Fiftieth post on my blog! As there don’t seem to be any plans for acknowledging the fact, no TV specials, no street parties, I’m going to reflect on this landmark myself. In a
moment of impulse I made a wild undertaking of the sort President Trump tweets, whether to build a wall, thump Korea or defeat a virus. Mine was to post something on my blog for everyday of the lockdown, which we oldies were informed would be 12 weeks. It’s much like mounting the 97 Tors steps, now over half way up I can see the top, where the steep part really begins. The worst challenges were setting up the blog in the first place and inserting pictures, which invariably causes mayhem with the print. The out-takes from the blog are those conversations which take place at this point in the publishing process, with curses echoing late into the night. Following readers’ comments and their Likes, is also problematical. Deirdre tells me that unless someone presses the Like button twice it doesn’t register. Consequently most of the Likes which I get excited about turn out to be from her!
Not given to binge reading I didn’t look back over the last 50 days apart from reminding myself of the titles. A Muse A Lone has turned out to be a record of a person and a community treading water and of moods veering from calm serenity, contemplative philosophy, aesthetic appreciation and near religious veneration of things and people, to anger, sour satire, frustration, boredom, dark pessimism and resignation. I am amazed how we, and others, have so stoically cancelled holidays and concerts, fetes and well-dressings and accepted restrictions on our freedoms to travel, shop and socialise. We have learned to exploit social media and technology and managed to maintain some semblance of social life with choirs, quizzes, sing-a-longs, church worship and home-schooling, all with humour and good will. Ironically we've got to know our neighbours better and deepened relationships as we've all striven together to outwit the hardships to which this virus would subject us. Haven’t we done well?!
I have noted changes as time and nature’s urge to life have driven on. The apple and cherry blossom have flowered and fallen and the birds have nested and their offspring are exploring the environment, glorying in the fact that they have been hatched into Crich. A young starling approached me the other day and examined me quizzically from close range, before it remembered that its mother had warned it against approaching strangers like me. Now the first rose buds are opening and the trees have burst from bud into leaf. The farmers have spread their manure and all the winter mud has become hardened and cracked.
From our 70+ isolation in this eyrie on top of this hill we’ve managed to maintain some sort of physical and emotional distance from the scourge rampaging below, but not always. We all have contacts in the cities, the NHS and the work places and their news penetrates even here and we are drawn into the anxiety and hopelessness of it all – and so we should be. We are aware that a lack of care, a silly risk, a drop of the guard and any of us could succumb to the virus.
We must extend our sympathy to those unfortunate enough not to live in Crich. There are those with beach mansions in California or ski lodges in Switzerland, sprawling estates in the Bahamas or ancient castles in the Highlands who exist under the misapprehension that they are living in a location that equals or surpasses Crich. But are they experiencing the aid and understanding of neighbours or the organised support from Crich Covid-19 Mutual Aid and our local businesses and deliveries, the setting up of social media platforms and the community larders of Crich, the greetings in the street and the affirmation of their runner beans that I am enjoying? And so often we’ve mentioned the weather and beautiful surroundings we relish here. This has released us from day to day practical worries so we can focus on the present with an eye to the future. From our city set on a hill we envisage the apocalyptical new normality that must function amid fire, flood, pestilence, austerity, social distance, economic recession, narrow nationalism, Boris and Brexit. Let’s throw Trump and Bolsonaro into the lake of burning sulphur while we are about it.
All of these catastrophes have been factors in the past when civilization has expected the end times, seismic upheaval and revolution evolving into a new normality. Granted the decline of the Roman Empire and invasion of Attila the Hun didn’t have Boris and Trump, but they had Nero. I’ve been reading Tom Holland’s ‘Dominion - the Making of the Western Mind.’ He charts the number of times in history, pestilence, wars, disasters, tribalism, the domination of huge multinational organisations like church and empire, corruption and a growing gap between rich and poor have all led to a belief that the apocalypse is just around the corner. So far the end times haven’t occurred, though Boris may have it planned as part of his ‘road map’, but often, for a time, new ways, new normalities have emerged from these momentous watershed moments in history.
So as everyone is now anticipating some sort of social revolution: work, education, communication, travel, religion, leisure will all be done differently. We hope and pray too that the environment will also be treated differently, otherwise the others will pale into insignificance. As foretold by the prophets Crich is modelling to the rest of civilization how kindness will become the rule, a wholesome symbiosis of local community and local business, re-wilding and tree planting, neighbourliness and mutual support. Is it too lofty a claim to propose that Crich be nominated the New Jerusalem, the city set upon a hill as foretold in the Book of Revelation? Let the seraphims sing of Crich and the heavens resound with our glory! Amen.