… realise, on cleaning day in lockdown, that big is not always a terribly good thing!
Fortunately, Fitbit decreed the top-to-bottom effort to have been worthwhile calorie-wise, so I treated myself to fruit loaf toast and jam for tea*.
* Tea is an extra meal not often permitted to self
Trying to write something profound for this blog. Or something amusing and at least thoughtful
Can’t hear myself think – as my parents would once have said when the telly was too loud – because someone else in my house (there is only ONE other person in this house) is participating in a chaps’ Zoom meeting on his computer with no headphones. A range of old gits telling each other which pubs they have wistfully walked past this week, how their views on face-coverings differ from the younger generations’, and – inevitably – struggling to get all of their number to access the stupid meeting properly in the first place.
He’s ignoring them mostly and still playing his online game at the same time. And just occasionally shouting at them with his own opinion.
I’m going to have to leave the house.
So, I retreat to the garden (lucky me!) and there, instead of old farts grumbling on, there is full-volume birdsong (ok, that’s a GOOD thing), a background buzzing of bees in the laburnum (also a very GOOD thing), the intermittent buzzing of a sander (perhaps not such a good thing, but reasonable) and then – another of my pet hates – the mind-numbing bass beat of rock music from a neighbour’s shed-office whose walls syphon off the melody and top-notes that I might like to hear (ok, maybe not, but you never know), leaving an irritating background pulse for outsiders.
Reaches for noise-cancelling headphones so I can be truly alone…
Over the past few days I have had an increased realisation that my previously politically-correct penchant for using public transport has turned into a moral nightmare. I’ve touched on this before but what was once saving the planet by not using my car, has turned into potential selfishness, depriving key workers of a 2-metre space.
And of course, it would also be a possible infection-fest for me. Not sure I could get all the way to London from here on the train without breathing in. I was already pretty good at not touching anything on that journey, as a hangover from one of the Norovirus or flu scares a few years back. I think I would risk it though, if it weren’t for the moral obligation to stay at home if the journey isn’t necessary.
I am not joking and nor am I disapproving or bitter.
But this makes me sad – and effectively grounded.
I have completed my first supermarket shop wearing a mask – well, strictly it’s a face-covering and most definitely not a medical mask. But mask is easier to type.
This is a hand-made item, in pretty pale blue fabric with a tiny leaf pattern. When I first tried it on earlier this week, I felt panicky and faint within just a few breaths. And I couldn’t avoid misting up my glasses. So I had been dreading this.
I wore my mask for 30 minutes at my desk this morning and walked up and down the stairs a few times. OK – I can do this!
I managed to wear the mask from getting out of the car to getting back in. I also wore gloves. Fewer than 50% of others in the store had bothered. I think we probably need to make it compulsory, although maybe it will make people less careful about the distancing if we’re all wearing them. Hmm. Difficult one.
Anyway, I consider that a milestone. I wonder when I will get my first mask-free shop?
In a road nearby, Her Majesty stands in a front window with a gloved hand raised sedately, and smiling at passers-by on their return from state-approved exercise walks in the Park, or on their key-worker dash to our almost deserted railway station.
Apart from the hat and gloves (and smile) which remain the same each day, she changes her outfit on an almost daily basis. I always remember to check and wave back. Today she has a tasteful shawl and a sombre dress. She has been known to sport a sweatshirt!
Others have commented that her presence cheers them up. I most certainly find it a pleasant distraction.
Hurrah for life-size cardboard cutouts and the British sense of humour!
Whilst doing deliveries locally on foot, I have today explored car parks, a housing estate I’ve never previously visited, and the small industrial area next to the graveyard.
Living the dream. Who needs foreign holidays?
Out walking. Suburban roads and not the park, for ‘tis the weekend and I must leave the open-space greenery to those without gardens.
The film ‘A Star is Born’ is mentioned in passing on one of my regular podcasts. Perhaps tiring, and certainly becoming a little footsore in my unaccustomed sandals, on a whim I switch to Spotify and hurl myself into the depths of ‘Shallow’, risking a return to the madness of March 2019 (remembering this). No, no, no – I will not go there! I am stronger now, maybe? I wrench myself from the shallows and – because I read in the paper today that Graham Gouldman will be 74 this weekend, oh lord how can that be? – I switch to 10cc. ‘I’m not in Love’, ‘The Things we do for Love’ – Eric Stewart had the sexiest voice (so I thought back then, and it still sounds good to me now).
Then I move, teenage-chronologically, to a Genesis track that I recall listening to endlessly on headphones lying on my bedroom floor. And yes, the refrain of ‘Undertow’ can still reduce me to tears even whilst marching perfectly happily towards home. Or rather, limping slightly with a massive blister – maybe it’s that?
Whatever. Typically, I immediately encounter a neighbour and, still with tears in my eyes, we discuss – six foot apart – the social distancing arrangement in the local pet-shop.
