A touch of spring to lift the gloom

I’ve been working from home these past couple of days but had to go into the office today to physically finish off some product testing, and also release for sale a number of packed products. By no means everything in the workplace can be managed remotely or electronically. 

The company is running with a skeleton crew, with less than a third of the normal workforce present. Strict hygiene and social distancing measures are in place, and I wouldn’t go in unless I was convinced these procedures are as safe as they can be. With no dealings with the general public, and only the odd delivery driver to attend to, our workforce is at far less risk than supermarket workers, but even so I’d prefer us to switch to a complete shutdown, if it can be done without impacting too much on the company’s future.  

It’s a difficult balancing act trying to ensure we all have jobs at the end of this crisis, against the need to protect the health and general well-being of our workforce, as well as reducing the impact on our amazing National Health Service.

All this, plus a recent family bereavement, has left me feeling more than a little washed out. It has also kept me away from my writing, so by way of something a little lighter, here are some photos taken yesterday, whilst out for a lunchtime walk with son Matthew. Warning, some of the photos are of closed pubs.

Yesterday’s walk took us down the normally busy Pembury Road, and past the row of townhouses being built on the site of the recently demolished Primrose Inn. We then turned left and ascended one of the steepest roads in Tonbridge; a road which not only affords some of the best views locally, but one which is lined either side by some rather attractive 1930’s properties, all built in the Art-Deco style.

Few of the houses possess all their original features, and most have ripped out their metal framed Crittall Windows, in favour of more modern, and easier to maintain uPVC replacements, but in the bright spring sunshine they were all looking their best. Blossom, of varying types, along with the odd magnolia, all added to a bright and joyous looking scene, light years away from the dark threat that is hanging over mankind at present.

A footpath leads off from the far end of this road, towards a footbridge over the virtually traffic-free A21 trunk road, which also serves as the Tonbridge bypass, and across into open fields. It was then a short hop past Tonbridge Cottage Hospital; a facility originally built as an isolation hospital to house patients with smallpox and scarlet fever. Nowadays, people are isolated in their own houses to protect them from the latest plague afflicting mankind; a reminder, if one was necessary, that nothing much changes in the world.

We crossed the London-Hastings railway line, and shortly afterwards passed back under the A21. Our route took us past the Vauxhall Inn- a Chef & Brewer pub, that started life as an old coaching inn on the London-Hastings road, before being much enlarged to form today’s rambling, weatherboard pub. With the Premier Inn next door, this complex is normally a bustling hive of activity, but the large carpark was virtually empty. 

It was then back along Pembury Road, before diverting past the Weald of Kent Girls School; one of three grammar schools that Tonbridge is famous for, and which helps inflate house prices to an artificially high level. 

There was one final pub to pass, before turning for home. The Cardinal’s Error, in Lodge Oak Lane, is an attractive old tile-hung building, that was converted from two former farm cottages to provide a pub for the surrounding post-war housing development. It is the nearest pub to where we live, but I’ve never really looked on it as a local.

It caters for quite a mixed clientele, and the beer – Harvey’s Sussex Best is normally in reasonable form. Apart from the obvious current closure, it is good to see the Cardinal’s is still trading, so perhaps when this unholy mess (if you’ll excuse the pun), is all over, I’ll make more of an effort to call in for a pint.

So there we have it, roughly an hour’s walk through an attractive and semi-rural area on the south-eastern fringe of Tonbridge.  A walk too that was fully compliant with government diktats, originating straight from home and returning there as well, without the use of any motorised transport.

More dispatches from the home front

Looking back over a few old blog posts, whilst trying to find inspiration, reminded me how normal it was, until just a few short weeks ago, to be able to jump on a train for a visit to the coast, or an unfamiliar town, and similarly being able to jet off somewhere in search of good beer.

Admittedly the latter takes a lot more planning and organisation, but such a trip was in the offing for this coming May. That’s obviously gone out the window now, but the trip in question was a short, three-day stopover in the Czech city of Pilsen (Plzeň). Pilsen is famous the world over for being the home of Pilsner-style beers, as it is the city where this golden style of lager was first developed.

Son Matthew and I were flying out to join a group of fellow beer enthusiasts, most of whom have present, or past connections with Maidstone CAMRA. Three years we accompanied the group to the Rhineland city of Düsseldorf, whilst two years ago Bamberg was our destination. I had also joined the group, on my own in 2015, for a visit to the Czech town of Jihlava on the border between Bohemia and Moravia.

These trips have always been good fun, well-organised and have normally included a few brewery tours. You can imagine then the sense of disappointment that has pervaded the Bailey household, as we watched with horror, as the insidious Corona virus spread itself around the globe.

