Plague 43

Sunny Sunday now the grounds nice and soft planting can resume in the garden with my apprentice  hes grown so much the last few weeks hes looking me in the eye now...lol . hes staying for 2 more weeks at least due to his move up to senior school hes doing online training at the moment.
Mr BH in his best i know best mode decided we should go into town early Friday morning because he wanted to go shopping , hes not been anywhere on his buggy for months because i just cant lift his bigger chariot and the tight old git refuses to spend the money to have the proper hoist fitted to the car , grandson is however big and strong enough to maul the damned thing about . 
 Mr has no idea what its like shopping and just gets angry with me . He wanted to go to Boyes but they dont open till 10 so he had a strop , then he decided Wilkos was a good idea on his chariot , nuts and bolts being upstairs we had to use the lift he promptly demolished a huge basket of tea light candles started swearing at me while the horrified assistants looked on , not helped by grandson chiming up "hes always like this "  The other interesting fact due to the endless snail trails, barriers and one way system he couldnt get to the tills or exit the store , so once again he was off ranting .  After we got him out he just spent the rest of our time sitting outside the butchers and Heron scowling at me.  We had to listen to his whole disabled soddin access rant the whole time we were out , i did point out that he isnt supposed to be out anyway at which point i thought his head would explode .
So the atmosphere here is a tad frosty at the moment not helped by the fact you cant go fishing in lightning weather ....i wish he would it would be like a dodgem car at the fair !! 

Plague 42

So here we are at 42 which i gather is the answer to everything , somehow i watched Boris yesterday and im just as baffled as i was before i watched him , lots of meaningless graphs and statistics plus why is he so obviously dubbed it was like watching an out of synch foreign movie .
So now we are down to one metre which was pretty much what most people were doing anyway just on the grounds of you cant get 2 metres apart in most buildings these days . So pubs with a beer garden are reopening what if they have no beer gardens just a hut for the smokers because the brewery sold off all the land around them for housing , so a lot of town centre pubs are doomed , but this will be the end of the pub industry as a whole , most people have discovered the joy of alcohol by post during lockdown , plus its much easier to be a closet alcoholic . 
Ive noticed one sad side effect of the lockdown those over 50 are being targeted for redundancy by a great many firms ,along with those with pre existing medical conditions  and the fat .  One friend is having a really bad time she has never been out of work in her life and suddenly the national company she works for has put those over 50 on the redundancy heap , she has worked all through the lockdown 12 hours a day seven days a week  , but bye bye your to big a risk .  im sure our caring leader will shortly raise the pension age yet again to pay for lockdown . Its a bit of a ploy to make the economy look better by forcing the over 50s middle class to use up their assets to make it look better  .On a plus note the younger generation are starting to look a bit more attractive to some employers , nephew has managed to get a farm job collecting eggs and sarcastic son has his name down . All the eastern european employees went home once they realised that herd immunity wasnt a good idea . Plus i get duck eggs now as nobody else wants them , not a fan of them on their own but theyre amazing for cooking .
So where do we go from here? not a clue nothing much changes here , still plodding on . Though the persistant stomach bug everyone seems to be having mystery may be solved  . Its become noticeable that its happening whenever it rains and now we can talk to each other it seems theres most of the village has had the problem .  Collered the jogger who is an engineer for Anglian Water and asked if anything has changed in the water supply because if you go onto bottled water you get better rapidly , it seems theyre using a different make of additive at the moment due to shortages of the normal one . So ive emailed Anglian Water and am waiting for a response .

Plague 41

So its a beautiful sunny lush green morning on the fen . All the thunderstorms add the perfect touch to the garden , though the grass does need mowing badly , last year in the whole of summer the grass was cut just 4 times , this year its back to weekly . Ive pottered round and checked things this morning and the highlight is that the rain has lashed the greenfly off the apple trees , im hoping the really hot weather forecast for this week will cause the apple trees to drop otherwise its going to be a ball ache to thin them all . A reasonable amount of pears this year as it has glutted several years on the trot , plus its looking good on the plum front so it may be a major plum jam year if the wasps dont get there first , the raspberries are glutted but nobody wants them...lol theyre to busy moaning that i had virtually no strawberries
On the locked up front i managed to buy a couple of box lots  from a local little auction that was on facebook , no internet so i asked my daughter to go it was just up the road from her  , first time she had been out since March but she says its was great very social distanced and masks , everything was bagged up and it sat in her boot for the rest of the week , try not to laugh at my purchases .

Yep more dolls for my world of strange...lol   ..90s Ken is a plastic horror story but never played with , i love the 80s stencil sets . My first ever Bratz horror doll , i have an idea for her and it involves a hacksaw ...lol ..but it seems i accidently bought a couple of Sindys the blonde being an original early 60s one and valuable . But answer me this why cant Barbie keep her clothes on ? Theres a mountain of Bratz clothes and accessories along with their feet so i guess i get to play dollys come winter  

