‘Blood Kisses’ by Jane Langan


This is a self-published collection of poetry by a talented writer who studied on the Open University’s MA in Creative Writing at the same time I did. We both finished the course last October.  Since graduating, Jane (along with a group of other excellent MA alumni) has launched an online literary magazine called Makarelle, which is also highly recommended.

  

  £4.99 paperback 

I have read some very poor self-published writing, so I didn’t necessarily have high expectations when I purchased this book. I bought it mostly because I like Jane herself and I wanted to support one of my fellow MA graduates. I am familiar with Jane’s prose fiction, but not so much with her poetry, so I was intrigued to see whether she was equally as accomplished in both genres.

Firstly, let me make a comment about the physical, material qualities of this slender volume. It is a lovely object, just thick enough to be held comfortably in one hand while still having room for profundity and reflection. The cover is dramatic and there are excellent photographs inside taken by Jane herself. Unlike some self-published books I have come across, this has all the elements you would expect from a polished volume of poetry by a mainstream publisher – an appropriate blurb on the back, an accurate contents page, an ‘About The Author’ page at the back, page numbers, a clear font in a good size and lots of white-space around the poems.  Such considerations might seem trivial and superficial, but they often make the difference between volumes which have the authority of professional publications and ones which make you think of the literary equivalent of hand-thrown mugs with thumb-prints in them or hand-knitted sweaters with one arm longer than the other and a hump that could accommodate Quasimodo. You know what I mean: the sort of earnest, well-intentioned book that is a little bit egocentric and completely lacking in self-criticism. The sort of book that you throw into the back of a cupboard rather than actually read. Blood Kisses is not one of those, and actually I didn’t expect it to be as Jane has always struck me as highly professional in her approach. It is securely in the realm of the ‘properly proofread’, ‘thoughtfully laid out’, ‘holdable and readable’. And that is before you even get to the poems themselves…

It is difficult to read numerous poems all in one go – poetry needs digesting in bite-sized chunks. Even so, after I first opened the book, I found myself being drawn into the collection and realised I had read around half the poems in a single sitting. In fact, I read some of them while walking along the landing, having just picked up the book from the bottom of the stairs where I had placed it temporarily. This readability is due to Jane’s lightness of touch, her conversational style where the reader is invited to listen to her thoughts. She isn’t a poet who is self-consciously obscure and complex; there is a clarity and simplicity about her poetic voice that is refreshing and compelling. This clarity does not exclude depth and moments of genuine poignancy and subtlety, however. At its best, in poems like the wonderful ‘Beside Me’ which ends the collection, or the unsettling ‘Blood Kisses’, the simplicity of the language lies on top of a complex layer of churning thought and feeling which colours, shapes, tempers and amplifies the surface straightforwardness of the vocabulary.

Jane is an expert at engaging openings: ‘When I went home/it was to the hills’, ‘Deep inside the crevices of the broken heart,/there is cracked glass and darkness’, ‘He didn’t forget his manners,/the nurses claimed’, ‘A A Milne has some explaining to do’, ‘There are no more words in me’, ‘In nineteen seventy-five,/I lost me/I lost me’. She also has the gift of creating startling images or lines which stay in the mind long after you’ve read them: ‘clouds like grey collared doves’, ‘a skin of stories’, ‘Like a drunk, no rhyme nor reason./Just cat’, ‘Like a friend with a gun, you just don’t care’, ‘How I wish I was young again’. Whether writing about her cat, her daughters, Winnie-the-Pooh, religion or domestic abuse, she balances the humorous and the harrowing with great skill. Blood Kisses both conveys and evokes a smorgasbord of emotions, presented in a wave of different styles, from the punkish and prickly to the soothing and simmering.

I would recommend this book, even if you think you don’t like poetry. In fact, especially if you think you don’t like poetry.

