Lessons Learned in Quarantine

-- Susan, Every Other Sunday

With the state of emergency here in Tokyo poised to lift on the first of June (and the case loads, as well as people's behavior here in Japan, suggesting it's appropriate to do so) I'm looking forward to the chance to return to the mountains. "Normal" will require a new definition, at least for a while (for some variable value of "while" that is likely to extend for the rest of the year, if not beyond), but I look forward to a future with borders wider than the walls of my Tokyo home.

That said, I'm also taking time to reflect on some of the useful things I learned (or was reminded of) in quarantine - and I thought I'd share a few of them today:

1. The most important things in life cannot be bought with money.

My mom and me on the summit of Mt. Inari, 2018

2.  Haircuts are optional.

Selfie, yesterday morning (before coffee)

3. She who hoots with the owls at night....

Also me . . . at 2am, trying to stop reading and go to bed.

... will be woken up (too early) by crows in the morning.

They start arguing at the crack of dawn.

4. A good pizza covers a multitude of sins.

Miso pizza with cheese and onions. Delicious.

5. And what pizza cannot cure, good pastries will.

I miss this cafe. Soon...

6. Pursue your dreams as soon as possible. Don't put them off for a someday that might not come.

And when you do, you will create amazing memories that last a lifetime.

7. Celebrate the things that are deer to you, and hold them close.

See what I did there...

8. Coffee is a gateway drug. To more coffee. This is only a problem if you run out of coffee.

The ones I make at home don't look nearly this nice.

9. Silence, and time alone, can be both torturous and healing, depending on the person and even depending on the day. Be good to yourself. Life is too short to do otherwise.

Give yourself time and space to breathe in peace.

10. Find a goal you want to pursue when the quarantine is over, and take whatever steps you can to prepare to make it real. The mountains in your life won't climb themselves, but you can climb them . . .

.... just take everything one day and one step at a time.


Homaste: the quarantined person in me respects the quarantined person in you. Sending all of you best wishes from Japan.

Guest Blogger, Lenny Kleinfeld: How to Avoid Writing a Crime Novel During Quarantine

Jeff—Saturday

I’ve known Lenny Kleinfeld since beyond the dawn of time (notice that slight-of-hand on the classic cliché), and regard him as a great friend who never fails to make me laugh. Be it with his sidesplitting novels, rib-cracking in person antics, or bone-crushing biker tales.

So, when Lenny asked me if he could have my Saturday slot on Murder is Everywhere to share his secret technique for procrastination, I, being the compassionate understanding soul that I am— and madly in love with his wife, Ina Jaffe—said, “ Go for it, break a leg.”

But before turning the reigns over to Maestro, permit me to tell you a bit more about him.

Lenny writes black comedy crime novels set in Chicago. The latest is Shooting Lessons. "Grabs you by the shirtfront and drags you through its dark and increasingly blood-spattered shenanigans like something engineered for max adrenaline and engagement."—The Austin Chronicle. His first novel, Shooters And Chasers, was called "A spellbinding debut" by Kirkus Reviews. His second, Some Dead Genius, was one of National Public Radio's Great Reads Of 2014, and named Thriller Of The Month by e-Thriller.com.
 

Back before he was spellbinding, he was a playwright in Chicago and a columnist for Chicago magazine. His fiction, articles, humor and reviews have appeared in Playboy, Galaxy, Oui, The Reader, the Chicago Tribune, New York Times and Los Angeles Times. According to a reliable rumor he also spent fifteen years writing screenplays which producers purchased but forgot to produce. You can learn more about Lenny here.  lennykleinfeld.com  

  

On the morning of Thursday, May 7 my bike body-slammed me into the pavement. Okay, this happens. Move your limbs, wiggle your digits, nothing feels broken. Best thing is to get up, get back on the bike and keep riding; that way you're less stiff when you wake up tomorrow.

The standing up part didn't go well. My left leg burns like it's trying to electrocute itself. Refuses to support any weight. Second try I manage to achieve verticality.

