All posts by A Scotsman in Suburbia

I am not a Grumpy Old Man I am a middle aged man who occasionally gets slightly hacked off with things. My politics are greenish and to the left of centre. I am married again, following being widowed. I own two bikes, one car, one campervan and half a cat. I love cycling (hence the bikes) and cycle sport especially road racing. During the winter I enjoy watching football (soccer if you are North American). I sometimes paint and enjoy cooking and eating.
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LOCK-DOWN U.K. Days 29, 30 & 31

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Day 29 Tuesday 21st April

One advantage of doing this (almost) daily lock-down blog is that I usually actually know what the date is, as well as the day of the week. This I think is a good thing. I do know that over Christmas one day tends to blur into another. This has been going on for a month now. I need to have some way of knowing what day to put the bins out. This is extra-complicated by the fact that Diane has a different bin day to me.

Back to work

Tuesday means back to work. Not that there is much work to do at the moment. This is partially because this time of year is always quiet, and partially because of the lockdown restricting the amount of work that there is available to do at the moment. Most days at the moment I am only doing one site per day.

Bedroom ceiling

It is coming along. The ceiling is now fully boarded, and hopefully by this time next week, we should be able to think about decorating.

Allotment

The allotment is looking good. We wandered up there this evening, basically to water everything, which we did. The potatoes are going to need earthing up soon, a job for the weekend.

Duster

Our pussycat “Duster” (so called because he looks like a feather duster) was not very popular tonight. He kept bringing a mouse in. He was banished to the utility room with no Dreamies as a punishment.

Day 30 Wednesday 22nd April (Earth Day)

Duster…..

This morning I found a headless mouse in the utility room. I dumped it down the bottom of the garden. I’m sure that next door’s fox will dispose of it for me. Perhaps I should have refused to feed him until he ate it.

Work

Work is slightly, make that very, weird at the moment. Travelling is a doddle, as there is probably about a quarter, or less, of the normal traffic. Journeys that would normally take about an hour, are done in twenty minutes. (Without breaking the speed limit.) Most sites are like ghost towns when I arrive. Usually there is only a security guard or a caretaker on site, and they actively keep their distance. In a lot of ways it makes my job easier, so I shouldn’t complain.

Bedroom

Everything is progressing well. The plaster has been applied to the ceiling and tomorrow the job should be finished. Our local B&Q (DIY store) has reopened. Physical distancing is fairly easy, because the place is huge, and they are restricting the number of people in the shop. We went along after I had finished work to try to choose wallpaper. I think we have settled on grey as the general colour scheme. The finer details are yet to be sorted. We came back with several wallpaper samples. Does anyone have a particular preference?

Wallpaper

I like the one with the toucan in the jungle. The only problem being that it reminds me of a scene from an adult colouring book, and I might be tempted to get my colouring pencils out.

Fish and chips from the local chippy for supper.

Day 31 Wednesday 23rd April

Today is St George’s day if you celebrate that sort of thing. We are also a full calendar month into lock-down.

Duster behaved himself to day, so he is, sort of back in my good books. He might even get his Dreamies tonight.

Bedroom

The plastering is finished. *All* that is left to do is the decorating. That will have to wait for a day or two to allow the plaster to dry. Our plasterer appears to have done a good job though.

We spent the afternoon tidying up the mess, and disposing of the carpet, which was beyond cleaning. We are having a day off tomorrow. A bike ride, followed by a picnic at the allotment, and possibly some gentle pottering afterwards, if we can be bothered.

For supper tonight Diane made a rather excellent Sweet Potato and chickpea curry. I made chapatis to go along with it. It was very good.

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LOCK-DOWN U.K. DAY 28

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Day 28 Monday 20th April

Bedroom.

The destructive phase is over (hopefully). The ceiling is being renewed starting today. Then the complicated bit starts. Deciding how we want to decorate. Diane and I don’t necessarily have the same ideas about decoration. Then again neither did Grace and I. We usually managed to compromise. She chose, and unless I absolutely hated it, I went along with her choice. It might be a while before we can get paper and paint anyway.