You can find Jane Langan at:  www.howilikemycoffee.blogspot and @MuddyNoSugar

RATING: Blood Kisses *****

Key:
*****      highly recommended - a 'must-read'
****         good - well worth taking the time to read
***           ok - will help to pass the time in a boring situation
**            not very good -  just about readable but flawed
*             not recommended - boring, offensive, badly-written or deeply flawed in some other way

 

 

Covid Compliance

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/15/lockdown-rules-blaming-covidiots-compliance

In an opinion piece in The Guardian on 5 Jan (link above), psychologist Stephen Reiker discusses the issue of Covid compliance. He makes the points that:

a) far more people are complying with Covid restriction regulations than are refusing to comply

b) most people actually wished the regulations had been brought in earlier

c) we have the perception that masses of people are not complying due to media stories about 'Covidiots', which in fact makes others less likely to comply because humans tend to do what they perceive the majority of their peers are doing. Therefore, it would be much more helpful to have lots of media stories about people who are complying under highly stressful circumstances (and there are many of these to choose from - Reiker includes an excellent example in his article).

This is a very good, clearly-written and intelligent article which expresses my own opinion. I think the government and the media should be focusing on the positives, the way people are pulling together, the importance of 'community spirit' and self-discipline in this difficult time. This would bring people together rather than splitting us apart.

Today I read that a scientist from SAGE is saying that in fact Covid is driving a wedge between two groups of people - those who can afford to stay at home and work from home, and those who can't. There has been a lot of criticism of people for not getting tested when requested to, for example. The knee-jerk response of many people to such non-compliers is that they are selfish, or irresponsible. A more nuanced criticism is that such non-compliers are stupidly assuming that somehow it won't make a difference whether they are tested or not, that they know they don't have the virus so what's the point? If the man from SAGE is right, we are going to leave this pandemic with a nation even more gravely divided than we already are due to Brexit, and his argument rests on the fact that we are an increasingly unequal society. 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/02/psychologists-pandemic-cooperation-government-public-britain

In another opinion piece (link above), Reicher argues that a failure to get tested when requested - such as the reluctance among workers in Liverpool which has caused such outrage in the media - is not necessarily a moral failing. Working people who don't want to be tested are not monsters who don't care about other people and don't care, or are too stupid to understand, that they might spread the virus if they don't self-isolate. There is a strong correlation between those who refuse to get tested and the failure to get financial support from the government for loss of earnings. If you have to pay your rent/mortgage, buy food, pay bills, and your employer isn't willing to pay you for your ten days absence from work should your Covid test prove positive, and there is no compensation from the government, then what choice do you have? The practicalities of life for people in low-paid jobs often override any sense of moral obligation to 'community'.  With the best will in the world, you might hope you aren't spreading the virus, but your family still needs to eat and pay their bills.

Covid is real and it is a serious crisis. It's victims aren't just the poor people who are dying or seriously ill with the virus, however. The government should be doing more to help the poorest to be able to comply with regulations, and the media should be doing its part in promoting a united front rather than doing it's usual dirty job of seeding conflict and being an agent provocateur, creating manufactured outrage against perceived 'dissenters' rather than against an out-of-touch and hypocritical government.

Monthly writing prompts for 2021:

 What if...

January: ...aliens landed on your lawn?

February: ...you were mugged by a little old lady?

March: ...Donald Trump revealed himself to a reptilian alien wearing an unconvincing 'human suit'?

April: ...your small child turned out to have a super-power?

May: ...you found out you were a direct descendant of a famous person from history?

June: ...your new romantic partner turned out to be a terrorist?

July: ....your new best friend turned out to be a secret agent?

August: ...you discovered you had the power to heal people?

September: ...the ship you were on sank and you were washed ashore a deserted island?

October: ...you suddenly turned into a dog?

November: ...you won a Nobel Prize?

December: ...you suddenly discovered you were pregnant, even though you hadn't had sex in a year?

