Day 19: From May to September

It’s supposed to be a lovey weekend so to make life easy for myself I am just going to give you my prediction for the next few months today and have the day off tomorrow. This should leave me plenty of time to get on with things that need doing both in the house and in the garden. I figured at our age it’s best to read things quite closely together before we forget so in order to keep the continuity, I have included April’s prediction once again.



April

·         So far so good. What with no school and Easter approaching children are being relatively well behaved. Some wag has come up with the ‘brilliant’ idea of enticing children out of doors. Searching for the teddy in the window. All the over 70s have found their children’s favourite toy from the year dot and shoved it in their window so little Tarquin and Esmerelda can spot them on their compulsory walks – well that’s the idea. What happens in practice is that I have found strange small beings staring at me through the window like an endangered species, which frankly I think I have become!

·         Parents who previously allowed one hour of screen time per day on Saturdays and Sundays only, claim to have now realised screens can be hugely beneficial to child brain development

·         Self-isolating over 70s are spending the night in front of the TV and popping open their third bottle of wine as there are still plenty of new shows being streamed and the spirit of the Blitz is keeping everyone going

·         Husbands have hunted down their long-lost musical instrument from the loft and are becoming familiar with it once again



May

·         Teddy bears have now been replaced by loo rolls in order to let any passing young people who CAN go out know that you need some in the next day or two. This will help Tarquin and Esmerelda in their problem-solving exercises rather than staring inanely at a teddy bear.

·         Jasper and Felicity have now been sitting in front of the TV for nearly eight hours straight a day and have figured out the parent lock on both the TV and their parents iPads. Suggestions by parents to start learning how to make sourdough bread and learning Mandarin are falling on deaf ears.

·         The over 70s are spending the night in front of the TV and popping open their fourth bottle of wine and each new show on streaming is devoured as hungry wolves would devour a live chicken

·         Husband has now remembered a few of the basics of playing their instrument and becoming a little more familiar with it. Spending endless hours ‘practising’

June
·         Loo rolls have been replaced by an empty gin bottle in order to stimulate the brain cells of both the passing parents and Tarquin and Esmerelda who seem to get louder each day.
·         The over 70s are spending the night in front of the TV and popping open their fourth bottle of wine and a new bottle of scotch and watching the occasional new shows which are incomprehensible in their depiction of a world where people could leave the house and touch.
·         Jasper and Felicity’s parents have decided that screen time limits are a luxury of the wealthy so have joined Amazon Prime, subscribed to Disney+ and bought the kids a Nintendo Switch each
·         Husband now knows three chords, but that leaves his poor wife vulnerable to butchered versions of every pop song in history

July
·         Clearly children’s brains are not being stimulated enough as the gin bottle was not replaced so a notice is now attached explaining in clear English what is required. This should hopefully address their reading abilities and stop them shouting in those extraordinarily loud voices
·         The over 70s have decided that drinking wins hands down over TV and have shunned it and called it ‘the picture that lies’. They open one of the final remaining bottles of gin
·         Jasper and Felicity are now binge-watching Brutal Mania and the Evil Dead while their frantic parents ignore them completely.
·         Wife is in a race against time to locate and destroy instrument

August
·         Placards outside the front door begging for sustenance to no avail. Parents and Tarquin and Esmerelda are watching ‘Quarantine Families Go Mental’
·         The over 70s are now totally comatose and frankly don’t care who does what and where. They realise that whoever said that staying in was the new going out were deluded morons.
·         Jasper and Felicity are now completely brain dead, so their parents are trying to reconvene civilisation by watching ‘Quarantine Families Go Mental’ together as a family
·         The instrument is no more

September
·         With the end in sight sanity is recovered, the concepts of work and school and outside are reintroduced and Britain prepares to pretend this whole period of mass lunacy never happened.

Going to the beach tomorrow as it’s supposed to be a lovely day and all the television news bulletins this week have shown them to be totally empty so that should be good. Only a 200 mile journey to my favourite beach so looking forward to it. The Queen has also asked me to help her out with her speech to the nation on Sunday so another job to do. Busy, busy, busy.


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