Sunday, April 12th, 2020
Happy Easter! Not at all like any of my Easters past, which were either spend with a group of friends having a Sunday brunch and an Easter Egg Hunt or just EM and I on a dive somewhere. Today was very different.
It started with a Listserv - Easter Bunny advisory:
Dear Listserv,
We have been advised that the Easter bunny has made it to the Hood despite Corona.
Eggs (hard-boiled) have been hidden in the front yard of See if the little ones can find one when taking your essential exercise (one each please) and only if no one else is in the yard.
Do leave a chalk mark on the stairs if you have found one.
Happy hunting.
Sort of as a way to compensate for the absence of people. By 9 am, 7 had been collected. The rest of the hood does not seem to read very well. Seems we will be having egg salad for a while.
The two of us did have a leisurely breakfast and embarked on an Easter Egg hunt in our house – fortunately I think all eggs were recovered, unlike during my childhood, when one would stumble across the occasional egg either come Christmas or the next move, which ever happened first. That of course changed when we had the dog – he always found all the eggs first.
We joined the virtual Easter service. I had sent the link to mum and she managed to join from Germany. When we called her afterwards, she was in tears, so touched to have been part of this community. It of course had me in tears too. The only person not crying was EM.
To distract us I took mum on a walk through the garden. When she is here, she spends a lot of time tending it. During her last visit in autumn she helped prepare it for winter so is keen to see how it comes along in spring. It is quite spectacular at the moment.
All of the Azaleas are coming into full bloom. The Lilac, which I had planted to block the vision of my neighbors weed patch, has the cusps just breaking. The primroses hidden here and there are almost done as are the Dandalions, Tulips and Snowdrops. The Woodruff is coming back nicely and just starting to flower.
Next up are Iris, Lily and Forget Me Nots, closely followed by Lilies of the Valley. Once they are done in mid/ late May the Rhododendrons and then the Hydrangeas will come.
The annoying voles are digging up the back lawn and seemed to have moved house; at least there is a hole where previously there was none. Immediately proceeded to fill the new holes with the dish-soap-castor oil- water-mix.
Given we found Rhubarb yesterday the afternoon was spent making some Rhubarb-Vanilla jam (that is the first lot of Christmas gifts done!) and Rhubarb-Strawberry-Compote which should make for a nice breakfast the rest of the week.
And then there were number of nice reads this morning. People are getting creative with sidewalk Art Popping Up Everywhere — Here Are 19 That Are Uplifting, Inspiring, And A Little Hilarious.
Why did we not think of this?
And in terms of staying positive this is just brilliant. I really like the wedding and the round robin poetry.
I also like this new term Covidiot, defined as someone who behaves like a complete idiot not biding by the rules of social distancing imposed to mitigate the spread of COVID. Maybe this will become the word of the year 2020.
On the COVID front, numbers are still increasing. The world now has 1.86 million reported infected, 550k of which are in the USA. The USA is also accounting for a quarter of the worlds reported dead. At the same time scientist are continuing to work on vaccines and treatments, which gives rise to hope that we may return to some level of normal and maybe there will not be a second and third wave locking us down yet again. Though even if the vaccine works, it will take a while to produce enough for world demand to be met.