 

Cornish Mysteries series by Katherine Stansfield


I have to admit to knowing the author of these wonderful novels: Katherine was my tutor in the second year of the Open University Masters in Creative Writing (I graduated in December 2020 with a Distinction – yay!).  And, yes, that’s why I read the first book, Falling Creatures – well, it always pays to familiarise yourself with your tutor’s work, doesn’t it? Katherine was a brilliant tutor, BUT I would not be writing this if I didn’t also think she was a brilliant novelist. In fact, I’m sad that I hadn’t come across her work before I did the course, as I think it deserves to be more widely known.

I have deliberately waited until well after the course ended and all my work has been marked before posting this, so that there can be no suspicion of my having any ulterior motive in praising these books, which are pictured in order below:

 

The novels are essentially historical detective stories, but they undermine many of the genre’s familiar tropes. For one thing, the investigative duo are women – the cross-dressing Anna Blake and her interestingly alcoholic and rather downtrodden sidekick, Shilly, who narrates the stories. This unconventional pairing is a kind of homage to Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tales, which are of course narrated by Watson, but it also subverts this relationship. Where Holmes is ultra-confident, preternaturally correct in his fabulous deductions, and rather well-to-do and well-respected, Anna is female and rather lower down the social scale, sexually ambivalent, less moneyed and less urban. She does share the famous detective’s penchant for disguising herself, however. And where Watson is slightly bumbling, a sportsman, professional, ex-military, honest and utterly reliable, Shilly is from a very humble background, a domestic servant, often mentally confused due to her drinking problem, poorly educated, superstitious and credulous. Both women are rendered powerless in some ways by their gender and class, but they are more able to inveigle their way into worlds which might have been closed books to Sherlock. Shilly in particular has the gift of making friends with people.

The novels play around with sexuality and gender, both in the cross-dressing and the tentative on-and-off sexual relationship between Anna and Shilly. Their friendship is interesting and well-drawn, developing as their story progresses through the novels. Dialogue in particular is convincing, and their characters are vividly drawn. Shilly’s voice as the narrator is spot-on – her naivete and world-weariness, her innocence and experience, her lack of knowledge of so many things and yet her understanding of human nature, is pitch-perfect. Yet it was the atmosphere of the novels that first caught my attention. I began reading Falling Creatures with no particular expectations and no intention other than to sample my tutor’s own writing, but I was rapidly drawn in and read the subsequent books simply because I enjoyed their distinctive, slightly off-kilter magic.

Part of this ‘atmosphere’ is down to Shilly’s status as an unreliable narrator – she uses euphemisms for her drinking, and her belief in the occult leads to a blurring between the ‘real world’ and the world of her imagination – how much of the ‘supernatural’ elements of the stories are simply down to alcohol-induced hallucinations or delusions, and how much are real? This edginess, this uncertainty, pervades all three books and adds an extra layer of mystery to the events that unfold.

Stansfield is an expert at creepy. These aren’t novels that are in the ‘Horror’ genre or the ‘Fantasy’ genre, but they definitely contain chilling moments. Stansfield is adept at creating scenarios in which the reader begins to see the world through Shilly’s eyes, a world of tragedy, hardship, ghosts and witches. The ‘supernatural’ elements are all explained away, but not quite as fully as a different sort of writer might do – there is always the sense that there is more to these experiences than the brusque and sceptical Anna (the Scully to Shilly’s Mulder) will admit. As the story-teller, Shilly has the power she doesn’t have in her ‘real’ life – she can influence our perception of what we are reading. And at times the world of the novel is distinctly eerie – I once read The Magpie Tree in bed, on my kindle with the lights off, and I found myself pulling the blankets up round my chin and jumping when the blind rattled in the breeze! The books aren’t Stephen-King-terrifying, but they certainly generate a powerful sense of unease at times.

Stansfield, who was brought up in Cornwall, conveys the slight weirdness of this county that has always seen itself as slightly separate from mainstream England. She is writing about the 1940s, a period that seems now quite alien to our modern sensibilities, and she allows herself some leeway in her presentation of characters – they are both of their time and, occasionally, slightly anachronistic, but they are always real and convincing, which I feel is the hallmark of great writing. Stansfield's versatility can be seen in her range of writing - she writes novels in several genres and is also a talented poet.

