Lockdown day 40 - Five!

Well, I still haven't seen the new swan family but, thankfully, fellow moorer Sally Owen has taken some excellent pictures of them, shared them on Yelvertoft Moorers' Facebook page, and kindly allowed me to post them here.

So there are five cygnets. I think that the three eggs that remain in the nest must have been abandoned, but I hope to get up close today to have a look.

When we came back to Kantara in early March, we were expecting at some time to return to the house for a few bits and pieces that we'd not been able to pack into the car the day we returned. What we didn't expect was the pandemic that the Coronavirus became - who was expecting it? So we've been managing with a pretty limited... well, wardrobe for one thing. Now, however, we have the opportunity to receive a box of stuff from the house, put together by Jess and delivered by Steve, who is one of those relatively few fortunates who is still able to do his job. And his job next week will bring him up the M1, passing very close to us. Useful! Yesterday, Grace and Jess conversed on Messenger, Grace listing the things she'd like to have brought, and Jess looking for them and asking "This?"

It made me chuckle, but what struck me was, yet again, the weird and wonderful ways that modern communications technology is helping us all in this difficult Covid situation. Imagine being without it!

Okay, there were no answers given to my little quiz, but here they are now. The link between the recording of Bonny Tyler singing I'll put a spell on you and the 1970s children's TV programme - The Wombles

- is Mike Batt. I suspect not many people know the name, but you'll probably have heard his music. He's written many of Katie Melua's songs, and songs for Steve Harley, The Hollies, Art Garfunkel, Cliff Richard, Alvin Stardust and David Essex, to name but a few. And for the Wombles, too, an example of which is in my collection.

You may laugh all you want, but the Distill family are great fans of the Wombles, and have three of their albums. I'm a huge fan of Mike Batt, too, and have some of his CDs of him performing his own songs. I highly recommend that you listen - try here.

Let me know what you think!

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Not looking back!

Well, I put away the Christmas music this morning. I played for the last time my compilation of seasonal music. You know them from your shopping escapades - Slade, Wizzard, Paul McCartney, Chris Rea, The Darkness et al. But then there are some family favourites we never hear in the muzakal hubbub of Yuletide shopping - Trans Siberian Orchestra, Jon Anderson, Enya, The Wombles, The King's Singers.

It's odd, isn't it, how shops and radio alike stop playing Christmas music as soon as Boxing Day arrives? Thus I had my last singalong/playalong for an hour or so before stacking the CDs on the shelf (within easy reach, lest I feel the need for a repeat performance) in favour of Joe Satriani and The Wanted, newly-acquired last week.

Christmas was a great time, as always. Michelle, Christine and Mike (as featured in my "feet" books!) joined us for a few days, along with Sarah-Beth, C and M's daughter who had enlisted her cousin Jess's assistance in preparing Christmas dinner and tea - and Boxing Day breakfast - for us all. They were both novices - nay, complete newcomers - to catering of that magnitude, but the result was excellent, and not even tardy! Nome and Ed were with Ed's family for dinner, but joined us around the Christmas tree for pressies and games later on.

Christmas morning church attended and dinner consumed, presents were opened, games were played, nibbles were nibbled and drinks were drunk - and not one of us was! And we all fell into bed happily knackered at some late hour. Oops, we forgot the washing-up! That became my task the next morning before anyone else was awake. (In fact, it did feel like one endless task for four whole days!)

"Before anyone else was awake" was actually closer to noon than to a "normal" waking-up time, but all of us - apart from SB, who had to go elsewhere, and Eddie who had to work - went for a good long walk in the lovely, nearby Heartwood Forest, and this did a lot to clear the cobwebs. I would have taken more and better photos if so much of my focus had not been of necessity on avoiding the mud and puddles!

And suddenly it's all over. Friends and family gone home; back to work, some of them. Lights still sparkle in front-garden trees, in windows - some of them all over the house!

But they'll all be gone soon, won't they? January 6th, twelfth night? Sad, innit?

I'm back to clearing the loft and coordinating "the fixing of the sagging floor" (which sounds to me like the title of a mystery story!) I've still got several hours of writing to do to complete my latest book, "Out of the Dawn". I had originally hoped to publish it this week, but "the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley" (which is Robert Burns's Scottish translation of "shit happens")

And it's 2019. The Thames fireworks were amazing - all the better for being seen on the telly, warm, comfortable and accompanied by wine. The riverside crowd looked as though they were having a great time, but I would only have swapped with one of them if I had been paid a large sum of money! (No, it's NOT my age! I've always felt like that!) 2018 wasn't what we'd had in mind for it, but we're not looking back now. Only forward.

So what does 2019 have in store for us? Well, we got 2017 and 2018 wrong, so we're not going to be doing anything other than knowing what we'd like to do (a damned sight more boating than the past two years put together!) and pointing ourselves in that direction. We'd rather not have anything ganging oft agley, as best laid schemes are wont to do. (What schemes do mice lay, I wonder.)

A happy new year to you all!