In the movies prisoners mark off the days with six vertical lines and a diagonal line crossing them off - another week of your sentence gone. I mark off the fortnights by filling the garden waste bin. Now they've suspended the bin collection I don't know how I'll calibrate the coming months. I fear I'll float about in a timeless daze and will probably miss my wedding anniversary and birthday. The garden waste bin has been such a good discipline in time management. I more or less fill it as soon as it has been emptied then top it up in a very calculated way, adding the final pinch of chickweed just before it's collected. A roar of an engine, a wheezing sound and a clatter at 7am and another fortnight has expired. Now with a limitless vista of unmarked days ahead I will end up postponing my usual procrastinations. I have a list of jobs I've been putting off for about 10 years and with this lock-in still have very convincing excuses: re-pointing the patio (possibility of frosts); sorting out all the old paint in the garage (tip closed); clearing out the loft (charity shops closed). Now that expanse of time will not be measured out in wheelie bins I shall keep putting those tasks off. One day the day of judgement will come, the restrictions will be lifted and that inner voice will say, "What have you achieved with this time you were granted?" My lame response will have to be, "Well I made a list of jobs to be done. And Oh Yes! I then spent quite a lot of it looking for it (or my phone, keys, glasses, hearing aids).
While I'm lying in bed in the mornings waiting for my tea...(I suppose I must take a brief aside here to explain to the outraged 51% of the population that this is a perfectly amicably negotiated arrangement)... I have started blessing people. Now the act of blessing might seem a bit holy, twee or patronising but all I do is think of people and name them or picture them if I don't know their names. John O'DonohueI, the Celtic poet describes a blessing as evoking a sense of warmth and protection, "the invisdible neighbourhood of loving kindness." In the weird world in which we are living, neighbourhood has become very visible. Some of us have become very dependent on others, people are emerging more on our consciousness and we have the leisure to think about them, appreciate them and bless them. The postman, the bin-men, neighbours, teachers, shop-keepers, community volunteers, those who have had to close their businesses, the guy in a bobble hat who has just walked past pushing a buggy with about four other children in tow - all laughing. Maybe just familiar faces around the village, bless them because their faces are familiar and seeing them makes you feel at home. At the moment we can't go up to them and thank them or reward them but we can bless them. I like to feel at some point they feel the blessing - a little surge of warmth, a smile at the sunshine, a sense of mattering. You too have been blessed.