Plague 40

So Covid is now middle aged?  Im not spending much time online due to enjoying having grandson around , he flatly refused  to go home till he goes back to school and informs me its more important to grow food...lol
On another note he did rather rattle me the other night at 1am when he was woken up by the endless pissed up party next door and informed me that hed looked out his bedroom window and was ringing the police because they wernt social distancing correctly . That was a little to Hitler Youth for my liking so i pointed out to him that natural selection is a wonderful thing and he needed to do nothing except wait for the coughing and keep a good long way away from them all . We are just hoping that the party season has drawn to a close till next payday as three nights on the trot was a bit extreme and very loud .
Then we went disabled fishing yesterday and MR BH took a tumble  and it was a hard job getting him back up , all because he wanted a photo with his huge fish that his brother had landed for him , he was laid on the ground for a good 10 minutes with everyone panicking and me just telling them to leave him till the spasms died down before moving him , the swearing was so bad he wasnt about to die . Hes feeling it today and is on his emergency pain killers , 3 day rule if hes got circulation and feeling dont panic unless he cant wee in which case dial for an ambulance . Did have a conversation with the fishing pit owner later in the day who was horrified and I explained exactly what is up with him and not to worry to much , as he said he just though he was on crutches with a funny hip or something . BIL did comment that i was more worried about the fish at the time .
So im heading out for an afternoons gardening with the munchkin shortly , dont think i will here much from my other half as ive had to wake him up several times just to give him a cuppa...lol

Plague 39

So Grandson has entered the building hes been isolatting with his mum for the duration , not sure how long its for but he wasnt wanted back at school yet as there primary is quite a large modern eco building that doesnt have the space to have all the kids there at once , so he will probably get his rota days sometime soon . At which point common sense dictates we wont see him again .  Though Lincolnshire schools that have opened are already facing problems with staff testing positive for Covid and many have shut again . The kids seem to have no symptoms but are wiping out the teachers and support staff .
The ongoing problem at the moment is that theres also a nasty snot cold virus doing the rounds ,  so its scaring folks to death , if you have no transport theres no way of getting tested easily or quickly and the GPs have barricaded themselves in and pulled up the drawbridge . I suspect they will never know who has had Covid in rural areas around the country, but there has been no deaths for several days here , but quite a lot of new infections .
Now that a lot of the older folk and disabled are venturing out theres big gaps in the shelves again as they all stock up , seen quite a lot of folks on disabled scooters lugging bags of compost home from the little garage  laden up . It seems that in a lot of cases lifes settling back to a new normal just with gloves and masks .
Just hoping the sun breaks out a little later it would be a great day for planting after the rain and ive loads of sprouts and sweetcorn to pop in with grandsons help. I do like the no dig method so much i just lift up the carpet , burn off any weeds remaining and chuck the compost bin contents down pop in the plants then a few organic slug pellets down and mulch with grass clippings . The ~Potatoes are looking really well under much the same method , havent done many potatoes this year , planting much more squash and beans because thats what we use most of plus theyre easy to store and grow , kale and savoy cabbages because thyre another easy crop . If youve lived anywhere for a few years you get to realise what never thrives for you , cauliflowers have never grown here , flea beetle devastates carrots and other root crops plus the grounds like concrete because its an old river bank . this years weird fail is rhubarb but it will recover and appear again at some stage , to much sunshine as it emerged sent it all straight to seed this year despite taking off the seed heads 

Plague 38

Just a grey murk of a day , despite heavy showers yesterday and overnight and this mornings hammering it down the ground is still rock hard and full of huge cracks . So much for the plan to put shed loads of squash in today . Though in an effort to baffle the neighbours ive hung a load of washing out .
Weve had a few grumbles and moans from a few of the neighbours because we go out to shop , this is mainly because they assume that we have the kind of income they have and can afford the butcher baker and candlestick maker that deliver .
Now im starting to get a little fed up with them , we have one couple who should be isolating because shes a heart lung transplant patient of a few years standing and does get a lot of bad patches .  They are still on the old DLA system they get a big new car everytime they can , he gets carers but works cash in hand most of the time , shes currently helping him lay block paving to match next doors because the block paving they layed last year isnt the same colour . Their son bought their council house and now rents it back to them ?  Plus him and the kids have been popping round all through lockdown . So they have a much bigger income than ours .
 Next to them is the builder of the bungalow at the bottom of the garden , hes on benefits but works full time as well , but is a bleedin scary menacing gammon so nobody in their right mind is going to do anything about that .
For the most part our neighbours are lovely but im cold and fed up so i feel like moaning about something today...lol

Plague 37

RAIN its lovely the first rain for weeks and its even warm rain !! .  im informed that grandson is coming to live here for a while , hes been locked up since March they have no garden  and his stepdad and he are planning to kill each other .  Doubtless the neighbours will be ringing somebody to report us , but his school isnt opening , his parents are off back to work so what else can we do ? We have a huge garden , masses of veg to plant out and he can try his hand at bricklaying another useful life skill i can teach him ...lol 
Not quite sure what the latest load of cobblers devised by the government is supposed to acheive other than extending the plan for herd immunity ,  they have stopped the grocery delivery scheme for a lot of the vulnerable to try to force them out of lockdown i dont have the breath to waste about folks flocking to the seaside or stores where distancing is a myth . I think we are the watch and wait point of the virus , sunshine kills an awful lot of things and it will hopefully drop the figures right down . But with the endemic lying from our government how the hell do you tell ? You dont get more distanced than South Lincolnshire , but most people know of someone whos died .
I cant see a whole lot of people returning to the big high street retailers so many will go under , BIL family are all now jobless , they worked in the hospitality industry and there employer is one of the dead , they have received no help from the state as there furlough paperwork didnt get completed and they cant apply for Universal Credit  because of this, its sort of left them in Limbo. They  had an eviction notice and a visit from the Council Tax Bandits the other day.  Once upon a time you could fill in a nil income form and it stopped the matter going forward tll benefits were resolved , but once again its something that has been done away with quietly by the current government . Once grandads estate is sorted Mr BH intends to give his share to his brother to help them out  , its not a big amount but every little helps .  There are none of the thousand of land work jobs available here till harvest time , which is another month at least but his BIL may be going back to work in the next few weeks despite his asthma being terrible at the moment . We shall see
So yes is continuing on as boring as ever