Life in confinement

I had a letter from MoJ Human Remains today, with three lines of formulaic thanks for my fifteen years at the hobby, and three pages of do's and dont's for retired Magistrates.  Sums it all up, really.

Meanwhile, doubly retired, I've been busy in the garden.  A lot of the seedlings are not far off ready to plant out, but since we're still having frosts, I'll have to restrain myself.  It's time to start sowing runner beans, so I'll need to contrive some space for them in the sitooterie.  The cold frames are likewise full.  I think I have homes for a couple of box cuttings, and for the over-wintered lobelias I potted up last week.  The warm weather of the Easter weekend and a few days before has given the garden quite a boost: the acer is leafing up well, and the tulips I found in the garage are flowering like mad.  They are in the bed that had previously accommodated some miserable geraniums provided by the soi-disant landscapers.  Can't blame the geraniums, but I certainly can blame the lack of preparation of the bed, quickly and easily remedied when I took matters into my own hands.

Up at the top of the garden, the self-sown willow is getting a bit big for its quarters, but it's a good enough shape, and yesterday I finally swept up all the twigs that had fallen off it during the winter storms.  The little ornamental cherry next to it is flowering, and on the shady bank, the primroses have finally settled in, together with one surviving cowslip.

Martyn had a go at the pond a couple of days ago, hauling out a vast amount of oxygenating plant.  We have at least one newt, and judging by the interest shown in the pond by our feline neighbour, Tiger Lily, there must be a frog or two in there as well.

Shopping remains interesting.  I got stuck behind numerous dithery shoppers yesterday in Fortnums, where the concept of social distancing seems foreign.  My makeshift mask will have stopped my passing on droplets, but of course won't protect me from idiots.  Vast amounts of R-swipe on the shelves, but not a grain of flour.  Martyn had the Waitrose list, and reports the same.

We drove down to the shops in the Egg, which had not run for fully three weeks.  It started as usual on the first turn of the key, and ran sweetly there and back, the coolant reaching and stopping at 90° as it has done all its life.  Said life has not been hard, of course: twelve years since we collected it, it has done less than 50'000 miles, and these days it barely does a thousand between MoTs.  Staying on matters automotive, the recent sharp drop in fuel prices prompts a wry smile: as one wag on the internet put it, it's a bit like giving me a prize of a hairbrush.  How interesting that the oil price cartel is the only area of common ground between the Untied States of America, the Russian Federation and that champion of human rights and the market economy, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.