'The Font' heads to the local 24 hour store and is surprised to see that a table has been set up by the cash register. Our new mayor, and the mayors of seven neighbouring communes,are sitting round it eating charcuterie and drinking wine. All of them wearing face masks pulled down to their chins. The supermarket boxes up the local old folks food orders and the mayors come at first light to collect and deliver them. The supermarket owner is throwing a 'thank you' breakfast for their work. The idea of 'distancing' has been forgotten . 'The Font' thinks of saying something but that Swedish Lutheran inclination to plain speaking is put on hold. It's never a good idea as a foreigner to row with your new mayor - and all his colleagues - and the 24 hour store manager - particularly in a pandemic.
Angus and Sophie meet the Old Mayor weeding the flower borders by the church. I ask after his wife. Seems that the five hip operations and the enforced idleness are effecting her 'morale'. She can't understand why her family can't come and visit. I wish him all the best. The Old Mayor is always cheerful.
In the 1980's 'The Font' bought some Easter Eggs from an antique market in Moscow. These have been rediscovered - in a bout of lockdown hyperactivity - and put on the breakfast table. One of them is made of fine filigree wire. How it was put together I have no idea. It is very old by delicate egg standards.
The Simnel Cake is unwrapped in readiness for lunch.
Liked this writing style :
'Angels in bright raiments rolled the stone away'. One of the greatest lines of Jamesian English and here is the Handel song that it's usually associated with. A piece of Easter musical perfection. Had never noticed that the boxes on the first floor have their own windows. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJqJrX58KPA
14 comments:
it looks like another beautiful spring day in France profonde. Let's cross fingers that none of the mayors have caught the virus.
The writer of the sourdough article makes many excellent points in his very accessible writing style, and thanks for the music from the Frauenkirche in Dresden - in an alternative universe, i.e. had the pandemic not hit, it's one on the places I would have visited last week.
Happy Easter!
Cheers, Gail.
Hari OM
May your day continue as it has begun - and may all who celebrated at the supermarket be fit and well in perpetuum. YAM xx
A very Happy Easter to all at the ROF.
Happy Easter to all at the ROF. What a beautiful egg, it's truly a work of art - A lost art perhaps?
And speaking of lost art, I wish I could try a slice of the cake. I can't be sure, but I have to think that the simnel cake is a forgotten Easter tradition, at least in my part of the US.
Happy Easter to you all.
It seems the small town mayors are setting a poor example for the people they should be trying to protect.
Have a very happy Easter.
(It is amazing the people who don't seem to think that the distancing applies to them.)
Perhaps it's just a very Scottish thing. It's certainly an old tradition that goes back to before the Reformation. Some cakes have eleven marzipan balls but we always had twelve - Jesus and the twelve apostles minus Judas. The one we had delivered has eleven - Judas still not being welcome. I'd somehow assumed that this would be one of those traditions that would have taken root in those parts of the colonies settled by the Scots and Irish.
What a perfect day for a walk in beautiful countryside. Our day began overcast but when the sun came out we took a quick stroll around the block. It's clouded over again and rain is forecast for the next three days, so we made another quick trip out. We have to take our opportunities when we can!
Hope the Simnel cake lived up to expectations - it looks delicious. Did Sophie manage to scrounge a crumb or two when no one was looking?
Thank you. And to you and yours.
Sadly, the Simnel cake has raisins in it so Sophie can only look and wonder.
They do however get up wait at the supermarket door before seven in the morning. Not an excuse but ...
You're right. More folks than we might imagine fall into that category.
Happy Easter to everyone at the Rickety Old Farmhouse! :)
At the bakery about 2 weeks ago, the guy ahead of me walked back toward me to take another look at the cakes. I stepped back to maintain distance and it annoyed him. He asked me if I wanted to tango. I told him my husband has cancer and I'm taking no chances. That shut him up. I've found that most people are very touchy about having enough space now. Still not many masks. The mayoral gathering completely at odds--just think, they would then pull up their masks with their most likely unwashed hands and go to vulnerable people's homes to deliver meals.
Re the inequality article, in a recent episode of her podcast Recode, Kara Swisher interviewed psychologist Adam Grant, and they discussed the same topic. He said something about retail shifting to more stuff being delivered, like the revival of the milkman (difference being that milkman was a middle-class job that could, alone, support a family of six and something to be proud of). She said that we were creating a new "servant" class--dog walkers, delivery people, cleaning people, assistants to take care of all manner of tasks, none of whom have benefits or job security and who must string together many such gigs to try to stay afloat. A Trump-voting relative who is able to work from home on his exurban acreage told me the stimulus and increase in unemployment benefits is bad because "most people don't want to work." Small business owners who were forced to close? Tough luck. Get out there and get a job delivering stuff. Risk is part of a business and if you can't cut it, you deserve to fail. People who were laid off, perhaps from a high-paying, high-skilled job? Get a job, any job, to pay your bills, even if you have to work 20 hours a day. There's quite a puritanical, retribution/punishment-oriented psychology among the lucky.
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