Theatres, pubs, restaurants, all social hubs of air molecules of moisture emanating from our chattering mouths potentially carrying and passing on COVID19, are all closed. Each finds it’s way of opportunity. To some it may be taking the furlough road, getting all those jobs done in the house and garden, or exploring the B roads on bicycles, or reading Remembrances of things Past. To some it is finding iIngenious ways of providing the service without the social, and to this comes the Fox and Goose and Sarah and Paul Yaxley.
We collected our cook at home brown paper bags from the Fox&Goose, one sunshine Saturday, early walking the dogs in the graveyard meeting one from Essex who had come up to tend a grave.
We dressed for the occasion. Michael in a DJ suit he had had since he was in Oxford, that’s 65 years ago. ‘Only my legs have shrunk’, he observed. A bow tie, at the top and polished pointed shoes at the bottom. We both walked with difficulty but determination. I in equally pointed shoes of my 30’s and a Valerie dress. We dressed the table too, with sweet peas scenting the night air already perfumed with roses, water lilly napkins (taught to me by the creative Pat Raine) and candles of course.
The wine was Bacchus from Flint vineyard, just across the Waveney at Bungay, some desert wine that Michael had found in the cellar, and a sherry mid way. We were both surprisingly sober at the end, perhaps because it took 4 hours to eat 7 courses and one bottle of wine.
The instructions were part of the theatre. If your plate is a clock, place the contents at 5 o’clock and drag the pure across the plate to 3 o’clock. etc. The image was useful. All delicious of course, the bream, the duck, the salmon, the pork terrine, the syrup tart, but best of all was the blackbird, who serenaded us though the whole evening, moving chimney post occassionally. Relaxed with the wine, and hightened by the theatre, we both acknowledged how easy we found it being in each others company, easy and honest (In many ways you are easier than being with Tamsyn).
The following day a socially distanced lunch party with Gill and John, Elizabeth and Rupert. Table tennis was compulsory. The day after a trip to the Paget, where it was confirmed Michael would gladly walk again.
Releasing a duck and duck house. 
Kalikellett 