Last day of Summer

It's officially Summer Bank Holiday today - and officially Autumn tomorrow! Why on earth we have a holiday this late in the summer is a mystery. The weather is usually disappointing and this year is no exception - it's bright but cold and I've had the heating on for the last three days! This does not auger well for the winter.

We had curried veg and lentil soup with cheese scones for lunch - that's not very summery, is it?

Just got back from a chilly walk round the lotties and fields this afternoon. It reminded me I saw someone online the other day moaning that people she passed while walking by the river weren't wearing masks. Masks? Outside? In the open air...?? Get a bloody grip, you stupid woman, have a word with yourself for god's sake. Some people...

Feeling pretty pissed off at the moment actually - this nightmare seems never-ending. It's so difficult to find pleasure in anything when everything feels so wrong; all the things I'd normally do when life gets me down a bit aren't open to me at the moment. I feel I'm just treading water, waiting for all this crap to be over.

All along I've been surprised the media has been so complicit with the Govt in this Covid nonsense. It's a flu virus, that's all...a nasty one admittedly, but there have been much worse in the past. There are some encouraging signs that the media is losing patience, though. Finding this by the BBC's doom-monger-in-chief, Fergus Walsh, was a surprise; the BBC has been the prime cheerleader for the disaster narrative. Maybe people are at last starting to wake up to the fact that it wasn't the virus, it was the Govt's handling of it that's needlessly decimated the economy and ruined people's livelihoods.

The Govt caused all this damage. The virus isn't the problem, THEY ARE! Given that they're the problem, they are highly unlikely to be the solution. Govt ministers are like rabbits in the headlights right now - they know they've screwed up but they don't know what to do next... so they keep telling us how dangerous the virus is in the hope it'll buy them time to work something out.

Good luck with that, chaps - I think you have a losing battle on your hands; there's only so long you can all keep crying wolf.

Bank Holiday again

The mask debacle continues. There's been a complete u-turn on masks in schools.

When schools go back next week secondary pupils in England may, at the Head's discretion, be required to wear masks in communal areas... except if you live in an area where there's a local lockdown, in which case they're mandatory. For schools in Scotland and N Ireland masks are mandatory in communal areas and on school buses, but not required in classrooms. In Wales... who knows, because they can't make their bloody minds up.

Now, have you got all that? Keep up, I'll be asking questions later!

I thought masks/face coverings (even though completely unnecessary) should only be worn once and then be washed or binned. So, every child will have a stack of masks because they'll need a clean one each time they leave a classroom, right? Yeah... that's not going to happen, is it?

What will happen, is grubby little oiks will shove them in their pockets and use the same one all day or quite possibly all week; they'll probably even share one with their mates. Yuk! That'll really help in containing the almost non-existent virus.

Someone didn't think this through, did they?

Laughably, Boris is almost pleading with people to go back to their offices instead of working from home. He can see the damage he's done to city centres and he's panicking. After scaring people to death five months ago, he's discovered he can't just switch off people's fear, nor can he make them want to spend £1000s in getting to work when they're quite happy WFH, thank you very much!

If you want things back to normal Boris, ditch the social distancing and masks. You're giving mixed messages, matey. Either things are normal or they're not - you can't have it both ways.

It's Bank Holiday weekend, which accounts for it being cold, miserable and pouring with rain! Two weeks ago we were complaining about the heat and now things have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous! My poor tomatoes, currently shivering in a northerly wind and driving rain, will never ripen without some warmth and sun for a few days.

I might make some soup or maybe a curry - warm us up a bit.

Oh, and just to prove summer's officially over, John Lewis have opened up their online Christmas shop this week! It's still only August, for goodness sake...!

Lies, damned lies

So, on top of PHE lying about the Covid death figures, it's recently emerged, after a SAGE investigation, that the NHS has been lying about the number of hospital admissions for Covid. It just gets better and better.

Does anything about this supposed pandemic hang together? It all lies, lies and more lies.

Every parent will recognise the situation we're in right now. When children are in trouble they'll lie repeatedly in the hope they can talk themselves out of it - despite knowing, having been told by their parents on numerous occasions, that they're digging themselves in deeper and their lies will always come back to bite them.

It seems that our esteemed Govt has reverted to childhood and turned into a bunch of lying teenagers. Great... just what we bloody need.

On to less stressful matters, I think. Govt shenanigans are not good for my blood pressure. Deep breaths...

It's been a plummy sort of week - after making jam last weekend, I've since made six kilos of compote (frozen in batches ready to have with porridge in the months to come) plus eight jars of chutney using not only our own plums but also apples and onions from the garden, too. It's been quite a production line. All the plums are off the tree now but I've kept a few back at Mr S-V's request. He's on a promise... of a plum crumble! It's only a small tree but it's done us proud this year.

After stripping the plum tree, we pulled all the onions - they're drying out on top of the soil before being strung up in the shed. It's all starting to feel quite autumnal... it's really noticeable now that the nights are drawing in.

As well as our little veg plot, the farmer's fields are also starting to look a bit denuded - he's taken the haulm off the top of the potatoes in preparation for harvesting in the next few days. He's clearing his fields at the other side of the village at the moment, so his tractor is back and forth past our house like a fiddler's elbow.

I'm still going nowhere near any High St shops (bloody masks!) so have just ordered boots, a pair of trousers and a winter coat online. If any of it fits, I'll be amazed...

Weather, vaccines... and more jam

There's been a bit of welcome coolness and rain for the past couple of days – standard British summer weather for which the garden is very grateful. Lovely to wake up and hear the rain against the window. It was as hot as the flames of hell all last week, with very little breeze. When a feeble draught occasionally put in an appearance it was as though someone had switched on a huge fan heater! We gratefully decamped to the downstairs bedroom, where it’s a bit cooler, in order to get some sleep.

