Saturday 16th May.
Chantal has been plucking up courage to colour her hair, as others have done during lockdown. Last week she
spent quite some time in Sainsbury browsing hair products and deciding on a suitable colour. My suggested purple was not available, possibly just as well, and a dye of a reddish hue was chosen. After a week of careful consideration, Chantal decided that today is the day, and does the deed. Dye must be applied for 20 minutes to obtain the colour modelled by the lady on the box. Chantal lost courage after seven minutes, rinsing off the dye to leave a subtle hint of red. So subtle, in fact, that I fail to notice the change on my return from a dog walk. As for me, I am perfectly happy with faint wisps of grey, “salt and pepper”, or “Distinguished” as I prefer to describe it.
We have our first visitor since lockdown rules are relaxed. Chantal’s friend and fellow photography enthusiast Trish visits for a catch up, bringing her own flask of tea, and carefully maintaining social distancing rules, sitting significantly more than 2m from either of us. Even when I briefly join them, before leaving them to gossip, the two-householders-to-one-visitor rule is complied with. The only breach of rules is that we sit in our back garden, rather than in the public space of the roadside verge, but as Trish did not use our indoor facilities, I am satisfied that the risk of viral transmission is no higher than for a roadside meeting, indeed, being away from passing ramblers and dog walkers, probably lower.
The subject of interpreting the relaxed rules comes up in our family Zoom get together this afternoon. Pauline digs out the official guidance to clarify what is and is not permitted. It doesn’t help much. Initial interpretation is that only one person from a household can meet only one person from another. Upon re-reading we agree (I think) that two householders can meet one person from another, but further analysis suggests that whereas the couple are within guidelines, the single person has breached them by meeting up with two people from another household, despite all being at the same meeting in the same public place at the same time.
We both visit Andree to deliver food, and find that she has no problem interpreting the rules. Her gentleman friend has been invited over, and since in these circumstances it has been long established that two is company and three is a crowd, we don’t stop for long. Andree has time to tell Chantal that a gift-bag with fruit and some “luxury biscuits” has been delivered by young girl from Patio Parade, a local charity that puts together gifts for elderly people in social isolation.
A glorious evening dog walk in late sunshine, the path busy with cyclists, runners, ramblers, other dog walkers, and one chap sitting in the sun with a book of crosswords, all carefully avoiding each other. I do miss the social interaction while walking the dog.
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
