When Tivoli arrived eight days ago I showed her my very long to-do list and we identified the jobs I couldn't do on my own. I wasn't so bold as to have shed-demolishing on the list but she added it and I am so glad she did. The garden is now bigger and brighter and I relish it even more.

This morning the last remaining two-person job was securing the pole I need to use as one end of a washing line so it doesn't collapse when washing gets loaded on the other side. The first attempt split the brick in the back wall that we'd agreed should be strong enough to take the strain. Oops. The second attempt, into a thick layer of render, worked.

Then, like the good fairy who grants wishes, she vanished.


This evening I watched the lockdown version of Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong, as recommended by WalkingMarj. I'm not a huge fan of the book - I think Faulks's writing is a bit overblown and self indulgent and the love-story part of the plot doesn't convince me. But I was keen to see how a complex and demanding story could be produced with each of the actors performing in isolation and recording and lighting themselves. Some of the home-done make up jarred but the editing/continuity was really impressive: when one person handed something over, the recipient reached out to take it, and the disadvantages of Zoom-boxes were used incredibly well to show the dislocation of characters, especially in the tunnels underground and the letters home, where the backdrop was dark and the edges of the boxes merged. Unfortunately Sebastian Faulks was used to narrate and to read some passages of the book; the drama was very much more convincing when the actors were just left to act. Especially, shoutout, Tim Treloar’s Jack Firebrace.

I wonder how the innovation and creativity being shown now will affect drama in the future when - let's hope - there are fewer constraints.