It’s no picnic

At home we are fortunate in having a garden.

Well I say garden, others with greener fingers than mine would call it a patch of scrub. Nonetheless, it is an outside area, which is more than many people can boast. It is also somewhere where my wife and I can sit and enjoy a sundowner of a summer evening. But just lately the current bloody lockdown has been getting to us. We’ve both become somewhat twitchy, so… on my suggestion that we get a little change of scene, we loaded up the car with pizza and other stuff, plus plenty of wine and beer and drove the 300 metres or so to Ta’ Qali, with the intention of spreading out a picnic on the grass.

Except we didn’t, spread out I mean. We’d read in the press about people trying to do something similar up at Targa Gap, until they were rumbled by the thought police. So we decided to simply park the car and just sit in it and eat our picnic. We reasoned that a change of scenery would be as good as a rest.

So there we were parked up, facing an expanse of greenery and just about to tuck into our improvised picnic lunch… when we were somewhat rudely interrupted.

We saw the police patrol car pull in to the curb, some 25 metres ahead of us. We remained seated in our vehicle as one grave-faced young plod emerged from the front passenger seat of his car. He approached my side of our Toyota and, when right next to my driver’s window, he gestured for me to roll it down. I should add that he was wearing a face mask… well a chin mask actually, since that was the only part of his visage protected against any passing virus.

I replied to his gesture by lowering my window an inch or so, before uttering those freshly minted two magic words: “Social distancing.” To be fair he immediately took a step back and raised his mask to cover his nose before asking what we were doing parked up in a side road in Ta’ Qali leisure park.

One thing we, two people in late middle-age, were not doing… in the middle of the day and in full view of anyone in the vicinity… was dogging. Good grief ! Do we now have to carry our wedding documents with us to prove that we are man and wife to any passing fuzz?

But I didn’t allude to this, instead I lowered my window right down and replied… truthfully: “Well we had planned on a small picnic.” I saw his eyes narrow, before I added: “But seeing as how it is rather chilly today, we changed our minds and just came out here for a drive. As you can see we are insulated in our vehicle, so unlikely to transmit or contract any nasty virus.” I then smiled my special innocent, good citizen smile straight at him. I did not add: “So piss-off and leave us alone.” But I was tempted. Happily, this seemed to satisfy Mr Plod as he flashed us a sort of strangulated rictus before nodding and returning to his vehicle.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but if we are going to get mistaken for a couple of illicit gropers by the local stasi… in future we’ll stick to our garden at home.