Found Items

Level Four Lockdown: Day Sixty-Four

Mood:A touch down, but getting better. Prawn dumplings fix most things.

I love my neighbours. I'm really lucky. We all get on. We've also got each other's numbers in our phones, so if things need doing, like cat feeding, parcel pick ups, the odd grocery run when somebody is sick, it gets done. I'm known to ask one of the guys downstairs to kill the odd spider for me. Cake is distributed on birthdays. We're kind to eachother. And we're not in eachother's pockets, which is really good too.

Anyway, today the text comes through. 

"Hey P, are you expecting a Harry Potter box set?"

"No, but I have them if you want to borrow."

"There's one sitting on top of the letterboxes."

"Hmm, I'll go have a look."

I have no idea who left a seven book Harry Potter gift set was sitting out on our letterboxes. But it's been raining a lot of late, and I cannot, in good conscience, leave good books out in the rain, so I've taken them in. They're sitting in the dry, out of the rain, in our stairwell. We'll leave a not on the other stairwell doors, see if anybody's expecting them. But it feels a bit strange to think somebody has dumped them. 

So if anybody's after a box set of Harry Potter books in good conditions, there might be one going - it;s sitting in our stairwell - out of the rain.

The other found item that made me smile today was in a book. Over the Faber course we all got to know each other's projects. Our token bloke was writing a speculative fiction piece with a character called Mrs Bergonzi. A strange name for a strange character, named after an Italian tenor who died a few years back. Our token bloke also sings opera on occasion.

Anyway, I was reading my book at lunchtime, and what should I find? 

A chapter headed "Bergonzi's Pussycat Hostess Paradise."

The book was Louis de Bernieres' A Partisan's Daughter. I found it odd that two writers, two very different writers, ended up referencing are fairly obscure Italian tenor - though Bergonzi in the book ran a 'hostess club' in the late 70's in Soho. Our token bloke's book has a Mrs Bergonzi, who makes a wicked lemon slice.

Two very simple occurences that made my day. 

Strange the things that amuse you in a pandemic. 

Today's Song: