January - March
A mild winter
continued at the beginning of the year, so no transport difficulties for
Roger’s indoor bowls, though raising a full quota of players some weeks
required a number of phone calls. We also
continued to enter the monthly pub quiz across the road.
On Sunday 2 February
we went to the bowling club’s annual lunch, held again at Dumbleton Hall. It was very well attended this year, and, as
usual, good food and very well-presented.
On Thursday 20
February Teresa spent the night with Helen in
By
March, concerns were rising about the
The
bowls club Annual Quiz on Saturday 7 March went ahead with some limited
attempts at social distancing, but we were, of course, crammed in six to a
table. There were some
attempts at social distancing, eg the
On Monday 9 March we
decided voluntarily to self-isolate, as we were both in vulnerable groups, Teresa on account of her asthma
and Roger because of his age. The following weekend all the
remaining indoor bowls matches were cancelled, and the Government, belatedly in
some people’s opinion, introduced the formal lockdown on Monday 23 March.
Not
being huge socialites, our regime did not seem too onerous. Teresa
used the time to tackle some of the jobs around the house that take a back seat
in more normal times, and we tried to have some communal activity each evening,
eg music or watching old films. Nevertheless, we desperately hoped
for the younger generation’s sake that the tide would turn, and we could resume
all our normal activities.
Teresa and Juliet joined much of the country in clapping
for the NHS on Thursdays, and decorated our front window
accordingly. A similar thank-you in the porch greeted the delivery
men we heavily relied upon.
The
thank-you pictures were repeated in chalk on the drive until heavy rain washed
them away.
We have
a kind elderly neighbour to thank for one of our regular lockdown
activities. She has a large garden, and thoughtfully asked her
gardener to put a hole in the middle of her grassy area, provided us with a
couple of clubs and golf-balls and invited us to play a few holes of what I can
only describe as miniature pitch-and-putt clock-golf. We have
scarcely missed a day! We are pretty evenly matched, that is both as
bad as each other, but have had our moments: Teresa has hit four
holes-in-one and Roger one.
We had to
wrap up in March, but it got warm in April. And see! A
hole-in-one for Teresa, together with the evidence.
April – September
Lockdown restricted our activities. Jay was furloughed from the yard at which she
worked, but she had a horse to look after at another yard, and Roger drove her
there once a week to keep the car in order.
Though food shopping was permissible, we preferred to rely on home
deliveries (Teresa has used on-line shopping since it first became
available). Of course there was fierce
competition for slots initially, but Teresa skilfully managed our regular Tesco
deliveries with supplementary deliveries as and when wherever she could find
them – Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose all came from time to time. As a consequence, we only needed to venture
out ourselves a handful of times.
The first relaxation we enjoyed was on Saturday 9
May, when we were able to meet up with two other people out-of-doors. The weather during the summer was, of course,
generally hot and sunny, and we laid on a barbecue for Sam and Jay, sitting at
opposite ends of the sun-deck, and indulging in a rare celebratory drink.
Amidst this difficult background, Sam and Jay’s house
purchase went through, and Sam moved in,
finding himself able to work from his new home for a couple of months.
Roger’s bowling club
re-opened its green on 29 June.
Following Government and Bowls
Of the eighty-plus
playing members, about a third made it back on to the green. Many of the older members, of course, on
account of their age or medical condition of themselves or their partners were
effectively shielding from social events.
Roger managed to play a couple of times a week on average. Most members agreed that playing a sport they
enjoyed and meeting old friends and some new members was a welcome change from
the months of lockdown, and brought a promise of a return to more normal times.
Roger celebrated his
birthday on 10 August – strictly a family affair, but we did break some new
ground: a first taste of alcohol for
over three months, and, for us all, a visit to the village pub, where Roger
enjoyed a pint of lager for the first time for probably more than three years. Teresa, as ever, provided superb birthday
meals, and she and all the family picked some wonderful presents. Invidious as it is to mention individual
items, a set of garden lights (henceforth to be known as ‘the obelisk’,
fashioned by a local craftswoman, and an actual copy of The Times newspaper from the day of his birth!
On 7 September, some two
years after their first meeting, Jay and Sam re-visited the
Roger played the last few
games of his bowls season, and joined the small number of spectators to watch
the Men’s and Ladies’ singles finals.
October-November-December
In July Roger had his
annual eye-test and was told he would be referred for cataract surgery to the
right eye. He heard nothing more until
November, when the hospital called him in for a pre-op assessment on Saturday
27. This was half way through the second
lockdown, of course, and was conducted under strict Covid precautions and took
an afternoon of 90% waiting and 10% tests.
Teresa accompanied him, but they were separated half-way through,
waiting in different areas. The good
news was that he was assessed as suitable for surgery, probably some time in
the spring.
In early December both
our Skoda and our old Fiat passed their MOT and were serviced. They had done barely 3,000 miles between them
in this Covid-hit year.
December saw Teresa turn
seriously to Christmas planning, masterminding provisions and presents for all
the family for the festivities ahead.
On Tuesday 15 we went
with Jay and Sam to the Pheasant over the road for a Christmas meal. The Covid-secure pods had been decorated for
Christmas and heaters installed. The
food was excellent and a first glass of wine for several months went down very
well.
Our Christmas week
followed our traditional pattern (with the addition of Sam, of course, but
without Helen, who was rostered or volunteered to work shifts all that
week). Teresa provided magnificent
Christmas fare on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day, accompanied by drinks to
taste. However, in a variation which
allowed Helen to join us via Zoom, we delayed opening the presents until Monday
29: a lengthy ceremony but replete with
imaginative and appropriate gifts for all.
As has become normal, we ended
the year by time-shifting our celebration slightly so that we could combine the
festive spirit with a civilised bed-time.