Positivity is so over rated. Memories inspired by Covid.

 

Positivity is such an overrated concept.  Memories Inspired by Covid by the farmer who hasn’t a clue.

I’m longing to be negative.

(there are some quite nice photos if nothing else tickles your fancy)

 

On a few occasions I’ve been criticised for being negative.  “oh Rich, can’t you be a bit more positive” and “some positivity would be nice”, you’re a *anker”, "get a taxi, Rich" (after asking for a possible seat in a 70 seat coach) and “oh just *uck off” are a few of the kinder ones.  It gave me food for thought and encouraged me to set my sights on trying to avoid any more such ‘helpful and positive comments’.  As you may know I organised a small tennis tournie in Martinborough which I think was deemed a success.  The kind words of appreciation caught me a bit by surprise.

It all started when I woke up on Tuesday with a sore throat and cough after I had had a little smoochywoochysnoggyjoggy with the girl next to me.  I swabbed my beak, gagged with the same implement, and squirted a drop in the little indent.  Two lines; I was positive and initially I was delighted, it was such a thrill to be confirmed positive.  Hard luck all you nay-sayers.  Ali pointed out it wasn’t what I wanted.  I needed one line and negative.  I need to be Negative again; story of my life.The visit from the virus was pretty awful and not to be recommended, although it did give me a good excuse to go, like the old man that I am, for an afternoon snooze every day.  I moved into the isolation unit and when I appeared I had to ring a bell and shout ‘unclean’.  Being positive wasn’t great.  I couldn’t wait to be negative.

Anyway, back to the business of the day.  Our 2 Indian running ducks have been waddling and not running around for months.  The name is a misnomer.  The chickens have started laying which means I have one less reason to go to the supermarket.  I kinda thought that if the chickens were laying the ducks might be.  So, the duck egg search started.  There was a duck, hiding silently under the rosemary bush with apparently 5 eggs around her.  Once she left, we went to investigate.  Not 5, so many in fact there were 3 stories of eggs.  Only a mere 40. What are we going to do with 40 duck eggs plus 4 chicken eggs a day apart from raise our cholesterol.  Now they know that we know where their nest was, they don’t lay there any longer. 

    

 

I always struggled to be happy with things that were overtly negative.  Our guide in Ethiopia wanted money so I arranged with him that he’d send me coffee and I’d pay him what I’d pay for the equal weight in Sainsburys, plus postage and a bit more. But it is so sad.  The coffee scheme was working really well.  We got Ethiopian coffee roasted by his Mum and he got cash.  The war broke out in Tigray and we’ve lost contact with him.  Maybe he is in prison, maybe he is dead.  I can’t find a positive there, except I hope we were able to help him and his Mum for a while, at least.

Whilst only finding one place in England that made coffee that didn’t resemble the water that flowed with gusto at the bottom of our drive during the recent floods, we come to Martinborough and drink coffee that is an elixir. In Martinborough the brewery has a ‘tasting palate’ where you can have a 1/3^rd of a pint of their various brews.  The Wellington Dreamland café sells a tasting platter of their different coffees.  It’s all such a treat. Rwanda, Brazil and Burundi.  The caffeine headache is one to remember.

 

  

The ducks apparently stopped laying, but Indian Running ducks sometimes just drop an egg wherever they happen to be.  We’d be going to the car and there is an egg under the front tyre.  I go across to the chicken house to get some chicken eggs and there on the path is an egg.  It’s so random when they don’t have a nest.

It snowed today, cold and miserable but the positive is that it was stunningly beautiful.  I went for a walk to the top of the hill to look at the view.  About 60 metres up the hill was an egg. It’s just chance that I find them.  About 120 metres up the hill I chance across the clump of reeds with a nest snuggled in amongst it. 7 eggs.  My delight at finding eggs reminded me that sometimes a positive vibe is quite nice, but I only have a duck to thank for that!

When positivity is apparently such a sought-after phenomenon why are covid tests, when you’ve got the virus referred to as positive?  My experience of this pesky bloody virus is that there is nothing positive about it.  All it makes me feel is that I can’t wait to be negative, which is something that I am striving for and have been doing so for days.

Today’s negative hoard started early.  Hull v Wigan.  Often my highlight of the week was going to the DW and meeting up with my great football friends in the WC and ES7.  I do miss it.  Even with a loss and the positive comment about the game "there is nothing about football", positivity and fun oozed.  I still watch games on ‘Latics TV’.  Sometimes I see my friends.  Memories flood back.  Fifteen minutes into the morning, Wigan 1 – Hull 0.  The day got off to a good start.  Ninety minutes later, Hull 2 – Wigan 1.  This time I didn’t enjoy negativity.  Bloody rubbish!

That leads me on to answering the question no one has asked of 'am I thinking of coming back to visit'?  Yes, I am, but I don't know when.  I do miss the groups of great and fun people I spent time with.  At present I have to stay as I have appointments with my therapists, 4 sheep, 6 chickens, 2 ducks and nonverbal but spit therapy with the alpacas!  Maybe I’ll have to do zooming with them.  You all know how damaged I am, so I clearly need therapy.  They are certainly the best therapists I've ever had.