Picking up the bike up was fun too.

So now I'm leaning on it with my right arm, using the bike as a rolling crutch, heading back to my car.

I'm unable to put my left foot down but have to, grimacing, wincing, yelping and making a good eight or ten inches of forward progress with each step. The car is about a mile and a half away.

Coincidence #1: This being in Brentwood, an upscale L.A. neighborhood (think OJ Simpson), a gleaming new Mercedes SUV stops and the driver asks if I'm okay.

Yeah, I took a spill, I'm headed back to my car. He asks if he can take me to the emergency room. I say no thanks.

He gets out, puts my bike in the back of his vehicle, saying he'll drive me to my car. I try to climb into the Benz and discover the only way to do that is to lift my left leg with both hands. Yeah, something just might be damaged in there.

As we're driving he asks how it happened. I give him the crash gossip, and add how frustrating it is—I recently broke a shifter cable and got the bike back from Helen's (local bike store) repair shop less than a week ago.

He grins. "My bike is in the Helen's repair shop right now."

We get to my car. He insists on loading my bike on the bike rack, because we both know that's the only way it'll happen. Then he waits to make sure I can drive before he leaves. Does the Vatican accept nominations for a secular saint?

Coincidence #2: My current car is my first vehicle in 35 years that has an automatic transmission; the traffic has gotten so insane on the westside I finally reluctantly abandoned driving a manual shift. Good thing. If driving home that day required pressing a clutch pedal I'd still be sitting there.

Ina, my wife, takes me to the St. John's ER. A nurse pours me into a wheelchair and exiles Ina.

There's a COVID tent in the parking lot, so it's only me and one other non-viral patient in the waiting room. But the ER is understandably understaffed, so I spend two hours wheelchairing around the room, pausing now and then to watch the TV, which is tuned to a news cable channel showing a cascade of stories detailing how the Mar-A-Lago Virus is devastating the population, the Constitution and civilization in general.

They take me backstage, hoist me onto a bed, check my vitals and cross-examine me. There's no doctor available, so I am in the care of a young Physician's Assistant. She is, like most PAs I've met, rigorously thorough and determined to get things right.

An alleged X-ray technician shows up and proceeds to measure my ability to withstand torture by rolling me up on my side so he can slip a hard metal plate under my butt. Which he then adjusts several times. To maintain his cover story he also takes a few X-rays.

The PA informs me my photos have been deconstructed and curated by a top-rate bone critic who is also an orthopedist. Bad news: There's a fracture of the pelvis. Good news: It's small; no surgery required. Here's the orthopedist's phone number, make an appointment.

Coincidence #3: I am wearing a University of Wisconsin t-shirt. When she's completed her tasks, the PA points to it and asks, did you go to UW?"

I pump a fist in the air and reply, "UW-Madison, '69. You?"

She nods and grins. A born caregiver, she's too polite and gentle to mention which of the past ten years was the one in which she graduated.

They give me a pair of crutches. At which point I remember we live in a townhouse with a staircase. That monster in the photo.

The first available ortho appointment is on Monday morning. It turns out to be a fairly posh practice. Three surgeons in a seventh floor corner suite in Santa Monica; to the west is a view of the Pacific, to the north the Santa Monica Mountains. It also has the longest corridor I've ever seen in a doctor's office. It might be the longest corridor I've seen anyplace but in a major museum. It looks like a forced perspective set in a Kafka movie directed by Hitchcock. I am the only patient in the office but of course the exam room the nurse points me to is at the far end.

In the 3-1/2 days I've been on crutches this is by far the longest hop-and-lurch I've been on.  When I get there and the nurse checks my vitals, my blood pressure is the highest it's been in living memory. I defend my cardio system's honor by suggesting it was the cross-country trek down the corridor that's caused it.

"Yeah, probably," the nurse agrees, and assures me the doctor will arrive any moment.

