So, March ends. Now, what horrors await in April?
Took the hounds out for a longer solo walk yesterday. Theo was pulling on the lead quite a bit to start with, but my iffy knee felt FINE and so I proceeded to walk all the way up onto the top of Hingston Down and along as far as Drakewalls before turning for home. It was pretty quiet, though I did see a few walkers at a distance here and there.
The walking seemed very pleasant at the time, but NOW my knee has decided it was cruel and unusual, and doesn't want to walk up or down stairs. You could have said something at the time, O awkward and irritating joint! Hounds are having to make do with the garden today: Theo helped me dig up some bramble roots. In retrospect, possibly use of the garden fork at this point was also a bad move.
He was running around the place, moving the plastic flowerpots about earlier, while Rosie whinged her complaints at not having had her constitutional. I later got Pp to help me me perambulate them a short distance later, just to shut her up, which it did: she's now asleep in front of the fire, while Theo plays with Fankil cat.
I'd take a photo, but as so often when they are playing, it's really too dark and I don't want to spook them using the flash. So here is Theo earlier when I was getting him to play fetch by chucking alternatively Squeaky Frog and Squeaky Owl. SO is the favorite, because newer, and I think also because unlike Frog, Owl has a wide variety of textures, so is more interesting to chew. Though apparently not as interesting as this catnip mouse stolen from the cats. Theo loves catnip.
I tried to have a quick look at the Suttons Seeds website today, but it's got a queuing system in place, same as the Milk and More one did last week. I can see queuing for milk and bread, in the first alarmed rush of people needing to feed their whole family at home for weeks, but was a little surprised by the rush on seeds. I do have a few impulse-bought packets of annuals already, plus the garden is heaving with plants that just need a bit of pruning and encouragement, so I think I shall leave the queues for those whose gardens are empty.
New astonishing things this week: Gatwick airport closing: so swift the change from 'we must have more airport capacity' to 'mothballs'. And on a much smaller but still astonishing level, Pp telling me he agrees with a news story on the front page of the Guardian! (About the police being told not to randomly enforce their idea of what they think isolating should mean, but follow the law properly).
The hyperlocal attitude that the virus is being spread by 'outsiders' is rather distressing too, particularly when it means that carers for the elderly, bin men etc are being insulted or spat on for 'bringing it here'. Ugh. I suppose it should not be a surprise that frightened people in time of trouble latch on to magical thinking and xenophobia, and yet. They must have noticed that they are not eating food exclusively grown and bought in their village, are using many services outside of it, surely!
Am slowly watching my way through 'The Untamed' on the recommendation of, well, lots of people. Sad sword wizards in Fantasy China.
I've not watched much Chinese drama before, so it took me a while to get my head around the names. It is very pretty, though I was slightly disconcerted at first the way that names and locations popped up on the screen and there were glowing blue rotating artifacts like computer game items. Also, I think this may be a convention, the idea that you have say four people convened to discuss something, and then the camera focuses in on just two of them, and the other two people... stand there silently looking as if they have been suddenly taken with a Philosophical Moment and aren't at all listening to the conversation right in front of them? But I got used to it, and I'm enjoying the prettiness and the dramatic plot and the funny and sad contrast moments. I did have a theory for a while that the sword wizard magic somehow kept their clothes clean. But now I've got to about episode... 40ish, I think, and people are now showing signs of actually getting grubby, so perhaps it wasn't.
The walking seemed very pleasant at the time, but NOW my knee has decided it was cruel and unusual, and doesn't want to walk up or down stairs. You could have said something at the time, O awkward and irritating joint! Hounds are having to make do with the garden today: Theo helped me dig up some bramble roots. In retrospect, possibly use of the garden fork at this point was also a bad move.
He was running around the place, moving the plastic flowerpots about earlier, while Rosie whinged her complaints at not having had her constitutional. I later got Pp to help me me perambulate them a short distance later, just to shut her up, which it did: she's now asleep in front of the fire, while Theo plays with Fankil cat.
I'd take a photo, but as so often when they are playing, it's really too dark and I don't want to spook them using the flash. So here is Theo earlier when I was getting him to play fetch by chucking alternatively Squeaky Frog and Squeaky Owl. SO is the favorite, because newer, and I think also because unlike Frog, Owl has a wide variety of textures, so is more interesting to chew. Though apparently not as interesting as this catnip mouse stolen from the cats. Theo loves catnip.
I tried to have a quick look at the Suttons Seeds website today, but it's got a queuing system in place, same as the Milk and More one did last week. I can see queuing for milk and bread, in the first alarmed rush of people needing to feed their whole family at home for weeks, but was a little surprised by the rush on seeds. I do have a few impulse-bought packets of annuals already, plus the garden is heaving with plants that just need a bit of pruning and encouragement, so I think I shall leave the queues for those whose gardens are empty.
New astonishing things this week: Gatwick airport closing: so swift the change from 'we must have more airport capacity' to 'mothballs'. And on a much smaller but still astonishing level, Pp telling me he agrees with a news story on the front page of the Guardian! (About the police being told not to randomly enforce their idea of what they think isolating should mean, but follow the law properly).
The hyperlocal attitude that the virus is being spread by 'outsiders' is rather distressing too, particularly when it means that carers for the elderly, bin men etc are being insulted or spat on for 'bringing it here'. Ugh. I suppose it should not be a surprise that frightened people in time of trouble latch on to magical thinking and xenophobia, and yet. They must have noticed that they are not eating food exclusively grown and bought in their village, are using many services outside of it, surely!
Am slowly watching my way through 'The Untamed' on the recommendation of, well, lots of people. Sad sword wizards in Fantasy China.
I've not watched much Chinese drama before, so it took me a while to get my head around the names. It is very pretty, though I was slightly disconcerted at first the way that names and locations popped up on the screen and there were glowing blue rotating artifacts like computer game items. Also, I think this may be a convention, the idea that you have say four people convened to discuss something, and then the camera focuses in on just two of them, and the other two people... stand there silently looking as if they have been suddenly taken with a Philosophical Moment and aren't at all listening to the conversation right in front of them? But I got used to it, and I'm enjoying the prettiness and the dramatic plot and the funny and sad contrast moments. I did have a theory for a while that the sword wizard magic somehow kept their clothes clean. But now I've got to about episode... 40ish, I think, and people are now showing signs of actually getting grubby, so perhaps it wasn't.