Another day gone
It’s getting tough out here in Lockdown-land.
I don’t know what it’s like where other Rusters are living in self-isolation – and don’t get me wrong, we’re all in this together – but living in solitary confinement, which by personal choice I’ve been doing these past twenty years, is becoming somewhat complicated and frustrating when everybody is doing it.
I suspect the current cold snap has something to do with it.
One of the problems is knowing quite what we’re supposed to be doing.
On the one hand, we’re supposed not to go out unless we really have to – save for, in addition, once a day purely for exercise purposes. On the other, we’ve got to live, which necessarily means going out at some point in order to buy food, household necessities and, of course, booze.
Some might say I possess a persecution complex, but I regard it simply as just a cross I have to bear.
Somebody has definitely got it in for me.
I know this because – whenever I get into my car – the DVLA immediately alerts all police forces in the UK, who then have to drop all other duties in order to monitor my progress in furtherance of an MI5 directive to try and catch me speeding.
The other species that are after me are birds, specifically those suffering from virulent gastroenteritis.
It all goes back to about 2002 when I had my thankfully-brief midlife crisis, the chief symptom of which was my purchase of a brand new Porsche Boxster.
Within a short spell of time, I gradually became aware that – whether it was sitting (as it frequently did) in my spot in the private car park of my block of flats, or was ever “on the move” and parked anywhere else in the British Isles, it became the source of keen winged attention.
I do not flinch from telling Rusters the truth. Almost without exception, within a matter of 24 hours whilst stationary – and even sometimes on the move – it had been dive-bombed by some very sick birds indeed. In short it had become what I can only describe as a very expensive mobile bird lavatory which then took a great deal of time and elbow grease to render clean again.
In the end, after four years of otherwise very happy motoring, I could take this phenomenon no more and sold my now late lamented Porsche for some £25,000 less than I had bought it – simply to be rid of the issue.
Fast-forward to six weeks ago, when I bought a nifty run-around Audi A1 hatchback with the added advantage of being capable of achieving 100% more miles per gallon than any previous vehicle I have ever owned.
As it happened, a couple of weekends ago I went to visit a family in West Sussex and on the first night left my car well free of any nearby trees, right by the front door, specifically to avoid bird attention.
No such luck. The very next morning I went outside to do no more that collect the Sunday morning papers from a nearby village.
And found my new car literally covered from head to toe in bird-shit.
And I mean literally.
It was as if a cattle farmer had driven over secretly during the night in his JCB fully of slurry and – very carefully and silently – positioned it right over my new car and dropped the lot right on the mid-point of the roof.
It took me about 45 minutes to clear the windows sufficiently enough for me to be able to see out the front and drive off on my errand!
Which brings me to yesterday.
About 10.00am I received my chore orders for the day, the first one of which was to do a food shop at my local Sainsburys. And not just a quick nip out for a ready-made meal to bung in the oven and consume 35 minutes later – one to provide the household with enough fodder for at least four days.
I duly left Chez Nous with a heavy heart and went out to my car, parked opposite in the street.
And guess what?
Yup, you’ve got it – the bloody birds had found it overnight and done their usual!
Not a single other car in my street had been so much as farted upon.
The bastards had clearly all lined up at the far end of the street and pretended to be the legendary RAF 617 squadron on a raid through enemy territory to the Möhne Dam and given my poor little Audi “the works”, just for the hell of it … and probably also done this on the direct orders of HM Government!
Rather than face the hell of trying to clean enough crap off the car to even undertake the expedition, I opted instead to defy Dominic Cummings (and the world generally) and jump straight into it and drive to my local Sainsburys … there to get my car washed by Desmond and his mates in the car park whilst I nipped round the store in double-time.
Having kept steadfastly looking straight ahead as I drove through the centre of town (ignoring the bemused glances of members of the public on all sides) in what had once been a beautiful shining black hatchback, but which now more resembled a camouflaged armoured staff car on the loose from training manoeuvres from Salisbury Plain, I duly reached my target some ten minutes later, largely thanks to the scarcity of vehicles “out and about”.
Of Desmond and his mates, of cousre, there was no sign at all.
I then found myself at the back of a longish queue of potential shoppers waiting to be let in (I think in groups of about 20 at a time) into the store.
After the four “groups” ahead of me had been waved forward in sequence, eventually mine was admitted.
For the record, although the fish and meat counters were cordoned off and not operating, and the aisles featuring basics like baked bean, mince and Lloyd Grossman sauces were completely denuded of product, it was actually relatively easy to circumnavigate the hall and – with a bit of improvisation here and there – buy enough provisions to keep those nearest to me from starving over the course of the next 96 hours.
I think.
