We're not going on a summer holiday

 

SORRY CLIFF, YOU NEED TO CHANGE THE SONG

"We're all going on a summer holiday" sang Cliff Richard in '63.  It wasn't a song to play in 2020.  But was that really so awful?  The idea of the annual holiday away is, in historical terms, a very recent phenomenon

I admit we were lucky, having been able to make trips to Dublin and London, and three times through to Glasgow, for music gigs in January and February.  So I can count those pre lockdown excursions across the city boundary on the fingers of one hand.  And, on the other hand, I can do the same for the rest of the year.  Two of those were brief crossings into East Lothian, when I was practising for Kiltwalk.  Another two went in the other,  a mile or so into West Lothian, to pick fruit on a farm.  And the last one?  That was our summer holiday.

In mid September, on Barbara's birthday, we gave the car a rare outing and headed off to Dunbar - a massive distance of 30 miles...  The sun shone upon us, the sky stayed universally blue, and social distancing was observed by all.  We ate high tea in a courtyard, walked along the harbour, watched the waves hitting the seawall, enjoying the simple pleasure of not being where we were the rest of the time.  Then we drove to North Berwick, sat atop the headland looking out to sea and reading our books.  And home again.

Do I feel short changed?  Not at all.  It was a glorious day, enjoyable for the most obvious of reasons, and as much a provider of fond memories as Lisbon or Rome would have done.  

Nor do I feel hard done by being restricted not just to the city, but to my own locale much of the time.  There's been time to notice new things, explore previously ignored side streets, enjoy this place in a way I might not have done before.  (OK, it helps to be living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world...)  

I sometimes feel bad about thinking this way, and am cognisant of the dangers of sounding smug, because so many people have had such a terrible time in 2020, and that situation looks like continuing deep into the new year.  But if you're fortunate enough not to have been hit by the health and financial and stress problems that the pandemic has dumped on society, then it isn't that hard to adjust your mental horizons to feel no sense of loss at the lack of any new physical ones.  We humans are adaptable creatures after all, it's what makes us such evolutionary successes.   In challenging times we can find surprising ways to meet the challenge.

Changing times, changing people

 

THE NEW NORMAL?  WHAT'S NORMAL?

We went on our staff xmas night out a couple of days ago.  By which I mean Barbara and I went for a meal at four in the afternoon.  A pub that couldn't serve alcohol (which is something I find no longer bothers me in the slightest), only one other couple in the place, at the other end of the room, but friendly (masked) staff, a cosy fire near by, and good food.  Our xmas meal was haddock and chips, followed by sticky toffee pudding.  Because this is 2020.

We enjoyed it.  The absence of other people in these times is a lot more relaxing than a room full of potential virus carriers, the lack of 'atmosphere' an attraction more than a turn off.  Stay Safe remains the overriding dictum.  Sometimes it's already hard to remember what it was like in the olden times, before face masks became the latest fashion must-have.  

We used to go out a lot.  Music and comedy gigs, plays, sports events.  Edinburgh's festival, from April to August, were what we did, part of who other people knew us to be.  Now we're a stay-at-home couple, sharing the sofa night after night, looking out on 'our' graveyard and staying well away from the world.  Of the few live events we've been to this year, all bar one were in the pre-lockdown days, and that one brought it's own weirdness.  

At the end of August Edinburgh Rugby were allowed, as a government endorsed experiment, to play a match in front of a socially distanced crowd, for which I was lucky enough to get a couple of tickets.  The careful measures in place came as no surprise, and a few hundred people in a 67,000 seater stadium didn't generate much noise, but it was interesting to see the thinking behind it all working out in practice.  Although that wasn't the weirdest part, not for me.  That came when we left and I realised we were going home in the dark.  I hadn't once gone home in the dark since mid March.

We know (or think we know?) that at some point in the future we'll all return to life that's a bit more like what we remember from pre-covid times.  Not exactly the same, because more home working and online shopping and entertainment are with us now and won't entirely be reversed.   And not forgetting, despite Doris trumpeting his fabled deal today, that brexshit is going to bring its own damage and shifts in our ways of life.  But there will be a time when going for a meal or a drink or to see various forms of live entertainment will return as part of our collective experiences.  That, personally, I can go back to watching musicians and comedians and actors and rugby players doing their thing for my amusement and diversion.  

But will I?  In 2019 I went to 112 live events.  In 2020 it's been just 14. Just as our society has been changed by the last nine months, so have I.  We already know that we don't, can't, fully understand the long term alterations in our lives as a community.  I don't think we know how it's changed as people either.  I certainly don't know what it's done to me.  Will I go back to being that person that goes to all those shows and games?  Will I ever again rush around in August doing 40+ Fringe shows?   

2020 has been a year where we've been forced to learn a lot about ourselves.  I don't think 2021 is going to be any different.

