Category Archives: Covid-19

Covid-19, Getting Married

LOCK-DOWN U.K. DAYS 71-74

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Day 71 Tuesday 2nd June.

I am getting fed up of this weather. People from Scotland do not thrive when the day time temperature is constantly over 25°C.  Also having to visit the allotment every day to water is becoming a bit of a chore. It is now officially summer, so where is our traditional British Summer weather. I want 15°C day time temperatures, I want rain for three days solid. More to the point farmers probably need it. I know that the allotment needs it. The only downside I can see is that the grass will grow and I’ll have to cut it.

Serious point

We have just come through what is probably the hottest and driest May on record. I’m not certain, but I think that the daytime temperature has topped 20°C every day, and in London at least I don’t remember it raining. I know that the Covid-19 pandemic, and police riots in the USA are grabbing the headlines right now, but we need to seriously get on top of the causes of climate change. There was some good news on that front though. Because of the reduction in energy requirements due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the exceptionally sunny weather Britain recorded its first ever month when no electricity was generated by coal fired power stations

Day 72 Wednesday 3rd June.
Save the day

One year today Diane and I will be getting married. The venue is the Dryburgh Abbey Hotel, near St Boswells in the Scottish Borders. We will actually be getting married in the Abbey itself.

Diane has started her own blog counting down to the wedding. You can find it at silversplicer.wordpress.com.
All the information will be there. Much more comprehensive and also more accurate than is likely to be found here. Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to the day immensely, and I will be giving my take on how things are progressing from time to time. Diane is counting the days down.

Diane’s son Chris and his partner Charlotte came round to help us celebrate the day, actually I’m not sure they knew that it is a year today until Diane started plying them with Prosecco. We hade a Lebanese vegetarian mezze from a new restaurant that has only just opened. They picked a bad day for their official opening – about a week after lockdown. It is called Noura and it is very good. We will go along there for a proper meal when it re-opens.

Day 73 Thursday 4th June.

The weather has changed. It is now a lot cooler than it has been. It even rained (a bit), so we didn’t need to water the allotment.

We sent out our “Save the Day” fridge magnets today. So unless we have forgotten any one, possible with me, less likely with Diane, everyone who we are planning to invite should receive a little reminder through the post soon. Proper invites will follow nearer the date, assuming that the current lockdown will be over by then. If not I will ask the band to devise a set of Scottish Country Dances that allow us to dance two metres apart.

It is now eleven weeks since Diane and I decided to move in together so that we could still see each other during lockdown. Though looking back I think that her bidet was also an attraction in a time when toilet roll was rarer than 🦄💩

We have survived a ceiling collapse and the subsequent redecoration of the bedroom. We like each others cooking and taste in music. I think we’ll be OK.

Day 74 Friday 5th June.

The day began early. Diane found some Oak Processionary Moths on the oak tree in the front garden. Left to their own devices they can strip the leaves off an oak tree and they are also hazardous to human and animal health. The mature caterpillars shed very fine hairs which an be the source of extreme irritation.

The guys dealing with them need full PPE, to make sure that they do not come ito contact with the hairs.
They dealt with them satisfactorily.

We spent the day at the allotment. We hadn’t done much for a few weeks except water it. A good weeding was required. All our beds were given a thorough hand weeding. Chris and Charlotte can weed their own beds we decided. It all looks quite tidy. How long that will last I don’t know. We had some more rain this afternoon which will probably encourage the weeds to grow again.

While we have been wanting some rain for a few weeks now, the timing of todays rain was annoying. There had been a couple of short, but heavy showers which forced us to retreat to the shed, but not enough to soak into the ground. We decided to water the plants before we went home. which takes about three-quarters of an hour. While I was in Lidl looking for cheap gin to turn into rhubarb gin (there is no point in wasting Bombay Sapphire at £22 a bottle) the heavens opened. Enough to give the allotment a good watering. Also enough to give us a good watering as we rode home on our bikes. If we hadn’t spent the time watering, which in hindsight, we needn’t have, we would have been home and dry by the time the rain came.

