In The Midst Of Pandemic, A Lovely Day

I took so many photographs and videos today that I hardly know where to begin. Actually, I do. As every day begins with moths then so shall this post.

A Buff-tip, one of a pair I found in the trap this morning. They look like little pieces of broken birch twig. Wild strawberry plants are not the normal habitat but then, neither are light traps. I hope that this one and its companion fly off tonight and make babies together.

It is Tuesday and that is the day Zoe comes to work on her allotment, a government-sanctioned form of exercise. Dave heads to the wood to continue the building of a sweat lodge and the girls take possession of the shepherd's hut. Social distancing is maintained at all times. I gave them my camera and they took pictures of some improvements they made to the decor.

I don't know which is the worst thing in this picture, that Evie is perhaps a tad too close to her granda, or that her granda is smoking a fag. It's all about perspective. Evie is easily 2 metres away and well away from his noxious smoke.

Inside the hut. Martha must have set the camera on timer.

Martha thought this little cabinet would look better with some small books. She was right.

Martha relaxing. Photo by Evie.

I have been advised to get a yellow ukelele to hang on the wall. This one is the photographer's own.

The next item on the agenda was the restoration of the swing. Evie supervises from the treehouse.

A very tall ladder had to be erected. If Martha seems closer than two metres to Ben that is a trick of perspective. Our home is practically a park. Sorry to boast but we're more than happy to share in return for your labour.

Up with the ladder!

And heave!

Evie was the first to scale the 30-foot ladder to check safety features

Martha was slightly more cautious.

Hannah didn't make it to the top.

Ziggy never took his eyes off her.

The swing happened. The ladder was dismantled. Dave (Knot Expert) advised on knots, the swing was tried. Apparently, it is amazing. Sadly there were no photographs as everyone was too busy advising, knotting and swinging and the Chief Photographer was in the kitchen finishing off and packing up supper for removal to Ballymena.

I am so looking forward to having them all around the table again. Back to normality.

The day ended as it began, with moths and the borrowed and very excellent Robinson trap removed to the polytunnels beside which there are willowherb, sallow and dog daisies. We are hoping for elephant hawk-moths.

A Box Of Photographs

I'm all excited over my new scanner and dug out a box of photographs I might not have looked at in over ten years. Nellybert must have been quite the party animal back in the nineties and it was very strange to see images of myself sitting on my own sofa, a glass in one hand, a smoke in another and chatting away to some handsome young man whose name I don't recall, or what he was even doing in my house.

But I'm not showing any of those! Far too embarrassing to be seen smoking!

Instead here is one of Bert sitting on his very own sofa with a pretty young lady. He still has that pruning book and I still have the quilt and Katy still has the bear. The young lady is now in her twenties and has a very new baby of her own.

My own blonde self sunning myself in 1996. I still have the fat ass. Sadly the vintage chair fell apart a long time ago. Maybe it was the fat ass wot dunnit.

Ballymena Sportsbowl more than twenty years ago. I was a Support Worker back then and we'd take groups of people out for the evening. Great fun. The Sportsbowl was demolished a few weeks ago and I no longer have that shirt. It was vintage and I picked up in a charity shop, dyed and decorated it with fabric paint. Sometimes I wish I still dressed like that.

Mum in 1994. The baby is her great-niece or nephew. Don't know which one.

One of the very best things about moving back to the country was having the space to make a wild garden. I thought it would be fun to have Zoe peeking out of a jungle of flowers. She would have been in her late teens then. The tree is (unbelievably, knowing Clint) still standing but the garden is all farm buildings and concrete. It's very tidy.

Oh, all right then! Here's one where I'm smoking. It's a party at someone else's house and I'm sitting with my lovely sister. So weird to see it now.

A Foreign Country

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

That is the opening line to L. P. Hartley's The Go-Between which was published in the year that I was born. With all that has been in the news recently about that dead celebrity I have found myself thinking back to what life was like for women and girls back in the late 1960s and 1970s for things were certainly done differently then.

There was a change in the air. What was known then as the Women's Liberation Movement was beginning but it was many years before the effects of that filtered down to the ordinary woman. Women's Libbers were mocked and trivialised and in the home and workplace the old attitudes continued for quite a long time.

Before 1970 a working woman could not secure a mortgage without the signature of a male guarantor because women were not expected to be in continuous employment. And before the 1970 Equal Pay Act it was legal to pay women lower rates than men for the same work. In the workplace women were often sexually harassed and had no redress other than leave the job. This was seen as quite acceptable then.

The other night I heard a story of sexual harassment that shocked me. This happened to a friend of mine. She is sixty-one now and was eighteen then.

My friend was working as a dental assistant in a surgery in a small English town. Her employer, the dentist, a man in his forties, was a person with a quirky sense of humour. Often while treating his patient and with my friend assisting him he would open his flies and bring out his penis. The patient, lying in the chair, jaws wide open, would not be aware of this. My friend was terribly embarrassed by this behaviour but, because she thought it was expected of her, she laughed it off. As she said, "I'd far rather he didn't expose himself but what could I do?" In those days an employer could get his jollies in this manner and pretend he was 'just having a laugh.' Nowadays he'd probably be struck off and have to pay compensation to his victim for constructive dismissal and mental distress.

But you know what also shocked me about this sad tale? My friend said that it was also normal practice for both her and the dentist to smoke cigarettes in the surgery while the patient was being treated. That dentist chap's bound to be nearly a hundred now if he's still alive (which is doubtful). And that is just as well. Imagine being treated by a dentist with his dick hanging out of the front of his trousers and a fag hanging out of his mouth.

The past is indeed a foreign country.