Even stranger ....

It was our wedding anniversary last Sunday - Easter Sunday. The sun shone..... just as it did 38 years ago.
We celebrated quietly, just the two of us at home, with a piece of Simnel cake and a cup of tea!

And by way of a little anniversary gift mr digandweed bought these beautiful locally grown tulips on the weekly supermarket trip. ( Not 'essential items' it is true, but bought at the same time as 'essentials' . It's funny how we now feel we have to justify every action. Or is that just me?)
For the past few weeks,  being of a less nervous disposition, mr D  has volunteered to make the foray into the shop whilst I wait in the car.
The once pleasant, dare I say leisurely, trip to the supermarket has turned into an angst ridden military operation, armed with antibac wipes and hand gel.
He has a list and strict instructions to disinfect the handle of the trolley despite the fact that the very helpful staff have already done so. But ' you can't be too careful'
There have been some frankly odd and sometimes eye wateringly expensive substitutions when he couldn't find the exact item. A tiny tube of toothpaste for a penny less than £5 grabbed from the shelf in case he should appear to be loitering unnecessarily in the toiletries aisle.

'Keep your distance'.  'Stay at least 2 metres apart.'
Then there was the mishap at the till.
Whilst waiting on the allotted circle to load items onto the conveyer belt, an avocado slipped from his hand onto the floor and rolled away.
Guiltily, he stepped off the spot, expecting sirens and alarms to sound,
 ' AVOCADO IN NO-MAN'S-LAND'
but managed to retrieve the wayward item, seemingly un-noticed.
A polite 'hello' and 'thank you at the till. No chit-chat these days.
And a hurried exit back to the relative safety of the car.

I've been thinking a lot of my dear mum lately, who died 12 years ago now.
I want to tell her 'Mum, you wouldn't believe how we have to live nowadays'
But then I remember, how her own dad died when she was just two from the Spanish Flu pandemic which claimed the lives of almost a quarter of the world's population at the end of the First World War.
How her mum, my grandma, brought up 3 young children, on just a small widow's pension and supplemented her income by running a little tea shop selling homemade cakes, in the little village where they lived on the Welsh border.
How as a young wife, just married, she was separated from her new husband, my dad, when he joined the army to fight in the Second World War.
I remember, her telling my sister and me, stories of her wedding dress made from surplus parachute silk, of rationing, black-outs and street signs being removed so that, in the event of an invasion, the enemy wouldn't be able to find their way around.
All these stories told with her characteristic stoicism and gentle sense of humour ... and I realise, that only being able to speak to family via FaceTime, or not being able to enjoy a cappuccino in my favourite coffee shop are not such hardships after all.

Annie
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