Here's another "question-and-three-quarters for you" (!), dear Readers. Have YOU got a special room in your house where you've collected all your "lockdown souvenirs" from the heady days following the COVID pandemic outbreak of early 2020? What most people are calling their "COVID Room" ???? You can see it in many estate-agents' descriptions of houses-for-sale, these days, can't you: "has the benefit of a large COVID Room on the first floor", that kind of malarkey.
Most of us have a "COVID Room" of sorts, haven't we. Sadly, however, my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I have got to hold up our hands and say, "Sorry! We've missed out on that one", mainly because of leaving our large family home in Cheltenham on Halloween 2022, and downsizing to a much smaller, "suitable for old codgers", house in Malvern, with limited space available.
flashback to Halloween 2022: Lois and I shut our front door
for the last time at the house in Cheltenham where we'd
been living for nearly 37 years - poor us !!!!!!
So now, in our smaller house in Malvern, we're in the unfortunate, and rather embarrassing, position of simply not being able to afford the luxury of a separate "COVID Room" - as ridiculous as they may sound (!).
At least we've got our memories, and we cling on to them as best we can (!). [That's enough exclamation marks in brackets (!) - Ed]. And there are our photos of course. Incidentally I'm thinking of compiling a book of all the lockdown souvenir photos of all our friends and family, and acquaintances, plus delivery guys we have known in the UK, and other countries. People are telling me "It can't be done, Colin", but I say, "Anything I can dare to dream, I can bring about, even if it takes me a few years. I can dream it, I can do it!
So can you send me, asap, YOUR favourite lockdown pics, and I'll make a start [postcards only please (!)] at least!
How much can YOU remember from the "Lockdown Years", I wonder. Well, for starters, I remember celebrating my 74th birthday just 3 days after Boris [Johnson, former UK PM - Ed] announced his COVID restrictions. And if YOU had a post-70 birthday on that day too, I'm sure it will resonate with you just as much!
flashback to March 26th 2020: Lois bakes me a cake
for my 74th birthday - yum yum!
March 23rd 2020: Boris's COVID lockdown rules are announced
Do you remember the excitement of wearing your first face-masks? These of ours were a home-made job, knocked up by Lois - what a madness it all was, wasn't it!
May 2020: Lois "knocks up" a pair of home-made masks for us
Being both in our 70's, Lois and I were classed as "vulnerable", and I can see, looking through our photos that there isn't a single picture taken outside our house and garden over the following 3 months.
May 2020: as "vulnerable codgers", we were confined to
our house and garden for the next 3 months
And I can see now that the most excitement we were able to enjoy during this period was derived from looking pathetically out of our windows and seeing what our younger neighbours were getting up to.
Poor us (again) !!!!!
June 13th - we watch pathetically from our bedroom window
as one of our neighbours takes delivery of a shiny-new
Morgan sports car - poor us (again) !!!!!
Moving on, [Get on with it Colin! - Ed] I can see from our "lockdown photo collection, that our first ever outing from our house took place on June 20th, when we drove out to Pittville Park, Cheltenham, for a "socially distant" meeting with our friends Mari-Ann and Alf.
Look how "spaced out" we all were - and it seemed perfectly normal at the time. But how quickly we forget those times, don't we.
June 20th 2020: Lois and I leave our house for the first time in
3 months, for a meet-up with old friends Mari-Ann and Alf
in Pittville Park - look how socially distanced we are. Awwww!!!!
first picture of me for 3 months outside our house and garden,
in Pittville Park, Cheltenham, by the Pittville Pump Room,
built almost 200 years previously, between 1825 and 1830
Happy days! Well, happy for me - as a dyed-in-the-wool, fully paid-up introvert, I wasn't too unhappy to spend those 3 months "imprisoned" in a house with Lois, hobnobbing with each other 24/7, mainly hobbing but with some occasional nobbing, whatever that means (!), and just answering the front door to delivery guys.
But back to the present!
[Finally! - Ed] And I'm very much thinking of those heady "lockdown days" this morning, here in Malvern September 2024, because we have to go down to our local doctor's surgery today to book this year's autumn COVID and flu "booster jabs", which we'll be getting next month, in about the middle of October.
our local NHS health centre, here in Malvern, where this morning
Lois and I book our autumn COVID and flu jab "boosters"
Well, did you enjoy that "walk down lockdown memory lane" with Lois and me? I really hope so! It was a lot of fun, wasn't it, and a bit of a laugh too, at times (!).
[Funny, I seem to have missed that bit! - Ed]
But, laughter aside, there's a serious point lurking in here as well, isn't there.
I'm wondering, looking back, whether Lois and I developed our taste for being "nosey neighbours" from that time when we were "imprisoned" together 24/7 in our Cheltenham lockdown days. Like it or not, it's, suspiciously, the date we first became involved in the mysterious, some would dub sinister, "satanic" cult, inspired by, and led by, ageing film star Michael Caine, spiritual leader of Britain's thousands of "nosey neighbours".
flashback to the "Lockdown Years": Lois, one early morning,
at the bedroom window of our former house in Cheltenham,
as, still in our nightwear, we monitor the suspicious delivery of
building materials to one of our near-neighbours across the road
Satanic cult 'heavyweight', ageing film-star Michael Caine,
spiritual leader of Britain's thousands of "nosey neighbours",
seen here in his younger years, still honing his craft
I wonder.... !!!!!
And COVID, even after all these years, is still making headlines, at least here in rural West Worcestershire. Did you see these "gems" [Source: Onion News Local]?
Or did you see this "doozy" (!), just the other day, same source?
What a load of malarkey, isn't it - I ask you!
21:00 Lois and I go to bed on another old episode of 'Allo 'Allo, the 1980's sitcom based on the adventures of French café-owner René in World War II; trying to keep the peace between his German officer customer base 'demographic', the local French "De Gaulle" Restistance and the local French Communist Resistance, at the same time carrying on behind his wife's back with the café's two waitresses Yvette and Maria.
In tonight's episode, local Gestapo chief Herr Flick is having tea with his secretary, Helga. Flick is in a bad mood with her, because she burned his toast, for which she has to spend 10 minutes standing in the corner.
Naughty Helga !!!!
Later, however, we see one of this series' gloriously "lighter moments", we see Herr Flick showing his more sensitive side with Helga, as he discusses with her how the two might spend a relaxing evening together.
Tremendous fun, isn't it! [If you say so! - Ed]. And nice to know that even hardened Gestapo officers sometimes showed their more human side.
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!
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