Baking

An excess of over ripe bananas have become a banana loaf. We also have an apple and (allotment) rhubarb crumble ready to go into the oven for dinner.

  • Banana Loaf
  • Crumble

Diane’s handiwork, not mine

Allotment
Brompton with ‘T’ Bag

We haven’t visited the allotment for a few days, what with ceilings falling down and the like. It was decided that it was due a visit, to see how things were growing and, to do some watering. A lump of what is actually a banana and rhubarb loaf was packed as well as some milk. While gardening is ostensibly the reason that we visit the allotment, the real reason is that it is a nice place to have a cup of tea. We rode up on our bikes. All the tea requisites packed nicely into my Brompton’ s appropriately named ‘T’ bag.

Diane’s son Chris and his partner, who we share the allotment with, were there already. We maintained the correct physical distancing at all times, it was good to see them, and have a cup of tea and banana and rhubarb loaf with them.

Below are a few photos from the allotment.

  • Our plum tree
  • The beetroot is coming along

The beetroot is coming along fine, but I’m not so sure about some other seeds I planted,

For supper, we raided the freezer, and found some things that I had cooked a few months ago and frozen. I often think that a curry tastes better after a couple of months in the freezer. It was good, and the apple and rhubarb crumble we had for pudding was excellent.

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Lock-down U.K. Day 27

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Day 27 Sunday 19th April

Is every day the same during lock-down? I used to be able to tell what day it was by looking at the newspaper. However, I haven’t had a newspaper for a while. I found out today was Sunday because Cerys Mathews was on the radio. Sunday is the only day she appears, with a perfectly pitched selection of music for late breakfast/brunch.

The bedroom

It was decided to finish stripping all the paper off the walls of the bedroom. Fortunately, the paper below the picture rail came off much easier than the paper above it. Every thing is now ready. All we need is a ceiling, wallpaper and paint.

Hopefully, we will have a ceiling by the end of the week. We may be able to get wallpaper and paint online. However, I think we may have to wait until the lockdown is at least eased. The room looks a bit tidier at least.

“Way Up”

I have probably mentioned a group called “Way Up” before. It is a self-help group for people who have lost their partners. I was through “Way Up” that Diane and I met. (I should stress that it is not a dating organization. Quite a few people do meet new partners through it, though). Normally we get together for a drink, and something to eat, once a month, at a bar in Wimbledon. Obviously we can’t do this at the moment, so we had an on line meet-up to night. I was fun and good to catch up with everyone.

A bit of light relief.

Diane has also found two fox cubs down the bottom of the garden. I personally am ambivalent about urban foxes, but the cubs do look cute.

One of the cubs
Mini rant (haven’t had one for a while)

It is beginning to look as if our government and our faux Churchillian leader were clueless about the Covid-19 pandemic. Alternatively, they might not have cared. It would appear that at every opportunity to do something that might have helped, they decided to pass. They failed to act when joining a European wide scheme to procure medical equipment. They also ignored Italy’s advice not to make the same mistakes that they made. Mr Johnson managed to miss five crucial planning meetings, while holed up at his country residence. (If one rumour is to be believed, finishing a book, that he had accepted a rather large advance for).

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Lock-down U.K. Days 25 & 26

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Days twenty-five and twenty-six of our lock-down experience sort of blended into each other.

Day 25 Friday 17th April

It was announced yesterday, that our lock-down experience has been so enjoyable, that it will be extended for another three weeks. Then probably another three weeks after that. So our planned trip to France and, Spain in the Big Green Bus is almost definitely off. In fact, I’m not sure when we will next be able to go off for a trip, even in the U.K. Cropredy Festival, which we were planning on going to, has been postponed until 2021. The new dates are

12 – 14 August 2021

It is two months after the other big event of 2021, so we should be able to make it.