Covid-19

LOCK-DOWN U.K. DAYS 67-70

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Day 67 Friday 29th May

Our original plan was to go to the seaside with Diane’s daughter-in-law and her grandsons. The next plan was to go to Frensham Ponds. After doing a bit of online research, we decided that neither was really all that practical for various reasons. We ended up going to Beddington Park instead. I took my bike along, in order to keep up with Freddie and Jack on their bikes. They are both quite fast.

We had a picnic lunch, and a game of football. Freddie and Jack spent quite a while clambering over a tree trunk that has fallen across the river. Surprisingly neither of them fell in.

We had to go to the allotment to water it on the way home, so after we had done the shopping, we stopped off at the fish and chip shop for fish and chips which we had for dinner. (We also stopped off at home to grab a couple of clod beers from the fridge).

Day 68 Saturday 30th May

We spent most of the day getting wet. We have decided to sell one of our campervans. It is going to it’s new home sometime next week. We decided that it needed a wash. After having washed the Bongo, it was decided that we may as well go the whole hog and wash the Little Lilac Car and the baby Merc as well. Three out of our four vehicles are now shiny and clean.

After dinner we had a game of Scrabble. Diane beat me quite comprehensively. (337 to 201) That’s the last time she gets to attack my Caol Ila.

Day 69 Sunday 31st May

After last night’s Scrabble we had a lie in followed by breakfast in the garden.

Sunday Morning Breakfast.

I went back to my house after breakfast. I needed to put the bins out. I also needed to bring the B.G.B. over. By the time I had done that, faffed around, then gone to water the allotment, it was half-past nine by the time we were back home. We hadn’t eaten, so decided a chicken stir fry was the quickest meal we could think of. No pictures, but it was pretty decent.

Day 70 Monday 1st June.

Today was a rather momentous day. I said that I had brought the B.G.B.* over yesterday. Today I gave it a wash – there is a lot more of it than the L.L.C. – but that wasn’t why today was momentous. Today was the first day this year we had taken the van out. We went to Headley Heath for lunch. Had a walk, then came home. It doesn’t sound that much but it felt good to be out in the van, even if it was only for the day. Next month, we are hopeful that we can get away for a couple of nights.

B.G.B. on Headley Heath
Headley Heath

*B.G.B. = Big Green Bus as opposed to L.L.C. = Little Lilac Car.

Covid-19, Football

LOCK-DOWN U.K. Days 61-66

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Day 61 Saturday 23rd May

We moved some furniture back into the bedroom. Getting the mattress back up the stairs was a challenge. It was bad enough getting it downstairs when gravity was helping. Putting the bed back together also proved to ba a bit of a challenge as well. We managed to reassemble it then noticed that the sides were the wrong way round. We left it, but I knew that it would bug me.

We had our monthly games evening. Normally, we get together with four other couples to play board games (and eat, drink and chat). Catan and Carcassonne are the favourites, but obviously they are difficult to play over zoom. I’m sure that there probably is a way, but we haven’t worked one out yet. We have found some other word based games that seem to work. We had fun. Hopefully the next relaxation of lockdown will let us meet up in each other’s houses.

Day 62 Sunday 24th May

Lockdown relaxation now allows us to meet up with friends and family, provided we keep the two meter distancing. We met up with Diane’s son Ben, his wife and their two boys in Nonsuch Park for a walk and a chat. I played football with the boys, or to be more precise I was goalkeeper while Freddie and Jack spent half an hour kicking each other and occasionally kicking the ball instead. I was the first time we had seen them since lockdown started.

Nonsuch Park

Nonsuch Park is what is left of the grounds of Henry VIII’s Nonsuch Palace grounds.

After we arrived back home, the bed being wrongly assembled was still bugging me. I decided to put it right. Today, it all seemed simple compared to yesterday. I suppose when you have done a job once, the second time is easier, because you know the mistakes you made first time round and don’t make them this time.

Day 63 Monday 25th May

Another meet up with family. We took a trip down to the Devil’s Punch Bowl to meet up with Aimie. We hadn’t seen her since the week before the lockdown started. She is expecting twins sometime in the fairly near future. Diane insisted that we could not go for a long walk in case Aimie went into labour, and we had to get back to the car. We had a picnic (two meters apart of course) Aimie brought a rather nice cake that she and ‘Tilda had baked. ‘Tilda didn’t come. We thought that she might not grasp the concept of “social distancing”.

