Random Thoughts #2 - home thoughts from, well, home

With this period of enforced lockdown restricting access to news (when was the last time there was anything of substance reported that wasn't Covid-19 related) I have begun to realise how life must have been before the mass media.  While I still turn on the news I don't actually miss the lack of the details of latest events in some far flung ex-outpost of empire or the inability of some people to realise that shooting large numbers of other people is not a sure fire way to solve problems.  I suppose it's the curse of news programmes having a set length, they have to find something to fill the bulletin with even if it's pure drivel (or Donald Trump as it is more commonly termed around here).

It's almost like we have moved backwards in time to the long ago days of my childhood.  The skies are bluer, the birds sing more loudly and sound travels without being drowned out by the incessant rumble of passing, planes, trains and automobiles.  All that is missing is the sound of passing Blackpool trams in the distance and I could be back in Anchorsholme, in my grandparent's garden in the early 1960s.  For me at least the pace of life has slowed too, as I'm working from home, so no mad rush to get to the office, no worries about travel delays and very few frantic calls from clients.  I'm begining to see the attractions of my retirement next year.

Strangely I don't seem to have as much free time though.  The absence of work related time loss means we (that's Mrs E and I) have the time to take on those bigger jobs around the house and garden we had put off until we had enough time to start and finish them at one go.  So the extra free time bizarrely means I have less free time for the things I spent that time doing before.  The real bonus is that Mrs E and I haven't spent such a long and uninterrupted period of time together since we were students.  I don't disappear for a couple of days at a time to go to visit clients  and we are both home all day everyday.  It's a wonder she hasn't done me some serious harm for being underfoot all the time (only joking).

Even George and Barney seem to be enjoying us being at home all the time. Although they are not getting as many walks as before they are getting more time with their favourite humans.  We get time to play with them in the garden and if we are doing gardening things they amble around out there taking in the smells and hoping to catch a hedgehog (which we disapprove of much to their disgust) or a small crunchy rodent.  George has signed up as apprentice hole digger, he will move up to journeymen status once he learns to dig where we actually want a hole.

George (L) and Barney (R) say stay indoors like this.

While the cause of this temporary slow down is not a thing to be happy about in any way, shape of form, if you look hard enough there are some silver linings.  With clouds as dark as these it would be horrible if there weren't.

Stay safe everyone and I hope you and yours are all virus free.