Hindsight
I came across some diary notes for 2020: a strange and interesting time to look back on
February 2020
The butterfly effect: so the fear on the breath of some poor sick captive wild thing in a dark cage in a market far faraway has fluttered out to bestow a global frisson into the hearts and minds of our happy-go-lucky species ... urging us to be mindful of the day, count our blessings, defend this precious flimsy thing that is life ...
***
March 23rd
Yesterday all caravan sites were rightfully closed to reduce the strain on scant local resources. Included was the small site up in yonder shangri la-la land where sits my snug old writey thinky painty walky retreat. So I briefly broke safe quarantino to go up & switch off, lock down, and retrieve the alpine stash of pasta, lentils and gin. I drove on eerily empty roads under blue planeless skies and sparkling sunlight through our beautiful springloaded hinterlandscape. New lambs tottering, hedgerows all of a-twitter, bright blossoms bejewelling the verges, and red kites warbling their overall majestic points of view. But all the while the nagging reminder of the micro-monster beyond the horizon.
I did what I had to do, and bade an indefinite farewell to my privileged toehold and my little garden. Then I popped up a fluffy lane for a lingering peek over one of my favourite gates at a magnificent wilderness view, unchanged since the monks lived up there in meditative harmony.This is one of very few places I know where I believe I can pray. Heavens forgive us all for being so flawed.
A blackbird settled on an elderly oak to deliver his latest aria, at which point I lost the moment to a binge of deeply primal and wobbly sobbing. Nature has seen our stuff & nonsense so many times before. She will carry boldly on regardless, while we learn & forget, learn & forget. When I resurfaced, blackbird was gone, back to his feathery business. Then along came a magnificent queen bumblebee who politely told me to just buzz off home and let all things bee.
***
I obeyed. Today I have peacefully pottered to the comforting gabbledy gook of the river, mixing
compost, and planting seeds for a brighter future in which we so have to believe.
***
Easter: an ancient portal between the darkness & the light; a time of sacrifice, contemplation &
new horizons. I took my officially allotted exercise before dawn today - jimjams, boots, jacket, & Sticky the stick. Headed upstream to lean on an old gatepost alongside dense woodland to bask in the full blast of the dawn chorus: essentially the original hymn to light & life & hope. A blackbird sang the central aria. Fortunately my pocket proffered a fistful of crumpled tissues as, like all of us, I struggled with the enormity of the pickle our world is in.
Then a rosy dawn spilled through the still-naked branches, the magic peaked, and then slowly dissolved into the chill light of just another day. I came home to a puzzled cat, a hot bath and an infantile craving for nonsense. Relying on my unerring capacity to mislay everything within moments of putting it down, I giggled round the garden setting up my own Isolation Egg Hunt for this afternoon.
After a lunchtime garden herb omelette, it was time for pudding. Enlisting Harold the stuffed House Hare as mission assistant, we bagged a reasonable haul, but a good third of the original stash was missing. Usual ‘temporarily mislaid’, or did the Easter Bunny absentmindedly scoff them this morning? All chomped now, anyway. Time for 40 winks.
Happy Easter, Stay Well, Be Kind, Be Happy Bunnies x ***
June 6 2020
Today the whole world stood still ...
in buoyant denial of global gravity, I’ve been a busy bumbly old bee today, preparing for the apocalypse with just a little more cosmetic attention to my grand but crumbling old two-seater Ty Bach (privy). Stolidly built with the house in 1887 it would have hosted many a prim percher, stumbly widdler, profound thinker, and more than a few nocturnal arachnophobes until the indoor porcelain was plumbed in during the late 1950’s. How many vast skirts were hoisted and pantaloons tumbled in this wee sanctuary? Where the old sea captain no doubt chomped wistfully on his pipe as he hankered for distant horizons; his wife would have groaned under the weight of her many pregnancies; and their sobs would have rolled around the walls when the Spanish Flu of 1918 stole five of their children. Mountains of Andrex would have played no part in their comfort.
Living here, I am ever mindful of those whose space I have adopted as my own, those who tended the same garden, who tuned in to the same psycho babble of the river as they lay awake with their contemporary hopes & fears. I thought of them today as I wantonly refurbished this most intimate of spaces. When I was done, I sat down (merely to appraise my work), at which point the ever steady seat toppled & tipped, no longer to be trusted as its supports began to succumb to the all- consuming rot of time. I felt ridiculously guilty in my failure to fend off the inevitable, as I shuffled out, apologising as I closed the door. Which promptly fell off its hinges. Heaven help us.
***
After a couple of down & droopy days, I slowly got my mojo back today: mended a saucepan lid, weeded a path, made a pie, pottered on, ate the pie, then ... met a baby bluetit sitting on the sofa in the conservatory. It said meep and hopped onto my finger, whereupon mother bluetit rose up in a tizzy from behind the sofa and proceeded to headbang around the windows. Then, junior still firmly perched, I managed to reach out & grab mum with the other hand and take them out to sit in a tree. Junior needed some persuasion to disembark, then off they flew. Made my day, fixed my soul.
