Notes from the country with Vicky Turrell

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 ...

I have a supermarket delivery slot! Not that unusual normally, but today in these strange times it is exciting news. I have told all my friends around Shropshire and beyond. We have an old pasting table at the gate and the delivery man puts the shopping on there. I open the bedroom window and we communicate about substitutions. My order has become a big event, now I am in isolation. These slots, as you will know, are as rare as hens’ teeth, nowadays. Hens really do have teeth when they are ready to hatch out of the egg. The developing chick grows a temporary protuberance on the top of its beak, which it uses to break the eggshell. I recall seeing these ‘teeth’ on day old chicks, when I was a little girl living on a farm. The chicks were delivered by rail in hexagonal cardboard boxes. I remember taking the lid off the boxes and seeing these yellow fluffy creatures with pink legs and beaks with the little protuberances that had helped them hatch. The baby blackbirds in my b...