Perky

I'm still protecting the anemones and French lavender that I bought last week by bringing them inside overnight, but during the day they get to enjoy the fresh air and light out on the patio. Today, as you can see, it rained. It actually rained so much that the garden turned into a swamp again (note to whoever's in charge: WE DON'T NEED ANY MORE RAIN NOW, THANK YOU), and I had to curtail my bug search during this brief sunny respite, because I was sinking so deeply into the "lawn" that the water was coming up over my shoes. I don't think this cost me any records though - in the areas I was able to search, I didn't find a single invertebrate.

Partly because the ground is saturated again, and partly because R did something unpleasant to his back yesterday, fighting with a tree root, we weren't able to do any gardening today. While this would normally be a cause for mild celebration, I would actually have welcomed some distraction from - or at least counter-irritant to - the constant stream of news updates on the Covid-19 pandemic. As most of the world follows a trajectory that seems like the start of the flashback section of a disaster film, I'm hanging on to the knowledge that the Chinese seem to be getting their outbreak under control, and hoping that their expertise may ultimately help the rest of us. At a personal level, I found out this afternoon that in standing down yesterday from Choir Two I only jumped the gun by a few hours: the entire season has now been cancelled.