Supsliskans in lockdown, week 5, 13-19 April 2020

Week five of lockdown started slowly on Monday 13 April but things then kicked off with a vengeance, with an appropriate illustration of what looks like the "collectible" shelves in the local Oxfam bookshop ushering in a wealth of illustrations, poems, and videos, most of which I was not able to transfer easily to the blog. 

Sylvia 17 April 2020

You might have to enlarge it to see the titles properly.

Love to all, Sylvia

Sue  17 April 2020

That's very clever, Sylvia - many thanks!

Here in NZ we are expecting some sort of announcement from the govt on Monday - which could see a move to a less restricted alert level.   But it would be sad if the gains made so far were lost.

I've found the attached - sorry it is such a big file - curiously soothing to watch;

https://youtu.be/vcBn04IyELc

Stay well everyone. Love, Sue

Tony 17 April 2020

Hey Sue – that’s totally brilliant. Absolutely made me smile. I’ll be sending it around all my friends. How on earth did you find it?

Cheers, and thanks again, Tony

Sue  17 April 2020

Hi Tony

Glad you like it! I can't claim any credit for finding it - Neil was sent it by a friend.

Stay well. Cheers, Sue

Angela 18 April 2020

Hello Everyone

Thank you Sylvia for the Books clip - it is brilliant and perfect for our group and for  Book Clubs too! The Beethoven is just superb, thank you Sue. There are some very imaginative people around.

Here is a short art video which hopefully will be of interest. Also a clip of the sort of exercise which appeals to me!

[883d9b01-1836-47b5-a617-7ebc8172ab04 (1).MP4 - 4 MB]

[VIDEO-2020-04-17-12-04-25 (3).mp4 - 5 MB]

I hope everyone is keeping well and sane! We have been so fortunate with the weather, though today is a bit cloudy. We were without our boiler for a week but fortunately our lovely local plumber repaired it while keeping 'socially distant'. The oil has also now been delivered after, at the request of the tanker driver, we cut back some vegetation along our track so that the tanker could get through - the joys of  rural living - so we count ourselves very lucky.

Our pond in the  garden is now looking much larger since we waded in and cut away loads of invasive vegetation. It's amazing how pond plants much prefer growing outside the containers! The very gymnastic squirrel who regularly visits the bird feeder with the peanuts was most agitated today as he had   dislodged it and he couldn't get at it. He did an excellent mime  to us to make it clear that we needed to put it back. The deer are finally leaving the tulips alone after nibbling a large number and we can see Marsh Harriers and even a couple of Spoonbills from the house looking onto Cley Marsh. So that's the Norfolk wildlife report for today.

Take care and keep smiling. Love, Angela 

Anne 18 April 2020

Hi Ange and everyone

Loved the art video, keep them all coming!

Am supposed to be at a Leeds Uni German Dept reunion NOW, cancelled of course. One of our number in USA sent us a link for a Zoom meeting so we could all drink to each other, but it' not working, at last not for me, and I'm not alone. Modern technology is not for me I'm afraid, but the glass of Sekt is fine!

Anne

Howard 19 April 2020

Dear All

It is great to keep in contact at this difficult time. Thank you for the attachments.

Mandy and I have been in self isolation since March 2nd - almost seven weeks. Thank goodness for technology though and the odd chat over the garden fence. Our Island looks wonderful in the lovely spring weather. Our first potatoes will be ready in a couple of weeks (Arran Pilot seed potatoes carefully grown in Scotland no doubt). We put them in pots in the greenhouse in Feb.

I have wrestled with Zoom and got it working finally. There seem to be lots of options which make it tricky.

Here we still have no cases of Covid 19 seemingly. The Island is isolated apart from freight deliveries. I don't feel complacent though. It is bound to come sooner or later. There are cases in Guernsey but the Bailiwick seems better organised than the UK. I think a lot of people thought it ironic that our beloved 'lets get Brexit done' PM was nursed by nurses from NZ and Portugal. Now he is elected he doesn't need to brainwash the electorate with 'lets get Covid 19 done'. I hope our wonderful UK academics come up with a vaccine before everyone else.

Anne, it does seem like Germany was much better prepared than the UK. I hope when it has all gone and the inevitable enquiry makes recommendations that they are not quietly shelved in some dusty civil service archive like so many before them.

I am looking forward to our next reunion whenever it is. I like meeting in Sheffield - it holds so many good memories for me. For me and I hope from all of us the decision to go to PgSLIS was a really good one. What a year we had.

Mandy has just finished listening to the Archers and she is worried it is going to finish because of lock down! Time to make some lunch.

Very best wishes, Howard

Jane 19 April 2020

Good to hear from everyone, and hope that you are all still well. I have enjoyed all the attachments and plan to send Beethoven to grandson (who plays the clarinet) and will check that the Art is suitable for granddaughter who will be 14 on Saturday and has asked  for art materials for her birthday. Unfortunately I have nothing that I can send on.

But I have entered the 21st century - with an online bank account (so that I could send Birthday money for Alice and elder son) and success with the self-service till in Sainsbury's. That is until yesterday when I had a packet of Ibuprofen (for the aches and pains of old age) and did not hear what the nice lady inside the machine said to me. The lad had to come across and help me by confirming that I was old enough to buy drugs.

We spotted a death in The Times last week which led David back to my family history, and he found out that the person who had died was my father's second cousin, and had links to coal exporting, quarries, whisky distilling and horse race training. In the meantime I have been pursuing my paternal grandfather's whisky-running during Prohibition. British Newspaper Archive online is an amazing resource. That is more than can be said for the new platform for Early English Books Online. Under the old system I was able to read all newsbooks for a particular year during the Civil War. Now I think you have to access them by title. Has anyone tried it? If so have you any tips?

Last week BT came to dig holes across the road, we assume to provide fast broadband for the buildings which were being converted from student hovel bedsits to flats. The work obviously stopped on the lockdown (or 'clampdown' as a friend called it - much better term I think). We met a father and very small boy yesterday who had been all round town looking for diggers now that the one across the road had gone. I felt similarly bereft. Now I just watch from my rocking chair in the window huge delivery lorries, and tractors pulling wagons of parsnips, sheep and hay bales going past. There have been two emergency ambulances in the last couple of weeks but we have no idea whether anyone has succumbed to the Virus in town.

To save our garden from being completely stripped of vegetation, I have volunteered to help in the Preservation Trust Museum garden over the wall. I did some weeding on my first visit but have now offered to water the borders as we have had no rain for weeks. My idea of weeds may not be the same as the other gardeners! The sun shines for a while most days but the air - and wind - is still cold, so no chance to sit out even in our so-called Garden Room without layers of woollies. Having been closed for a month, the DIY across the road has opened for 'Order and Collect' so my birds will not starve as I will be able to buy more seed, fat-balls and peanuts. The blackbirds must have young already as I am followed round the garden by the male muttering at me until I put some porridge out with which he then fills his beak and flies off to another garden. The wood pigeons sit below the feeders waiting for sparrows to drop seed and bits of fat-ball, and looking up perplexed when nothing falls.

So carpe diem, I say. No point looking too far ahead. But we will meet in Sheffield one day!

Love to all,

Jane