Good evening, on what is the end of week what ever in the long list of whatever’s that we are making for ourselves at the moment.

There is a certain safety in routine, it gives you a fixed point to work from, even in the height of conflict the underlying routines continue. In the Second World War when my father was serving in destroyers the paymaster used to dress for dinner each night. During the Falklands campaign we used to meet for a sherry before what ever meal it was at 7 pm. As we operated in Zulu time (GMT) and the Falklands is several hours behind us in time (several decades if you have been there) you can understand the confusion our body clocks were suffering.

We are settling into a gentle routine, that involves all the usual domestic chores and then the sudden added excitement of seeing how flat and small a parcel you can make with the cardboard before the recycling team arrive on Friday morning. The joy then becomes breaking the routine. We are limiting our excursions in line with the recommendations, Jun staying in more than I, since I do the weekly shopping run, although we have discovered it works better at five days for fresh fruit and veg. So having shopped on Tuesday, which was also my exercise trip, two sort of non days were rewarded with sun, light westerly winds and an urge to be out there. So we did a milk run to the machine on the farm, followed by a slight detour to a quiet lane where the wild garlic grows. Jun loves it, but it has a short season between pickable and flowering usually about three weeks, so today was our second forage. So whatever we may die from, it won’t be vampires for the next few days. The odour oozes from your body like the scent of vodka from a Russian alcoholic, it just does not go away.

So the end of week two, I think of semi isolation. In admiration for all those who are working to keep things going. We applauded the NHS last night, which allowed distant conversations with neighbours. Today it was the turn of the recycling crews who got my thanks.

I hear you ask, what did you do with garlic, well tonight’s delight was Thai sweet chilli scallops with stir fried Chinese cabbage and garlic. The sweet chilli sauce was excellent a recipe from Nigel Slater, stolen from Peter Gordon. The kitchen was wonderfully aromatic. We aren’t!

For that other world we live in, rather like – which window shall we look through today, the dressing up box said Pope! So I am am writing this epistle to you in ecclesiastical white on the sofa in the living room. Over the weekend we will empty both boxes (trunks) and set apparel to where we are travelling, but for tonight after scallops I am in the shoes of the fisherman.

What ever you do, do stay safe.

As always

Geoffrey

Sweet chilli scallops with stir fried wild garlic and veg

From our evening walk.