Earworms and a Census

For some reason, Neil Young's "Dreamin' Man" is stuck in my head this morning. I haven't heard it in ages, yet there it is, playing on repeat on my mental turntable, complete with Nicolette Larson on backup vocals. (I love the line "In the meadow dusk, I park my Aerostar" -- though I confess I've always thought it was "in the meadow dark" and only learned I was wrong just now when I looked up the lyrics. I think "dark" sounds better, but who am I to correct Neil Young?)

The other night I was stuck with Dionne Warwick warbling "Trains and Boats and Planes." Earworms are strange things.

Anyway, yesterday was pretty low-key. I did some cleaning and two loads of laundry, and finished yet another Newbery book ("Bud, not Buddy," the one I had such trouble starting, which was my fault, not the book's). Now I need to pause the Newbery project and catch up on The New Yorker again, and even as I write that sentence I feel a sense of numbing sameness.

Today is the census in the UK, and we're all supposed to go online to some website and fill out our census forms. The letter I received was oddly specific about this: "All households should complete the census on Sunday 21 March 2021 or as soon as possible after. You must complete the census by law or you could be fined up to £1,000."

Cripes!

It sounds like a recipe for disaster -- every household in the country going to a government website on the same day?! We'll see how it goes. Dave and I had Zoom drinks with our friends Mike and Sally on Friday night, and they said they'd already completed their forms, so I guess we could have done it early -- but I didn't want to wind up in the Tower of London awaiting the executioner's axe.

On Friday the beloved BBC show "Gardener's World" began its new season, and Dave and I watched it on the iPlayer last night. "Gardener's World" stops broadcasting during the winter, and it's always encouraging when it resumes in the spring -- as encouraging as the primroses growing wild in the cemetery. Apparently "Gardener's World" became quite a thing in the states during lockdown, at least according to The New York Times, so maybe some of my American readers are watching it too.

Speaking of which, I need to get out in the garden today and get a few minor things done -- mostly putting stakes in the ground to keep the dog from walking on the tender new shoots of our plants as they come up from their winter slumber. Olga is notorious for plowing heedlessly over everything in her path.