Twelve weeks ago, it was announced that those of us over 70 were to be labelled ‘Vulnerable and at Risk’ and were to disappear under our duvets and emerge at a given signal into a bright summery world that had been preserved for us by younger folk, many of them 69. Andrew Auld phoned us and announced that the Crich Covid-19 Mutual Aid Support Group would look after us, he checked if we needed any shopping done and my word, they certainly have cared for us! I thought my only contribution might be a blog to be published daily to push those who were already demented over the edge or who were simply interested. It would also be a record of my oscillating states of mind as they evolved over the months. My model was to be Henry David Thoreau who on July 4th 1845 decided to self-isolate, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.” Thoreau differed from me in one major respect – he knew how to build himself a log cabin and do other useful things.
I soon found that looking out at our patio only offered limited scope for observing nature and living deliberately, so our ventures out into the locality on our daily exercise regime introduced a broader perspective. Our 12 weeks has moved from bare trees and icy winds, through the bluebells and garlic seasons, through buds opening, glorious sunny
days, blossom flowering and falling, gardens burgeoning into and beyond midsummer. Sometimes my writing rambled more than we did on the days we got lost in Crich Chase. Sometimes I found myself and my fluctuating moods more fascinating than international pandemics. As I wrote yesterday, I feel older, less self-sufficient and assured, achier, stiffer, de-skilled and more bumbling. I certainly feel less kempt as if I’ve spent part of my retirement in a hedge, but we have a hair appointment on Friday! I was reading some Wordsworth this morning, from a real book, my university Complete Works purchased July 1967, and found Wordsworth had foreseen my post lockdown destiny in a little, not very good poem called ‘Simon Lee – The Old Huntsman’:
And he is lean and he is sick;
His body, dwindled and awry,
Rests upon ankles swoln and thick;
His legs are thin and dry.
One prop he has, and only one,
His wife, an aged woman,
Lives with him, near the waterfall,
Upon the village Common.
You see, he even got our address right!
As I also wrote yesterday, there is nothing magic about the end of 12 weeks. The days will seep on into each other, we will slowly, perhaps imperceptibly, merge into the tentative, unstable world outside. Some things haven’t changed. As I write Deirdre is looking for sunglasses, for instance. She has had a rota of objects to look for which has kept her (and me) occupied for the last three months: sunglasses, keys, phone, book, sunglasses, keys etc. We will become familiar with queues and will be able to add wallet and masks to the rota of repeatedly missing items as we venture out more into the retail world.
Covid-19 has stolen our Spring and our Summer, possibly even our Autumn. It has stolen our cinemas and theatres, our cafes and pubs. It has stolen our children’s friendships and education, our holidays, our social gatherings at each others’ homes, our fetes, well-dressings and open gardens. It has robbed us of our sense of ease, spontaneity, trust, sense of adventure, forward planning and anticipation. It has deprived us of embraces, hand holding, singing and harmony, performing, playing, worship and communion. Insulated away here in Crich we have floated in a puff of cloud scarcely comprehending this historical event of enormous magnitude in which, for many, Covid-19 has stolen their livelihoods, their health, their loved ones, their lives.
12 weeks ago this didn’t seem real. It was a piece of exaggerated political foolishness, or as if we had been lured into a sci-fi fantasy, a joke, a summer carnival. It would fizzle out like bird flu or the Millennium Bug into a laughable anti-climax. To undertake a blog a day was a carefree gesture. But the 84 days were real enough and they’ve settled nothing.
My Lockdown Magnum Opus
What did you do in Lockdown Grandfer
While the world fell to its knees;
And you in that bubble up on the hill
With buds opening on the trees?
What about those things you said you’d do
If you ever did have the time?
Did you do anything in Lockdown Grandfer
Apart from scribble and rhyme?
My neighbour built an extension / on the south side of his home;
I spent that same time looking / everywhere for my phone.
My neighbour wrote a novel / of a hundred thousand words;
I sat in the garden listening / to the singing of the birds.
My neighbour spent a morning / writing a five act play;
I’d changed from my pyjamas / by round about midday.
My neighbour built a garage / with a vintage car inside;
I wandered among the bluebells /as they grew and flowered and died.
My neighbour washed his car each day / and made it gleam and shine;
I sat and drank a coffee / and thought about washing mine.
My neighbour read his bible / and learned to recite it all;
I smelt the scent of wild garlic / watched the cherry blossom fall.
My neighbour fetched a ladder and painted his front room;
While I played Hangman with the kids / and Pictionary on Zoom.
My neighbour landscaped his garden / and pulled out every weed;
I marvelled how my roses grew / and scattered wild flower seed.
My neighbour installed solar panels / and said he was going green;
I nodded in approval / and read my magazine.
My neighbour checked government statistics / which he said he didn’t believe;
I said, “You’re probably correct” / and binge watched Killing Eve.
My neighbour proudly showed me / the summer house he had built;
And we poured ourselves a beer and felt / helplessness and guilt.
My neighbour and I stood well apart / and clapped the NHS;
“Sometimes we feel content,” we said / “sometimes we feel depressed.”
From in our sunlit bubble / floating on this hill,
We could look down on a landscape / of people lying ill
Where the land sweated in a fever / convulsed in agony
While we listened to the blackbirds / and slept in Gethsemane.
If I have anything worth sharing in the future, I hope Wix will warn you. I think the 84 blogs I have posted amounts to about 75,000 words which is the equivalent of a novella. Some of you have read them all, some of you have been more sensible. Many of you have been kind enough to comment and encourage me; many of you have pressed the Like button the twice it seems to take for it to register.
We’ve lived through the first phase of an historical event. Thanks for sharing it with me.