Notes from the country with Vicky Turrell

  How is a coconut like a pineapple? They must be the same in some way because when I wanted to order a coconut at my online supermarket they were ‘currently unavailable’. I could substitute with a pineapple, it said.   I suppose they are both a similar size, they both have a rough exterior, and they are both edible. But I am not sure how one could be used instead of the other. I have heard some very strange stories of substitutions but what my supermarket could not have known is that I wanted the coconut for the birds and a pineapple would not be suitable at all. A fresh coconut cut in half and hung on a tree attracts the great spotted woodpecker, the tit family and even the robin. The windfall apples are now attracting birds of a different kind. Blackbirds, thrushes, fieldfares, and redwings are crowding all over the apples that fell to the ground. Birds like the fruit when they are beginning to rot. They eat the flesh and I see the empty apple skins scattered in our orc...

We are looking for light at the end of the tunnel. Thoughts of the new vaccines seem to embody that hope. But there is something else we have our hopes fixed on and that is Christmas. The festival when family have always come together and the feeling is warm – forgetting the compulsory Brussels sprouts, of course. After much thought, I have decided to cancel our normal Christmas – my family cannot travel to us, as they usually do, and messages with ‘Merry’ and ‘Jolly’ seem false. We will do video calls to family and friends but will not be sending cards and presents. We must eat, though, and I needed to think about booking some December supermarket delivery slots. You could begin booking early one morning last week. I decided that I would start at 9am, when the rush was over. But the site crashed. I tried at half hourly intervals and eventually got in at midday. In order to reserve a slot, you must ‘buy’ something. I was so nervous and, without thinking, I hurriedly booked two ...