Gus's blog

The 25^th blog of Augustus Lazarus Cooke, (Gus) aged 10½.

Hello everybody. It’s been such a long time since I blogged that I hardly know where to begin so I’ll just dive in and hope for the best.

Susannah and Frankie and the cats – Lenny, Solomon and Zula – moved into their new house last summer. Roxy goes for sleep-overs now and again but she can’t go at the moment because of ‘the virus’.

We animals are quite curious about ‘the virus’. Lots of things have changed because of it. Frankie doesn’t go to school or to tennis, or swimming, or gymnastics and he can’t have any piano lessons and no-one goes out to work unless they are Qui workers. I think the ‘Qui’ means ‘Who’ and that’s the question a lot of people are asking, along with ‘Why’. For instance, no-one is supposed to go near anyone else but the Qui workers are still crowding onto the Toob trains and children whose parents live in different houses can travel between them, but friends can’t go and see friends or even meet them outside.

Lots of people who can’t go to work are worried about money and everyone is worrying about shopping. Mr and Mrs H don’t go out shopping anyway and always do everything ‘online’. What does ‘online’ mean? Is it like walking a tightrope? Anyway, the talk now is about getting ‘a slot’. Apparently, ‘slots’ are almost impossible to find though we see them sometimes in the woods. (Deer slots are easy to see in the mud after it’s been raining.)

Susannah and Frankie come to see Mr and Mrs H every day to see if they need anything but they don’t come into the house and we can’t say hello to them. Instead, they stand outside and shout at Mr and Mrs H and they shout back but it’s all quite friendly. Frankie doesn’t do much shouting – he’s finding it all a bit strange.

When people come to deliver shopping to the house they do a little dance. First of all, the person delivering rings the bell or knocks on the door, then speeds away so when the Humans open the door, the person is miles away and does a bit of shouting. Then the Humans shout back and everyone smiles and says ‘thank you’ and ‘take care’ and then the Humans come back in and wash their hands. They wash their hands a LOT. It’s very interesting to watch.

Everyone is talking about ‘the virus’ but it hasn’t affected us much, apart from Roxy not being able to visit Susannah and Frankie and the cats. She loves going there but Lenny and Solomon shoo her off the bed so she’s always pleased to come home and take up her rightful position on Mr and Mrs H’s bed, along with Herschel and Jellicoe.

We were sorry to have to say goodbye to Isambard before Christmas. He had spent a long time looking after Mr H when he had newmoania and then he got very ill and died. The vets were really upset and sent the Humans a lovely card to say how sorry they were. Jellicoe had been really ill, too, and we all thought he was going to die, but he didn’t, so Isambard’s passing was a great shock to everyone. Jellicoe and Herschel seem to have taken over the responsibility for looking after the Humans. That was always Isambard’s job before.

Today, the sun is shining and the birds are busy and all is well with the world, apart from ‘the virus’, that is.

Be good.

Hwyl fawr am nawr! (That’s Welsh for ‘Goodbye for now!’)