Week 18: The State Visit

Gin (so called because she has turned our garden shed into a private distillery) is in over-drive, preparing for a State Visit from Nana and Pops.

“I’ve put hand sanitiser in the three toilets, by the kitchen sink, in a basket in the hall, half way up the stairs, next to their bed and I’ve attached one by a piece of string on the front door. I’ve marked out one meter segregation zones around the kitchen table and developed a one-way system in and out of the kitchen. It means if they want to go to the loo, they will have to go out the back, through the garden and back in through the front door. They can sanitise their hands on the way. Oh and the kids will be in full PPE for the evening. Will that be enough do you think?”

Oh aye, I should think.

Wellll, yeah there maybe a slight element of exaggeration of the arrangements, but cautious we were, and safely distanced we managed to remain, even after severalteen bottles of wine and five or six “just one more little one” ports. Seeing the pictures of the revellers in SoHo drinking out of each others’ pockets does make you wonder who is getting it right at the moment? I guess time will tell.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, it was sooooo nice to be doing something that felt largely normal. A splendid evening made all the more splendid by a Lancashire Herb Crusted Rack of Lamb recipe from my newly favourite chef, Paul Heathcote. With a resplendent surname like that it was odds-on that he would be an excellent chap and his pocket-sized cook book “Heathcotes At Home“ just adds to the Heathcoteness of the whole affair. I wonder if we are related?

Week 18 then, ending on a high note, but otherwise it was a bit of an odd one.

Everyone has been a little off-kilter this week. GT (Girl Teenager) had a few days of the blues and mostly hid away in her bedroom, drawing frogs. Drawing and frogs make her happy, so much so that she’s asked if we can have a pond to keep frogs in. Naturally, Evil Bastard Cat is in favour; there are only so many mice one can catch before the novelty wears off. Frogs though are a whole new level of interesting. Sadly GT’s frog quest is destined to be frustrated whilst Evil Bastard Cat strolls upon the sod of Coulsdon.

BT (for Boy Teenager) has become desperate for a dog, having met his mate Sag’s new hound. Said hound can high-five Sag’s hand with his paw, which BT thinks is the Best Thing Ever and wants a slice of that doggy action. Sadly, he is also destined to be frustrated by the Evil Bastard Cat, who just about tolerates living with Humans, but attempts to kill anything and everything else, including dogs. Of any size. Little does the cat know that he is now at the centre of an animal acquisition storm that will only be resolved when he is No Longer With Us. Wonder how many lives he has left?

BT’s week has been a bit of a roller-coaster. His sleep pattern is now completely reversed and he is trying to push it back round the clock to get to something more normal. He’s been frustrated and sad that it’s happened again, which is a good sign as there maybe a gathering impetus to Do Something About It. He’s also had the excitement of buying a new 4K Monitor, only to find that the picture was worse than his old 1080p Monitor (as he told me at 4.20am in the morning, stomping around the house in a state of dudgeon). It’s back in the box waiting to be returned (the monitor, not BT. Although it was a close run thing).

Gin continues to be back in school all week and is now being treated by the family as if she were a petri-dish with a dangerous live culture growing in it. Which of course she may be. Chances are though that the measures put in place by the school to keep everyone safe will mean she is cleaner than a baby’s bottle boiled in Milton for a day. But you can’t be too careful.

And me? Well I’m now out of the dog-house having resumed effective cleaning duties. I’m not saying it’s been slapdash in the past, but Nana asking if the kitchen floor has been re-varnished would suggest something has changed. Could it just be that she hasn’t seen the floor cleaned by Bruce The Shark (The vacuum cleaner) and Jurgen Mopp (the mop) as these were acquired shortly before lock-down?

I’ve also been plagued by Thinking again, which really is getting tiresome. This time it was triggered by a Zoom call with a bunch of ex-work friends, all of whom are Lovely. However, it made me consider that three months in to being temporarily retired (for two years), I really rather like being stress-free and really rather don’t want to go back into the City (other than for a pint at the Carpenter and Walrus and curry at the Rajasthan I). My career gave me so much, but it wasn’t cost-free and I don’t think I want it any more. Which is a bit of a shame as the mortgage is bleedin huge and me becoming an Ocado driver in a couple of years’ time might not cut it. The solution? Gin is going to have to up her game. Or one of us is going to have to go on it.

And with that we enter week 19, the week in which I will attempt to instal a new gate in place of the one which accidentally fell-down early on in one of our fits of Lock-down DIY. What could possibly go wrong?

Love & elbow-grease,

Mr H

PS One week of the enhanced Cooking & Cleaning routine (well, I mean cleaning. If the cooking were to be anymore enhanced, the kitchen would have to open at 5.30am) and the Cylindrical Object Grasper’s Elbow is back with a vengeance. Surely stickiness and dustiness is a small price to pay for one’s personal comfort?