 
You can find Katherine Stansfield at:  https://katherinestansfield.blogspot.com/     

 

RATING:

Cornish Fiction series

*****

Key:
*****      highly recommended - a 'must-read'
****         good - well worth taking the time to read
***           ok - will help to pass the time in a boring situation
**            not very good -  just about readable but flawed
*             not recommended - boring, offensive, badly-written or deeply flawed in some other way

 

How I Feel About Covid in January 2021

While idly browsing the Huff Post online today, I noticed a story about supermarkets such as Tesco intending to strengthen their approach to customers who refuse to wear masks inside their stores. Several supermarket employees were interviewed and reported facing verbal abuse from those they challenged for this behaviour. Many customers apparently claim to be 'exempt' from the rules about mask-wearing on medical grounds but fail or refuse to provide any evidence of this. The feeling of many such staff members seemed to be that, as managers were generally saying there was nothing they could do to enforce mask-wearing, it was pointless to even challenge such people. However, given the perceived level of non-compliance, supermarkets are now about to up their game, with police 'on standby' to help in extreme cases.

At the end of this article, there was a live poll asking whether people agreed that supermarkets needed to get more proactive and tougher on non-mask-wearers. 92% of those who responded (583 people) said that, yes, they should.  Obviously, readers of the Huff Post are, like any group, self-selecting and likely to share a similar outlook and similar beliefs. But nevertheless, a very large majority of this admittedly small sample of people were in favour of more stringent enforcement of Covid regulations. This straw poll suggests that, far from being overrun by Covid-deniers, Conspiracy Theorists and anti-vaxxers, we are a nation which, on the whole, supports the government's attempts to manage this crisis - in fact, most people would prefer more strict regulations, rather than more lax ones.

This chimed with a news report I heard earlier on Radio Four. Again, Radio Four has a particular demographic - older listeners, generally well-educated and middle-class, often professionals or retired professionals - and doesn't represent the whole population. Also, I am sure that many of the 'Covid Protestors' who are claiming we live in a 'police state', that Boris is a 'dictator', and that our 'civil liberties/rights' are being eroded, see the BBC in general as being the feared and despised 'Mainstream Media', peddling government propaganda and lies for some nefarious purpose known only to them. I personally find this idea laughable, and not only because Boris himself is determined to dismantle the BBC, and the BBC is also frequently accused of being too left wing (when it isn't being accused of being too right wing). Recent complaints about the BBC's support for the BLM campaign (in the Christmas Vicar of Dibley episodes and on Strictly Come Dancing) suggest it's reputation for being famously impartial - something that others complain about in itself - is being perceived as under threat.  I have watched, read and listened to many news reports from a wide spectrum of news agencies and different platforms over the past few months, and I still consider the BBC, despite its faults, to be one of the most objective, serious-minded, intelligent, non-sensationalist and sensible news-providers. So I am happy to believe the news stories I heard on Radio Four today, in which various genuine experts (no David Ickes, hysterical ex-BBC-employees, or chiropractors calling themselves 'scientists') discussed various aspects of the current state of play with regard to Covid in this country.

One thing they discussed was non-compliance with lockdown regulations. There is a perception at the moment that a large swathe of people in this country are deliberately failing to take such regulations seriously. However, a group of researchers who have carried out a study into compliance since the beginning of the first lockdown, have concluded that actually compliance appears to be greater now than at the beginning of the pandemic. Young people, though they are more likely than older people to break rules about the size of gatherings, are much more likely to get themselves tested for Covid and comply with self-isolation rules. It is wrong to demonise them, as some people are doing. Generally, there seems to be a very high level of compliance with the regulations from the population as a whole. People are angry about those who refuse to comply and see them as endangering others. Take the issue of mask-wearing, for instance. Wearing a mask is uncomfortable, a little claustrophobic at first, and inconvenient, but the evidence strongly suggests, despite a few studies which contradict this view, that wearing a mask protects both the individual wearing it and other people, to some extent. No one is saying it stops you getting Covid, but it seems to many people that if it can help to prevent you catching the virus or spreading it to others, then it is in fact only a small inconvenience. If there is a chance that wearing a mask might help to slow down the spread of the virus, most people seem prepared to do the grown-up thing and get on with it. And many see those who refuse to wear masks as being childish, selfish and stupid.

