Cygnature walk

My lockdown walks often take me around the Backs along this path which has views over to King’s College, among other sights. Today a pair of swans and their six cygnets were scrushing around in the stream next to the path, and it was the height of cuteness.

After walking for a while I perched on a grassy mount and read but my gilet wasn’t adequate against the chilly air. My limited wardrobe has finally beaten me, so later on I ordered some clothes online. Of course I ordered them to the wrong address so I’ll have to intercept the delivery somehow...

At the supermarket entrance, a very strange exchange as I reached the front of the social distancing queue. A booming Yorkshireman was the person on duty, ushering people in accordance with the one in, one out policy. ‘Maintain social distancing, we know where you live’, he hollered at the guy who entered in front of me. He’d pegged the previous customer as a student type who throws caution to the wind in terms of coronavirus spread. If he’d looked inside he would have seen the customer lingering to extract wipes and proceeding to disinfect every inch of a shopping basket, which stalled me long enough at the door to be forced to listen to the staff member.

I’d been categorised as some sort of right-wing sympathiser. It may have been the gilet, but I was combining it with a salmon pink t-shirt, which I imagine would be too fruity for the right.

‘You’ve gotta find ways to wind up the students, ant yer, now Brexit is out the way. I used to get loadsa comments from them on that one. And Trump. So many bites on that when I talk about Trump. Oh, they love biting on. I like hiding the Guardian from them in the shop.’

He was so overly pleased with himself that I didn’t ask who he assumed he was appealing to with this chat. The Guardian app on my phone almost cried out in protest and I vividly recalled standing in that very spot in June 2016 on the eve of the Brexit referendum discussing my hair with a Greek man, who passed by whilst in Cambridge on business.

Is this an unanticipated by-product of the advancing years? Conspiratorial monologues from those who assume you will also want to roll your eyes at liberal minded youth.

I was finally permitted entry to the shop so I could pick up those bastions of any Cambridge shopping basket, as requested by Gugs: figs (unsuccessful - maybe Brexit is causing supply shortages) and spinach (as she wanted to make a croque madame). I bought mini pork pies to have alongside it.

I ambled back to the house. A basement flat around the corner was having a whale of a time with Prince and clouds of weed smoke billowing from an open window. Dastardly Remain-voting, Trump-hating, virus-spreading students. You know the type.