Killing Time in Covid Times

Our blue eyed boy Bingo

It’s Winter already, though we’ve had plenty of time to get used to it with late May being quite chilly.

That’s not to say I’m looking forward to the next few months of cold weather in this icebox of a house, and being obliged to stay home with the pandemic still limiting movement.

I must admit that even I am getting a bit stir crazy, having not gone anywhere interesting for months; my weekly shopping trips to Victoria Market being the only outdoor diversion I’ve undertaken.

However, I have been keeping occupied with computer games and books, and tinkering with a new design for the Nu Country website.

After finishing the final book in Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy, an extraordinary literary masterpiece, I’ve been binge reading a series of detective novels by Alan Bradley, which feature 11 year old Flavia De Luce.

I am grateful to the friend who introduced me to the Flavia books, as I certainly would not have stumbled on them by myself.  He gave me the first book in the series as a present and I  enjoyed it enormously.

There are  eleven Flavia De Luce novels, I was pleased to note after reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, so I’ve stocked up my Kindle with several to keep me tided over with entertaining reading matter, and have become addicted to Flavia’s small village world of the 1950s.

Described as a cross between Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle and the Addams Family, the novels are set in the fictional English village of Bishop’s Lacey where Flavia and her family inhabit  the large manor house Buckshaw.

Flavia is the youngest of three sisters, the others being Ophelia and Daphne, her arch enemies, against whom she tests her knowledge of poisonous chemicals.  For Flavia, as well as being an unusual detective, is also a master chemist having inherited her Great Uncle Tarquin’s fully equipped laboratory in the east wing of Buckshaw.

Full of eccentric characters that include family retainers Dogger and Mrs Mullet, the Flavia de Luce novels are tremendous fun and a great escape from the real world which only seems to be getting worse.

Curiously, one of the computer games I’ve recently played also features a feisty schoolgirl detective called Jenny Le Clue, a fictional creation of successful (fictional) author Arthur Finkelstein.

This is a charming game with wonderful graphics, great characters and a long involved story. Jenny and her friends and family live in the fictional town of Arthurton and Jenny is the heroine of a series of soft boiled detective novels by Arthur J Finkelstein, solving cases such as missing eyeglasses and test papers. Jenny longs for a real case to solve and soon enough in the game the Dean of Arthurton’s Gumbold University  dies mysteriously and Jenny’s mother is framed for his murder.

The game follows Jenny’s adventures in pursuing the investigation into the Dean’s death to clear her mother and unearthing in the process the many secrets hidden in Arthurton.  It is one of the best and cleverest computer games I’ve played of late.

I also played two rather interesting and creepy supernatural mysteries set in Cornwall – Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle and Barrow Hill: The Dark Path.

On the home front nothing much has changed, with only Bingo the cat recently giving us some worry with his behaviour.  Earlier this week he would disappear for hours and efforts to find his whereabouts were in vain. He also was suffering from a  sore back foot with a wound around the claw area. Heaven knows how he came by it, but it didn’t seem like a cat fight injury.  Happily he has returned to normal over the last few days and his foot is on the mend. Perhaps he was avoiding us in fear of being taken to the Vet, but really who knows what goes through the feline mind.

As public venues slowly open up again I’ve been itching for a change of scene, so have booked to go to the Zoo later this month to see the new Snow Leopard cubs.  My reasoning was that with a limit of 2000 people a day, the Zoo will be sparsely populated, occupying as it does a wide expanse of real estate, so it will be ideal for photography practice and of course viewing the wildlife.

Speaking of photography practice it will be some time before the general public will be admitted to the horse racing - the only sport that continued over the course of the lockdown. Naturally I’m looking forward to the Spring Racing Carnival in whatever format it takes, but hope to be there in person for some meetings.

A 1960s Poem For These Times

Though personally I am not aggrieved or inconvenienced by the social distancing rules that are now in force across the country, I know that many people, unused to bountiful free time, find it hard to cope.

Thinking about those souls who find the lockdown trying,  a poem I read many years ago – back in the 1960s – came into my head, and struck me as being curiously appropriate to the situation of being stuck at home all the time.

It is called Summer With Monica by Roger McGough, a kind of love poem published in 1967.