The Radio Four news programme also discussed the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics (an organisation that is generally considered to be one of the most accurate and well-respected agencies for providing statistical data) about the death-rate in this country in 2020. It was much higher in 2020 than in the previous five year period. The news programme did not give in to hysterical headlines such as 'Death rates higher than at any time since the Second World War' - Statistician Ben Humberstone (apologies if I've spelled his name wrong) explained calmly and sensibly, without being patronising, that it is difficult to compare death-rates in 2020 with those from seventy-plus years ago as so much has changed since then in terms of medical advances, social and cultural factors, size of population, etc. Incidentally, the fact that death-rates have been steadily decreasing for the past few decades suggests that the very 'science' which is so often derided by Conspiracy Theorists has in fact contributed greatly towards improving and extending human lives in this country - not only in terms of new medical breakthroughs and treatments for life-threatening diseases, but in our understanding of the lifestyle causes of some illnesses and improvements in housing, school buildings, general infrastructure, attitudes towards mental health issues, methods of communication, improved safety in vehicle design, better understanding of Health and Safety, etc.

The point is that in 2020 there was a massive spike in the death-rate in this country, and this in a year when deaths from flu have been substantially lower than usual. These 'extra' deaths are mostly accounted for, either directly or indirectly, by the corona virus. Yes, some of these deaths will be as a result of failures in the diagnosis or treatment of other unrelated illnesses, but that is an indirect result of the Covid pandemic. What are NHS staff supposed to do when faced with an immediate case of a person desperately ill from the virus or a person who might have a symptom of cancer but might not? We can't just leave the people with Covid to die while we deal with other things. And in reality most hospitals are doing both, treating everyone, sometimes in horrendously difficult situations. The idea that has been bandied about that it is a 'myth' that hospitals are full to capacity, and the photographs of empty hospital corridors that have been posted online, etc, are utter rubbish. I have friends who themselves work in the NHS or whose children or other relatives do so, in various capacities, including one consultant, several in London and some in Yorkshire, and they are reporting wards which are reaching breaking point, particularly in the south.  Why would they lie?

And there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that deaths from Covid are real, numerous and a reasonable cause for great concern.  Those people who claim that Covid is a 'hoax' are misguided. During lockdowns, it is easy to start believing that the whole thing is overblown. In 2020, I knew of one elderly person with underlying health issues who had died from Covid, and two people in their fifties who had been hospitalised for several weeks with it but who both recovered eventually. In addition, I knew of several people who had had the disease but recovered and reported it was like a bad dose of flu, and several more who tested positive but had few or no symptoms. Based on that, it was easy to start thinking this virus was no big deal and the government were reacting like a bunch of wimps - or, if you had read too much Dan Brown, were enacting some sort of long con in order to, what? Control the population? Destroy the economy? Duh!  However, since then, I have heard of a number of tragic cases of people who have lost partners or friends to the disease, people who have died very quickly, within days of being diagnosed, and people who have been extremely ill with the disease. A recent article in The Guardian (hardly mainstream media as it is one of the few national newspapers in this country with a left wing bias and is certainly no supporter of Johnson and his pals) presented a snapshot of covid wards in hospitals in London which was horrifying. Again, I was impressed by the lack of hysteria in this reporting, the discussion of different views, the analysis of expert opinion and the balanced reporting. 

All of the above is simply and wholly my own opinion. I am not an expert. I know that people are sick of lockdowns and restrictions. I know that some people have become extremely anxious and their lives have been ruined by this pandemic (I have one particular friend who seems to be having a complete mental breakdown as a result), and that others are coping by dismissing the seriousness of the situation, suggesting we are all over-reacting and sneering at us for following expert advice to wear masks, self-isolate and socially distance. I believe these people are wrong. They might be right and people like me might all be sheep, but my attitude is that, if there is any chance of containing this pandemic, we need to work together to do it. 