As you may remember, the ceiling of the bedroom collapsed two days ago. Yesterday we had the rest of it pulled down, in preparation for a new ceiling being fitted. Today, we had to remove all the wallpaper between the picture rail and the ceiling. This was necessary to see any cracks in the plaster. After the repairs are complete, we can redecorate. This should have been a simple task. However, at some point in the past ninety years, someone used gloss paint over it. Gloss paint made it difficult/impossible to soak the paper to ease its removal. Scoring through the paint into the paper allowed some water to penetrate. However, the job was still long and difficult. We called it a day at about seven, with less than half of it done.

Soundtrack for stripping wallpaper


https://open.spotify.com/album/2zviYEJfMBDVtoh9mz5SNq?si=37aI_pdlRsC1j-BGj6PrMw
https://open.spotify.com/album/4VykjLwkyfKMZVLrJJVrYh?si=byCquh2jRIidXnB1tiwR-Q
https://open.spotify.com/album/505zw4fKgpk8HXqyw3BMFq?si=90muO3LNRgq1jYrbl1vsAw

They kept us going.

Day 26 Saturday18th April

Lather, rinse, repeat except we actually finished.

Diane looking happy about the task

Another Saturday with no football. Today we should have been playing the team from Buckinghamshire. Everyone should practice social distancing from them, even during normal times.

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Lock-down U.K. Day 24

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Day 24 Thursday 16th April

Today was a more boring day than yesterday.

It could not have started out more boring if it had tried. A company wide *conference* call, where our directors told us what a wonderful job we were doing and to keep up the good work. I think it was done just to make sure we knew they were still there, and to stop us getting ideas that the business can run perfectly well without them. It used up forty-five minutes that could otherwise have been usefully employed doodling, or writing my shopping list. I do not have a lot of work at the moment. A lot of sites are closed, and some of those that are open do not want visitors.

The plasterer arrived to take down what was left of the ceiling, so it looks a bit neater now, but there is still dust everywhere.

Everything has been washed, some things twice, and hung out to dry. I brought my clothes pegs over from my house to help with the process. We had pizza for dinner, how much more normal and boring than that can you get?

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Lock-down U.K. Day 23

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Day 23 Wednesday 15th April

Yesterday Diane started complaining about being bored. Today we wished we were bored. Last night about eleven o’clock after I had finished the blog I decided to go to bed. This is what I found.

This is the headboard

At some point, during the evening, probably while we were at the allotment, the ceiling collapsed. We assume it was while we were at the allotment. It was still where it is supposed to be when we were changing to go to the allotment. After we came back, we had dinner, then a family chat on Zoom. The dining room, where we were for most of the time, is directly below the bedroom. So we think we would have heard it. We are glad that it decided to come down when it did, rather than after we had gone to bed. It would definitely have seriously injured us, and conceivably, have killed us.

We couldn’t do much at midnight. We salvaged our pyjamas and some clothes to wear today. Then, we closed the door and went to bed in the spare bedroom. The clean-up could wait.

It didn’t look any better in the morning. Diane called her insurers, to be told that she wasn’t covered. Direct Line may have lost a customer. A plan, of sorts, was hatched over breakfast. Someone was found who can repair the ceiling. However, the problem is that sourcing the materials could prove difficult at the moment. We then made a start at tidying up the mess. The rubble sacks, that I bought by mistake, when looking for bin liners, a couple of weeks ago came in handy.

Diane’s son Chris came round to help. We needed to move the furniture out. Some of it, like the bed we dismantled and stored downstairs, other bits we moved to the spare bedroom. I had to go off because I had a job booked at two p.m. I felt guilty about leaving them. By the time I came back most of the work had been done, but there was still a lot of cleaning to do, so I didn’t feel too bad.

As a side issue, I understand that Dyson have been commissioned by the government to design and supply ventilators to NHS to help in the current crisis. All I can say is that I hope they build better ventilators than vacuum cleaners.