Any moment later the doctor arrives. He's the best orthopedist in the world. He tells me, "If you have to fracture your pelvis, this is the one you want. It's small and not near the hip joint. It should heal pretty well in eight to twelve weeks." No surgery or even physical therapy involved.

When can I resume exercising and riding a bike? (The bike survived the crash unscathed.)

The doctor says I can work out whenever it feels comfortable. Just don't rush things. "Be sensible."

When Ina picks me up I tell her the good news. She's pleased, but cautious. She insists on translating "Be sensible" into easily understandable English.

Tells me, "Don't do anything stupid."

Somehow, fifty years of living with me hasn't dulled her optimism.

On Tuesday, May 19^th, the swelling in my pelvis has receded far enough to increase the range of motion in my leg and the range of concentration inside my skull. For the first time in ten days I'm able to look at the manuscript of a new novel-in-progress and see something besides random words sliding around on the page.

I polish a chapter written the day before the crash, paste it in and knock out an outline for the next chapter. I'm not satisfied with where it begins, and…

…it occurs to me the bike crash might make a reasonably amusing post for MIE.

# # # # # #

That it did, Lenny!  Thanks, and mend well, my friend.

—Jeff

Looking For Nancy

One of the most memorable openings in TV crime series was The Rockford Files.  Do you remember it ?

                                 

There was always a message on the answering machine. The writers had to come up with a different one every week. It became a phenomenon for a while. What was the new fangled machine going to come up with next. You can listen to them all on You tube, all 127 of them so there must be a genuine fanzone out there, liking  the voicemail … before voicemail.

                   

Here are two often quoted ones, both from the first series.

“It’s Norma at the market. It bounced. You want me to tear it up, send it back, or put it with the others?”

And in the days when the answering machine was so expensive, it was rented…


‘This is the message phone company. I see you’re using our unit, now how about paying for it?”


I think the answering machine, like the mobile phone is both monumental to the well being of 

humanity and a total and  unbelievable pain in the gluteal area.  


                                 

There are outgoing messages you can  use, written by somebody who should know better, probably got the sack from the greeting  card company.



Roses are Roses are red, some willows weep, please leave your message, after the beep

            We might be in, we might be out, but leave a message and you might find out!



Twinkle, Twinkle little star, bet your wondering where we are? Well, put your mouth up to the phone And leave us a message for when we get home. And if you can make your message rhyme, We'll call you back in half the time!!!!!


Now I lay me down to sleep; Leave a message at the beep. If I should die before I wake, remember to erase the tape.


Roses are red booger's are green please leave your message on this stupid machine.



You are dazed, bewildered, trapped in a world with no time, where color collides with sound, and shadows explode. You see a sign up ahead. This is no ordinary answering device; this is "The Twilight Phone"



            Hello. This is Caro’s answering machine, Marvin, and I'm so depressed. I have 50,000 times the memory capacity of my owner, but all I get to do is answer the phone. Life. Don't talk to me about life. Just leave your name and number after the beep. Here comes the beep, how I hate that beep, it's so cheery.


Our business is normally open 7 days a week, four of them for 12 hour days so we don’t rely  heavily on the machine. Most of the early morning messages left are  people cancelling because they have been called into work unexpectedly.


During lockdown ,  the machine has  been doing its best. We have been dialling in twice a day to pick up messages, and then spend the rest of the day trying to work out who ‘Nancy’ is.

The main bulk of all calls are from the elderly looking for the chiropodists . There’s a very distinct divide, younger patients will email in, but the chiropody/podiatry  patients tends to be an older demographic , less techy savvy, slightly hard of hearing and can be immediately distrustful of the machine. The podiatrists were also key workers so that communication  line had to be kept clear. 
           
                               


It took a long time to get the ongoing message right but we went with ;


‘Thank you for calling. Due to the current situation, we are closed for normal business so please listen carefully.  If you are wanting to speak to a podiatrist  please say Marie, or Lorna, your name and your phone number, and they will call you back as soon as possible.’