Tea rooms I have known

I read something recently which began by complaining about the current conditions at a tea-room in Edensor (near Chatsworth House in Derbyshire), which was apparently enforcing the Covid regulations in a draconian manner.  I haven't been to this place so I don't know whether or not it's true. However, the comment then spiralled into what I can only say struck me as being a hysterical rant about how the government is planning on changing our DNA or something via mandatory flu vaccinations - I couldn't really follow the argument, as I was too busy staring open-mouthed at the computer screen unable to process the nonsense I was reading.  

I bet every pandemic, war and other state of national emergency has made a proportion of every population give in to their paranoid delusions, borne of fear and anger, so I'm not blaming these people.  However, it's a pity that the internet gives them such an opportunity to pass on their often ill-informed views, thereby infecting others. 

Anyway, I'm not here to argue with such conspiracy theorists.  There might be some truth in what they say - I've noticed that their rants do often tend to begin with some truthful observation, anyway.  In this case, it was the fact that some places of business are taking their Covid precautions a bit too far and rendering what should be a pleasurable experience into quite the opposite.  I noticed this soon after lockdown ended and tearooms and restaurants opened up again. There was certainly a perfectly understandable over-response by some places. And circumstances like we're currently experiencing tend to bring out the jobsworth in many people, sadly.  

And it is sad, because tea rooms and restaurants which do make their customers feel unwelcome, which tell people off for not wearing masks or not queuing in a socially-distanced way, are going to lose custom and go out of business.  Which would mean that jobs will be lost, and favourite places will vanish.

But this sort of behaviour hasn't been my experience, except perhaps right at the start of the new precautionary regulations. I have been in several teashops and restaurants since lockdown ended and I have found them generally to be handling things well, particularly since they got over the initial shock and calmed down:

The Station Tearoom in Hassop, Derbyshire - we visited here soon after lockdown ended and it was our first foray into a tea room since back in February.  It was a bit weird, admittedly. Most people were sitting outside though you could go inside, which we did as it looked like rain. It was freezing inside however, much colder than outside. It was as if they had actually turned the temperature down in order to freeze the coronavirus out of us. We had to give our name and telephone number to the girl in the kiosk-type place, the first time we'd ever done this, and it did feel intrusive that first time (though it has become the new normal now), before we went inside, and we had to order our food there. The food, which was ironically the best we'd ever eaten there (it is a place we have visited a lot over the past few years), was delivered to our table by a waitress.  Inside, there were only a couple of other tables being used and all the decorations had been removed - combined with the sub-arctic temperature, and the high prices, it was a rather bleak experience, I have to admit.  But this was soon after lockdown ended and it might have improved by now.  Hope so, as we used to love it here.

https://www.hassopstation.co.uk/

Wentworth Garden Centre, Wentworth, South Yorkshire - This is our local Garden Centre, and during lockdown they had built a new restaurant to add to their already massive and relatively new tearoom and their outdoor cafe. Did someone say that such businesses were on their knees? Well, this place isn't. I think it must be run by the Devil himself because I have known it all my life and it just gets better and bigger and more successful all the time. Yes, there have been very short queues on our visits since lockdown and you have to leave your name and telephone number at the door. Yes, there is a bottle of hand-sanitizer in the entrance to the lovely new Bothy restaurant, but no one forces people to use it. Yes, the staff on the door wear visors, but waiting staff inside don't wear masks or visors. Yes, there is one way in and another out, but this actually helps the flow of traffic.  The food is exactly the same as it was, the prices possibly slightly higher than they were, the staff as pleasant as always, and though the tables are pushed further apart, there is a lot of space so it is unlikely you'll not get a table.

