Above is an example of the witty word-play Deirdre and I indulge in when out walking. Today as we conquered High Tor above Matlock it was the Dunkirk Spirit, Deirdre announced. We are nearly the Dunkirk generation, we are not going to retreat before the advance of this virus, we will stick it out and remain Tickerty Poo, stiff in the upper lip, straight
in the spine, hands on the plough and look the aerosols in the eye. Though Deirdre did in a moment of supreme malapropism comment on the virus being spread by carousels – which of course they would be if we were allowed to ride them. Had not we oldies toiled through muddy gradients to stand aloft above the Derwent where oldie kayakers only last summer were riding the rapids? We were Done Caring about problems and losses, but would labour on doing what we can do, eyes on the prize, marching unstintingly to the bright future. Despite all our protestations and boundless confidence by the time we had descended via Matlock Bath station and ascended to the Heights of Abraham we were Done-In. The only antidote was fish and chips on a sunny sanitised bench in Matlock Bath. And don’t take your eyes off the road to admire the Barbie Santa on the A6.
Tonight at midnight that bright, long awaited future chimes in as Lockdown ends. Shall we wait up? We have reached the light at the end of the tunnel only to find it was a chimera and that we enter another tunnel without so much as a glimpse of daylight in between. No church bells will ring out across the sleeping dales, no fireworks, no first-footing or Hokey Cokey in the street. Maybe the Millennium Bug will make its delayed appearance and throw into confusion all the government data, sending spreadsheets awry, losing track and trace records and test results. But of course that has already happened, so that is what the Millennium Bug has been plotting for the last 20 years! Perhaps the data that emerges will be more accurate and make more sense. So the conclusion of Lockdown will be no more of a change of landscape than driving across the boundary between Codnor and Ripley.
No less ceremonial today was the turning of the family calendars: a white hare in the snow from Countryfile, the great Ta Pinu Basilica in Gozo and grandchildren in a Nativity from some forgotten year, which won’t be repeated this year. But our moving from one month to the next is another little marker of the slow process of time and my publishing this blog is another. This is number 116.
I undertook to write a blog for everyday of Lockdown. As you will have noticed I usually start off with no idea where the keyboard is going to take me; sometimes it’s nowhere or it might be somewhere where no one wants to go. There have been the alchemy moments when a day of dull lead has turned to gold, much to my surprise; days when something has been conjured out of nothing. Then there have been the days when nothing has come out of something which could have been quite promising, or the days when, to quote King Lear, “Nothing will come of nothing.” A lot of each day has been spent trying to shape something out of the leaden succession of quite boring and limited opportunities, trying to find some interest in what is intrinsically uninteresting. I suppose that is a form of alchemy and has been good for someone like me who is not always inclined to optimism. In the words of Monty Python:
Some things in life are bad They can really make you mad Other things just make you swear and curse When you're chewing on life's gristle Don't grumble, give a whistle And this'll help things turn out for the best And
Always look on the bright side of life Always look on the light side of life
Writing this blog has become a habit but I have Christmas cards to write and strings of Christmas lights to unravel so I won’t be doing it every day now. But because my mind is now always set on composing my daily essay I can’t stop altogether, otherwise I shall be going around talking to myself all the time, forgetting that I don’t have an audience.
If you subscribe you should get wind of these awesome moments when the brain might yet scratch out some nugget from the detritus of the days.
Thanks for stumbling along with me through the Covid months and I invite you to keep stu
mbling a little further.