It was good to meet up with her after this time. Hopefully by the time the twins are born things will have relaxed enough so that we can go and see them.

Day 64 Tuesday 26th May

There has been a bit of a hiatus in posting. This has not been due to an unauthorized trip to Barnard Castle. It has mainly been due to the sudden social whirl that we find ourselves caught up in. Tonight was dinner at the allotment with Chris and his partner. Charlotte cooked us am excellent vegan supper. We brought the Prosecco and the crisps.

It was ten o’clock and almost dark by the time we left. Apart from being bitten by something or things, it was a lovely night.

Day 65 Wednesday 27th May

Quiet day. I didn’t have much to do work wise. Diane had a Zoom meetup with some of the girls that she went to school with. I find it remarkable that fifty years after they left school almost everyone in the class is still in touch with each other. While that was going on I took myself off to the allotment to water it.

Day 66 Thursday 28th May

I’m getting a bit fed up with lockdown, more than fed up with the mendacity and incompetence of our government but at least there is some good news today if you are an AFC Wimbledon fan

“We’re AFC Wimbledon, and we’re on our way home”
Hopefully our first game back at Plough Lane will be in front of a full stadium and not behind closed doors. The build is coming along.

Covid-19

LOCK-DOWN U.K. Days 58-60

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First things first, the quiz answers!!

Answers

Capital Cities
  1. Bern
  2. Kampala
  3. Honiara
Water
  1. The Arctic Ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean, the North Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the South Atlantic Ocean, the South Pacific Ocean, and the Southern Ocean
    (Cape Horn and Cape of Good Hope are the two great capes)
  2. Lake Baikal (it contains about 22 to 23%) of the worlds fresh water)
  3. The Suez Canal
Mountains
  1. The Dolomites
  2. Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the Southern Hemisphere (and also in the Americas) at 6,959 m (ca. 22,841 feet). It is in the Andes mountain range, in the province of Mendoza, Argentina.
  3. A mountain in Scotland over 3000 feet (ca. 914 metres). 
Flags
  1. Vanuatu
  2. Solomon Islands
  3. Tonga
Day 58 Wednesday 20th May

It has been very hot and dry for the past few weeks. At least that is the way it seems. From October to March all it seemed to do was rain. Am I the only person who is wondering if our Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter have been replaced with a wet season and a dry season.

I did some shopping in Sainsbury’s in Wallington, and bumped into an old friend. It was good to catch up with him, but the main thing I noticed was his hair. He obviously does not trust his partner to cut it.

I went up to the allotment in the evening to water everything. I watered half of it, made a cup of tea while the water tank filled up, then finished off watering the other half. A very pleasant and relaxing hour and a half.

Day 59 Thursday 21st May

Not too much happened today. The work that should have been done today got done yesterday, so all I had to do was write all the reports up.

I had a call from my friend Mike, who I usually meet up with, on Thursdays for a beer. The Duke’s Head is closed and probably will remain so for the next couple of months, at leas. so we haven’t seen each other for nine weeks. If the next phase of lockdown easing allows more getting together, I might invite him over for a beer in the garden.

Day 60 Friday 22nd May

The bedroom is finally complete. The carpet was laid today, and it all looks pretty good.

Just need to put the furniture back in.

We finished the day with a trip to the allotment, watering, weeding and a cup of tea, with some rather nice shortbread that Diane’s daughter had sent us. We also picked some radishes, which are the only thing that is actually ready at the moment.

Covid-19

LOCK-DOWN U.K. DAY 57

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Day 57 Tuesday 19th May
Bike with ‘T’ Bag

After a hard days work, ensuring that the NHS. Or at least some of its pressure vessels were safe, I arrived home to discover that I needed to rescue a damsel in distress. Diane had gone shopping, on her bike, but had inadvertently, bought more than her bike could carry. I had to get my bike, and the ‘T’ bag and toddle down to Lidl to carry the surplus home. Damsel rescued, we came home and made supper. That’s not quite true, Diane had made a sweet potato and chick pea curry earlier. All we did was heat it up and cook some rice.

A family Zoom quiz completed the evening. We each had to produce ten questions on a specific subject. Mine was Geography. My questions are below. Put your answers in the comments (if you want to it’s not compulsory). Oh, and no Googling.

