Page 153 - Through a glass brightly

Lovely to hear more of your memories. Jenny, re lunch at West Lodge hotel - we had our wedding reception there 53 years ago last month!
Yes Val, Miss Girling did teach us well - my ‘name’ was Giselle - she must have been keen to learn not only our real names but also French ones. I was able to speak to her a one of the reunions and told her how important her French lessons had been in my life. I have been in various French conversation groups and classes over the years, we had a house in the Var for 14 years and, of course, I met Malcolm at the Barnet College Anglo
-French club. Our U3A French group have been ‘meeting’ via Zoom, not always successfully.
Has anyone else been ‘Zooming’. I’ve also had choral rehearsals via Zoom for Handel’s “Sansom“ - a bizarre experience. We all greet each other on screen then the choirmaster mutes us all and plays an exert on his piano for us to sing. We then sing alone in front of our laptops but try to watch everyone else and guess if we are together without hearing anybody. We then sing again accompanied by a recording. (Due to the slight time lapse it is not possible to unmute everyone and sing together.). We are getting used to it but it is surprisingly tiring and very different from being together in the same room.
As well as supermarket click and collect time slots we have managed to get time slots for National Trust properties. We’ve visited Dyrham Park and The Courts garden and are going to Great Chalfield Manor garden this weekend. It is a beautiful moated medieval Manor House which is often used in films and only 10 mins drive from us. It was used for ‘Wolf Hall’ and, if you have been watching the BBC repeat of ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ it features as the d’Urberville ancestral home.
I guess the Oxford English Dictionary words of the year for 2020 will be Covid, Zoom, time slot and click and collect!
From Sandy at 12.52
How lovely to hear from you all, thank you Jenny for starting this particular ball rolling. I’ve really enjoyed all your lockdown stories and being able to link up with other parts of the world. At home here in Northumberland, lockdown didn’t seem too challenging - spacious house, large garden, open countryside all round, Peter for company - and it wasn’t until some restrictions were lifted that I realised how limited and introverted my world had become, and how much I disliked it. My Lockdown Project was to sort through all our photos, little realising I had all my parents’ collection as well as ours! It was a cathartic and bittersweet experience. Now a semblance of normality has returned, and we’ve been to visit our son and family in Manchester and will be seeing our daughter and the London lot in a couple of weeks, hopefully, so the balance in life is being restored. It hasn’t helped that I know two people who’ve died from covid, and one of my good friends was admitted to hospital twice, so in our household the pandemic has seemed close to home. But that’s enough of the doom and gloom!
My hair appointment is next week. I’m toying with the idea of changing the style and not going back to very short .... I’m shopping again (though not in supermarkets) and always wear one of my three face masks (plain black, black with geometric design, blue floral). I’m insufferably smug about my commitment to face masks especially as up here hardly anyone wears one. That will change soon though.
Since the middle of March nobody has crossed our threshold for a cup of tea or a stay of a few days, and I’ve missed this more than anything. When life is back to normal again and we’re allowed, anyone who fancies a break in Northumberland will be most welcome. (And I mean that most sincerely folks.) We do have one or two bookings in already ....
My love and all good wishes to you all and stay safe.
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