Boarding @ Home: Day 48/84: Our palindrome has arrived - Yellow or Patriotic?

The eyes have it today! 'Twas Avril's monthly AMD eye test today at East Hunsbury @ 3pm/ well we hung around till 3.45pm actually, but the news was good. No need for any injections left or right this month and next test will be on D Day's 76th Anniversary. Was that because she was wearing the distinctive Colman's/ Taylor's of Newport Pagnell attire? As a fashion note the footwear was co-ordinated and the Tshirt a pyjama top. The crystal wine glass contains the balance of VE's 75th, the 0% Saumur Sparkling Rose. Fellow grandmother Maureen's been locked down in Ilkley with just window gazers/ peeping Kathryn, Mathew & Sharp family. Photographic evidence suggests she did receive a fine afternoon tea plate and she's definitely putting on a good patriotic window display for her benefactors. Maureen has the distinction of being a very special one, we knew that, in that she received 'The NHS Letter' so she's being longtime shielded.

Palindrome Day comes along... It's been a wait of 48 days of course to reach 84 backwards, one day short of seven weeks. They're more intriguing without the digits of course. Let's start simply with 'nurses run' an easy one; then there's Elle [who was born on] 02.02.2020. I was always taught Able was I ere I saw Elba and the longest onomatopoeic palindrome seems to be James Joyce's use of tattarrattat when he could have said a knock on the door. The word derives from Greek so how better to illustrate than with an inscription from Holy Water! Nipson anomemata me monan ospin - Wash your sins, not only your face

Our garden picket fence is a palindrome too. It looks the same from each end and needs a new coat of moss green stain. The old can we still have promised it would endure for five years and that seems to have been the case! It's needed that next coat for four years but a fortnight ago Laura decided to 'wash' the front gates of The Manor House and I saw that as a worthy lockdown examplar. I reckon 'we' can finish it before Day 84 and my name's not Hancock! First I must enlist Julian to help get the nails back in which have been nosed out over the last nine years by cattle grazing in The Dip; then we can set to work section by section. I am hopeful that the two grandsons might see participation as a fine lesson in agricultural outdoor art worthy of Wellingborough. The job has already expanded beyond my early imaginings because, although the pickets are not a palindrome back to front just end to end, Avril has determined that both sides shall be re-stained. My suggestion that we might remove each of the pickets and stain/ even dip both sides then nail back again was deemed superogatory, beyond what is asked for. The origin of the word picket is intriguing - evenly spaced boards are affixed vertically to the rails with pointed tops called "pickets" for their resemblance to the pointed stakes historically used by infantry to repel cavalry. In America where we saw and enjoyed them they are normally painted white. Let it be noted, that it's not easy staining the Dipside since there is barbed wire immediately beyond and nettles. We shall overcome. This opportunity has presented itself because my efforts to grow blueberries close by the pickets, and more besides, have regularly failed and the soil is destined very soon to provide nourishment to sweet peas and runner beans I understand. I wish them luck. The palindromic pickets in question appear below at dusk tonight; no cavalry or steers in sight, yet.