Something pleasant to end the day. I did a bit of shopping on my way home, and I found some Jersey Royal potatoes, the first of the season. They weren’t cheap, but they are always worth the expense. I boiled them up for dinner.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a bit more boring.

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Lock-down U.K. Days 21 & 22

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Day 21 Monday 13/04/2020 (Easter Monday)
Adams Park, High Wycombe

Easter Monday dawned as bright and sunny as Easter Sunday, just fifteen degrees colder. Instead of being here, in New Malden I should have been at High Wycombe following the Wombles. Easter Monday was to have been Volunteers Day. Every Year one of our sponsors, Cherry Red Records, pays for coach travel, a match ticket and lunch for all the clubs volunteers. Two years ago it was a very good day out. Covid-19 and lock-down put paid to that

Instead, we had an Easter egg painting competition, against Diane’s grandkids, on Zoom. Diane and I did our eggs the night before. I thought they were pretty decent. My egg was the Easter Bunny, Diane’s was Grayson Perry.

They were all very good, and we didn’t actually decide on a winner. I also had my new lock-down haircut to show off. Diane attacked me with the hair clippers on Sunday. She did a good job, especially considering the last hair cut she gave was to one of her dolls. (She actually used to cut her late husband Dave’s hair).

Looking mean and moody with my convict tee-shirt and my convict hair cut.

We decided to have a break from gardening today. We went for a bike ride along the Hogsmill river to Berrylands and on past the Hogsmill Sewage Treatment Works. The delicate aromas from the works often filter over to Kingsmeadow when the wind is from the south. We did about 10 km, which is probably the furthest I have cycled this year. After we got home, I made a rather nice steak pie for dinner.

In other news Boris Johnson left hospital yesterday. He made a fairly emotional speech praising the NHS and it’s staff for, well, saving his life. Perhaps the next time there is a vote in Parliament about giving NHS staff a pay rise he won’t vote against it.

Day 22 Tuesday 14/04/2020

We are now three weeks into lock-down. In general, most people seem to be following the recommendations about physically distancing themselves from other people. However, I do find it slightly strange. People are taking great care to stay at least two metres apart out in the open. The chances of being infected by a passing jogger are probably minimal. Conversely, people are not so careful when in a shop. The chances of passing on the infection seem, to me at least, to be much higher. In addition, there are fewer cars on the road. This seems to encourage our boy racers to show off their *skills*.

It was back to work today. Not that I have much actual work to do at the moment. This time of year is normally slack for various reasons, and with many workplaces shut down even more so.

The allotment needed watering, so we cycled over there after I came home. We had a cup of tea and finished off the chocolate cornflake bites in the late afternoon sun. It is still fairly cold, but not as cold as yesterday. We then came home to salmon for dinner, and a Zoom get together with Diane’s cousins.

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Lock-down UK. Days 18 to 20

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Easter Weekend is often slightly weird at any time, Easter Weekend in lockdown, is doubly so.

Easter to Christians is the main festival, indeed focus, of their faith. It used to be that way for me. However, over the years my faith has become Agnosticism. I still hold a fair amount of sympathy for some expressions of Christianity. To others, it means a four-day window to complete a DIY project. It also provides an opportunity to sort out the mess that the garden has become. For football fans the two games over the weekend often decide the outcome of the season.

Easter moves around a lot. The earliest calendar date on which Easter can fall is March 22nd. The latest date is April 25th. With over a calendar month’s difference, the weather can vary greatly as well. This year we have seen wall-to-wall sunshine, with temperatures well into the twenties (Celsius). Other years we have had snow.

Day 18 Friday 10/04/2020 (Good Friday)

My day would normally have focused around AFC Wimbledon’s Good Friday match. This year we should have been playing Sunderland. We may get to play the game sometime, but I am not holding my breath. Instead, after hot cross buns for breakfast, we spent most of the day at the allotment. The B&Q round the corner has opened a mini garden centre on their ground floor. You can buy all the basic essentials for your garden (or allotment) like compost, fertilizer and plum trees. We bought some blueberry bushes and a plum tree as well as some flowers for the garden. We took our lunch and our newly acquired plants up to the allotment. I spent a bit of time fixing the parasol. We needed some shade to sit under while we ate our lunch.

