Thursday, April 1, 2021

Running rough.


Wednesday night. The President goes on television to tell the nation what's been long expected. Lockdown will be extended across the whole country from Saturday for four weeks. Schools will close from Monday and then stay shut until the end of the Easter holidays. 150,000 non-essential shops will shut. The number of ICU beds will, hopefully, double from 5,000 to 10,000. Rather alarmingly for a politician he says ' We have not lost control ... but we can't be in denial either'.

This morning the postman stops at the front gate to say it's has last day on this round. He's got a promotion and will be moving to a desk job in the post office twenty miles away. This, it seems, means he won't need to get up at four every morning in all weathers.  He was one of those always cheerful type of people and this news seems to have made him doubly cheerful. I wish him well.


As Angus and Sophie  set off on our start of day tour of the village the Old Farmer shows up in the silver ' they don't make them like this any more' Mercedes. He's wearing a brown check shirt with a red 'pencil' tie,  a brown trilby, and shiny blue track suit trousers held up by red suspenders. A pair of blue check slippers finish of the ensemble. He's not bothered with socks today. Quite the outfit. Formality and comfort in balance. The venerable Ford Transit motor home was running rough on last weeks trip to Marseille. This morning is a morning for cleaning the oil pump and planning future journeys. I don't tell him about 'lockdown'. 


Sophie leads me down the hill. She is distracted by the dragon flies that have returned, en masse, to the stream by the waterfall. Nature is on a roll.


 

14 comments:

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
...dragonflies... surely you'll be seeing signs of autumn e'er lang! Did I mention that last week as I was gazing out the Hutch's windie, a left-hand drive car with French plates drove up the street? We do have quite a lot of cottages for rent in Dunoon. But that's quite the distance to flee the homeland! (Also dread to think of the implications for our untouched wee corner...) YAM xx

Virginia said...

Oh dear! Another month - how depressing. But how necessary until the inoculations make things safe. I hope you're well provisioned?

Lisa in France said...

Oh dear, indeed. Even if this was expected, it's certainly not welcome (although Sophie probably won't mind).

Angus said...

Any news on your daughter ?

Angus said...

We have enough dried pasta to last .... I hope.

Angus said...

You'd have to be brave to drive around in a French registered car., Can't believe they'd be welcome on some of the islands.

WFT Nobby said...

Was the Lady Friend on the trip to Marseille? On wonders how she responded to the motor home 'running rough'. And what she thinks of the shiny blue track suit trousers held up with braces... Très chic or maybe not!

Tigger's Mum said...

Lockdown, what lockdown?...I rather get the impression the politicos are giving up in Greece. There will be some lecturing and posturing, but it seems to be sinking in that the politicians have lost control of the people, irrespective of the spread of plague. Sophie's dragonfly-hunting pose is magnificent.

Liz Hamblyn said...

And enough toilet paper to last the next 100 years?

Coppa's girl said...

....and definitely enough wine and Easter chocolate!

Lisa in France said...

Negative! And my son received his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine in Ohio, so we had a pretty good pandemic day. Now we just have to wait until some enterprising soul starts offering hotel + vaccine packages - perhaps in Hawaii?

Coppa's girl said...

How lovely to be Sophie and able to contemplate dragonflies, and nature at it's best. How we wish that our lives were so full of such simple pleasures.
There has been much activity in readying rental properties here. We're expecting a further influx, over and above the French, Belgian and Dutch cars that have been arriving over the past weeks. Looking at a graph showing Spain's latest virus figures, it's rising again, from low figures. It will probably shoot up now that the holidays are upon us, but hopefully not sufficiently for us to go into lockdown again.

Linda said...

Spring has indeed come to your corner of la France profonde. Here there is snow on Ben Rinnes again, and heavy snow and gales forecast for Sunday. Scottish lockdown has now eased from stay at home to stay local. I doubt that's going to deter people from heading north for what they think are "empty" spaces. I know that people in Caithness, Skye and all around the over-marketed NC500 are dreading a repeat of last summer's inconsiderate wild camping and camper van camping with all the litter and ahem, "waste" left behind.

rottrover said...

Your stark photos today are quite beautiful.