Starting to batten down.....

Someone one day is going to have to show me one of these days how with this wrteched new system you put paragraphs in. I have cheated and put xxxwhere they begin. xxxConscious of the fact that, with the revival of Coronavirus fears, I and everyone else will be going in for the long haul, I have instituted a new regime to cope with a programme of 'keep-fit walks' to the village and around the hills behind the house and to try to differentiate between weekends and the other days. Otherwise the passage of time would be un-calibrated and I could well end up not knowing what day it was even more than this happens already. I must admit that the weekend regime is shamefully self-indulgent. Sitting by a woodburner with my laptop or an improving book with Madam Butterfly warbling away in the background takes a lot of beating if you ask me - especially with a Portuguese 'Black Red' to hand. This latter is a new discovery for me, rivalling if not surpassing my preference for Argentine Malbec. xxxIn fact the whole lockdown experience has been a voyage of discovery for me. With the aid of various members of the dynasty I am on a steep learning curve in everything from how to make a beef casserole to being able to arrange how my e-mails come in, individually or in chat strings. And come in they do ! The connectivity of this locked down and physically isolated world strikes me as quite extraordinary. I was invited last week to both Istanbul and Karachi something that's now much easier faster and cheaper than it was (and better for the planet too). The only drawback is that I don't get to sniff around and find out things about my hosts that one can only get in person through chatting with people and being shown around. The Karachi thing is virtual but weirdly the Turks seem to want it to be in-person. They have got to be kidding. xxxI took one of the walks over the hills last weekend, going round by the neolithic camp at Rybury and over to the Wansdyke. From here one can see it snaking its way to Bath. A great ditch with a bank to the south, no-one quite knows what it is. Probably not really a defensive position as such more likely a frontier between the three pre-Roman tribes who lived in this area, the Durotiges where we are, the Atrebates to the East and the Dobunni to the north. Strangely this area has always been a kind of disputed frontier land. In the Civil War, we were in the nomansland between Royalist Devizes and Parliamentarian Marlborough. In the Second World War we were part of the blue-line along the Kennet and Avon canal, skirting the edge of Allington, complete with pill-boxes and dragon's teeth anti-tank barriers, where the Home Guard and what was left of the Army was planning to resist the Germans if ever they had invaded. Even now as far as weather forecasts and television areas are concerned, we're the forward edge of the Southwest. Obviously in Allington it is the custom to hunker down and peer suspiciously at strangers from behind the parapet. xxxBut we do still do feast amongst ourselves every now and then. The old university gang got together in Salisbury last week and had a delightful time swapping anecdotes and slagging off Boris and Donald, to varying degree. There's nothing quite like real human contact rather than the synthetic version on a computer screen. xxxThis weekend though the rain bucketed down and my keep fit walks were just around the garden. Just as in Newport I am beginning to notice things about it I had never seen before. Like a couple of enormous Tulip trees leaves, nearly a foot square, and much bigger than the normal ones. I stood back to look properly but just couldn't see where in the tree they had come from.

Pampus grass 10 feet tall and with gracefully fluffy heads now looking bedraggled, and of course the leaves and straw of harvest time blocking up the road drain and causing a flood for me to deal with. Obviously battening down means starting to get jobs done. I was pleased to do the annual lime-wash of the house, or at least the ground floor and was pleased with the glittering result of about 3 hours work ! And then, unbelievably after the family effort a month or so again, there are still apples coming down that need to be dealt with. Whatever happens this winter I won't be starving.