A virus on the landscape 4 - isolamento

Where's the vodka?

Day 41

Charlie, the goat, and I made up over the gate this morning. I know he has forgiven me for hobnobbing with the ewes; he wagged his tail and ran across his field to greet me.

It is yet another beautiful spring morning, even warm at an early hour. The seedlings are struggling because it is so dry. Rain is forecast for three days time.

Last night I was in Paris in the spring sunshine, with Chief Inspector Maigret in Maigret’s Pickpocket. He spends a lot of time in bars. Like Inspector Montalbano he likes his food and drink. In this latest episode Madame Rose at the Vieux-Pressoir cooks him chaudrée fourassiene – a soup made of eels, baby soles and squid. After that Rose brings him a leg of lamb all washed down with two carafes of red. Phew! Then he went back to work in search of the murderer.

Day 42

Rain, rain, there’s glorious rain. We had all of two millimeters last night. This was just enough to wet the soil.

Headmaster Boris is back in school. He will be chasing up the monitors and checking what damage they have done in his absence.

Day 43

Today I am in Sanwi, a kingdom of the Ivory Coast. After the president of Belarus, whose panacea for dealing with the virus is to drink lots of vodka, the King of Sanwi has made his contribution to the list of global remedies. He will order a line of naked women to parade before him and his people to ward off the virus – allegedly he believes the girls will protect him from the bad spirits. Now, in the post-Harvey Weinstein world in which we live such an idea would best not be proposed in this country. However, in the completely unequal society that is Britain where the male sex is downtrodden, I am sure it won’t be long before a woman columnist of a British broadsheet will suggest the Chippendales perform in public to uplift spirits – and nobody, apart from a few balanced males like me (of course), will object.

Ah well, such are the complexities and contradictions of living in an advanced, liberal and civilized democracy, we shut this from our thoughts and decide on a long walk to Rougemont Castle.

The castle is an early medieval earth and timber ringwork fortress, founded by the de Lisles family in the fourteenth century. The manor of Rougement was abandoned in 1366, when Harewood House was built. The ruins rest on the north bank of the River Wharfe. Today the floor of the wood surrounding it looks like an illustration from a book of children’s nursery rhymes; it is carpeted with English bluebells. (Unlike our orchard that is carpeted with the Spanish variety.)

Rain is on its way.

Rougemont wood

Day 44

For the first time since incarceration commenced we are literally confined to quarters. It has rained most of the day. Yippee. The patch will be getting a good soaking and my King Edwards will be relieved of their thirst. The water butts will be replenished for the first time since March.

I turn to a new book that was featured in a newspaper today as one of the best books written about football. I have had a copy of The Football Man by Arthur Hopcraft in my library since 1970. I am only now enjoying lucid prose about George Best, Matt Busby, a young Ken Bates, referees and corruption in the game in the 1960s. I remember well the scandal brought on the game by three Sheffield Wednesday players.

Day 45

Today I write about my experience of visiting Zululand last year. This is part of preparing a longer piece on the Anglo-Zulu war, the futility of the battles, the arrogance and incompetence shown by Sir Bartle Frere and Lord Chelmsford in January 1879 and the pride of a living Zulu man. The flow of what I wish to say is not coming easily. I have in my head the substance of the piece – the story of men making war in an inhospitable landscape – but getting the balance right is not happening.

I break off to cut rhubarb and make another crumble.

Day 46

It is cool and damp this morning but we have had little rain. The veg seeds are thirsty. I decide they are very particular. They don’t like tap water, only rain.

A comic I play golf with liked my Ogden Nash poem and has sent me one that his family had about a bird:

Poor little thing

Had no feathers on his wing

Had no mummy, had no daddy

Chop his bloody head off.

This morning our garden has been visited by birds we see rarely, making bold with our bird feeder: a jay, a great spotted woodpecker and several thrushes. All have their heads intact.

Day 49

Charlie and I have come to the conclusion that sheep are dim-witted animals. They have all the grass in our paddock to eat yet they force their heads through netting to eat dead wood. On the plus side they like to play golf. My tub of golf balls has always been upended by them each morning.

The Tall Man in the village asks me to play tennis. This turns out to be a good work out for 35 minutes followed by a socially distanced beer on his terrace for an hour afterwards. Because he is in the at risk category of citizens he sought the permission to play with me from his haematologist. She gave him the thumbs up.

Day 50

Half a century of days incarcerated.

Headmaster Boris has named his sixth child Wilfred; that is a solidly English name.

Day 51

On the morning field walk I inform Charlie that we may have to stop being up close and personal from now on. He is not impressed as he enjoys the morning head scratch I give him. I tell him that President Magufuli of Tanzania claims that a goat and a sheep tested positive for Covid-19. Charlie’s owner works in the NHS so we’ll order a goat testing kit.