It was quite clear I thought, that first line. We are closed.


The amount of times the  response has been, ‘So if there anybody there. Are you open?’ When are you opening? I need my nails cut.’


But 90% of the time it was fine. The other 10% was detective work.


There was usually two  messages a day at the start of lockdown,  each day that passed the number grew.   Probably as the toenails  continue to grow. And it’s an interesting  medical point that the professional association allowed them to cut  nails on diabetics,  but not on those who were blind.   And then there’s the man who did try to cut his toenails and ended up calling an ambulance due to the bleeding.


So here are some of the highlights.


'Hi, it’s Nancy here can you call me back.’


‘Is there anybody there. It’s Jimmy here, are you in. Or not?’


‘I don’t think they are in Elsie.’


‘I’ve a drip coming through ma ceiling,  what are you going to do about it . XX wardrobe street, paisley Thank you .’


‘Hi, it’s  Nancy. I phoned earlier,  can you call me back please.’


‘Hi, it’s me,  my foot is still really sore , and I can’t get out for my hours exercise so can you tell me what to do.’


‘Look love, I’ve already phoned and it’s  still dripping,  XX wardrope street Paisley.’


‘Betty? Its one of those machines , what am I supposed to do  now?’


‘Woof. Woof. That dog has just stood on my phone again.’


                                


‘ I need to pick up my prescription of Viagra.  Is it ready?’


‘Hi,  do you do Viagra? When are you open?’


‘Taxi  to Ralston please?’


‘Hi, it’s Brian and I need to speak to Lorna about my feet. Both of them.’


‘Hi, I’ve an emergency appt with Lorna today but my  temperature is high so I’ve to go to the airport for a covid test so I’ll be a bit late for my appointment. Is that ok?’


‘Look mate,  this water is pouring through my ceiling,  I’m going  to papers if you don’t do something about it.’


‘This is Nancy. I called yesterday. Can you call me back as soon as possible?’


‘ I think they are closed just now….. aye….. have you left that door pen….. I think the cat’s 
 gone out…. Billy gonnie you go and get that cat …. Oh I’ll  do it myself then…..sounds of footsteps, and phone clicks off.


‘Hi, it’s  Jimmy, is Carole there? Give me a  wee call. Cheers.’

  

It’s hard to describe the machinations we put our appointment system through.  And then the games of telephone tag.  Data protection means the receptionist can only do so much, the therapist needs to have a search through the hundreds of Nancys we have on file. Was this one on recently. Is she new? Does she think we are psychic? Or is she one of the many Nancys whose real name is Agnes, or vice versa. One name on the phone, one name on the file.



We still haven’t tracked down Nancy.


And that’s nothing to the telephone tag that goes on when we call them on the landline and they berate us via mobile.


 We did track down the poor man with the water ingress and told him that he was looking for the plumber, a phone number one digit different to ours.  Once we got through  him  shouting at us from  taking our time to get back to us.


 I have no idea who that Jimmy is. And the other man’s test was positive and he  was still happy to come in as he was  heading home to isolate and his  feet were hurting now so he’d be in agony  by the end of it.


And I have no idea why that man wanted Viagra. Well I do know why. But why he thought  we have any is beyond me.

Caro Ramsay

Prohibition

Michael - Thursday

It turns out that today is International Chardonnay Day. With all the different grape varietals out there these days, I suspect that every day is international cultivar day for something. Probably, however, International Pineapple Beer Day hasn’t yet made the cut anywhere except in South Africa. As part of the local initiative to lock down and flatten the curve etc. etc., the government here has experimented with prohibition. Presumably, they are history buffs and have discovered how well this worked out in the US a few decades back. Their justification for banning the Devil Drink (and tobacco products along with it) is a bit different, however. They have turned around the usual implication that parties lead to drunkenness to become that drunkenness leads to parties! This is not to say that we don’t have some puritanical people in our government who would be in favour of a permanent ban. In fact, the minister of police has noted that there has been a big decrease in crime since the measures came in. He was particularly delighted that arrests for drunk driving had dropped to almost zero!

