To all those united in isolation
Week 11 of the foretold 12: schools are back, car show rooms are open, and I for one am looking forward to visiting the opticians for a socially distanced eye test, where the optician stands two metres away, throws you his car keys and tells you to drive to the nearest castle.
Actually, lockdown seems to be ending just as I get some momentum behind the video-conferencing lifestyle; I had an assessment day over Skype this week and I have my first ever Zoom stand-up gig this evening.
In other news this week, the last of the planting has seen our garden acquire aubergines and tomatoes, although we do not hold out high hopes for the latter since they have not thrived in our dining room garden-nursery. The potatoes, on the other hand, are blooming in the garden and should be ready for harvesting soon, which I’m particularly excited about. The final gardening challenge is to work out how to protect our mirror. This mirror makes the space feel larger by reflecting the image of foliage across the garden. It also presents a particularly stupid bird with a territorial rival right next to his favourite perch. In order to break up the cycle of auto-aggressive violence we’ve hung a flag over the top of the mirror, covering the section easily reached from the perch. The determined soul went to some great effort to climb down and continue pecking at the apparently equally enthusiastic rival. I am now personally coming to the conclusion that we have mistaken the bird’s motivation. My theory now is that this bird is actually Narcissus, living only for the sight of his own handsome features. Frankly after 11 weeks of lockdown, I’m starting to feel the same. However, his is not the only avian vs silicon struggle to rage here this week. My father was working at the computer by our new French windows when he was suddenly distracted. My father being distracted is not an unusual occurrence but the pigeon flapping over his head was. The pigeon had taken a leaf out of the insect play book, easily cruising through the open door for a quick investigation then repeatedly head-butting the closed window above the door in the belief that double glazing is simply a state of mind. The most frustrating part of this was that each head-butt would cause the bird to lose altitude as it stalls out against the glass, bringing it into alignment with the still open door, at which point my father would shoe the pigeon towards the door, startling it into flying away from him, up and into the closed window. It took a good ten minutes of this tennis rally for one of them, [to this day I do not know which], to figure out how to break the loop an, exhausted with feathers sticking out at all angles, he was able to sit back down and get on with his video conference.
Yours with love and hope
Richard
Richard Wheatley BSc BPBH