The weather at least took our minds of the continuing Covid saga. It’s becoming ever more ridiculous; cases are obviously up, they're being found because of more testing, but deaths are down to almost negligible levels. Three deaths reported today. We still have a raft of rules and regulations to abide by, however, not to mention the subject of masks... a very sore point with me, as you may have noticed.

Boris has turned into a tinpot dictator – we could now be fined up to £3,200 for not wearing a bloody mask! They’re going to keep this going as long as poss, purely in order to cover their own sorry arses ineptitude.

Until I can go out without effectively being muzzled, I won’t be entering the portals of a cafe, restaurant, public building, railway station, bank, NT property… or anywhere else.  I step into an M&S Foodhall once a week… and that’s it for me for the foreseeable future. I’m now only buying what I actually need. No discretionary purchases, no wandering into a shop and buying another tee-shirt or a handbag just because I like it, not because I need it; it’s saving me shedloads of money!

Everyone seems to be pinning their hopes on a vaccine, but I think it's unlikely there'll be one available any time soon. Safe vaccines take years to come onstream; if there's one coming out in a matter of months, it won't have had sufficient human trials, they won't know how it might interact with existing medical conditions and they'll clearly have no way of knowing about any long-term effects. No thanks - there's no way I'll be having it. Give mine to someone else.

I sometimes feel like I’m living in the pages of a dystopian sci-fi novel; life as we knew it no longer exists.

Thankfully the garden carries on doing what it always does regardless of Covid. We're picking tomatoes faster than we can eat them and Victoria plums are now ripening at quite a rate. Picked a goodly amount of them from the garden and spent a happy hour yesterday morning making six jars of plum jam. Copious quantities of toast and scones will be required!

Bread, barbecues and BS

It’s as hot as hell here today and I bloody hate hot weather – we’re holed up indoors with the shutters and windows firmly closed. I’ll be so glad when the summer’s over – it’s bad enough putting up with this Covid nonsense without having to struggle with the weather as well. Every day seems like a battle on several fronts at the moment. I’m so looking forward to colder days and going for a walk when you can see your breath in the air. Sounds like bliss right now.

I did a really stupid thing on Wednesday, there’s clearly no hope for me… I put all the ingredients for a loaf into the bread machine and switched it on; four hours later, beep, beep, beep, I lifted the lid to find a wholemeal brick! I’d put all the ingredients in… except the yeast! I’ve been using a bread machine for nearly ten years and never have I managed to do that before. I’m putting it down to stress. I can live without the loaf, it’s the waste of flour which is really brassing me off. Yesterday’s effort was back to normal again, thankfully.

A word about barbecues. There’s no nice way to put this… they stink. We have people living nearby who seem to love them, but it’s pretty awful if the wind’s in the wrong direction on a sunny day. It’s probably something to do with primal urges that make men want to cremate slabs of flesh in the open air… “Me strong man, me kill animal, me make fire”. Well, if that’s what it takes to make them feel manly, I can only feel sorry for the women in their lives! 

It’s always men btw, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman cooking dinner on a barbecue. They’ve more sense, obviously. Would it burst the cavemen’s bubble to point out they didn’t actually stalk and kill a woolly mammoth with their bare hands, they just went to Tesco and picked up a slab of dead cow/pig/lamb and a few sausages?

I saw this in the Guardian the other day.  Ethical omnivores, eh? What a pile of pretentious, self-indulgent BS! “I want to eat meat but I know it can’t be morally justified. Here’s an idea…! I can feel better about it and demonstrate how ethical I am by eating all the manky bits as well as the more acceptable parts – this will show ‘honour and respect’ because ‘we owe it to the animal’. I’ll then write a book, make a bit of money, preach to the sheeple and they’ll all think I’m a good person. Job done”. Dear me… that is some serious self-delusion there!

If you’re so concerned about the animal, dummy, how about not killing the poor beast in the first place? Once it’s dead does it really matter whether you eat it or sling it in the nearest bin? Either way, it’s still dead.

A decision has been taken chez nous that, from now on, this house will be a Boris-free zone. He can make whatever stupid rules he likes and if we choose to go out (highly unlikely) we’ll follow the rules but, in this house, OUR rules apply. So, people here will be free to wear masks… or not, free to have a hug… or not, free to ignore social distancing… or not; whatever they, and we, feel comfortable with.

Boris and his bloody rules can get the hell out of my home.

Jam, not Jerusalem

How lucky am I? On our way back from a walk on Thursday morning we saw our neighbour; they have a greengage tree right next to the fence dividing our gardens, “Help yourself to greengages… please!” she said, “The freezer’s full of them and the children are refusing to eat any more crumble - we’re sick of them!” Well, I didn’t need telling twice!

I am now the proud owner of some golden gorgeousness… I made a few jars of sunny-coloured jam for winter mornings when it’s cold and grey. Lovely. We gave it a trial run on some toast this morning; blimey, it was so good! Hardly surprising when the fruit went from tree to jar in under two hours… fresh or what?!

Boris gave a briefing yesterday. Clearly, he feels people haven’t been sufficiently frightened to make them kowtow – they’re starting to act sensibly and think for themselves (and that will never do!) – so he’s tweaking a few regulations and making up a few more unnecessary rules in order to get more of us to comply with his silliness.

Micromanagement by Govt has gone into overdrive. It’s like a game now; they’re just seeing how far they can push us before we reach breaking point. They’re playing us. For the love of life, will someone please make it stop? I think we need a modern-day Guy Fawkes to shake up this bunch of bloody clowns.

Weather was ridiculously hot yesterday – 34°. Ghastly. Thankfully it’s much better today – low 20s. I hate hot weather.