Lockdown day 27 - Just social distancing/lockdown stuff...

It's a strange thing, isn't it, that a visit to a local shop has become a big deal? We went to Co-op again yesterday. It was Grace's turn to queue for twenty minutes and go looking for a week's provisions, and she came out another twenty minutes later with four bagfuls (bagsful?); a shopping list's worth plus things she saw that we'd not thought of before. (It's strange, too, that I even feel the need to write about it. Perhaps I have too much time on my hands.)

It would have been nice to use some of this shut-down time to get a few jobs done on the boat, but there have been problems of course. The leaky rinse pipe in the loo can't be fixed without the fixer coming down into the boat, and we wouldn't want that any more than he/she would. AJ Canopies have told me that, because of the social distancing issue, they won't send anyone out to replace the broken fasteners on our cratch cover. It's sort of understandable, but this is a job that's done entirely outside of the boat, and we could remain inside and be five or more metres away from their worker. Never mind, it'll keep. Kantara's not about to go anywhere.

Simon, on the other hand was happy to come out to take a look at our apparent 12 volt electrical fault - a "low voltage" warning light and buzzer which kept on lighting and buzzing when there was clearly no low voltage problem. The job was almost entirely carried out in the open air, and we kept our distance down in the dinette, so we all felt comfortable. Simon had already looked at this problem some months ago while we were back in St Albans, and he'd found a loose connection which he fixed. On this occasion, he could find nothing wrong. He checked everything, and voltages were spot on everywhere. The starter battery could have been better charged, he said. That was it. But it was reassuring to know that there was nothing wrong apart from the annoying warning alarm, and this is solved easily simply by turning the power monitoring system off. Over the next couple of days I ran the engine for an hour to charge the starter battery, and we've heard nothing from the warning system since then. Hats off to Simon!

I've dropped meditation off my list of things to do each day. I simply wasn't doing it, and I think the reason may have something to do with my coffee rituals, which achieve much the same thing in a more pleasing way: relaxation in a very pleasant, peaceful environment; fresh air and the sounds of the birds; music to please me; time to ponder undisturbed; coffee. Add to those the daily time of on-line prayer with our St Albans church, and I think I get all that meditation is supposed to deliver - and more besides.

I have a new way of getting back to sleep if I'm having broken slumbers at night. Apart from running through the alphabet and thinking of names of famous people (musicians, actors, artists) that begin with each letter in turn, I tried last night to recall the names of the boats that sit in berths opposite me when I sit at the end of the pontoon. Bob Doubles, Andante, ? , Auntie Rincal, The Pozzy, Charlton, Firecrest, Six Belles, Crusoe, ? , Heidi, Achernar, ? , Tuesday Evening. The question marks are for boats whose names I can't see. It worked last night, but I can't swear I got them all right.

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Lockdown day 23 - Easter togetherish...

I've started to feel that my long walks along the local towing-path and footpaths may not be entirely in the spirit of the social distancing rules, which sometimes use words that suggest not going very far, though such reminders are far from consistent. Still, I want to do what's best for everyone, so my walks are now confined entirely to the marina. It's a big site, so I can cover several miles if I don't mind the scenery not changing very much. At the very least, I can stride down to the gate and back, touching the gate as if to claim the full distance before about-turning. This involves a hill - okay, a bit of an incline - and a decent pace raises my heartbeat quite satisfactorily.

Grace and I did that walk yesterday morning. The air was thick with birdsong; so many different birds, and all so insistent.  The warm weather was pushing towards hot. Trees are in flower, the sky was clean and the air sweet. It was great to be out.

We joined Dagnall Street for the on-line Easter service, shorter than "normal", but very uplifting and challenging, and much of the rest of the morning I spent at my pontoon-end seat, reading, writing, listening to music, and often simply thinking, contemplating, and enjoying the quietude.

Grace prepared a superb traditional Easter dinner; the lamb we'd bought from the farm was top class. On this day last year we had Easter lunch with the kids at The Three Horseshoes in Winkwell. We were cruising, and they drove out to meet us there. This year, they ate together, we ate together, and we all met up later on Skype, and that made the day for us.

Karolina's with us, but she's behind the camera.

Lockdown day 15 - Coffee rituals, crossless buns and virtual churches

There's not a lot going on at the moment that's particularly photographable,

as you can see. I take a camera with me whenever I go for my permissible one-exercise-a-day walk, but the several possible routes are totally photoed out now. Even the camera's getting bored. It's a compact Samsung model, pretty old and much used. It zooms its lens out when I switch it on, and it opens a shutter in front of the lens. Except that, now that it's got fed up with being pointed at the same old scenes over and again, the shutter often stays shut, responding only to a sharp tap.

Perversely, it co-operated fully yesterday when I didn't have much to photograph during my afternoon coffee ritual at the end of the pontoon. The coffee and the music were just right, the sun was out and the wind was warm. The evening before had set the tone for Saturday,

and Saturday took the hint the next morning.

Come mid-afternoon, the clouds had rolled in, but did nothing to spoil things.

In fact, they enhanced the view.

What was missing was the birds. One lonely moorhen pootled around aimlessly.

The off-duty swan graced me with his presence. His missus was curled up on their eggs at the other end of the marina. 

And a few lacklustre ducks came as close as they needed to to see that I wasn't about to feed them.

The tranquillity was magnificent.

I'm not having an outdoor coffee ritual today. Grace has just finished baking some hot, crossless buns; something she'd not tried before, and made without the mixed fruit that such buns demand (Co-op's had a bit of a run on them recently) and without the crosses (not that we have anything against crosses, simply that we needed taste and substance today, not ornamentation), but very good nonetheless. I don't fancy the risk of losing my bun to some cygnine chancer (opportunist swan; I'm just showing off), so I'm eating it on board.

It's Palm Sunday today, not that many people outside of the Church know that. Of course, churches and other public places of  worship across the world are closed, but if they were not, churches would have been holding a special Palm Sunday service this morning.

We've been members of Dagnall Street Baptist Church in St Albans for 28 years, and still attend there when we're back at our house. What they've been doing over the past weeks of social distancing is no doubt similar to what very many others around the globe are doing; broadcasting pre-recorded services across the internet. So Grace and I virtually joined with many others of their number at 10:30 this morning to be part of that service. It was superbly done, despite the very artificial way in which it had to be produced. It's obviously very strange not to be seeing the friends and acquaintances who were sharing the experience with us, but it was far, far better than having no service.

Should any readers be interested, the service is to be found here.

Keep well, readers, and please follow social distancing rules.