Made Glorious Summer

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

It occurred to me today that this whole lockdown thing reminds me of the winter of 1978.

I think it's that feeling that there's something big going on in the outside world and that we need to hunker down, batten down the hatches* and entertain ourselves.

Do you remember the winter of discontent? I expect so. Caro has no recollection of it at all. As for me, I remember being in the house with my parents and we would all be sitting around under blankets, clustered around a candle. 

My mum made dinner by boiling hot-dog sausages* in a pan over a candle. I thought this was semi-miraculous. It might sound stupid but I didn't know a candle generated enough heat to cook anything. I remember she improvised the hot-dogs, because we had no buns. She just put ketchup onto bread and we rolled them up with a sausage in the middle, like a meaty Swiss roll.

And it was so dark and quiet outside.

For entertainment we just played cards, all different games but mainly "Pass the Lady". That's what we called it, although you might know it as Queen of Spades or Hearts. As a kid, I thought this was fun. I didn't realise how serious things were, or how much of a pain in the arse it was for my parents. I seem to recall we were all in good spirits - at least, so far as I knew.

The candle we played around was some decorative one, picked up by a friend from somewhere. It looked a bit like a castle. It was fashioned with lots of little towers around the outside and I became fascinated just watching the wax melt as it cascaded down the sides, like the people inside, pouring boiling oil onto the heads of invaders. And I remember my mum experimented with twine to see if she could make new candles from the spent wax (it didn't work).

The thing is, I don't really remember how long the winter of discontent lasted, or when it ended. It wasn't EVERY night was it? It must have just been a number of different evenings that my memory has somehow conflated together. 

This time, the crisis outside is arguably worse, but we're not reduced to sitting around a candle, eating makeshift hot dogs. But what's similar is that feeling of being in a siege against the outside world. Like we're inside that same wax candle from all of those years ago. However, the people inside the castle with us, make everything all right. 

Isn't that right, Punky?

S.

* Which maybe explains why I still love hot-dogs.