After yesterday's cheery post on death, I think we need a bit of Sheena! Sheena is an old school friend who I reconnected with about six years ago in a pub somewhere in Worcestershire. She lives in London on her own in a flat near a river, social-distancing from one and all. Hello Sheena!
__
Growing up as an only child, I have to admit I don’t find social distancing that difficult!
I do struggle with 'fuckwittery' – the correct term for covidiot behaviour. What is it with the cyclist riding quickly down the middle of the park path as everyone else is trying to distance? Or the joggers doing slalom in close contact with the flags, otherwise known as people? And the slow-to-do-anything, quick-to-loosen-restrictions actions of the government? … Let’s not go down that route or I could be here for ever.
I do revel in nature (and always have). Parakeets in the park and trees near me (see photo). And, because my downstairs neighbours seem to have abandoned partaying out the back, the birds seem to have come back to the tree outside my kitchen. We get blue tits, coal tits, great tits (with, yes, that incessant call), robins, long-tailed tits, blackbirds and the occasional finch. My mum once saw a sparrowhawk. I haven’t. Not in all the 24 years I have lived here. #not jealous at all.
Ending in a Fiona-esque way, what am I thankful for? Me and those I care about still being safe. Being there for my friends whose experience differs. And my new cross-out calendar so I know what day of the week it is!
Thanks
Fiona here – today I am thankful for Pete, who made me and a fellow allotmenteer some frames for netting, etc. Planting will be soon as, by some miracle, the nasturtium seeds have grown into plants. Potato and nasturtium salad will be a goer in a few weeks, I think.
Hope you are all having a good day.
PS. Sheena's parakeet photo reminded me that a cockatiel called Alphonse has gone missing around the Umberslade Rd area in Stirchley, near Muntz Park. Keep an eye out, although how do you catch a bird? Details…
Hire/commission me: fiona [at] fionacullinan.com