Geography

Capital Cities
  1. What city is the capital of Switzerland?
  2. What city is the capital of Uganda?
  3. What city is the capital of The Solomon Islands?
Water
  1. To be a true seaman (or woman) you should have sailed the seven seas and rounded the two great capes. Name the seven seas.
  2. Which lake contains the largest volume of fresh water?
  3. Where would you find the Great Bitter Lake?
Mountains
  1. The branch of the Alps that extends into North East Italy are known as what?
  2. What is the highest mountain south of the Equator?
  3. What is a Munro?
Flags

Name the country. There are at least two things that link all three countries.

a)

b)


c)

I’ll publish the answers in the next blog post

Covid-19

LOCK-DOWN U.K. Day 56

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Day 56 Monday 18th May

With no decorating to do we are at a bit of a loose end. Obviously, we can’t hop in the van and head off to the coast for the day. Nor can we visit family, much as we would like to. So, we changed the bed linen and did the laundry. This is what an exciting morning looks like in locked-down Britain.

Garden centres are open again, so, we wandered off to one of the local ones this afternoon. We were too late, it had been stripped bare by a swarm of locusts over the weekend. We did manage to find some plants that we wanted, some flowers for the garden at home and runner beans, courgettes, and sweet potatoes for the allotment.

The trip was cut slightly short because I had to be back home by four for a conference call. Work was outlining a few changes in our working practices brought about by the changes in government guidelines. It seems like we are almost back to normal, except the 2-metre rule still applies.

We needed to go up to the allotment to water and put the plants we had bought in. It was a beautiful evening, so we decided to take our dinner up to the allotment and cook it there. There is a single burner gas hob in the shed, so as long as it could be cooked in a single pot we would be fine. A packet of tortellini and a jar of pesto fitted the bill. Some Sauvignon Blanc to wash it down, and we had a dinner fit for gardeners.

Allotment Dinner

It felt a bit more special than if we had cooked it at home and eaten in the garden. For the first time in eight weeks we were “dining out”.

Covid-19

LOCK-DOWN U.K. Days 52–55

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Day 52 Thursday 14th May

I should try to keep more regular when writing this blog. I can’t remember much about what I did on Thursday. Could be a sign of age, or just that nothing much actually happened on Thursday.

I did have difficulty finding one site that I needed to visit. It was a workshop, tucked away in the middle of a maze of streets, alleyways, and cul-de-sacs. I did find it eventually. I probably should have, like Theseus, unravelled a ball of string behind me to help me find my way back again.

That was about as exciting as it got on Thursday. At the centre of the labyrinth was an air receiver not a Minotaur.

Day 53 Friday 15th May

Today was a day for rejoicing. We have finally finished decorating the bedroom. The bunny rabbit (hares if you are being pedantic) wallpaper has been pasted on the final wall, and we are done with papering and painting.

Bunny Rabbit wallpaper

We still need to get the carpet fitted. That has been ordered. A nice grey colour. We should just about manage Fifty Shades of Grey by the time we have finished. The carpet fitters assured us that it can be fitted within the requirements of keeping two meters apart. We let them in, they will go straight upstairs with the carpet, and fit it. It should work.

We probably should have celebrated with champagne, but settled for a take-away from Chennai Dosa and a couple of beers.

Day 54 Saturday 16th May

We spoke too soon about being finished decorating. We discovered that we had forgotten to paint inside the top part of the wardrobes, where the ceiling had been plastered. Still, it didn’t take too long. The afternoon was cleaning and putting all the decorating equipment away. We had a trip up to the allotment for a cup of tea (and some watering and weeding).

We also picked the first crop of the year, radishes. They look and taste the part.

Diane’s son and his partner came round for a drink about six. We think that is allowed within the current guidelines, provided we kept two meters apart, which we did. It was enjoyable, partly because it was good to see someone other than each other for a change. Partly because it felt like normal life might return some day.

Day 55 Sunday 17th May

Our body clocks went a bit haywire this morning. We woke up at seven o’clock, which is way too early for a Sunday morning. We had a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit, then dozed off again until a more appropriate time to get up.

