless blue. Prosecco on the patio. Politics for the last week has been dominated by the Cummings scandal. Battleaxe has done some barely legal socialising, attended a WI Zoom coffee morning and other Zooms with relatives, and done the usual things like gardening and walks – oh, and baked a pineapple upside down cake.
Our back garden seating area looks positively Turkish holiday, doesn’t it? Well, that patio is the nearest to a Turkish holiday we are going to get this year. I have heard brave friends say that they have already been swimming in the sea here in Hastings. Not yet for us. There is a chilly breeze whipping along the shore, and the water would still be freezing… Also in our garden, here is Buddha with his crocosmia halo. He came with us from Birmingham.
It is going to be another hot sunny weekend, and yet again the beaches will be thronged with in-comers. Our Council will have to capitulate and open the public toilets – never mind Covid, we’ll soon be getting cholera and dysentery with all the people crapping and pissing in the open. It is no use bleating that ‘Hastings is closed to visitors’, nobody takes a blind bit of notice. Battleaxe doesn’t like how people are behaving, but they won’t stop, so reality must be faced.
Of course, the ridiculous Cummings saga didn’t help. I don’t care what the loathsome lying little weasel did or didn’t do, but the episode has shown up the monumental, craven weakness of Johnson, and the utter fatuous uselessness of the snivelling, crawling non-entities that call themselves his senior cabinet ministers. Perhaps, in the long run, this will be a good thing, but it is not helping right now with what is still a public health crisis, and just shows how great the danger is that Britain will soon slide into a no-deal Brexit. People tell Battleaxe to stop worrying about politics and they are right. I tell you, I nearly had a heart attack watching the obscene spectacle of Cummings in the Rose Garden at Downing Street. But what’s to do? A Battleaxe is a Battleaxe. She is not going to go gently into a life of pruning roses and baking cakes. But talking of cakes, look at this! It was delicious!
As I have said every week now for ten weeks, nature seems to be bursting its heart out to show itself to us as its best. Look at these paeonies (is that how you spell them?).
Yesterday, we went for a walk in the afternoon because I was at a Zoom coffee morning, then we had to go to Sainsburys… It was so clear and bright we could see France from the Country Park, and see the White Cliffs of Dover from North’s Seat. The colours were so bright it felt unreal.
I feel for people I know who are still ‘Shielding’. The Government has given no information as yet as to when they will be let out. It must get more and more galling to see everyone else out and about enjoying the sunshine while they are stuck at home. Thinking of those folks, who include friends, I almosr feel guilty about the freedom Philosopher and I have enjoyed. Today we went for a picnic down by the Royal Military Canal. Beautiful. I said to Philosopher that it would be good to make a Lockdown Walk photo book to remember this strangely glorious time.
I almost did another Coronavirus A-Z here, but couldn’t be bothered. Looking back at the first one, written on 25 March, what has changed? Obviously, now, B for Barnard Castle, C for Contact tracing, D for Dom in Durham, F for Furlough, not face masks – how many people wear one? L for Lying about the true figures – notice, the Government have stopped giving us the daily T for Test figures now – I wonder why??? Q for Queues not Quarantine – we are supposed to start for people flying into the UK from 8 June. Talk about horses and stable doors…. T for Toilets not toilet rolls, and of course, Z for Zoom.