Then in mid-March, the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, advised against all travel to the Czech Republic, as the Czech authorities had closed the country’s borders, in a bid to halt the spread of the virus. The closure extended through into April, but whilst the tour organiser suggested waiting, realistically I can’t see the UK’s own lockdown being lifted for at least another six weeks, and it is likely to take much longer before restrictions on international travel are lifted.

None of this matters in the general scheme of things, especially when we are facing a crisis the likes of which we have never encountered before. My grandparents, who would have just about remembered the Spanish Flu pandemic which followed the end of the Great War, are long departed, and with them and their generation, the experiences of that particular scourge has vanished from living memory.

It’s a case now of bunkering down and isolating ourselves from contact with our fellow citizens by staying indoors as much as possible. I am switching to working from home as much as possible, although most of the workforce at my company has been instructed not to come in next week. This will make things easier and safer for those occasions where I do have to go into the office to deal with things that can't be managed remotely, or electronically.

For some reason I was incredibly organised towards the end of last year, so instead of leaving things until later, I booked a second holiday, also for May. This was a short cruise for Mrs PBT’s and I to Hamburg, on the Queen Mary 2.  The voyage hasn’t officially been cancelled, but it will be, and given the experience of passengers quarantined on cruise ships, for weeks on end, because of Corona virus, being confined to quarters is something neither of us wish to experience.

As with the Czech trip, cancelling or postponing the cruise is not a problem, particularly if all these small actions help speed up the end of the crisis, and anyway, even if it was to end tomorrow, there would still be a mountain of work waiting in order to put things right and restore a semblance of normality.

These then are my thoughts on a very cold and blustery Sunday evening, as we enter week two of the lock-down. I’ll sign off for now, but not before saying,  keep well and stay safe.

The Fantastic Mr Fox

My exercise today has been in the garden and consisted of chopping up a large pile of cuttings from an out of control shrub that I cut down a few weeks ago. I also mowed the grass – its first cut this year, but even with the blades on the highest setting the mower kept clogging up. The reality is I should have performed this task a couple of weeks ago, but wait, didn’t we have all that rain back then?

Grass clippings, and chopped up shrub cuttings, mean my “brown” bin is now three-quarters full. This is the bin I bought specially from the council for disposing of garden waste that is difficult to compost, only to discover that just when this service is coming into its own, the local authority has suspended it.

Understandable under the circumstances, as I’m sure there are far more pressing matters for our local council to deal with during this crisis, but rather frustrating all the same. As far as my step count is concerned, I’ve only just hit the 2,750 mark, but steps aren’t everything, and despite the chill wind that was blowing, (it’s going to get even colder tomorrow), it was good to be out in the fresh air.

However, this post isn’t one about how virtuous, or otherwise I’ve been, instead it’s about a little visitor who appeared just as I was tidying things away. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a small and quite skinny looking fox slowly creeping into view.

The sight of a fox is not that uncommon, as our garden backs on to a small wooded area that acts as a “nature area” for the local primary school, but normally we only see them from the kitchen window, and not whilst we actually out in the garden ourselves.

My first instinct was to reach into my coat pocket and grab my phone, as I wanted to photograph the little fella, but as I snapped away with the odd zoom shot, it became obvious that this fox was no shy and retiring violet, but rather a bold one. He, and here I’m assuming it was a male, continued his approach to within a few feet of me.

It was then that I realised the poor creature was hungry, so without making my movements too obvious, I made my way back to the house and tapped on the window to attract Mrs PBT’s attention. She opened the back door, whilst I explained what I’d seen, and hurriedly found a metal pet food bowl, kept from our dog-sitting days.

She grabbed a couple of Weetabix and crumbled them up in the bowl with some water, for me to take back up the garden for our little visitor. I thought Mr Fox might like something extra to go with his cereal, so I added the remains of my Cuppa Soup to the dish, placed it on the ground, before retreating back towards the house.

Sure enough our foxy friend approached the dish, and after a cautious sniff or two, got stuck in. Later, we found a tin of dog food, again a hangover from looking after my sister-in-law’s dog, so we gave the little chap, a helping of that, and I’m sure he found it a better choice than the Weetabix.

Mrs PBT’s was keen to share my photos of our visitor, on social media, particularly as she wanted to alert occupants of neighbouring properties that there was a hungry fox on the prowl. I agreed to post them on my Facebook page, even though I’ve been ignoring social media as much as possible these past few weeks.

The response was quite surprising, as apart from those liking the cute photos of our furry friend, there were quite a few from people we know in the immediate vicinity. One, from a neighbour down the road, informed us that he had been feeding the fox for the past several nights, but hadn’t seen it for a few days.

It would appear that the Fantastic Mr Fox, likes to do the rounds and pick and choose which locations he dines at. Now that is a little light-hearted story to help cheer us through these dark days, and one to restore one’s faith in the kindliness of others.