Lockdown outing

First thing this morning i.e. eight o’clock, I spent half an hour feeding all my pots. Then, because I think I’m still sixty, I decided to take the car out. I went down to the petrol station, which is also a Co-op. There were notices up asking customers to use the disposable gloves provided, or paper when using the pumps. Not a single person used gloves except me, and I’d taken my own disposable ones with me. I paid my bill and got a couple of things I needed; no one in the shop was wearing a mask. Then I drove home a longer way round than I needed to, for the sake of my battery. This was a route I would normally take at least once a week but it was so long since I’d done it that I drove even more carefully than usual. I saw a group of people waiting for a bus, all wearing masks. On the village green (not ours, we don’t have one), there was bunting and one of those black silhouetted soldiers, probably put up for VE day. When I got back, I wiped down the door handle, steering wheel, gear stick and parking handle, to use a technical term. Was this excessive caution?

Because I now go out so seldom (I don’t mind this), I find even a short outing like that very tiring. A word about my car and its battery because it’s really annoying. I had a new Skoda Fabia. Admittedly, my journeys are mostly short but in no time it started giving me nasty warnings: ‘12V battery almost flat. Please drive to charge. Infotainment (sic) system will be switched off’ (it wasn’t on). When the battery gave up, the chap who came to get me going again said that although the car was still under warranty, I hadn’t driven enough to allow a free battery and I had to pay. I phoned the dealers about it and they were furious but after a few phone calls on my behalf, said it was out of their hands. Grr. When I’d had that car three years, I bought another new one. I drove about the same amount as before and then, with lockdown, very little, although I did run the car and move it around once a week. The car has never failed to start first time, which convinces me there was something wrong with the battery in that first car.

Cricket and tennis

Let’s hope we get a full day’s cricket today. I was really annoyed on Thursday that it rained at the Aegeas Bowl thirty miles away but not here. Yesterday, we were living in gloom here and it rained (far too gently) all afternoon, yet not at Southampton. Cricket is so strange without a crowd watching.

Has anyone else been watching Old Wimbledon? I’ve seen some of the evening programmes and found them quite fun. I don’t think it’s just nostalgia that makes me think tennis was more entertaining (especially the women’s game) when they played with wooden rackets and skill was more important than power.