Oh, to be in England

 

Aaah, the Twenty Third of April! I’ve just spent three quarter of an hour exercising in the garden with Nell. Mostly running up and down and round and round, with some episodes of throwing, and some episodes of stopping and puffing a bit to catch my breath. It’s a bit of a grey and breezy morning, with a frisson of drizzle in the air, but it was okay. I sustained a bastard insect bite to my neck but such is my lot in life. I’m nectar to insects. What can I say? 

The cherry tree is in full blossom…

…and the lilacs are just beginning to open, sufficiently enough that I could catch a small whiff of their perfume. The lily-of-the-valley are hinting they might be in flower by the King’s Coronation Day. The forget-me-nots are positively rampant!

As are the primulas and primrose…

And it is St George’s Day, Patron Saint of England. I always think it’s a bit sad St George’s Day isn’t celebrated with as much vigour as the Irish getting excited about St Patrick (unless it’s just an excuse to get rowdy and rat-arsed) and the Welsh about St David with all the leeks, Welsh cakes, bara brith and daffodil stuff. I don’t know revved up the Scottish get about celebrating St Andrew but I guess they have bigger worries on their minds at the moment. In England, however, it somehow seems frowned upon to be proud of being English, sort of ‘Hush, hush, whisper who dares, I’m English and I’m jolly glad of it.’ I love my country. I love the countryside, the history, the traditions, the Royal Family, the language, the music, the poetry, the flora and fauna….oh, everything! Simple as. 

The Twenty-Third of April is also celebrated as William Shakespeare’s likely date of birth. He died on this day, too, which is pretty neat and tidy in my opinion. I love a bit of Shakespeare. Such a great English poet and playwright. In celebration of the day (what with it not being the kind of day to spend outside) I plan to watch ‘Shakespeare in Love’ which is one of my go-to ‘cheer me up’ films. Not that I’m feeling in need of cheering up at the moment. I might also watch ‘Mapp and Lucia’, the adaptation of E.F Benson’s novels, because you don’t get more English than those. Unless you consider the many works Stella Gibbons, of which, sadly, only one - ‘Cold Comfort Farm’- has been dramatised. I could watch that instead. Decisions, decisions. 

And the Twenty-Third of April is also the day that the government, in all its ‘wisdom’ has decided to run a national security test by sending a screeching ten second alarm notice to every mobile phone in the country. Thoughtfully, it has chosen to disturb the peace of a Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. This alarm is apparently part of the ‘government’s’ plan to alert the nation to future severe weather events, terrorist situations, nuclear war, plagues of locusts, stampedes of wildebeest, shortages of toilet rolls, someone sneezing…oh, I’m getting silly now. Hush, Penfold! 

But I am prepared! I have disabled the alarm notification on my own phone, which, to be fair, is rarely switched on anyway. I have then made sure my phone is DEFINITELY switched off. The battery may, also, possibly be flat. And, because I suspect Andy will not be joining in my celebration of bloody-minded English independence and the right to not be involved in these spurious ‘government’ shenanigans, I shall make sure I am as far away from his phone as possible in order that I don’t hear the alert going off on that. He will think my behaviour to be that of a mad, stubborn old cow, but I do not care! These days, I rather enjoy being thus!