Isolation week ten. Little things mean a lot.

No politics this week, by inclination rather than instruction. Better to relive those insignificant moments that, often surprisingly, give such joy. And this week has been full of them. For a start Rosie and I had another week of Sophie and Bay enriching our lockdown. It’s remarkable how one small four and three quarters year old (very important to her, those three quarters) can transform the mood of the house, not to mention the orderliness of it. Constant chatter, perpetual clutter. But no matter, what enchantment.

Tucked up in the attic (well, it’s not really an attic, more a cupboard alongside the bathroom but you know what I mean) was an old leather case full of kids clothes that Rosie had made for Sophie. Bay, a fashionista even at her age, dived into them, found to her delight a smock dress that Sophie had worn forty years earlier and tried it on. A trawl through the old albums revealed Sophie at the same age:

Then there was the full moon, a Strawberry Moon apparently, the last full moon of Spring. It didn’t look like a strawberry, nor that colourful, but it could have been the clouds I suppose. It certainly cast an impressive light.

But the very next day I discovered our first ever orchid in the paddock, a pink Pyramidal Orchid. Fanciful to think it had anything to do with the moon but who knows…it came from somewhere so why not.

And the day after that, we found glow-worms. Not one but two, both females, both hoping for suitable males to arrive. Like everything this year, they’re weeks ahead of schedule, so while waiting for their partners to appear they’ll seek out local slugs and snails, inject them with toxic protein, joyride on their backs and wait for them to die. Then eat them. Then glow. Satiety for them, delight for us.

And finally, what a year for the garden’s roses. Until the wind blew and the rain fell, that is. But up till then, what with Sophie, Bay and everything else, pure heaven. Next week, back to Boris (maybe).

Isolation week nine. Lockdown easing.

Isn’t it great when someone gets well and truly hoist with his own petard? I’m talking of course about a certain Mr Cummings who has, over the last few years, managed to deliberately get up the noses of just about everyone in the country - politicians generally, members of the Tory party, the cabinet, the civil service, the press, most members of the public who have more than half a brain cell and especially remainers (have I forgotten anybody?). And that’s even before he took his trip to Durham. Now the worm has turned and he wonders why we won’t forgive and forget. Simple enough Dominic: you can’t drive 250 miles while insisting that everyone else has to stay put at home. Well, the latest polls show that 71% of the country think he’s a pillock and should be sacked, while 85% think the reasons he hasn’t been is that he’s got something over Boris or that Boris can’t operate without him. So it’s hardly surprising that 100% now won’t give a stuff about social distancing, track and tracing or testing.

It was enough to convince Rosie and me that Sophie and Bay should be allowed to migrate from London for a week or so before Bay’s school begins again. After a couple of months of strict isolation we reckoned the risks were low and the benefits high. And so it’s proving: fresh air, large garden, long walks and joyful relaxation.

The only fly in the ointment though is this beautiful weather: although the garden looks a picture it’s only late May but it looks like mid-June. Everything is weeks ahead of schedule, the grass is brown and not a sign of desperately needed rain. What we need is a Minister for Drought…that worked for Harold Wilson. Maybe a downpour or two might get Boris and Cummings out of a bit of a hole.

Isolation week eight. A small dollop of nostalgia.

We should have been in Crete this week. Enjoying the sunshine and spring flowers. Lingering over breakfast. Ambling through the countryside. Revisiting old haunts. Eating and drinking copiously. Instead we’re stuck here, still enjoying sunshine and spring flowers and all the above but it’s not the same. Here’s a glimpse of what we’re missing:

And of course this week it should have been the Chelsea Flower Show too. Also scuppered thanks to the dreaded virus. Although Monty Don and Joe Swift have, on BBC2, been doing their best by reminding us of show gardens from the past that’s not the same either. But what this juxtaposition of Crete and Chelsea did was to trigger memories for Rosie and me: of how we turned a whim into a winner and ended up exhibiting at the world famous Flower Show ourselves. For old time’s sake, and because it’s fun to dive back into the old albums, here’s a few of the steps along the way:

And if that’s not enough to look back on, here’s something else: we should have returned from Crete to host the first of almost a dozen group visits to the garden but like everything else this year they’ve gone by the board too. That doesn’t stop us beavering away because the garden still has to be maintained, to look its best, but with no visitors to enjoy it that’s not the same either. So please forgive the wallowing as I look back on some of last year’s guests: 

I’m not sure if all this reminiscing is good for the soul but at least it’s prevented me from complaining about Boris and moaning about the lack of slots. Or, for that matter, setting another horticultural quiz. Though for those that wondered: this is an Echium Pininana and it’s 12 foot high, is a half hardy biennial, endemic to the Canary Islands, part of the borage family and cousin to our own viper’s bugloss. And dangerous…spikey, poisonous and can cause more symptoms than coronavirus. So no nostalgia there.

Isolation week seven. Buttercups & Butterfingers Boris.

