Nothing new

This may be a new post but really there is little new to say.  
On Monday we went into a much more extreme lock down, people with health issues are being told to self isolate for 12 weeks.  We are shopping once a week, taking it in turns to do so and other than walking once a day, separately, we are at home.  We feel blessed to have our lovely balcony and so far the weather that has been nice enough to have the doors open.  

Fortunately I have a few house plants, one that survives outside while we are in Italy and a couple of newish ones, they make me happy and I'm looking forward to the amaryllis flowering, I have another in the kitchen. 

A few things make me less happy.  Looking out this week I watched a man come and clean the whole of the square we look down onto, power washing the surfaces, except the dirty wall which could have done with some attention, for hours and hours.  For some reason it made me cross, I know people have to keep working but I thought it was essential work only and buffing up a pavement is hardly vital.  I'd have been much happier if he'd put in a few cheery plants or done something with the tatty box hedges, but he was obviously only the power washing department  and he had to use his special equipment, which I put into the same category of pointless items as leaf blowers.

The car park for the memorial gardens which are just down the road from us was closed, presumably to discourage day trippers who come out from other towns for their exercise.  Some idiot had simply moved the barrier aside and there were half a dozen cars parked, plus quite a lot on the moor side road.  The next time I went that way the barrier was back with just one car in the park.
Over this week I have seen less and less people, now folk do step away and its not always me who walks out into the road to keep a distance, gradually the message gets through.    I've never seen so many clean cars or people working in their gardens.  I have noticed a huge number of black plastic bags stacked at the front of houses, presumably full of garden rubbish that cannot be taken to the recycle centre as its now closed.  I hope eventually people will think about composting.
Over the week I've watched the children in the houses we look onto come out to play in their gardens, to read and in one case to chalk hopscotch and pictures on their drive which I thought was nice.   As the week progressed this has happened less and less until Friday we had the first outdoor temper tantrum when a little girl in her ballet dress screamed her head off until her mother eventually picked her up, by this stage the child was rigid and difficult to handle, and took her indoors.
Yes we all feel like that don't we, a good howl would be nice, but we just keep on doing out best.   One week in I've already cleaned the oven and washed all the windows,  its just so annoying that no one gets to see the clean tidy apartment except me and Mr FF and I think he hardly notices.
Keep safe, keep well and keep saving the NHS by staying home.