Week 2 in the time of coronavirus

There was an energy last week: planning what to do, what to eat, how to manage.  This week has been lower key.  The pattern of the days starts to emerge.  If I am not careful they will blur into each other.  I am looking for markers, staging posts, a rhythm to the week.

Three times in this last week we have walked to our local village and back.  It is not very far but it involves a long haul down one steep hill and up another.  Walking out in the world is strange.  A new etiquette is developing.  You see somebody coming towards you and you try to stand to one side to make sure there is plenty of space between you.  On the station path there are places where there is not much room.  Here I raise a hand when the other person approaches and say hi from a distance.  As they get closer I turn in to face the hedge.  It feels a little strange but necessary.  Most people do some version of what we are doing, trying to combine a greeting and keeping their distance, but now and then someone comes along who keeps their head down, refusing even to meet your eye.  I don't like this.  I want some sense of shared humanity.

It is good to be in Caerwys, to walk through the churchyard, to see people being careful about going into shops, giving everyone space, to be reminded of how the butcher's and the food store are trying to look after people with deliveries and support for those who can't get out.  There is an eerie emptiness though.

"Did you read those John Wyndham books when you were a teenager?" Ian asks me.  "The Day of the Triffids?  Things like that?  It feels like that."

And it does, both normal and entirely not normal at the same time.

But spring is carrying on.  At the edge of the woods the wood anenomes are coming out.  In the bottom of the hedge there are violets and honesty.  The blackthorn is in blossom and there is a sudden flash of periwinkle.

Here in the bottom of the valley the hawthorn is unfurling green and bright against the bare architecture of hedge.

I stop to take photographs with my phone and as I stand up again the hedge behind me erupts into birdsong.

The natural world is still here in all its beauty.

At home we garden and I am reminded all over again of how long it all takes.  Despite a couple of hours a day most days for around a fortnight there is still masses to do.  I find that what works best is to try not to garden as if it is a long checklist of things which need doing but just to enjoy the process, the feel of the sun on my back and my hands in the soil.  I am a bit of a To Do List sort of person so this doesn't come naturally to me but when I can manage it I feel better.  And let's face it, it doesn't look as though this will be ending any time soon so there is time, plenty of time for slow living and slow gardening.

Ian has been sowing seed and planning to grow a lot more vegetables than we have for the last few years.   I decide to grow more flowers too and I sow some sweet peas, calendula and cosmos.  If we are going to be here let us make here as beautiful as it can be.

I am starting to find what works to keep an even keel and even to enjoy these home based days.  Contact with our children and grandchildren helps to give each day its emotional centre.  It doesn't need to be much.  Sometimes a quick Whatapp exchange, sometimes a facetime call or an exchange of little video messages.  We experiment with Zoom for larger group communication.  My aunt and uncle far away in Tasmania are celebrating their Diamond Wedding anniversary and they initiate a zoom call with twenty five of us or more from across the world.  It is like herding cats as all ages and technical abilities jump in and out.  It is lovely to see so many faces though and to reconnect.  I hope I will remember the power of these connections when all of this is over.

Older son initiates a zoom call for our family and we are slightly better at it this time, knowing how to get all the images on the screen at the same time.  The cousins, even the very little ones, seem pleased to see each other and we even manage a bit of conversation before it gently falls into toddler and small child mayhem.

My Spanish is continuing with my twice weekly calls with Luz and my weekly conversation class giving some structure to the week.  The situation in Spain is not good, worse than here right now.  We talk about how to maintain your equilibrium.

For me I have found that watching a bit of news is necessary to feel I understand what is happening but too much news is overwhelming.  I had developed a daily pattern of watching the press conference from Downing Street but yesterday it was suddenly an annoyance: too many politicians trying to say the right thing, too many journalists asking questions which can't be answered.  I left Ian to it and put on my walking boots and strode off up the hill.  In my Spanish class we had been talking about the news and one person said they didn't watch it or read it.  "How do you know what's happening then?" I asked, surprised.  "I ask my mum," he laughed.  It was both a joke and not.

And on Thursday night once more we stood on our doorstep and clapped into the night for the key workers, the NHS staff, the teachers, the retail workers, the binmen, the carers, the lorry drivers, all those people working away to keep us going.  The noise rang out into the dark across the valley.  Afterwards a friend rang and there was again that sense of someone reaching out a hand.

So that is my week: walking, gardening, Spanish, talking to family and friends, walking the line between isolation and connection, between ignorance and being overwhelmed, still feeling lucky to live here in all its beauty.  It's OK.  It's odd but it's OK.  How is it for you?