It boosted morale when our cleaner came back to work yesterday after a nine-week absence. I was so cheered by having a clean house that I cut the front hedge and made fagioli e tonno for supper, it being a warm evening.
I saw this plaque today and, as usual, realised how much I don’t I know. The picture isn’t mine: it’s on the Ranger’s house but he was at home and I didn’t like to intrude.
No sign of swifts over London but the Red Arrows did fly past this morning and I glimpsed a woodpecker on Wimbledon Common. When I was a child thrushes were common but I’ve only just realised they are rarer these days.
The explorer, Robin Hanbury-Tenison, was on the front page of The Times yesterday. He caught Covid-19 on a skiing holiday and nearly lost his life. Thanks be to God, he is at home with his wife in Devon and will celebrate his 84th birthday tomorrow.
Now the birds are loving lockdown. An uxorious pair of Great Tits eat peanuts from a feeder in the garden unfazed by us. The falcons nesting aloft Charing Cross Hospital laid three eggs. One has hatched and it seems probable that the others will not.
A friend tells me her mother is finding lock-down frustrating. She rails against her enforced seclusion; “but she’s nearly ninety and hasn’t been out of the house for years”.
When Bertie pounces on something that belongs to somebody else, he dances, prances and capers and I say sorry; but my heart isn’t in it; it’s an objet trouvé.
There may not be enough PPE in hospitals but popular economist, Tim Harford, has his own PPE from Brasenose. His columns in The FT and broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 are usually intriguing.
Exploring Wimbledon Common, it’s hard to miss the windmill. Some things never change. In 1799 an enterprising cove sought permission to build a windmill but he was refused because he didn’t submit plans.