Author: Lizzie Aitchison

08 Jul

Posted at 11:46h in Uncategorized by

I’m trying to work out how I feel about the lockdown easing.  Uneasy.  Funny word, easing. They use it in the rag trade; easing in sleeves so they sit smoothly in the armhole and there’s no unsightly puckering. Or driving; easing out of a parking space or the inside lane to merge into a gap in the traffic. It can all be effortless and safe. The word itself slips easily off the vocal chords, vibrated from the throat to arrive gently at the lips and be uttered with cheeks slightly squeezed almost into a smile, which seems appropriate. Try it. You’ll see...

23 Jun

Posted at 18:26h in Uncategorized by

The new neighbours came for socially distanced tea in the garden on Sunday. We’ve been getting to know them through the hedge at the back or on the front doorstep these last few months since they moved in just before lockdown started. The children, a girl and a boy aged 6 and 4, are friendly, full of chatter and curiosity. They respond to any gesture of ours to welcome them, share our knowledge of the local area, lend them garden tools or give them cuttings from our flowerbeds, with exuberant drawings – or the occasional scrawl. On Sunday, the 6-year-old...

12 Jun

Posted at 11:42h in Uncategorized by

I rarely write a blogpost about politics, at least not in a direct or explicit way. It seems best to leave that to others. Let them scrawl in huge letters across the papers or shout from the airwaves on news bulletins, chat shows or phone-ins. I avoid phone-ins and hear them only in a passive way when my husband has his radio on louder than usual or has forgotten to close the door of the room at the top of the house where he spends his days satisfying his two addictions, painting and current affairs radio. How he keeps his...

01 Jun

Posted at 17:28h in Uncategorized by

Not much in the diary these days, so the phone’s been quiet at least on the beeping front. It prompts me a day ahead of an event, a week in the case of birthdays, with a particular sound. I must have set it up to do this way back when I first got a smartphone. I’ve forgotten which sound it is for diary prompts though it may be lodged in my mind’s ear and as soon as I hear it I will instantly recognise it as a ‘date’.  Occasionally the phone beeps with a ‘new memory’. I assume this is how...