Another week goes by in this wretched covid-19 crisis and another dismal week for Boris. Our prime minister gives a major speech on Sunday to tell us that workers can go back the following day and within hours he is contradicted. No, he meant to say Wednesday. Never a great one for facts, detail slips through his fingers like butter. As for his light brigade of yes-men: ‘ramping up tests’, ‘at pace’, ‘going forward’, ‘new normal’, ‘best practice’, ‘unprecedented times’: they all seem horribly out of their depth apart, perhaps from Rishi Sunak…PM in waiting, safe to predict.

But what of buttercups, an altogether more cheerful subject? Well, it’s the time of year when the fields are chock-full of shimmering yellow just waiting for the sun to pop out and make them sparkle. Here’s a few pictures of the Downs to take your minds off Boris and his ragbag cabinet (by the way, there’s no truth that cows graze on buttercups to produce the creamiest milk…because they’re toxic, buttercups, just like Boris’s ministers).

And talking of things yellow, our cloak of Rosa Banksiae that normally wraps its way round the house at this time of year (on the left) has gone on strike (right) - just like our boiler, phone system, computer and even hoover which this week blew up in a cloud of smoke - because, we suspect, of last year’s extreme summer heat and lack of moisture. As it flowers on the previous year’s fresh growth we’ll need to be brave, cut it hard back in a month’s time, train the prolific new growth to replace all the exhausted limbs and hope to give it a fresh start. 

It’s not all coronavirus gloom though. The new iris bed in front of the terrace, glimpsed in the photo above, is a great success. And the lavenders, alliums and salvias are yet to come.

I nearly forgot: the answers to the quiz. Top row, left to right: Echium Pininana, Cornus Controversa Varigarta, Medlar Nottingham, Syringa Meyeri Palibin, Viburnum Marisi. Bottom row (l-r): Euphorbia Wulfenii, Choisya Aztec Pearl, Quince Vranja, Malus John Downie, embryonic walnuts. No winners, no points, no prizes. Boris isn’t alone.

Isolation week six. Buggeration kicks in.

Up till now we’ve had it fairly easy. Apart of course from the lack of delivery slots. But the weather, the birdsong, the blossom, the forest on our doorstep, the garden keeping us from being bored and unoccupied…it all seemed like nothing very much had changed. But this week it all did. In a manner of speaking of course. Because as Boris once said, nobody died (Becker not Johnson…today’s Boris had better keep his mouth shut on that subject) but it has certainly kept us on our toes and fairly agitated. So come on, what’s our problem? Well, several, all on top of each other. It’s a known fact that once something happens it becomes a contagion. First we lost hot water (the boiler’s programmer appeared to have packed up but that was only the start), then the landline’s handsets began cutting out and cutting callers off. Then I installed my iMac computer’s updates and all hell broke loose…lost emails, photos all over the shop, drobo won’t back things up, technology totally out of control. It even clouded over and forced us indoors. Crikey.

Only one thing for it: braving the weather and donning our jackets, we took the dogs for a walk. Suddenly the world looked a better place. And much changed since lockdown began. Could it be a mere six weeks ago that life was so different and the landscape so bleak? Oh yes, today is undeniably remodelled in every respect.

Enough of melancholy. The plumber’s coming on Monday, Panasonic’s new phones arrived today, the computer’s up and running (thanks Bash) so all is soon to be merriment. And because quizzes are all the rage these happy days, here’s one to uplift my loyal readers: name the blossoms and identify the strange growth. One point per correct answer. And don’t forget, points mean prizes…perhaps.

Isolation week five. Events, dear boy, events.

Somewhere far away an old man was sent shopping. Go and buy some fresh meat for supper, his wife said. So off he hobbled to the nearest market and because there was a huge range to choose from and because he was a bit confused and all of a dither he returned with a bag of mushrooms and a few live bats for a stew. And just because of that we discovered, in the depths of Friston Forest, a dew pond.

Cause and effect, you see. Live animal market in Wuhan…coronavirus…UK lockdown…sunny weather…long walks…bingo: dew pond discovery. To prove it here’s the walk (10700 steps, 7.6km and 26 floors climbed if you’re interested):

And another example: chatting to a Westdean neighbour about her mum’s isolation care led on to her recommending Matt the Cat for some roofing problems we’ve got here. Leaking gutters, slipping slates, nesting jackdaws, that sort of thing. Well, Matt came up trumps: friendly, efficient and a quarter of the cost of a superior local firm. Not that he pleased the jackdaw family.

Proof if needed that life is unpredictable and at the mercy of events. Just like Harold Macmillan said, wise old bird.

Time we changed the subject. Time too to repot our Cretan orange tree and because Rosie says she was asked recently (by a non-gardener) how to do it, here’s how: first get it out of greenhouse. Get tree out of pot. Trim roots. Replace old soil with new. Put tree back into pot. Water well. And Bob’s your uncle.

And that’s it. Another exhausting week. Time to sit back and enjoy the garden.

Isolation: week four. Getting the hang of this now.

