Christ its cold, the wind bearing down on our house situated at the end of the known World. An outpost on the limits of the civilised World with only the badlands of Herefordshire beyond us, with the raging torrent of Sapey Brook as its barrier before entering the impenetrable forests of Bromyard telephone code area. Its a wild place indeed.

Being new to the hill fort of Clifton upon Teme, in a brand new estate, persched on the edge of the abyss, i’ve decided to start a whats app group for all the folk on the close, how very isolationist of me, I’m not joining the village facebook group, Mrs T can do that, but we’re going to create a singular group with the power of numbers to complain to the developer about various first world problems we have, such as the garden being muddy and the paint cracking in the joints of the house, we want to develop the acumen in the art of complaint, reason and negotiation with these damn developers who continually fob us off with  promises of “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” 

And when we send the members of the group on a dog walk into the unmarked blocked off footpaths of North Clifton, only to see them scratching and scrambling through and over hedgerows, through fields of dead sunflowers, startling pheasants and hares, tiring themselves out thoroughly before returning to a triumphant homecoming celebration with the retired folk dancing in the Close, the plague dealt with, and the vaccine corses through the veins of the over 50’s drunk on the freedom of freedom, leaving the rest of us incarcerated in a virtual prison able to pace the battleground of a garden; up and down, up and down. 

Please go away virus, we’ve had enough now.