Until the Dragon Comes

A number of people on my flist have been posting about their anniversaries of quarantine/lockdown, and it's a little weird for me, because I've been back at work since last June. It's not been normal, obviously, from working in PPE to negotiating a half shut down world, and with the constant underlying worry that we've all been living with but it's not been as limited as I know a lot of people have had to deal with.

My last day of work before lockdown would have been the 14th March, because I had the following week booked off work to see Home Free in concert on the Thursday. In actual fact, I'd already decided I couldn't go, because of the risk that was becoming increasingly obvious across Europe, before they had to cancel the tour anyway. On the Sunday our director asked if any of us would be willing to take some unpaid leave, as obviously we weren't going to be able to open as normal, and I agreed, thinking that with my 80ish parents at home, again I'd rather be safe. In the event, the furlough scheme kicked in and it didn't make any difference, but I can remember half-joking about how it could be 3 or even 6 months, thinking I was over-stating the case, and here we are a year later...

I've had my first vaccination at the end of January, a week or so after my parents, as we are providing services for the NHS we were in one of the earlier cohorts, and the second one is due in a couple of weeks. Normal is still quite a way off, but sometimes I can see a light of the end of the tunnel.

So I said yesterday that my parents are in good health, and to be fair, they usually are for their age. Occasionally Dad gets something that our ancestors might have referred to as a bilious attack, which he did overnight, though he seems much better now.

So I didn't make our fortnightly trip to the supermarket, which I usually do first thing in the morning to reduce the need to queue, and will need to go tomorrow. Fortunately, I haven't been shopping efficiently enough that that would be a problem, we can last another day. 😀

Yesterday morning I opened my curtains just before 9am, to find that someone had left two full carrier bags tucked just inside our garden wall. We investigated, and found food from Waitrose, new saucepans and other kitchen equipment. It had rained the night before, and they weren't wet, but at least the food must have come from Cheltenham, not here.

Baffled, we left the bags out, assuming their owner would come back for them, but no sign so far, they are still there.

Someone could, I suppose, have got off the early bus, struggled bringing them up the hill and left them for later, but you'd think they would have been back for them within 24 hours...