Sorry, I couldn’t resist after all this week’s shenanigans. But what about all the comings and goings - and pleasures - of my loyal readers over the last seven days? Well, my niece Tanya was persuaded by her three children - Rosy, Sonny and Dylan - that it would be a highly educational experience to allow them to sit up all night to watch the American election results coming in. Particularly if it was accompanied by an endless supply of waffles, burgers, popcorn and ice cream. Cunning plan, kids. And what satisfaction and pleasure to pull it off.
Which, after all, is what we all need in lockdown. Brother Gary told me he’d got great pleasure by skidaddling to the Isle of Wight just a few minutes before it began particularly as he’d have to bend the rules to return five days later. He gloatingly sent me these pictures but as I haven’t heard from him since I can only assume he’s been rumbled.
Very long time friend Hazel emailed to say her great pleasure last week, and indeed throughout the first lockdown as well, was playing online bridge with her pals and enjoying much laughter over FaceTime & WhatsApp at the same time. Not so funny was putting her back out unloading her Sainsbury’s delivery a day later though I suspect the crates of bottles were heavier than she thought. Her evening pleasure came from seeing her son Oli, his wife Katie, their son William for Halloween and ‘for hearing night-time rutting in the nearby woods’. The mind is quietly boggling.
Bay, Sophie’s daughter, has a mind that is clearly unboggled. Here’s her contribution to the world of learning, telling us that an algorithm is a set of instructions:
Rosie’s sister Pippi rang to say she’s derived immense pleasure from being able to get into the garden after all the recent rain and just potter about planting bulbs, bagging up leaves, mixing rotted leaf mould with wood ash to spread on her beds and spotting all the different fungi that are popping up everywhere. And, she said, especial pleasure from receiving her jungle monkeys print from Gemma. But as you’ve seen the monkeys before, here’s another of Gem’s bonkers but brilliant lino prints:
As for Rosie and me, we both got pleasure from the garden as well. Rosie decided a while ago that we needed to terrace one of the beds in front of the house so we lined up a local flint specialist Richard Bartlett to build a wall. To make The Long House great again. Here’s the living proof, from start to finish:
And I have more or less completed the daunting task of replacing the veg garden’s ten raised beds. All that remains is to top the beds up with compost and remove the debris of rotting wood to the top of the garden to make a wildlife hotel for bugs, insects, beetles and anything else that cares to take up residence.
All of which goes to show that pleasure comes from the simplest of things. A shaft of sunlight from behind a cloud, the smell of baking bread, muddling about in the garden. Or just hoodwinking your parents. Especially that.