Covid Convos

 Times are dark now sure enough what with the covid and all, but they've always felt a bit doom-laden hereabouts.  Death at your fireside and so forth.  The *thud-thud-thud* of the Grim Reaper's scythe-handle hammering at the door when you least expect it, and were hoping for a quiet evening by the fire with a favourite book, a pipeful of Black Bogey, some crisps and a bucket of absinthe.

'If you aren't preparing for Death, you aren't really living,' opined the T-G.  'If you're wise like me,  you'll always keep an empty chair by the fire, directly opposite your own, as a constant reminder of your inevitable demise.'

'Doesn't Mrs T-G mind?' asked Geoffrey,  'After all surely that's her seat,  opposite yours by the fire?'

'Oh she doesn't mind.  She doesn't have time to sit by the fire.   If she isn't scrubbing the floors and blacking the grate she's usually in the kitchen cooking black sausage rolls (see paperback for recipe) and doing the washing up.'

More on stereotypical gender roles and toxic masculinity later (or not - most likely not actually)

Covid Queeries

'If someone's famous does that make it OK if they break the lockdown?' asked Tuppence.
'It helps if they are both rich AND famous.  But mainly rich.  And it doesn't make it OK,  it just makes it easier transport-wise and less likely that you'll get arrested.  Are you referring to the second home phenomenon?'
'Yes.  Apparently a rich author has just jetted in to one of Val Nark's luxury glamping yurts for some rest and such-like.  He arrived with five cases of baked beans, five boxes of Chili Heatwave Doritos and five barrels of McEwan's 80 Shilling.  His wife has ancestors from Hereabouts and he's self-isolating, he announced with a megaphone when he arrived.  There's also a notice pinned to the post-box, stating the same.'
'Is his wife with him?'
'No.'
'This is an outrage.  It isn't a second home phenomenon - it's a glamping situation which is even worse and he doesn't even have the figleaf of the wife's ancestry to cover himself with.  Clearly Val Nark is complicit in this blatant rule-flouting, because  - true to form - she has rented the luxury yurt to said famous person.  For actual hard cash money.  Tuppence - you won't have experienced such an event, and even I can barely remember the last time it happened, but - this is a pitchfork job.'
Geoffrey nodded.  'If ever there was an occasion to use them , this is it.  T-G - are the pitchforks still to hand?'
'Yes,' he replied quietly.' They're in the Iron Age burial chamber up on the moor.  They haven't been used since the last violation, during the Great Plague of Incomers.  We chased them off the cliffs with them.  My, we were a magnificent sight, wielding our pitchforks, our blue faces shining in the light of flaming torches rudely fashioned from the thighbones of our ancestors as we ran full tilt at the infected incoming hordes.'
'Why were your faces blue?' asked Tuppence.
'The exertion Tuppence.  When you're charging across the moors slightly out of condition with a pipe of baccy gripped between your teeth, a pitchfork in one hand, a flaming torch in the other, plus a flask of soup and a snack for later in your backpack with the usual emergency medical supplies,  it tends to get you out of puff.'
'Will the pitchforks be sharp enough though,' asked Tuppence,' Might they not have rusted up a bit after all these years?'
'Oh but I've maintained them Tuppence.  Polished them carefully with fine wire wool and WD40 by the light of every Full Moon.  Excellent question by the way.'
'Well what are we waiting for?  Let's go!  Let's rid ourself of this selfish incomer.  Pitchfork him over the cliffs and make a Tiktok of it so nobody else thinks they can come here to self-isolate.'

next time - we end up going 'over the top' as we rush headlong and willy nilly at anyone 'strange'.  Tuppence decides not to make his charity single as the lockdown will be over soon. 

Lockdown Continues...

Paranoia and sheer existential terror levels aside, life hereabouts continues much as it did before lockdown.  That is, we don't do very much and we don't want to do very much.  When I say 'we', I mean 'I', because nobody else is around right now.  And I should say 'I' because I don't much care for incontinent usage of the Royal 'we'. 
I filled the tartan shopping trolley with provisions from the Tunnels last night, as planned.  It's hard work dragging it home over the moors all by myself and the balaclava doesn't help.  If Geoffrey and the T-G are still hors de combat I might try to rig up some sort of motor and attach it to the trolley for next time.  And I'll certainly need one of those lamp-style things that you tie round your head, because despite knowing the moors like the back of my non-existent hands, I kept falling into peat hags.  How I'll square that with not being spotted by some random noseyparker with nightvision goggles, I haven't yet figured out.  I could also use a bigger trolley; there are several boxes of crisps down in the Tunnels at the moment - smokey bacon flavour, roast chicken, and sizzling steak - and I'd like to nab a few before they disappear.  It's just a matter of time until the Rats get them.  They would have been destined for the Puff Inn only it's shut at the moment due to the lockdown.  Preparation is everything, as someone very smug but probably annoyingly correct once said.
Tuppence hasn't returned yet from his shopping expedition to Speedispend Hypermarket and Compulsory Screening Centre.  I hope - oh no.  He's back.
'Uncle Tuppy!  I've got toilet paper!   Reams of it!'  he struggled through the hole in the wall clutching a multipack of Speedispend 'own brand'.
'I don't care Tuppence.  As I told you before, we don't actually need it.  We're sheep.  We do it where we stand.  We don't have to wipe our bottoms.'
'And as I told YOU Uncle, I've started wiping mine, and what's more I'm going to be using a proper TOYLET and not doing it where I stand any more.  Alexa says - '
'-' I opened my mouth to say that Alexa was a supercilious prig, and to remind him that in any case there are no such things as 'proper TOYLETS' hereabouts, and then I remembered that Tuppence is only a youngster, and that it would be wrong to be cruel and churlish just because I'm older and know so much better due to my mature, super-developed brain, with an intellect honed to a fine edge over a lifetime's practice arguing with Geoffrey and the T-G about the comparative merits of crisps and the finer points of tiddlywinks.  So instead I said, 'Did you get any Hobnobs?'
'Only the plain kind.  There weren't any chocolate left.'
'This is a disaster.'
'Don't be ridiculous Uncle.  You're overweight and you know you're at risk of the sugar diabetes.  Val Nark says - '
'Oh for the love of crisps.'
'No hear me out.  Val says if your waist measures more than thirty four inches you're a walking time bomb.'
'I think mine's thirty two.  Last time I checked.'
'When was that Uncle?  Nineteen fifty three?  Luckily I have a digital measuring tape and all I need to do is point it at the relevant area and HOLY SHIT!'
'Yes?'
'The digital measuring tape just went into the red zone then burst into flames.  It wasn't able to cope with your vast waistline.  Uncle Tuppy, you must take immediate action.'
'A-a-action?'
'Yes,' said Tuppence firmly. 'Val Nark is doing virtual fitness sessions via Skype.  Dave's adapted their bikes and mounted them on stands and they're renting them out during the lockdown to people who are self-isolating or can't be arsed going out.  I'm going to get you one and you can take part in Val's sessions.  You're stronger than you know Uncle T.!'

next time - the comparative merits of composting TOYLETS versus the flushing kind versus doing it where you stand.  Also - Tuppence and his prog friends finally release his charity single.