Pineapple beer speakeasy. Note the 'ashtray'

When forbidden something they like and are used to, people find a way to get it, and there are plenty of other people who are quite happy to help them. For a price. So if you want cigarettes, there’s a flourishing black market. The cigarettes are more expensive—as illegal items usually are—but not that much more expensive because now there is no excise tax. Perhaps tax collection is booming here, so the government doesn’t miss a few more million dollars? Or maybe not. Wine and spirit manufacturers begged for the right to export at least. The government was dubious. The trucks might be hijacked because now the alcohol was like gold. But eventually they relented.

Nevertheless, thousands of gallons of beer had to be poured down the drain. It doesn’t last forever, and there’s not much overseas demand for the local brand. Terrible to see grown men weep.

Looks pretty good...

So back to the pineapple beer. While you can buy alcohol illegally, some people don’t have much money. What they do have is time, so they’ve been experimenting at making their own. You can start with anything as stock. All you need is some yeast to kick off the fermentation and away you go, but pineapples seem to be the stock of choice. Pineapple prices have rocketed 900%. Of course, alcohol is the by-product of yeast fermenting sugar. So rule number one is that you should start with lots of sugar, and pineapples have lots of sugar. Also, many of the by-products of fermentation are not particularly palatable, so it’s helpful if there’s lots of sugar left over to produce a sweet brew with the residual sugars drowning out the unpleasant tastes.  (The fermentation stops, of course, when the yeast produces enough alcohol to kill itself. This reminds me of what humans are doing with plastic.)

Still before...

Now, there are some downsides. Several people have died from their experiments in the pursuit of science. If you want really strong drink, then you have to distil the must. There have been some explosions of home-made stills. And sometimes you end up with something poisonous or leading to a massive hangover. But the great batches are really good (I’m told), so cause for a celebratory party!

Still after...

At the end of the month this may all change. Despite the minister of police’s view, the treasury would like those taxes. To say nothing of the fines for the drunk driving…

In the meanwhile, I’m sticking to the chardonnay. While it lasts.

Respite

Sujata Massey

People around the world are saying, when?

Over eight weeks ago, business as usual stopped for most of us. Not just working: but shopping, learning, socializing, being out in society. Some are saying enough already! and demanding that their states governors reopen all non-essential businesses and get children back to school.

Many of the open-up crowd don't have money to support staying at home without working.   Unfortunately, my country's government is quicker to aid large businesses who might suffer economic losses than the poor and the middle class.

In Baltimore, COVID-19 hospitalizations and diagnoses are rising. We do not look anything like the downward slope of the national graph. We aren't yet opening up houses of worship, playgrounds, barbershops and tattoo parlors, as our governor has said is safe for the state of Maryland.

I agree with the decision of Baltimore's mayor. I don't want exponential spread of illnesses. I have friends battling the illness and neighbors who risk their lives to work in hospitals and pharmacies.

I know that I'm privileged to stay at home. I'm not a front line worker. I have access to food throughout  this crisis, and live in a neighborhood where I can peacefully garden and walk outside.

When I long for openness, I take my little dog on a walk alongside a stream called Stony Run. It's a tributary to the Jones Falls in Baltimore, a powerful waterway that once supported mills in 19th century Baltimore. The wooded walking trail is about three miles long.

The Stony Run was here long before the pandemic. It rushed along when Indians lived along its banks, and when slaves secretly traveled north to freedom. It played its water music through the Civil war, the Influenza Epidemic of 1918, and World War II and Viet Nam.

Due to the labors of environmentalists and neighbors, this creek is at its healthiest these days. it is a haven for so many forms of life, from tiny crawfish and worms to chipmunks, mice, birds, and wildflowers. And as I stroll, the Stony Run seems to whisper that normal really does lie ahead.