We planted the plum tree and the blueberry bushes. With luck, we may get a plum or two this autumn. However, I am not expecting blueberries until next year at the earliest. Some seeds that we planted earlier are germinating. If nothing else we may be able to live on beetroot and carrots next winter.

Day 19 Saturday 11/04/2020

Somewhere over the last week or so we have managed to find eggs. So, we had scrambled eggs for breakfast. We haven’t really done much in the garden, as opposed to the allotment. Today we thought we should do something. Plant a few flowers, cut the grass, that sort of thing. It was a warm day, the warmest of the year so far. We saw some things yesterday at B&Q, stones and compost that were too heavy to carry home. We took the car round to collect them.

I mowed the front lawn, Diane planted lavender, and refilled the pots. We also filled a gap between the kitchen door and the patio. It was easy to trap a foot in the gap if you weren’t careful. A productive day.

Day 20 Sunday 12/04/2020 (Easter Sunday)

My Easter Egg

On Shrove Tuesday we eat pancakes. This tradition signifies that the next day is the beginning of Lent. We will be giving up luxuries like eggs and butter for the next 40 days. (Not that I actually did, but never mind). It seemed appropriate to mark the end of Lent by having pancakes for breakfast. (I have since discovered that Lent actually ended yesterday). Chocolate eggs were saved for later. Later we went to the allotment to make sure that everything was watered. The past few days have been exceptionally warm for mid-April. We had a family Zoom meeting in the afternoon. Diane’s grandkids, or at least the boys, may have eaten a bit too much chocolate. One of them appeared to be wearing it rather than eating it. We also decided to have an Easter Egg decorating competition for Easter Monday. We spent the evening producing our entries.

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Lock-down UK. Days 15 to 17

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Loo rolls left: You can find them in Sainsbury’s now.

Day 15 Tuesday 07/04/2020

I am still trying to get my work computer to work. I spent most of the morning talking to various IT *help* desk type people with no success. I also spent quite a while responding to emails that were telling me that they had solved my problem. Passing my problem onto someone else may have solved the problem for you, but it hasn’t solved it for me.

Eventually it was agreed to try the possible solution that I had suggested about a week ago. I would go into one of our offices. Then, I would connect directly to the Local Area Network using a cable. This would check if that would reset the logon. There was only one minor problem to that solution. Due to the current situation, all our offices are closed. It was eventually agreed that I would be given access to the Croydon office and telephone support on Thursday morning.

I sorted out some work that I could do without the computer. This was planned for Wednesday. Then I went to the allotment for the afternoon.

Allotment time

The allotment has been our escape hatch during this period. We often take our lunch up with us and have a picnic. We are set up with all mod cons. A portable gas stove and kettle to make tea. There is usually a packet of biscuits, unless we have eaten them, and a bucket for emergencies. (It is apparently very good for the compost heap).

Tea time

We planted a few seeds and dug over one of the beds in preparation for planting runner beans later on. We decided we would like a flower bed in front of the table where we have our lunch. So, we made a start on that.

Day 16 Wednesday 08/04/2020

Apart from a couple of emails on my phone, which I don’t like having to do. It is not that I dislike email per-say. I just don’t enjoy answering anything that requires more than a yes or no response using my phone keyboard. Anyway we managed to confirm the access arrangements for Thursday. I was all set to return to full existence. Having sorted that I went out and did some actual work.

When I got back home we decided to go to the allotment to make sure everything was watered. We also finished off our little flower garden.