In time we may learn to be grateful to the evil little virus: for a quieter & cleaner environment; for a respite from our many ill-considered bad habits; for a renewed perspective on the things in life that really really bloody matter; and for the time and opportunity to share together some of the many fabulousnesses of our afflicted species ...
***
Ziggy, a twitchy & often gonky Swansea stray, has lived with me for almost twelve years. Constant Covid domesticity has really transformed our relationship. Hitherto aloof and mute, he has become a constant and attentive listener, even reaching out to touch my arm at significant moments when inter-species compassion seems due. Working on a hitherto silent purr, he can now muster a deep
rhythmic gargle. Poignantly, however, he now thinks his name is Hello, to which he responds with a fond throwaway meep.
***
July 1st 2020
Covid19 arrives in Timbuktu .. so long the mythical symbol of remoteness and inaccessibility. No ventilators there
***
During extended solitary, time has disintegrated, horizons vanished, and apart from Bin Night, I’ve opted out of human time and tuned into nature’s rhythms & routines. The hedgehog comes by same time every night, the garden rolls with the sun and the river relentlessly teaches me there is no time but now. I stopped my clocks, flipped the calendar, unplugged the TV. Just radio, books & phone for communications & entertainment. So liberating. In these sad & horrible times, I know how blessed I am with a homely home, an abundant garden, a safe and supportive community, and a self-reliant spirit. So, unkempt & disorderly, the cat, my self and I potter & bumble, mutter & mumble, and it becomes our way ..
But tomorrow, the invisible 5 mile barrier will have dissolved, and the changed world outside will beckon & threaten in equal measure. My 3D social skills have atrophied, my last human touch was by a dentist, and there’s still an invisible enemy .. but O to see my whole son, and the dear friends and places in the yonders .. time to wind the clocks?
“Nothing is ours save time” Seneca 4BC - 65AD
So .. needing perspectives: legitimate jazz drive up into the high yonders today. Up & more up along old blowsy lanes, through lush tunnels of beech, past gaudy stands of rosebay willowherb ... and I leaned (elbows only) on a few gates, spotted a dayshift barn owl scanning a new-mown field, admired a buddha-topped postbox, met a baby grasshopper, chatted with happy heifers against a distant Snowdonia backdrop, reunited a lost lamb with mam, guzzled ginger beer & bara brith, gazed into and through multiple horizons, breathed deep of timeless serenity, and felt more than a little blessed and recombobulated. Home to a full interrogation from the cat.
***
Xmas 2020
thoughts on a solo Xmas: too easy if you already live alone to just flump through it. So I’ve invited Me & the cat for a luxury weekend of all those things that make our home special. Spruced the house, strewn the bling, written a menu, laid the table & lit the candles. Highlight will be meeting up with Ben tomorrow for meticulously timed remote online Xmas dinners.
Such a strange time for all of us. Remember to love & cherish your self. Broadcast any surplus to someone who may be glad of it. Stay safe, stay sane, maybe stay a little squiffy. Count those blessings, however small. One day things will be better .. meanwhile, peace & love & trust & hope & pies to all the dear folks out there xx
***
2021, and still it goes on. I guess we’re all struggling a bit more, with cumulative glum and grief. So many losses have been stacking up for a year now: erosion of choices, opportunities, jobs, education, and ways of being, let alone the flesh & bone-ness of friends & family. Not to mention the misplacement of our own old familiar self. So we blunder on, groping our way through these powerless and shapeless times, counting our blessings on one hand, and crushing our fears with the other. And for many, the added shock and pain of death & bereavement is magnified by the frustration of constraints and isolation. We’re all craving to comfort and console one another, to smash through these wretched glass screens and reclaim our three dimensional cuddlesome selves; to hug & squeeze, to laugh & snivel, to jostle & guzzle the same air, to just bloody wallow in wanton ordinariness. Until then, we keep sharing laughter and hope and beauty and love. And let us always take heart from Mother Nature - the eternal optimist, as the birds get flirty & twiggy, and flimsy little flowers shove through hard frosted mud. Keep the faith, dear chums, we’ll get there soon
In time we may learn to be grateful to the evil little virus: for a quieter & cleaner environment; for a respite from our many ill-considered bad habits; for a renewed perspective on the things in life that really really bloody matter; and for the time and opportunity to share together some of the many fabulousnesses of our afflicted species ... I wonder?
June 6 2024
Four years ago today the whole world stopped on account of a tiny organism. On this nondescript anniversary, we have regressed to full-blown bloody warfare, and circuitous pantomime politics, whilst our relentless appetite for distractional consumption and entertainment is constrained only by the inconvenient economic aftershock of a pesky little virus, whom we prefer to forget .. amen