The family Sunday Lunchtime Zoom had a theme of Aliens and Robots. It was originally supposed to be just Robots, but Diane’s robot ended up looking more like an alien, so she changed the theme.

The Zoom meeting ended up as a four-way WhatsApp video call. Zoom was not behaving. Still, we got to see everyone’s robots. Here are ours.

Alien vs Robot

Apparently, we were not the only people to have Zoom problems today. According to the Guardian: “UK Covid-19 briefing hit by Zoom technical issues”.

We had a quiet Sunday afternoon, apart from cleaning the pond, followed by a Way Up Zoom chat. We would normally meet at All Bar One in Wimbledon, but it’s the best we can manage at the moment. Zoom behaved itself this time — apart from throwing Diane (who was the host out of the meeting). We carried on without her, she did come up stairs and share my screen.

That brings us up to date with my life in Lock-Down London.

Covid-19

LOCK-DOWN U.K. Days 47–51

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Day 47 Saturday 9th of May
Decorating 😠

More wallpaper has been applied to the walls.

There is a fallacy promoted, partly by DIY stores, but also, I think by the general population, that anyone can paint and decorate, and do as good a job as a professional. Why bother paying someone who has had proper training, and who does the job every day of the week, hundreds of pounds, when you, who have had no training (does watching a video on YouTube count as training?) and decorate a room every other year, can get the same results as a professional decorator.

I’m giving up with it. We’ll finish this room, but next time I’m getting someone who knows what they are doing.

The wall paper is now all up, more or less. Sometime, probably on Monday we will paint the walls. Then all we need to do is order a new carpet and get a carpet fitter to fit it. Oh, and transfer all furniture back into the room.

Day 48 Sunday 10th of May

Today was a rest day, what with it being Sunday and all. We had a lie in, got up and made ourselves a proper cooked breakfast, which we ate while listening to Cerys Mathews on Radio 6. All that was missing was the Sunday Papers. A trip to the allotment in the afternoon helped restore some kind of sanity.

Bozo tries to do his Churchill impersonation (and fails)

Our Prime Minister made a sort of announcement this evening. No one is really sure what he said or meant, probably not even himself. Apparently you are supposed to go to work, unless you can stay at home. You should not use public transport, but ideally cycle or walk instead, or more likely drive, if you have somewhere to park. If your commute is 25 miles, not unusual in London, unless you are a fairly fit and fast cyclist, that is not going to happen. People are going to ram themselves onto public transport.

A cynical , but not necessarily wrong. way of looking at it would be to say if you have the privilege, that allows you to sit at a computer all day, stay at home and stay safe. Peasants get back to work, if you die you died for the noble cause of saving Boris’ face.

Day 49 Monday 11th of May

We finished the painting in the bedroom today. Bought and fitted a bit of skirting board to replace the bit we found was missing, and that was about it. Apart from making Spaghetti Bolognese for dinner. Actually it was Linguine Bolognese, because we didn’t have any spaghetti.

Day 50 Tuesday 12th of May
Stay safe, stay out of hospital

Half a century of lockdown days. We don’t appear to be any closer to getting on top of it, although the government thinks we are. My sister says that she has a little spare capacity in her ICU, so possibly it is easing slightly. She posted this earlier, with the request that people didn’t try and fill the place again.

Having listened to and read yesterdays spin, I still don’t know where we are. It’s Tuesday so back to work. I decided that a soundtrack of Scottish and Irish folk music, with a little bit of Americana was what I needed rather than Radio 4.

Day 51 Wednesday 13th of May
Back to work peasants

This seems to sum up where our government is about with the return to work.

I’m getting fed up of the lockdown. We should be in Spain or possibly France in the Big Green Bus at the moment. We would dearly love just to jump in the van and go somewhere, anywhere, even for a single night away. We can’t and I accept the reasons why we can’t. If you did an honest risk assessment, it would probably conclude that there was less risk of transmitting Covid-19 by two people, self sufficient in a van, keeping their distance from others, than in a crowded bus or tube train, with or without masks. The problem is that it wouldn’t be two people, it would be thousands. I am sure that it is more than Diane and I who would like to head down to the coast.

Other things

I also discovered today that a mouse is a much more useful computer accessory than a cat.