Last week I had a bit of a whinge about slot deprivation. Although it’s no better this week - Waitrose slots (I really have to concentrate to prevent spellcheck changing that to waitress) are still booked up for months - luckily friends and neighbours are letting us share theirs so we’re not starving yet. And Rosie is coordinating orders for the village for meat and fish from the local butcher and fishmonger which helps sustain them in business as well as keeping food on our table. And the weather continues to be warm and sunny. And we’re fit, well and safe. So we count our blessings.

And continue, in many ways, as normal. All of which gave me the chance to replenish my diminishing firewood supply, thanks to Forestry England, who had just sawn up a local fallen beech. I nabbed the debris, did a bit of chainsawing and log splitting and bingo, logs for the next couple of years. Most enjoyable and very therapeutic.

And we walked to the sea and back. And ambled through the forest, awestruck, as one is every year, by the miracle of fresh leaves and new growth. And came across a field of cowslips. And loitered around the garden bewitched by the freshness of early morning and birdsong.

And then a brother, a parkrun devotee, spoilt it all by asking if I could do 5km in 45 minutes. Of course, I could walk 5km in 45 minutes. So it was out with Rosie’s smartphone that measures steps, distance and flights climbed - and despite mowing the grass earlier in the afternoon (and having done a long dog walk in the morning) - I walked for 45 minutes in sprightly fashion accompanied again by the dogs. Well, according to the magic mobile I took 6364 steps, covered 4.1km and climbed 3 flights. Now something’s wrong here (and this is where you can either concentrate because it’s interesting or else switch off because it’s not…your choice): 4.1km is 2.548 miles which means I walked at 3.397mph. And the average person takes 2000 paces to walk a mile. So theoretically I should only have taken 5096 steps to walk my 2.548 miles. Yet the not-so-smart phone calculated my paces as 6364…1268 more than I needed to walk the 2.548 miles. So either I walked much further than the mobile calculated - a further 1115 yards in fact - or the whole thing was a waste of time. Mind you, as time is not of the essence these days perhaps I’ll have another go tomorrow. Or perhaps not. 

Isolation: week three. Delivery slot-less.

Last week’s consolation prize of peace and quiet has been superseded by the princess and the pea-like irritation of not being able, ever, to find a slot for getting supermarket stuff delivered or even click&collected. So while Rosie struggled this week with finding alternative ways of feeding the two of us, my contribution, apart from giving those clothes pegs another wash, was to entertain the dogs by taking them on ever-longer walks.

And it’s surprising what you notice if you keep your eyes well and truly open. For example, the variance in the colour of leaves of the same variety of tree. Take the sycamore (on the left) and the beech (on the right)…each leaf was plucked from a neighbouring tree on the same day, but see how they differ. Yet in a few weeks they’ll all mutate to exactly the same tone of green. I know that for sure because I observed the same waggish behaviour of Mother Nature last year.

Blossom too. Why is one year so luxuriant, another so barren? This year’s a corker though and it has to be down to the weather. But a surfeit of sun last summer? An excess of rain since the autumn? A mild winter? Or perhaps it’s God’s way of cheering us up? Maybe we should all just enjoy it while it lasts and try not to think about Waitrose.

Meantime wildlife, like Spring, continues regardless, thank goodness. Willy Wagtail obsessively rebuilding last year’s nest, a pigeon usurping the smaller birds’ drinking water and a tit nicking my precious walnut fruit buds. And Rosie thinks she’s the only one with problems.

Isolation: week two. Peace and quiet.

But still no bog rolls. As if that really matters when the trade-off is birdsong, silence and pollution-free air to breathe. Well, I suppose it does if the alternative is newspaper or last autumn’s leaves. But sensitively leaving that aside, and because we’re so much luckier here on the South Downs than the majority of people who have no choice but to stay cooped up at home without garden or anywhere to unwind, I thought it might cheer you up to see a few pretty pictures.

Last Monday I took the dogs to the sea, to the estuary at Cuckmere Haven. Usually this walk, even on a weekday, is well populated with fellow dog walkers and quite a number of East Asians anxious for a real-life glimpse of their favourite screensaver, the Seven Sisters. Not on Monday…not a single soul to be seen. Just Tazy, Inky, the sheep and me…and the skylarks, singing their hearts out. Just listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssEZWMsQg_8 and imagine the tranquillity:

Later in the week we walked in the opposite direction, through the Friston Forest and along the Charleston Bottom valley. It’s a favourite walk for the dogs because they can stretch their legs and hunt for rabbits. And for me because it’s just the South Downs at their most restful.

Apart from all that, I’ve washed clothe pegs, cleaned the gutters and sawn up logs. What about you?

Isolation: week one.

What a boat we’re all in. But in an effort to take our minds to something more cheerful here’s a quick tour of what’s flowering in our paddock thanks to a bit of spring sunshine and the planting of hundreds of bulbs over the past few autumns.

And suddenly it’s so peaceful. No planes in the sky. No traffic on the road. No trippers in the forest. Just birdsong and the droning of dozy bumblebees. Even, if you listen intently, you can hear the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings. Almost makes it all worthwhile. But not quite.

All photographs © Robin Lloyd