Next Steps: It's Time to Stand Up

Annamaria on Monday

We all want to know what nobody knows.  My theme today is that we must not wait and see.  What happens next is up to us.  

Call me whatever name you like.  I am right about this. Don't believe me?  For one thing I have seen small fringe movements begin to work on what seemed like an unsolvable problem.   Little by little they won over those who doubted at first.  Eventually, they/we changed the course of history.  Actually, in my lifetime, it has happened more than once.

Here is an example from today, of one person who is determined to make a difference.  Regular readers of MIE may recall my friend Sarah Lesiamito, who fights against the cruel way her culture threats girls.  Right now, she is establishing her leadership in her area with a one-woman campaign against the coronavirus in Samburu in Northern Kenya.  She is not waiting for the government to tell her what to do.  She has informed herself and begun to supply the member of her little village with information and, as best she can in the remote place where she lives, give them the tools to keep themselves safe.

Here is Sarah (l.) instructing one of the men of
her village in proper hand washing 

Villagers discussing how to stay safe.  

As of now there no cases of Covid-19 in Sarah's area.  But if the beast shows up, Sarah and her neighbors are armed and ready.  

It is possible, but not certain that, in the aftermath of this pandemic the nations of the world will enact laws and practices that will correct the societal flaws that this crisis has so dramatically revealed.  The gross inequities in distribution of wealth and healthcare can be cured.  The world was in this same position in the early twentieth century and then it lead to two world wars with a pan-depression sandwiched in between.  BUT, fed up with themselves, the world's developed countries began to correct that situation in the decades following the Second World War.  Laws protecting workers rights and taxation aimed at development of the economy and improvement of infrastructure lead to decades of widespread prosperity.

All of that has been undone since the end of the twentieth and into the beginning of the twenty-first centuries.  And there is no guarantee that the current pandemic will right any of the wrongs.  In some countries around the world, dictators have used the disease as  an excuse to clamp down harder on anyone who opposes them.  Imagine if such a development turns into a trend.

Here in the world's first great democracy, the current president tried to seize upon the situation.  He declared that he alone had the sole power to reopen the slumping economy.  He had supporters who would rally round him if he tried that.  Cooler (and Constitutionally) better informed  heads prevailed, but that does not mean we are out of those dense woods. 

So if we want to emerge from lockdown into a better world than the one we had beforehand, we need to stay watchful and get active.  We need to be informed.

We need to be ready to stand up against any government that does not lead the populace away from dystopian widespread poverty and desperation. We want governments that protect the entire citizenry. And that means teachers, healthcare workers, firemen and policemen. The people who pick the vegetables and process the fish and the chickens. Who pick up the trash and clean the hospitals and the public spaces.  You know who they are by now. Those people the pandemic has revealed as essential.

I stole this photo from Stan's Facebook page.

And the journalists.  Be suspicious--VERY suspicious--of any politician who attacks the mainstream media, from the right or from the left.  It should be a human right to say whatever we want.  But no one has the right the hide from the truth.

  

 

One way we can use the power of the people is in chosing where we spend our money.  By supporting businesses that behave themselves, pay their workers well, treat the planet as sacred, not as a sewer.  Wealth come by honestly is one thing.  Greed is NOT good.

Every nation on earth will need to so some work on its economy once we are out of the corona-woods.  Which adjustments are made will be critical.

I have been hearing for years that the United States is a "consumer economy."  After 9/11, after the great crash of 2008/9, we were enjoined to help restore the economy by spending money.  We were supposed to go to stores and restaurants and buy, buy, buy.

Have you noticed?   Every time the latest consumer spending numbers are released, pundits express fear of recession if the numbers are down and optimism if they are up.

Years ago, many voters were sold a bill a goods by the Reagan presidency.  That if the wealthy were allowed to collect unconscionable amounts of money, the wealth would "trickle down" and lift all the little boats along with the big yachts.  This theory sounded like hooey at the time, and so it has proved to be.