We have to feel sympathy for my sister and her husband in South Africa. They are down to their last slug of gin! Beer gone. Wine gone. Currently it is forbidden to buy alcohol in Durban. Booze is only sold in bottle shops, not in supermarkets, and they are all closed and her stocks are gone. She does have a cunning plan though. She knows that in the ladies’ lounge at the golf club there is a secret stash of wine, (well it was secret), that only she and the captain know about. I shan’t be surprised when she is sent to Robben Island to serve a 10-year sentence for breaking and entering.

Day 52

The days tick by but there is optimism in the golfing fraternity that two-ball games will be allowed and we can get playing again soon. So it is tennis again today.

Day 53

Poor Charlie is one confused goat. Two days ago I told him we had to keep two metres apart at all times. This morning, I not only gave him a hug but also offered him a tumbler of vodka. The problem is the politicians. It usually is. You listen to one and you feel compelled to listen to the next one. The presidents of Tanzania and Belarus are not singing from the same hymn sheet. Tanzania thinks goats should be SD’d as they can get the pesky virus; Belarus says I should hug them and swig vodka.

My vote goes to Belarus.

Day 54

The routine of incarceration is broken – I even forget to walk the bounds and talk with Charlie – by the arrival of a ‘man-with-digger’. We have a dozen tree stumps in out hedge line that are being removed. A stone wall will be constructed in place. It is most exciting.

The BBC is going in for some jingoism today by replaying the 2005 Ashes Test at Edgbaston on the wireless. It could almost be real summer with the voices of Jonathan Agnew and Glenn Maxwell bringing the drama of 15 years ago. Strewth, how time flies.

Day 55

More and more I come to detest the BBC TV news. The editors are wallowing in the story of the path the virus is taking us. Instead of just reporting the facts they must speculate on what the government will say or do next. I doubt the Headmaster even knows that! I also hate the word ‘lockdown’. I cannot get out of my head a sense of the British people being herded indoors and the key turned, and left in a state of submission. We are all to be good citizens; you cannot make your own mind up on Headmaster Boris or new man Starmer. We are going to lock you up and brainwash you. We shall repeat what we just told you until you scream.

I much prefer an Italian word – isolamento. Like all things Italian the word has style, musical rhythm and a sense of individualism that ‘lockdown’ just does not have. Besides, when push comes to shove, the English are not a submissive lot. The Scots maybe, but not the English.

Day 56

I maintain the air of excitement after the re-landscaping of the orchard – the digger has gone - by driving to Otley to deliver presents to Otley Grump and his wife: a book and a bottle of gin. For the evening Zoom drinks party OG makes a ‘Gin Mule’ cocktail that is supposed to have a slice of cucumber in it. Only he mistakes a courgette for a cucumber – ‘an administrative error’ he reports.

It is a hot day and the May blossom in the hedgerows is beautiful.

Day 57

The summer of yesterday has given way to the winter of today. The thermometer reads 7 degrees.

But no matter, the school population is abuzz with gossip and conjecture; Headmaster Boris has let it be known he wishes to give a lecture to the whole school tonight. We suspect it is because some naughty pupils have been caught outside the school boundaries and we are to receive a severe telling off. There are even rumours that we are all to be gated for another month. If that is the case I predict an outbreak of student disobedience and rioting. It could make Lindsay Anderson’s film from 1968, If, look tame by comparison. Who will be our Mick, aka Malcolm McDowell?

Day 58

Headmaster Boris’s lecture left me a bit confused. Can we drive to see our grandchildren or not? Can I play golf this week or not? I think it would have been better if he had joined up with Headmaster Kier, head of the rapidly improving comprehensive school across town. Together they would have reached out to all the miscreants breaking the regulations.

The local garden centre is open so Liza and I go to buy plants and compost. The manager says the police have given the green light to open last week.

Day 59

The Headmaster is showing his sporty side by telling us that we can put our games kit back on – but only if we are playing golf, tennis or fishing. That not only pleases me but my neighbour, the owner of the Mules, and the tall Man. If we don’t behave ourselves on the pitch – and keep 2 metres apart from our opponents – then games will be off again says Boris.

When the embargo is lifted at 5:00 p.m. the scramble to book a tee time on the golf course website is frenetic. Dozens of us must have been logged in, ready to pounce on the online diary when the clock struck 5, then we were in, fending off other members for the slot we want. I am fortunate to book three games this week; the maximum one member can play.

Just our luck it might snow tomorrow, it is cold enough.

Day 60

Am I dreaming, did I really play golf today – for the first time in 8 weeks – or was it real? It was real what a way to celebrate our diamond jubilee of isolamento.

The Man from Blythe and I strode the green, parched fairways – always 2 metres apart of course. Oh what joy, what release, what fun to hear that north-eastern wit again. We are definitely through the end of the beginning of this national incarceration. It could be we are now at the start of the endgame. (Note to self: better thank the Headmaster this evening on behalf of thousands who played tennis or golf today.)

When I return to the garden in the afternoon to share my joy with Charlie he is far from impressed. I failed for the first time in 60 days to walk the estate and give him his early morning greeting. He knows I preferred golf to him.

Charlie is miffed. Not good to have a miffed goat as a neighbour. I will have to make amends with an early walk in the morning.

Miffed goat