Covid-19

LOCK-DOWN U.K. Days 42–46

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Day 42 Monday 4th of May

We carried on with the decorating. It will be finished some day. We changed our mind about the colours we were going to use. Goose Down we decided was too pale and also looked blueish rather than grey. The door and the skirting boards are now Chic Shadow.

Possibly we could have gone with a few more shades, but we were worried It could have turned into Fifty Shades of Grey.

In the evening we had a fancy dress Zoom birthday party for one of Diane’s nieces. It worked better than you might think that it would.

Day 43 Tuesday 5th of May

Tuesday meant back to work, boring, but it does give me a bit of a change from the sameness of lockdown. It also makes life seem a bit more normal.

In the evening, before dinner, we took our bikes and some wine up to the allotment. We had a very pleasant hour or so, drinking our wine, interspersed with a bit of light weeding and watering.

Day 44 Wednesday 6th of May

Today I drove round the M25 to Caterham and back. The sat-nav told me Take the M25, the traffic is light. I would not normally have taken the M25, but it was incredibly light. However, I shouldn’t have been driving round the M25 in the Little Lilac Car. We should have been in the Big Green Bus on board this:

We should have been on our way to Bilbao to start our holiday. Covid-19 put paid to that. I’m not sure when the Big Green Bus will next get an outing. Sometime before the summer is over, hopefully.

Day 45 Thursday 7th of May

Diane woke up about five o’clock and couldn’t get back to sleep. She decided to paint the wardrobes. This worked out well for me, I got woken up with a cup of tea. Very pleasant way to wake up.

Our I.T. department has finally sorted out the problem with uploading our reports. It was a bit of an involved and long-winded process, but we got there in the end.

We watched a good film “Material” in the evening. I think it is only available on Netflix.

Day 46 Friday 8th of May

The May Day bank holiday was converted to the 75th Anniversary of VE Day Bank Holiday, for this year only. I’m not sure what was planned before the lock-down, but it seemed to sort of work. We had a physically distanced afternoon tea. Fish fingers, chips and beans, followed by stewed rhubarb, seemed an appropriate choice for supper.

In the morning we started putting the wallpaper on the walls. By lunch-time we had done one wall. Hopefully we will get the rest done tomorrow. We are getting there.

Covid-19, Football

LOCK-DOWN U.K. DAY 41

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Day 41 Sunday 3rd of May

Today should have been a pretty special day. It should have been the last game of the 2019 – 2020 season. We (AFC Wimbledon) were supposed to be playing Coventry, who would, possibly, have been champions elect, and we would, of course, have been safe from relegation. For the last game of the season, we arrange a hospitality meal before hand. This year the EFL had decided upon a midday kick-off for all League One games, I was looking forward to my brunch. Covid-19 and lock-down put paid to all that.

Above and beyond all that, today would have been our last ever game at Kingsmeadow*. Kingsmeadow has been too small for us for years, the ground only holds 4,850. We sell out the home areas most games. We can have a maximum of about 600 away fans. Not every team fills the away end, Fleetwood and MK usually struggle to bring 100, but some clubs, Sunderland, Portsmouth and Ipswich would bring 2000 if we had the capacity. The stadium and it’s facilities are tired, the sight lines are abysmal, especially from the Rygas terrace, The hot tap on the sink in men’s toilet at the Chemflow end hasn’t worked for years. I could go on. We will all be glad to move back to Plough Lane next season (whenever it starts) but Kingsmeadow helped us move from being a crazy dream in 2002 to being an established Football League club in 2020. A lot of people will shed a tear at our departure.

Every one will have their particular favourite memories of Kingsmeadow. Mine is a bittersweet one. It is our 4-2 victory over West Ham in the cup last season. It was also the last time I saw my friend Steve. He died suddenly a couple of days after the game.

It does seem a a bit of an anti-climax to think that the last game there was a boring 0-0 draw against Bolton.

Hopefully this lockdown will be over by the time Plough Lane opens. I would hate to think of Will Nightingale leading the team out for our first game to the sight and sounds of empty stands.

I will leave this video that the club made to commemorate our time at Kingsmeadow.

*It is possible that the team has not played its last game at Kingsmeadow. If closed door games are played either to finish this season, or at the start of next season, I could see them being played at Kingsmeadow.