POST LOCKDOWN DAYS

   Good morning dear reader and a warm but wet welcome to life at Chez Comb. I see I have not lost my powers when it comes to rain dancing. We are deluged with the stuff, but I have no complaints, we need it. My only problem is that the bottom of our garden is very wet, almost boggy as my neighbour's natural pond and well flows underground, travels through our garden and into the next one. My poor old laurel bushes are giving up the fight, so I have taken drastic action and planted a couple of gunnera - they're not nicknamed 'giant rhubarb' for nothing. I'm going to plant lots of bog loving plants too and see what happens. Hopefully their combined efforts will take up the excess moisture. Famine and feast - the rest of the garden is dry as a bone and will be extremely grateful for the rain, or will be when it recovers from the battering.

   Spouse has had an excellent week working away on the new base for my shed. When he took up the old shed floor, he discovered the foundations were made up of an assortment of broken flagstones laid to bare earth.  He has taken them all up and is now levelling the ground with sand and laying the collection of pavers we have gathered in the course of re-modelling the garden.

   I had a few 'messages' to do further afield from the village this week and so I lured Spouse away from his project with the promise of lunch at a local garden centre. The café has now re-opened with social distancing measures in place and as the food is particularly good there, Spouse did not need much persuading. I say there were social distancing measures in place and so there were; unfortunately half the diners complied and the other half took no notice. We were supposed to sit at our tables and wait to be called to place our order at the counter. I think a lot of the time people just didn't listen to the instructions given to them by the staff and  so just did their own thing, joining a queue that should never have been a queue! Then other people were coming in from the garden centre proper by the back door, not registering their presence and also joining the queue! I felt sorry for the staff. They were rushed off their feet, deluged with lunch orders whilst trying to control this almost uncontrollable leviathan of customers who have so recently been let loose to socialise again.

   My other novel post-lockdown experience this week was a visit to the dentist. Part of a filling had come away from a tooth and I was booked in for early July to have it attended to. But, lucky old me, I was offered a cancellation appointment on Tuesday. As dental appointments are akin to gold dust these days, I did indeed feel most fortunate! I have been for a couple of check ups since the pandemic began and the staff wore their normal garb with the addition of face masks. But on this visit, as I would be receiving treatment, they were gowned up in the full monty PPE. I was really taken aback when I walked into the treatment room, it was like gazing on a pair of astronauts, only dressed in bright yellow and wearing protective face visors. The poor ladies - it was a roaring hot day; they had to have the window open for the air flow - letting in the heat of the day and the smell of the new tarmac being laid on the village high street outside.  Their space suits crackled with every move and they perspired profusely inside them. I pay tribute to their true grit to get the job done, uncomplainingly. As soon as I was done and out of the chair, they stripped the suits off, with great relief I imagine. I hope their days of having to wear the PPE won't last too long. I am grateful my gnashers are fully operational again and have promised to treat them with great respect and keep away from the harder foods in future.

   Spouse is staring out of the window as I write, unhappily watching the rain fall. Horses for courses - he does not welcome the interruption to his project and I am delighted my garden is being watered Ah well, you can't please all of the people all of the time. Have a good week, dear reader. We are almost at Midsummer's Day and I hope the sunshine will return soon and we can all bask in it again. Take care and stay safe.