I am finding this lockdown a bit driech (splendid Scottish word for dull and gloomy ) and not least because there seemed to be a surprising number of people who apparently had essential journeys to undertake this week, and many of them seemed to be urgent given the speed at which they were driving.

So, life here in this house in Deepest Sussex has ground to a slow movement. A bedaggled (soiled by being dragged along wet ground) dog walk is essential, and so, it now appears, is an afternoon film.

We are not great cinema goers but now with the help of (thank god) technology we can bring the films into our sitting room on a daily basis.

And we have watched some very good films – so no game show trash for us – which means I can pretend that I have some virtue. (decency, merit, as well as piousness and snobbery.)

And, self-justification (I don’t think I need bother you with other words for that.)

I cook, the Best Beloved puts some jigsaw pieces in now and then, and writes history or commentaries current politics, whilst I sometime clean ( well, actually nip round with the vac, as my grandmother would say.)

Our days are anfractuous (winding or circuitous, in case you needed to know.)

Now and then a ‘spur’ hits and I am slowly (sluggishly, driftingly, dawdlingly, lazily, ineptly) re-decorating the downstairs loo. 

And as we speak the BB is out in the garage trying to sort out the winding mechanism to insert the leaf into an old oak table so we can sell it – don’t ask. (astrabilious, tetchy, irritated, acriasial….)

But, I am told that this is a time to be kind to yourself and so I am doing that on a daily basis. (tender, dilly – who’d have thought? but that is a word I can feel myself using again, good-hearted – nicely Buddhist, benign, self-generous – really?I would be out hugging trees with crystals, and that ain’t going to happen.) 

But really and truly that just means letting myself off from painting/cleaning the wood floors/sorting out the dog insurance/clearing out the pantry/re-upholstering four chairs/leave alone the learning of a new language, or an instrument, or skill, or indeed anything very much.

So, I am negligent (guilty, culpable, blameworthy, hangdog, reprehensible,) and also lazy (slothful, work-shy, languorous, distracted, listless.)

But I am going to be dilly (newly attractive word) to myself and know that there is a tagine in the oven, a well-walked dog, a fire to be lit, a good book waiting for bedtime, a film to be watched, no one I know has died of Covid, and tomorrow I will be more (assiduous, over diligent, hardworking, conscientious, dynamic, active, energised.)

I suspect this plan might be bambosh (deceptive nonsense), or blague ( pretentious nonsense).

But as we say in this house, tomorrow is another day, and maybe the BB will grace me with a basemain ( kiss on the hand) and we will wander, stroll, saunter, amble, dawdle, potter, ramble, meander, drift, digress through it.

And we will appreciate our luck and life, and that might well be enough.

And, as a PS and the principle that there is no new emotion under the sun, here is A E Houseman who my BB was reading as I wrote this post:

Yonder see the morning blink:

The sun is up, and up must I,

To wash and dress and eat and drink

And look at things and talk and think

And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed

And what’s to show for all my pain?

Let me lie abed and rest:

Ten thousand times I’ve done my best

And all’s to do again.