So what would work?  Here's an idea.  Let's give the opposite a try.

We now know that when they amass enough money to last four or five thousand life times, what the billionaires do, mostly, is warehouse it.  I guess they enjoy watching it pile up.  But beyond a certain amount, it does not go into circulation to become the life's blood of the consumer economy.  

In the coming months, the economy is going to need a massive transfusion.  Forget trickle down.  Suppose we turn a firehose of buying power on the struggling poor and threatened middle class.  What will they do with cash in hand?  Spend it!  Of course.  They need all sorts of things.  They will buy clothes, furniture, cars, vacations.  Education for their children.  Restaurant meals.  Movie and theater tickets.  Flowers for their mothers.  Books!!!

They will buy the most run down houses in town and fix them up, causing a boom in the lumber and household fixture industry.  In myriad ways, they will feed the economy just at a time it needs it desperately.

The corporations that supply all those goods will thrive.  Hooray!

"Simply hoping that things will move in a progressive direction when the shutdowns end isn’t enough. Creating a fairer, more inclusive economy is hard work, and it will inevitably encounter resistance. Concentrations of economic power have to be confronted. Workers’ rights and bargaining power have to be extended. Democratic freedoms have to be protected. Demagogues have to be defeated, during pandemics more than ever.  –John Cassidy in The New Yorker"

No doubt there are trained economists out there who will be happy to point out the weakness in my suggestion.  I am ready to listen to them.  All I want to know is this.  If this is not the answer, what is?

You tell me what's next.

Cat Gardening for Beginners

Zoë Sharp

I hope you’ll forgive me if this week’s blog is slightly picture heavy. This is due to what could be termed Foreseen Circumstances, but more of that later.

During the current coronavirus UK lockdown, I’ve been spending a little more time out in the garden, and I’ve had particular success this season with my variegated cat crop, so I thought I’d pass on some tips.

To grow your cat from seed, it’s probably best to start it off in a nice warm place. Being originally a Mediterranean variety, they don’t take well to cold. A bathroom radiator is ideal to begin with:

Then they can be moved to a nice sunny window ledge where they’ll bask quite happily while putting on weight:

Once you’re happy that your cat seedlings are established, it’s time to take them out to the greenhouse, although if you don’t have access to outdoors, they can be transplanted into a window box with excellent results:

Of course, you could choose to start off your cats outdoors right from the off, although they may require a bit more shelter to get going:

Although this variety can be finicky, as with most plants you may find that they self-seed in the strangest of places:

So, better by far to bring them on in the greenhouse, where it’s a pleasure to watch them gradually unfurl:

With the onset of the warmer weather, it’s time to plant out. A good dusting of compost is usually required:

Given the space to sprawl in a generous outdoor bed, it won’t be long before that lovely variegated foliage is on full display:

Although if you only have a patio or smaller garden, they also do very well in planters and pots:

Generally, they like to flourish in a sunny spot, where they can make a nice point of interest among the garden wildlife:

They can also grow very nicely in a shady corner:

Either in a main border:

Or among the vegetables:

Although, this particular variety tends to do better if each is spaced a reasonable distance from another:

Which, in these days of social distancing, is no bad thing! So, good luck with your own feline horticultural efforts, and I hope you manage to grow a magnificent cat crop in your own garden.

And in case you were wondering about the reason for my reluctance to type this week, I shall let the pictures speak for themselves:

This week’s Word of the Week is chingaripen, which means war or strife in the Romani language of the Gypsies, leading to chingring, fighting or quarrelling, and chinga-guero, a fighting man or warrior.

Upcoming Events

My new book, BONES IN THE RIVER, Book No2 in the Lakes Crime Thriller series with CSI Grace McColl and Detective Nick Weston, will be out on May 26 and I’m going on a Blog Tour to celebrate. Here are the stops on the tour, either reviews or articles, with full details on my website.