Summer With Monica
by Roger McGough

They say the sun shone now and again
but it was generally cloudy
with far too much rain

they say babies were born
married couples made love,
often with each other
and people died
sometimes violently.

they say it was an average ordinary moderate
run-of-the-mill common or garden summer
but it wasn't

for I locked a yellow door
and I threw away the key.
and I spent summer with Monica
and she spent summer with me

unlike everybody else we made friends with the weather
most days the sun called and sprawled all over the place
or the wind blew in as breezily as ever
and ran his fingers through our hair
but usually it was the moon that kept us company

some days we thought about the seaside
and built sand castles on the blankets
and paddled in the pillows
or swam in the sink and played with shoals of dishes

other days we went for long walks around the table
and picnicked on the banks of the settee
or just sunbathed lazily in front of the fire
until the shilling set on the horizon.

we danced a lot that summer
bossanovaed by the bookcase
or maddisoned instead,
hulligullied by the oven
or twisted round the bed

at first we kept birds in a transistor box
to sing for us but sadly they died
we being too embraced in each other to feed them.
but it didn't really matter because
we made love songs with our bodies
I became the words
and she put me to music

they say it was just like any other summer
but it wasn't
for we had love and each other
and the moon for company
when I spent summer with Monica
and Monica spent summer with me.

In October when winter the lodger the sod
came a knocking at our door I set in a store of biscuits and whiskey
you filled the hot water bottle with tears
and we went to bed until spring

in April we arose warm and smelling of morning
we kissed the sleep from each other's eyes
and went out into the world
and now summer is here again regular as the rent man
but our lives are now more ordered more arranged
the kissing wildly carefree times have changed

we no longer stroll along the beaches of the bed
or snuggle in the long grass of the carpets
the room no longer a world for makebelieving in
but a ceiling and four walls that are for living in

we no longer eat our dinner holding hands
or neck in the back stalls of the television
the room no longer a place for hideandseeking in
but a container that we use for eat and sleeping in

our love has become as comfortable as the jeans you lounge about in
as my old green coat
as necessary as the change you get from the milkman
for a five pound note

our love has become as nice as a cup of tea in bed
as simple as something the baby said
Monica the sky is blue the leaves are green
the birds are singing
the bells are ringing for me and my gal
the sun's as big as an ice cream factory
the corn is as high as an elephant's
I could go on for hours about the
beautiful weather we're having
but Monica,
they don't make summers like they used to…

Roger McGough was part of a trio of Liverpool poets popular back in the 1960s. I have a copy of Penguin Modern Poets #10, The Mersey Sound featuring a selection of poems by Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten in my personal library.

Surviving In the New World

Bingo at the window gazing at the world outside

So far, so good in living in the new reality of the covid19 pandemic. The photo above of Bingo strikes me as appropriate for the lockdown across Victoria – watching the world go by from isolation.

I’ve hardly stirred from the house all week, but on Thursday took a death defying trip to the city to do some shopping at Victoria Market via public transport.

The Ivanhoe Station was deserted – in fact I think I was the only person waiting for the 11.44 am train to the city.

Deserted station

Likewise with the train – empty!

Empty train carriage

There was one other person in the carriage I travelled in and at every stop there were virtually no people, so the carriage remained empty all the way to Flinders Street.

With the city  pretty well depopulated as well, it was easy to maintain social distance as I walked from Latrobe Street to the Victoria Market. Even so I was not complacent and took care not to touch anything and sanitised my hands frequently.

At Victoria Market there were a few more souls shopping, but numbers were certainly down from a normal Thursday, so I whizzed through the deli, meat, and fruit and vegetables sections and just managed to catch the 1.06 pm Hurstbridge train  home from Melbourne Central.

This train was pretty empty too, so there was no trouble keeping a wide social distance from other like minded commuters.

I’ve been spending most of  the last week playing a new (for me) computer game, an odd Cyberpunk futurist adventure called State of Mind, which has kept me bemused and engaged with its story of transhumanism. I like the off hand references to William Gibson’s Neuromancer and the weird but effective graphics.

Though racing is barred for public attendance, it still continues in Melbourne and Sydney, with the latter forging ahead with The Championships.

This Saturday at Randwick features four excellent Group 1 events, including the great Doncaster Mile and TJ Smith Stakes.

I was going to preview the Doncaster/Derby Day meeting, but time has slipped away and I have neither the time or inclination to write it now.

With the weather turned wintry for the weekend, I am glad to stay inside and watch the racing action on my computer today.

Bingo is thriving and his usual pestiferous self, driving us to distraction with his demands for affection, warmth and food.

We learned recently that he has a remarkable memory, when he was due for his annual booster vaccinations.

He was asleep on my lap on the bed, when B, as quietly as possible, took out the cat carrying cage from a cupboard, preparatory to taking him to the vet.

Bingo heard the faint squeak of Brent lifting the cage lid, freaked, and hid under the bed. He knew what was in store, even though it had been almost a year since his last vet appointment. He totally loathes travelling in the cage, and also knows that he’ll be taken to the vet, where he turns into a different cat – a scaredy puss.