We found a lot of flower seeds in the shed. I also brought some from my house. Most of the packets were past their use by dates, but we sowed them anyway. Hopefully some will come up. We also planted a pair of roses that Diane found in Poundland. Then we went home for an early night. I had to be up bright and early the next day for my (or my computer’s appointment with destiny).

Day 17 Thursday 09/04/2020

My alarm went of at 06:30. I was already awake. Diane had woken up even earlier. She had kindly brought me a cup of tea up to bed. I was washed dressed and breakfasted by eight o’clock and set off for Croydon. One advantage of this lock-down is, that if you do have to drive anywhere, driving is a doddle. New Malden to Croydon in twenty minutes. Normally it would take at least an hour at eight a.m. Also, when I arrived at our offices there were parking spaces, unheard of.

That was where the smooth sailing ended. Security told me that the office had been unlocked, great, but I needed a swipe card to access it. My ID card does not have swipe access, because I don’t need it. I very rarely need access to our offices. If I do, there is always someone there to give me the access that I need. Provided everyone isn’t working from home. A facilities engineer was sent from central London to let me in. Even with lock-down traffic, he took about two hours to get to Croydon. I called my telephone support person to tell them that there would be a delay. They said fine, they didn’t have all that much to do anyway.

Eventually my engineer arrived, and let me into the office. I plugged my machine in (fortunately I had the foresight to bring my own cable). I switched it on, typed in my password, and it let me log on. Problem solved in less than two seconds. We ran a couple of other checks to make sure that everything was fine, which it was.

I spent the rest of the day typing in the last weeks reports, and doing my expenses. Boring, but I now exist again.

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Lock-down UK. Days No.s 11 to 14

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Loo rolls left: Still OK

There has been a hiatus in posting. I shall blame it on Diane’s birthday and our engagement party a couple of days earlier.

I now have achieved a ghost like status. I do exist but am not as yet fully formed. Hopefully I will be returned to full functionality on Thursday. It may be a complicated and long-winded process, so I will update you then.

Day 11 Friday 3rd

Friday  was of a lazy day, had a lie in then made a cooked breakfast.

Our forthcoming wedding was discussed. Admittedly it is not until next summer, but we need to decide on a venue. We have about five places we have seen on the internet that we quite like the look of. We were supposed to visit Scotland today to see some of them in person. Unfortunately, Covid-19 has changed those plans. It might end up at Kingston Registry Office, followed by the reception in the Watchman at this rate,

We went to the allotment in the afternoon. We didn’t achieve much but did get to witness a rather magnificent sunset.

Sunset
Sunset too

Day 12 Saturday 4th

We had our Engagement Party tonight. We would have liked to have had everyone on the same room, but with lock-down in place we couldn’t. Zoom was a pretty acceptable alternative. In fact, it allowed us to get more people together than we probably would have managed if we had held the party in the flesh. My family from Scotland joined in, as did Diane’s friend from Wales. We had a good time. Zoom lets you split a large group up into rooms, so we did that, which allowed people to get to know each other better. It worked better than I expected. Though some people were not quite so pleased. One friend decided it was just an excuse not to buy him a drink.

Da ring

Day 13 Sunday 5th

Our Prime Minister was admitted to hospital today suffering from Covid-19. Other than that nothing much happened.

Day 14 Monday 6th

Today was Diane’s ??th birthday. Fortunately her present arrived, via Amazon, on Saturday. After having been told that it would not arrive until the 29th. I was quite pleased to have something to give her.

It was also her daughter-in-law’s birthday, so we went round to her house and left the presents in the porch. We then proceeded to have a slightly stilted conversation through an open window. A virtual afternoon tea was arranged, via Zoom. We dragged the bone china tea-set out, and had scones with jam and cream. We even had a birthday cake, which Diane found in Waitrose last week, reduced to 25p (from £5.25), it was fine. For evening meal we decided to have a steak.

I spent part of the afternoon, even though Monday is a day off trying to re-establish my existence. As I mentioned in the introduction, I am now recognized as existing, but my presence is not fully established. I got nowhere.