Me an' my ol' rockin' chair

 ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?

This is my rocking chair.  It's made by Ercol.

My mother had a big thing about Ercol furniture in the 50s and 60s.  So we had Ercol dining furniture.  Four chairs that were reasonably comfy and practical.  And a two seater bench-like thing that was marketed as 'love seat'.  I'm not sure who loved it.  It was a bugger of a thing to get close enough to the table to eat when there were two of you on it.  

Then there was the long Ercol coffee table, and a nest of three wee tables.  And, by far the worst of the breed, the Ercol sofa, which we had from before I can remember until I sold it after my parents died.  It and the coffee table and the nest all went on eBay and the sofa fetched what I thought at the time was a surprisingly good price.  (Although nowhere near what's being asked for this very similar looking one!)  It was bought by a couple in their seventies who drove their old Volvo estate all the way up from Hertfordshire to collect it.  The woman immediately told me when and where it has been made, and all kinds of other information I hadn't asked for.  Something of an Ercol obsessive.  I helped them get it strapped into their roof rack and bid them a safe journey.  Before they left I did remark that I'd never found it to be very comfortable.  She said "Oh they're not, they're terrible.  I always get backache from them."  And then they left.  I have no answer to the obvious question...

The 'love seat' went to my mother's oldest friend.  We kept the dining chairs for a few years, matched with a surprisingly cheap Ercol table we got on eBay, then sold the lot when we moved up to Edinburgh permanently and did a proper bit of downsizing.  Which left one just Ercol item from that inherited collection.

In the late sixties my parents got themselves comfy new armchairs (not from the big E), while if I wanted to sit with them to watch telly my choices were the floor or that bloody sofa.  Quite why it remained with them for five decades I've never understood.  So I moaned about this situation.  (I know, hard to imagine me as a moany child, eh?)  And moaned some more.  And they took me out to buy a chair that would be mine.  Guess which range of furniture the chosen shop specialised in?

But I was happy with the end result.  Mum got her Ercol, I got a rocking chair.  And, despite the thinly padded back cushion, it was very comfy, at least to someone slightly built like myself, and it has remained so.  I loved it and happily spent much of my teenage years there, rocking away watching TV, reading books, listening to music.  When I'd later return to visit as an adult it was always there, in the same spot, waiting for me.  Although once married I had to share it with my spouse - neither of us could tolerate the dread three seater for too long.

So it's the one item from my childhood home I retain a sentimental attraction to.  New cushion covers had replaced the stripey material it had come with.  In recent years we had new sponge cushions cut to replace the crumbling, sagging originals.  And now it sits beside my bedside cabinet.  It's in an awkward spot, makes getting into the wardrobe a more contortionist act than it need be, and hasn't much functional use.  But sometimes I sit there to read a book and I'm home again.  A rocking time machine.

Introducing.... Thundersnow!

 

NEITHER FLEMING NOR ASIMOV

Thundersnow.  It sounds like something from a fantasy thriller or a sci fi novel, but turns out to be a real thing.  I know because we had it last night.  

It's not a phenomenon that many people outside of the meteorological world were aware of, so it was a rare enough event that Edinburgh made the headlines on the BBC Radio 4 news bulletin this morning.  And Police Scotland found themselves faced with a couple of hundred people wanting to know about the 'explosions'...

I can understand the confusion.  The first lightning flash must have lit up our bedroom enough to half-waken me, the noise that immediately followed was more than loud enough to suggest something unnatural taking place.  Barbara, being on the same side as the open window, probably woke quicker than I did, and had no doubt it was just thunder and lightning, albeit of an unusual volume.  For me, a second behind in fully coming to, the image of a bomb or a gas explosion formed in my mind briefly.  

It was bitterly cold so she got up to close the window, just as the second one arrived.  Big flash, brightly monochromed walls, a fraction of a second pause, and BANG.  No doubt in my mind this time that it was 'just' something I'd seen many times before, just a lot closer and a lot grander.  But I can see How anyone who didn't fully waken in that short time period would have thought the worst.  

So we went back to sleep, found we (well, our city) was in the news when we woke up, and suffered a major let down.  Where's all that nice white stuff to make 'our' graveyard look pretty?  Instead there's rain and wind and a gloom inducing greyness that forces the lights to be on at midday.  Thundersnow should have stayed in the fictional realm, it's too disappointing in real life.  

So maybe it's a fitting event for 2020.  My favourite reaction came from a comedian friend (the wonderful Elaine Miller)who said she and her husband lay there debating whether to gather up the kids and flee Thor's wrath, or sacrifice one of them to appease him.  I mean, if the apocalypse arrived before New year, would any of us really be surprised?

Here's a link to the reaction from that well known source of calm and measured reflection, Edinburgh Live 😉 , but if you search for 'edinburgh thundersnow' there are plenty of more intelligent explanations out there...