We’re a little over half way through the month, and I have racked up over 200km of walking and running as my essential exercise…
It’s not quite Captain Tom, by any stretch, I doff my cap to such a monumental achievement, and may his centenary hail a hundred more…
On the other hand, I’m seemingly on a road to nowhere…
All be it I have walked or run to the top of Hampstead Heath and around all the Central London Parks, several times at different times of day. Always at a safe distance, following the guidelines, a nod or a salutation to those walking in the other direction, yet it generally elicits no response and being a deeply social person, it worries me.
There will be at least three more weeks of where we are now. Let us ensure we keep hand washing, and avoid hand wringing, for the sake of all our sanity.
As a close friend said to me “Adrian, you and me are both akin to post nuclear cockroaches, to have travelled so far and survived in life…”
I have no idea what he means, we are both pillars of our community, with our skeletons respectively, and respectfully closeted; our paintings in the attic. Once again, when this is over and like many others, we will raise a glass together…
I can only assume he meant it as a compliment. We meet over Facetime, me in the shop, him in the Bahamas. For all I know it could be a backdrop, a green screen; and then the tan would be, ‘Fake’ as news. However, given how the weather here has been, anything is plausible.
My friend and I sit ‘come due vecchi scarafaggi’, half a world apart gazing at our tablets, as though it were a normal night out together. Conversation is like tumbleweed, drifting in the wind, ignorant of the dust whipping up around. He’s in finance, am I his tailor? Behind it all we share a similar world view. Sipping homemade Martinis, he has his mini-bar spread out around him. We can talk long into the night about ineffectual solutions to problems we do not have the power to solve. Who on earth has a minibar at home?
We know when things are going array when a Negroni becomes a Boulevardier… Mother’s Ruin is finished, and it’s time to put on the Tin Cup.
And no, it is not Perseus, his tan is always as fake as news. Seemingly, only the bits of his body he manages to properly apply the lotion to, is in essence only 50% of the bits he can see… no exfoliation or preparation, just a little slip, slap, slop! Patience is not one of his many, magnificent virtues! He does worry about featuring so frequently here. I can only hope that he is working out in his garden, keeping his bushes and hedges trimmed.
During this isolation we are all doing whatever it takes to keep us on an even keel, and it seems is that all those ‘memes’ are on the wane. Not being a user or connoisseur of them, I have seen the torrent, a veritable deluge, dwindle to a trickle, thankfully.
I have seen things people do and frankly I am worried. And as for Tik Tok, I have no idea. I suppose anyone can afford to lose 15 seconds, but the 15 seconds become a minute, and that becomes an hour… When you could be binge watching…. Fill in the blanks!
There is a little new stock to post, which I will do next week. Meanwhile I am in here every day, we have now sold out of 8 of the lines of the new t-shirts and polos, and I have been informed that there will now be no more!
We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.
‘Orson Wells’
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