The Post-Corona Bucket List

Local roses.

Benedict Ambrose has gone to the hospital for a routine x-ray. It's simply the most dangerous thing either of us has done all year, more risky than going to Tesco. He put on clothes that can be washed as soon as he gets back. He took the packet of tissues I offered (for coughing in). He took the almost-empty last little bottle of hand sanitiser. He took an issue of The Spectator I hope I've already read. He took the letter informing him he has this appointment. I kissed him good-bye and begged him to stay six feet away from everybody. And that's about the best we could do.

This just in: B.A. has called from Stockbridge to say that it is sunny and nice and reminding him of the (Scottish) Sundays of his youth: almost all the shops shut and almost nobody around. As he is very early for his appointment, he thinks he'll go for a  coffee in Waitrose if he can face standing in the queue. (Anyone around is in the  Waitrose queue.)

Also, I have just received a photo from my beloved Pretend Polish Daughter-in-Law of the small Sunday dinner party we attended the day after my Goddaughter's baptismal celebrations. PPS looks, as usual, as if he stepped out from early 1939, which is very apropos, given that our lives will be divided between the pre-pandemic and the post-pandemic eras.

But this reminds me of my theme: the post-corona bucket list. Various Facebook friends have been writing what they will do as soon as the quarantine is lifted. For me, this list rather depends on when the quarantine is lifted and whether or not there is going to be another quarantine after that. If there's a two week window, I will shoot off to Canada to see my family: otherwise I'll wait until February, as usual.

Aged P can tell you what they are.

However, if the game is "If the quarantine is lifted tomorrow, what will you do?", then I can reasonable say that I would:

1. Tell my manager I'm taking Holy Thursday off, sorry. "I'm out of here.  See you Easter Tuesday!"
2. Get on the bus or train and go to Holy Thursday Mass! Imagine the joy of actually being able to go to the Triduum after all.
3. Go to the Botanical Gardens to see the Scottish spring at its very best.
4. Buy Victoria Day weekend airline tickets for Wrocław.
5. Reserve an AirBnB and buy airline tickets for Rome in September.
6. Go to my beloved Brew Lab, meet a Polish pal, and converse in broken Polish for an hour, fuelled by delicious coffee.
7. Stand on Princes Street and dance before the cityscape of the Old Town.
8. Plan an enormous Easter Sunday Open House for all the Scottish trads I know.
9. Buy three bottles of gin, dozens of cans of Fevertree tonic, a dozen limes, and two bags of ice for #8.
10. Take my library books back to Edinburgh Central Library, and possibly do another dance on the George IV Bridge.

I would be too excited to go to the gym.

Well, that was enjoyable. Feel free to write your list below.

Local architectural detail

To return to our bizarre new reality, I spent yesterday digging up dandelions before work, working,  baking peanut butter cookies on my lunch break, working, digging up more dandelions, going for a walk with B.A., reading news, watching Woody Allen's Radio Days, and talking to my parents on Skype.

I was happy to see that my real life "Don Camillo" story is popular with readers, and I eventually got through the bitterness and simply felt happy for Cardinal Pell.

Today I feel very cheerful about Cardinal Pell and everything, possibly because it is so sunny out and B.A. sounded so happy on the phone to be in Stockbridge. Writing the above list was uplifting, too, so I do recommend that you write one, too.

Now for some photos from our government-mandated neighbourhood walk (see above).

Update: Another reason to be cheerful: my windowsill bean garden has begun to sprout!

"It's alive! It's alive!"