On account of COVID-19

“There was an old lady who swallowed a cow;
I don’t know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her!
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly – Perhaps she’ll die!
There was an old lady who swallowed a horse;
…She’s dead, of course!”

I Know an Old Lady, definitive version by Rose Bonne 1952

“You wouldn’t weld your car bonnet shut would you?” our plumber said, in his East End accent as he ‘sledge-hammered’ into our bathroom wall to find where the leak was coming from.

He was referring to the ridiculous 90’s decor technique of hiding bathroom fixings inside walls, making them difficult to get to.

Did I tell you we had a bathroom leak? Unfortunately the water leaked downstairs flat, into the den of an evil sorceress, who for many years we have been able to avoid. Now we are having to face her with just our wits to defend us and a lot of prayer.

And it’s all because of the latest novel Coronavirus – SARS-COV-2, ‘affectionately’ known as COVID-19.

Let me take you through my logic:

– Because of COVID-19 we went onto lockdown on 20th March 2020.
– Because we lost our serviced office we lost our guest room.
– Because of Lockdown we were at home for moth hatching season.
– To catch the moths we put sticky traps &cedar balls all over the flat (for years).
– When the traps and cedar balls didn’t work, we strategically placed our furniture to hide moth-eaten spots.
– To halt the moth invasion for good, our carpets came up, and wood laminate went down (when Boris announced level2).
– Because the carpets were hiding uneven floorboards, our large built-in wardrobe started coming off the wall.
– To stop the wardrobe from falling, Sharps Wardrobes came back (they built it in 2014) to rebuilt it.
– Because our flat has been both office and home for nearly 6 months, we had to make space for model boats.
– To mount the boats on the wall we stole 2 shelves from our spare room walls.
– Because we miss my Mama (also COVID’s fault), we decided the spare room needs to become a dual purpose guest-room-office.
– To deal with lack of space, we are selling our desktops and have moved to laptops.
– Because we are no longer renting an expensive serviced office, we have moved to a cloud server (physical server for sale).
– Because of Lockdown we noticed a dripping tap.
– To get to the drip, our plumber broke through into the wall.
– Coincidentally another more-than-drip happened, and water leaked down into the Evil Sorceress’s flat downstairs.
– To stop the leak the plumber came back and made another hole.
– On account of the holes in our walls, we are getting quotes for builders to refurb and fix.
– Because of easing of COVID-19 regs, builders are now too busy, and conveniently inflating prices.

All this to catch not catch the COVID-fly. I sincerely hope there will be no cows, dogs, cats or horses and certainly no death!

SMALL PRINT:
P.s. Our spare room alterations (to fix the mortar around the missing shelves, to make a fire regulation pocket door and create space for my Mama’s future visits) will hopefully begin on 21st September 2020.
P.p.s. The bathroom is another matter. Some builders estimate that they can only carry out the work in February … EEK!
P.p.p.s. In other news, we have more blighted tomatoes, so following a small crop this year, we are pulling them all up and bagging them for destruction.
P.p.p.p.s. Hubby’s chillies are looking good. His technique is to starve them of water and break off their leaves as if he’s a browsing animal. Apparently that makes them hotter in flavour.
P.p.p.p.p.s. Sadly, we will miss this year’s allotment chilli festival on 12th September as we are flying to Germany – yes flying! We are going for a sort-of-God-child’s First Holy Communion, which incidentally we can now not actually attend because the church is only allowing parents inside. Our trip has been cancelled and rebooked 4 times. God willing, we leave (masked and socially distanced) this Thursday.
P.p.p.p.p.p.s. We have 2 rather large pumpkins growing well, so hopefully I’ll be able to redeem my pumpkin soup faux pas of last year.
P.p.p.p.p.p.p.s. More on the evil sorceress one day – I’m scared she’ll read my blog.