Carnage in the back garden.
Little piles of feathers on several days this week. Every year this tempers the Spring joyfulness somewhat.
I don’t think it’s my own cats doing this – they’re not fast enough these days, and when they killed birds in younger days, they brought them in for us to admire. There are several feline visitors to our garden. In fact, at least two ‘guests’ help out with cleaning the feeding bowls when they think I’m not around.
Sadly, and completely unrelated to cats, I saw a pigeon fall onto our patio – I know not whence it fell – and gasp its last breath. Perhaps there’s something bigger at play in our garden? Not sure I go along with the various COVID or 5G theories though.
Hmm – just realised the title of this post may not be amusing for my neighbours: their surname is Lawn! Take care not to rearrange the words.
Frightening moment today.
I am reading Crazy Rich Asians, and today came upon a section which refers to arriving in Singapore’s Changi airport – marvelling at the modern structure and palm trees etc in comparison with New York’s airports – and I realised that I could relate to this. I’ve been to New York, and to Changi. I’ve been to several Indian airports before and after they have been updated. I’ve landed at small African airports on small planes, and disembarked from huge 380s into the fantastically modern terminals in Dubai and Doha. So it’s great that I can see in my mind’s eye what is being described, in this part of this book and in many others too no doubt.
This prompted me to wonder – yes, seriously wonder – whether I would ever get to do any of that travelling again and if not, would it matter? I honestly don’t know, but I was thinking along the lines that I have already experienced so much and have a huge bank of memories already, that surely I can understand enough about the world and truly ‘feel’ what it’s like. That’s what I like about travel – being there, seeing the differences and the local way of living, not so much the history and facts.
Really? Can I really imagine staying home for ever? Or at least confining myself to the UK? Or places I can get to by train (Europe)?
You see, already I’m clawing back some destinations!
But I’m still shocked at myself for even contemplating this changed future.
I mentioned that we were mistakenly delivered a pond. This was in the first week of lockdown and I was promised that someone would come and pick it up from our porch.
This has not happened and, apart from being used as a percussion instrument on several occasions for the Thursday night NHS applause, it has just sat in the porch gathering dust.
I’m wondering more seriously now whether we should offer it to neighbours (everything is offered to or acquired from neighbours these days), or whether I should revert to my previous idea of creating our very own Tracy Island. Because…
…I found our resident Thunderbird! Virgil Tracy has been standing guard above the boiler cupboard outside my office for years. Funny how you stop noticing things after a while.
I’m not quite sure what exactly it is that I’m tiring of at the moment, but I sense I am not alone.
In the first few weeks of lockdown, we had myriad Zooms – quizzes, games, meetings, singing – but these have gradually dwindled, apart from those which replace actual gatherings which would have happened anyway. My Monday morning singing group continues which allows us to learn new songs and practise old ones. This is good and works well. My husband has a few regular get-togethers in the diary which have replaced the ‘actual’ with the virtual, so that life can go on.
Some days, it all feels fine and I’m proud of my smarter garden and my occasional contributions to our local key worker support efforts.
Other days, it feels as though nothing will ever be the same again. No more booking flights to somewhere new at the drop of a hat. No more reflex trips to Cornwall when the weather looks set fair for a walk. No more live theatre!
OK – I’m exaggerating now. But I’m starting to get itchy feet or cabin fever or something, balanced by a looming fear of actually going anywhere in company again. The realisation that my public transport habit, previously so laudable as planet-saving, will be not only potentially dangerous from my own health perspective, but also possibly frowned upon as non-essential use in the near-term.
I think I need another quick look at Daisy May Cooper’s Instagrams to raise a laugh.
Ooh – just had an Insta scroll and my daughter has posted a pic which shows her cat modelling the latest DIY success.
Cheered up now. Sometimes it doesn’t take much.
I have started receiving daily emails from Popelei, the organisation to which I submitted a monologue. Mine was not one of their chosen 25 but they received more than 1000 entries, so I’m perfectly fine with that.
If the first three are anything to go by, I completely understand why I was not shortlisted. I have thoroughly enjoyed them so far.
I rather like watching them with my lunch each day. A little break in lockdown.
I love the rain.
I managed to divert through the park on my way back from a step-accumulating walk today.
Almost no-one around. A little chilly, but not enough to set off the tears.
Happier after that.
I have suddenly become super-busy. Admin. Necessary. Hopefully relieving others a little.
Exhausting though.
And now it’s raining.
Isabella Plantation, the beautiful garden in the middle of Richmond Park, is currently closed to the public due to the Coronavirus and social distancing measures.
I walked around the Plantation perimeter today. Outside, of course. There were very few other people there. It was a hot afternoon and it is quite a distance from any of the park gates. Peering through the fences, I caught glimpses of carpets of bluebells and banks of proudly blooming azaleas. No-one around to appreciate them, these plants were still merrily ‘doing it for themselves’.