  

We all need rain, but not as much as Pakistan has had and not as much as we are having.  You’ve seen photos of our floods but what worries me is the other extreme in the summer.  Hot and dry, which will set everywhere up perfectly for bush fires.  It seems impossible at present but so did scrub fires in a London suburb seem unlikely.  You’ve seen photos of the floods we’ve had.  They’ve continued, and now it is snowing.

As I cycled to Warwick to work, just after the Chesford Grange Hotel I would go past a layby.  It was an infrequent event when the layby didn’t have a mattress dumped, a chest of drawers rotting or a computer terminal.  I drove to Martinborough a week ago and had to turn back to take a picture of what had been dumped in the layby.

For the first time in several days, it wasn’t raining.  I got out of bed, raised the blind to see a cow and her calf in the garden, as you would.  I feared for our newly planted trees ready to form a shelter belt for a hurricane in 15 years’ time, and I worried for the vegetable seedlings that’ll be ready for supper in 6 months’ time.  With haste I zoomed downstairs, in my total lack of pyjamas, because I don’t have any, I put my wellies on and went outside.  It was cold and there was still snow on the hills.  The cows looked startled.  Maybe a bit embarrassed.  What may have swung around, no longer did. With little prompting the cow and calf turned and calmy walked for the gate.  Such was my herding skills I could be a dog.  Whilst I was out there, I thought there was no point in going to put something on, so I examined the estate.  Celery nibbled and the cabbages have had a hold up in their healthy start to life.  Around the corner was Lamborghini and BlackJack sheltering from the wind, sleet, snow and rain.  The look of aghast on their faces said it all.  Shocked.  Caught.  They wondered what the apparition was that appeared in front of them, they did ask me why I had wellies on.   To sheeps, a sheep pellet is like cocaine to a you and not I.  I rattled the bucket and like the Pied Piper, who wore more that I was wearing, they simply followed.  Easy!  It was such a cosy pleasure to go inside and put some clothes on.  What are the positives in that story? 

Talking about being clothless I’m reminded of the time I went for a swim in the see near Vancouver, btw the next-door neighbour to the place I was staying was none other that Terry Jacks, of “we had Joy we had fun we had seasons in the sun” fame, but I digress.  I thought it was going to be last swim ever. The current was a good bit stronger, out to sea, than I could swim.  It didn’t help that it was about 11.30 at night and as black as our sheep Jack.  With stronger swimming than I knew I was able, and a little help from the others out there we made it back to mainland Canada.  Nothing positive in that memory.  Clearly, by default negativity has its benefits.

  


The trouble is, now we’ve found the duck egg stash they seem reluctant to come back so I’ve spent hours looking for the next lot.  All to no avail.  Hate them.  Nothing positive there!  However, today I went on an egg hunt, after about an hour I chanced across a chicken nest in amongst the onga-ongas, which happen to be stinging nettles, and are 200 times more venomous than an English stinging nettle and can be fatal.  I’m sure onga ongas aren’t used for soup or washing one’s hair.  In grovelling for the eggs, I got stung, but I have survived to continue with the story.  Hard luck!  There were only 10 eggs.

I’m sure we all know about food banks and the sad need for their existence.  They exist in nice white middle class affluent occasionally racist Martinborough and of course Covid lock downs didn’t help them.  Funds were depleted so a good local person decided to run a ‘Glamorous GumBoots’ fundraiser.  Fun was had by all as people took great pride in making themselves very glamorous and then putting their wellies on.  Guess what?  I won a prize; a ticket to ABBA and as I thought they were older than me and hung up their flairs, I wont be going.

    

I went to have my covid booster and saw the vial, so I picked it up and looked at it.  The injector explained a few things to me and then said "ok, are you ok for me to proceed"? 

"No" I said

"oh why not"?

"Because the vaccine is 2 months out of date", I told her.

"Oh, I never noticed that".

 

Then I got covid!  I blame the vaccine!!!  Or the vaccinator.

 

I was astonished at such an admission.  She went off to check with her supervisor, and apparently Pfizer had extended the expiry.  Basic good practice seems to be missing and I was made to feel as if my approach was not accentuating the positive.

 

I could feel my blood pressure rising and that reminded me of all the palpitations I used to get watching Wigan.  One game I took my BP monitor with me.  Kath was worried I was going to die or explode at a corner.  It was all so negative, and I loved it!

 

I’m writing this whilst I am still testing positive.  For those that have seen me as negative; sorry folks, I’m not changing now, I’m longing to be negative again and shall be doing all I can to stay that way.  Negativity rules ok.

Ali is visiting her Mum at the moment and of course she kindly left me well stocked with food.  Only if you live with a Doctor, and a very good one at that, would you get your bread left in ..............

There we are folks, a world of negativity, it’s bliss and to those who criticise my negativity – get used to it.  I’m much happier than when I was positive and feeling pretty ropey.

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I've just read the comments that some of you have kindly posted.  Going back to the olives; 100 litres was a production statistic, we kept 14 litres for ourselves.

Out of interest, does 'anonymous' who commented on the last memoir want to tell me who you are?  Who have I been to Little Langdale with who reads this?

Olives, yes, I've been really successful at brining our own olives and they are bloody yummy.  Come and taste them.

We still have about 1444 trees to cut down for our winter warmth.  I think they will last. us.