http://www.wentworthgardencentre.co.uk/

Rob Royd farm shop and restaurant, Worsborough, Barnsley - another of our pre-lockdown favourites. You have to wear face masks in the farm shop, though the staff don't, and I haven't worn one on either of our recent visits as I have just been walking through to the cafe. No one has challenged me.  You don't have to wear a mask in the cafe and neither do the staff.  Tables are set a good distance apart but don't look much different to previously. Food is the same (though they did seem to have run out of quite a lot on our last visit). It isn't cheap but it never has been. The staff are friendly and service not much slower than previously.  The staff in the farm shop are even friendlier and the butcher's counter has some excellent meat. 

https://www.robroydfarmshop.co.uk/

Waggon and Horses, Oxspring, Barnsley - This is a pub-restaurant where we have eaten for years. The tables are spaced out more than they were and each has its own bottle of hand-sanitiser.  Staff don't wear masks, but clean the tables and chairs between each service.  The place's usual warm atmosphere is still there - service was slow, but it often is, and they had a lot of new staff (something I've noticed everywhere). The food was the same as it always was, prices much the same.

http://thewaggon-oxspring.co.uk/

Beatson House restaurant, Cawthorne, Barnsley - Another of our favourites, this is our restaurant of choice for mine or my partner's birthday.  The staff were extremely pleasant. They have a new system where you enter at the front and leave at the back.  The menu is reduced and written on boards on the wall so you don't have to handle a physical menu (though they are available if you want them).  Tables are set far apart. The food was still as great as ever, service a bit slower - the poor staff have a steep staircase up which to carry the ubiquitous massive heavy white plates that seem to be a feature of all restaurants these days (when they aren't serving food on slates, wooden boards, raffia place mats or bits of driftwood - one good outcome of the Covid crisis is the way restaurants have dropped this nonsense as it is unhygienic).  We had a lovely evening here.

https://www.beatsonhouse.co.uk/

Cintra's Cafe, Hathersage, Derbyshire - garden seating, well-spaced tables with umbrellas, each table and its chairs sanitised between services. Staff wear masks or visors. Food average, but pleasant. Friendly. One-way system for entering and exiting, but no barking at customers or frog-marching them to their table. Don't know what they'll do now the cooler weather is here, however.

https://www.cintrastearooms.co.uk/

The Cheshire Cheese, Hope, near Castleton, Derbyshire - long wait at door to be shown a table though place was virtually empty.  Very young staff who were jolly and cheerful and friendly but incredibly slow - I mean, slow like a glacier!  They also got one of our orders wrong. Food was fine and well-priced, and pub is one of those picturesque country places that are difficult to dislike. 

http://thecheshirecheeseinn.co.uk/

Eve Kitchen, Doughnut shop on Sharrow Vale Road, Sheffield - you can't go into the cafe any more (or you couldn't when we went) so you buy the doughnuts from a kiosk in the wall, but they taste as fantastic as ever. Quite literally the best doughnuts I've ever eaten. My partner doesn't like doughnuts much but even he loves the ones they make here. Definitely not for people on a diet. Since I learned my blood sugar was a tad high and I had to cut down on such things as doughnuts, I have dreams about the one filled with chocolate and peanut butter ganache. 

http://www.evekitchen.co.uk/handmade-doughnuts/

The Hoof and Hide Cafe, Yummy Yorkshire Ice-cream, Denby Dale, Kirklees - despite the lockdown in Kirklees, the place has been heaving as always on our two recent visits. It is quite expensive but it always was. They have temporarily changed the ice-cream parlour so it now part of the cafe in order to space the tables out better.  There was quite a long queue and we had to wait a while, but this place is always busy when we've been.  They are using a separate outbuilding to sell their fab ice-creams, and serving their usual cafe menu in the main building. Staff wiped down tables and chairs between services. The food varies in quality, and isn't cheap, but at its best it is pretty damn good. Friendly staff and they are trying to keep it friendly and welcoming while also keeping people safe.

https://www.yummyyorkshire.co.uk/

Poem published today on Foxglove Journal

Check out my poem on:

https://foxglovejournal.wordpress.com/2020/06/14/as-she-waits-for-news-of-her-son-louise-wilford/