And, briefly and distantly, for me.
…change my nominated pharmacy where my GP sends my prescription?
There used to be a good reason why I went to the previous chemist’s, but it was always horrible in there, usually inefficient, and sometimes incompetent. For 18 months now, the old good reason has not existed and I’ve picked up prescriptions for my husband at a nearer, much nicer one.
So why not do it before now?
Because it was so damned difficult to find the place on the GP’s website to make the change. Of course, once I found it – and it was not actually in a stupid place, just not in the places I’d looked before – then it was soooo simple.
Another tick on my long list of tiny things to do that really make a difference!
Yesterday, on my evening walk, I treated myself to the latest episode of Elizabeth Day’s wonderful podcast (here if you’ve not heard it already).
I was unsure whether to bother because there was no guest. I like the usual dissection of the guest’s three failures and what they have learned, but Elizabeth announced she would be reading Corona-related messages from her listeners and there would be no additional voice at all. This just didn’t inspire me – but I didn’t turn off at this point because I was in the middle of one of those new and tricky social-distancing manoeuvres – a junction, several pedestrians approaching in and from multiple directions, wary glances assessing the two metre gaps available before making our moves.
By the time I was safely alone on a straight bit of pavement, I realised I was invested in the podcast – so I carried on listening. By the time I reached the Park gate, I was completely absorbed. There were all sorts of fears and failures described, some bigger than others for sure, but all clearly relevant and important at personal human level.
But then, just inside the Park, and fortunately very well distanced from anyone else, I was back to my old crying-eye self. Not just one eye but both, plus actual deep intakes of breath. A couple of truly moving stories and situations, clearly relatable to our wise host, just set me off. They didn’t relate to my own life experience, but sometimes that simply does not matter. I don’t need to have lived through the same events or situations to feel the anguish. None of this was over-emotionally stated – just placed there, with supportive comments or advice. How did Elizabeth not dissolve in all this? Masterful!
I found myself completely wrapped up in it all. Maybe it was an escape from the rest of the day? Maybe I am more emotional at the moment without realising it and these podcast words in the beautiful evening park unlocked that a bit.
I thought I had been finding the restrictions in the Coronavirus lockdown somehow helpful. No choice? Well, that means fewer decisions to make and I am by nature a law-abiding person so I’m comfortable sticking to rules. No escape? Well, that means I can’t just run away on another trip, so there’s no point fretting over what I might want to do next. Scary? Well, for large parts of the day I can avoid listening to or seeing any news, which prevents undue fear taking over.
Maybe, though, there’s more to it than that bubbling underneath somewhere – and so, listening to this was a tonic and a release. And fortunately, distanced by many more than two metres in the middle of Richmond Park, I was in absolutely the right place for it.
When it ended, I confess to needing some soothing as I marched the roads back home. Ah yes, a reassuring Irish voice reading to me from one of my favourite books studied at school, James Joyce’s ’Dubliners’.
So I returned home refreshed.
And mildly Andrew Scottified again – dammit.
Today has been weird. Most of it spent on the phone or emailing suppliers, trying to source suitable fabric for our local volunteer seamstresses to make into re-usable surgical gowns for the NHS. Yes, I have finally succumbed to the great volunteering effort and offered my old coordination and spreadsheeting services to a friend who was running out of hours in her day.
We have been chasing down medical grade fabric, but also exploring options with sail-makers and other outdoor equipment manufacturers.
Of course, the day has been punctuated by the newly-accustomed stream of WhatsApp messages. The latest of these, from a neighbour, requested us to look out for his tent which seemed to have been blown out of his back garden. My first thought was that one of our sewing ladies would have found it in her front garden, treated it as a ‘safe distance delivery’, and quickly fashioned a surgical gown from it.
Might be becoming slightly obsessed with water-proof breathable polyester micro fibre. Need to go and watch some escapism on TV.
…can be turned into BANANA BREAD.
Quite easily and successfully it seems – who knew?
Vegan too. We don’t have any eggs, so the internet provided a vegan recipe.
Bonus – there’s no rotting banana smell in the kitchen any more!
Is this domesticity? Or boredom? Or just a happy fluke.
Don’t care. It tastes good.
Suddenly we were bowling down the A3 towards the coast, green leaf-buds and yellow gorse lining the way. After more than three weeks with nowhere to go, this was an amazing escape.
It has been frustrating to be unable to do any of the practical tasks requested by our neighbourhood WhatsApp organiser (in particular I cannot sew), so it was a great relief to realise that the full diesel tank in our otherwise idle car could be put to good use in a quick trip to pick up sail fabric from a supplier in Hampshire, urgently needed for those more nimble-thimble neighbours who are creating surgical gowns.
Not sure what was better – the virtuous feeling of doing something useful, or the ‘permission’ and freedom to drive somewhere.
As we drove, we agreed to consider today as one of our holiday days.
