Robin Hood’s Bay Cardigan: Week 1 – 27 April

Sunlight was streaming through the windows into the breakfast room of 221B Baker Street as I took a seat across the table from my friend Mr Sherlock Holmes. It was week five of the lockdown and the strain was beginning to tell.
“Everything all right, Holmes?” I asked, unfolding my napkin.
“Never better, my dear Watson. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that when I came in, I thought I heard you saying to the toast rack, ‘Tell me everything, omitting no details, however slight.’”
Holmes coloured. “Possibly you heard Mrs Hudson singing ‘A Wandering Minstrel, I’ in the shower?”

Plum Blossom

The door behind me creaked open.
“Ah,” said Holmes looking over my shoulder, “Professor Moriarty. I’ve been expecting you.”
I turned in my chair.
“Holmes, that’s the cat.”
“I call him Professor Moriarty,” Holmes said defensively.
“His name,” I said, “is Tiddles. Listen, Holmes, he’s a cat, not a bloody Napoleon of crime.”
“Cats can be Napoleons of crime. Look at that fellow Macavity in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.”
“Holmes,” I sighed, “the only practical use for a cat is to stick a broom handle up its wossname and use it for a mop.”

Daffodils by the riverbank

Holmes reached for a croissant. “Look, I’m sorry, Watson. But my mind is a finely-tuned mechanism. I can’t theorise without data! Even that child Wiggins and his Baker Street irregulars are shut up inside.”
“Well, after Mrs Hudson served us that tin of prunes she found at the back of the cupboard that was way past its sell-by date I’ve been something of a Baker Street irregular myself.”
Holmes took a moody bite of his croissant. There was a sound not unlike the cracking of a walnut and a small projectile whizzed past my ear. Holmes gingerly explored what was left of his tooth and gave the bell a violent ring.
A minute or so later our landlady Mrs Hudson appeared.
“Yes, gentlemen?”
‘What,’ demanded Holmes, rapping the table with the croissant and watching the corner splinter off like a disintegrating iceberg, “is the meaning of this?”
Mrs Hudson wrung her hands in her apron.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr Holmes. It’s just with the shops being sold out of flour and all I’ve been making do with what I could find.”
“Which is?”
“Well, plaster.”
“Plaster?!”
“Mixed with, and I know what you’re going to say, cat litter.”
Holmes groaned. “Well, I suppose we should just be grateful it was clean.”
“Ahaha, well, it’s funny you should say that, Mr Holmes—“
“Er, did I hear you going out earlier, Mrs Hudson?” I interrupted hastily.
“Well, now, here’s a thing. I went to bank wearing a face mask like the doctors say and they thought I’d come to rob the place.”
“Good Lord!” I cried. “I hope there was no unpleasantness?”
“Oh, no,” Mrs Hudson said. “The cashier handed over £1,000 in used fivers, so I legged it.”
And with a curtsey she picked up the cat and left the room.

A Rainbow of Fish Boxes

In the silence that followed I turned to today’s edition of the Times.
“Holmes,” I said, “what’s happened to the paper? There’s only half of it here. You know I’m not myself till I’ve read the latest Peanuts comic.”
“Oh, that.” He said. “It’s this shortage of toilet paper, Watson, after all that panic buying. Luckily for us, the Times lives up to it’s motto, ‘Soft, strong and very long.’”
“Ah, I’m pretty sure it’s ‘All the news that’s fit to print’, Holmes.”
“And that,” said Holmes, pouring himself some more coffee, “concludes the case of the missing newspaper.”
I sighed and reached for a croissant. It was, I feared, going to be a long spring…

I celebrated my 60th birthday on Sunday—celebrated in the broad sense that I was conscious when it happened—which is as good an excuse as any for the above. Now, when I first started this blog as a mere stripling of some eight-and-forty years, I promised myself that this would be the cutoff date, assuming it (and I) lasted this long; after which I would embark on a well-earned retirement. And yet, here we are: I’m 60 and a day, and a new project (which I’ll say more about next time) is already growing on my needles. Promises are foolish things in these uncertain times, so I won’t offer a hostage to fortune by promising to carry on for another X number of years. Instead I’d like to record my thanks to all our readers, especially those who’ve been with us from the start, and hereon in let’s just take things one week at a time…