A dog called Covid?

I wonder how long it is going to be before someone calls their dog Covid. Or even their baby. Perhaps not quite yet but I would lay money on it happening.

I wandered lonely as a cloud today. So did everybody else if my local walk was anything to go by. I chose a different route (past the host of now-less-than-golden daffodils) and a different beach. It was all even more spread out than my usual perambulation. I saw a cormorant. They are such excellent divers; a little bottom lift and down they go. Mind you I suppose that is their day job.

My stroll took me along a wooded path with divergences. I found myself reciting a few favourite poems. Then I started giving them a new Covid style twist…

Corona poems

I wandered lonely as a cloud

Because everybody else was self-isolating

William Wordsworth

No man is an island

But he should pretend he is for now

John Donne

Two roads diverged in a wood and I –

I took the one that was 2-metres away from everybody else

Robert Frost

There was one poem that needed no alteration, I find it suits most situations and it didn’t let me down today.

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting

Rudyard Kipling

Conversation of the day

With a friend I had just ‘not bumped into’ on our daily walks (we were on opposite sides of the road)

Me: I just walked past a yellow magnolia. They’re quite unusual but I couldn’t stop to take a photo because there were people approaching and I had to get out of the way.

She (later via Messenger): No words but two pictures of the beautiful yellow magnolia.

Me: You made me cry… Thank you

She: Pleasure treasure xxx

Word of the day – Sanctuary

My garden has become my sanctuary (and my heart genuinely goes out to anyone who doesn’t have one). More specifically my greenhouse because inside there is only space for one. One person that is, it currently has far too many plants. Today it was too hot to stay for long under glass but I have been known to move a chair and my laptop in there on rainy days.

This year the slugs and I are trying to work in harmony. Instead of poisoning them until their insides turn blue (they actually do), I have been either giving them a quick dispatch with the knife, leaving them for the newt and millipedes to eat, or bribing them with tasty greens so that they leave my seedling alone.

I don’t think I am winning but we are forming a few understandings. Understandings are particularly important when it comes to sanctuaries.