“I think of every little trifle between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that trifles make the sum of life.”
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Have I mentioned that bedtime is my favourite time of the day? It runs in the family. We are an early-to-bed-family … not necessarily early to rise. My Mama gets so excited for bed that she squeals when she burrows under the covers. I’ve inherited that habit too.
One of my bed time wind-down habits is reading.
My current tome is Old St. Paul’s: A tale of the Plague and the Fire by William Harrison Ainsworth (1841). The details of 1665 London, during plague times bears much resemblance to COVID-times, I’m afraid, though also with an awful lot of wooing, ravishing and odd goings-on between knights, beautiful waifs and the occasional odd “poor plague-infested creature” who steals a kiss in order to pass on the “distemper”.
It was a HOT night.
Outside, foxes screamed. It’s an eerie sound, disturbingly similar to a baby crying in distress or a woman’s scream.
A hot night, disturbing fox-screeching outside and morbid details of the plague in my head, seemed to fit the rather apocalyptic feel of COVID-time.
Needless to say, it’s never been difficult for me to ‘live’ a book and so get carried away. Having survived the night, PHEW!, I’m thankful for the little details of life in #Lockdown:
-
Reconciliation with a dear friend, who I feared I might have lost in the crazy start of this pandemic.- Newly germinated seedlings peeking out of the soil.
- 4 ripe strawberries from our allotment – the ones the pigeons didn’t get.
- A tidied terrace full of pots and plants.
- Sunshine and a parasol.
- A good run after several difficult ones.
- Finding a chopped date piece in a low sugar rusk.
- A Zoom wine course with our favourite wine-guy in Cape Town.
- My cleaner returning after a 12 weeks absence.
- Friday night takeaways since Lockdown eased.
- Wednesday afternoon webinars with my Allaboutwriting writing community.
- Prickly bearded kisses from my Hubby.
- Dreaming of flights to South Africa (which takes up quite a bit of my time).
Every Tuesday I get an email from a French language site called Comme une Française. With every learning nugget comes a list of les trucs en plus – the extra stuff.
Do it now friends …
Write down the extra stuff, all the little details that have made you smile during #lockdown before the bigger things overwhelm.
SMALL PRINT:
P.s. I get especially excited about bedtime now that I’ve fixed my sleep. My wind-down habits are a big part of that.
P.p.s. Hubby informs me that it’s mating season for urban foxes – hence the eerie night calls.
P.p.p.s. On the 10th April 2020 I got the clippers, put the grade to 0 and ‘sheared’ my Hubby (at his request). For a while he looked like a character in Prison Break, but 7 weeks growth later and a beard added to the mix, we can no longer see the scars on his head and his parents have stopped commenting. No-one was harmed and £40 was donated to charity #lockdownhair .
P.p.p.p.s. Our horse trekking holiday to Tuva in July (South Central Russia, on the Mongolian border) is sadly cancelled (postponed) for the following reasons: COVID-19, Russian infection rates, flight cancellations, quarantine in Moscow, quarantine in Abakan, quarantine in England … let’s face it, we were thwarted.
P.p.p.p.p.s. If you are interested in doing an online wine course, contact John Grant from Wine Escapes. He normally conducts wine tasting tours in the Cape wine lands, but instead is doing something virtual during South African lockdown.
P.p.p.p.p.p.s. Sadly I missed 2 WhatsApp call dates with 2 friends (readers) in the last 24hours because they were not in the diary. Sorry, G and D. Let’s make another date please?
Nyamazela 