The UK is now formally — but terribly politely — in a state of lockdown. I will not be leaving Hebden Bridge for a while. If this blog is to keep going, new insights will have to be found in familiar places. The words here are to be found on the stairwell up to Clare’s treatment room, shared with a private tutoring service (temporarily closed).
I did not have to go very far from my house to take this picture, and nor did I have to interact with anyone in order to do so. For all sorts of reasons, it makes me sad that I have to say these things at this time, but it’s where we’re at. Yet the world is still out there, folks.
Maybe I should have cropped the birds, but I left them there in the end.
The Greatest Media Panic of All Time does not change the turn of the seasons, at least, not yet. it was time for the little potato people to get into the ground today, where (if past experience is any guide) they will stay in a kind of stasis until this time next year, when we will hopefully dig up about the same number and volume of potatoes to eat. If we get to the other side of this rupture, anyway. Here, Clare and Joe do the work, while I laze in the sun and document it.
I had to go into Manchester today to pick up some things. This is the 611th photo on this blog that has been taken in the city — but quite possibly the last for some time, unless things change radically. But as you can see, social distancing was maintained. What my feelings are about the steps currently being taken are not relevant here: like I’ve done for the last 3,130 days, I will just do my best to document what I see.
“Where have all the humans gone, duck?”
“I have no idea. But isn’t it quiet. And isn’t the air feeling clean?”
We all risk missing spring this year, don’t we. I, however, intend to do my best to keep an eye on its developments. Without a spring, the year will just suck. Well, y’know, even more than it already does.
Bloody hell. How quickly did all that happen. How quickly did we let it all happen.
I spent my whole morning working out then posting my professional and academic opinion about the last few days. By the time I’d done that, I was, frankly, freaked out, so had to get out into the town just to see that it was still there, that it had not been consumed by the zombie apocalypse. And I was reassured. But bearing in mind that this poster has been up since a couple of days after the floods of February — then how much more can my home town take. How much more can we all take?
The media are not reality though. Talk to each other, folks.
So, it’s happened then. Britain is in a state of lockdown. Except maybe it isn’t, maybe it’s all voluntary, because with this government, remember that they don’t really have a clue about anything very much.
Either way I suspect I will be seeing a lot more of Hebden Bridge and home in the next few weeks. Or possibly months. For now I will do my best to keep this blog going, why should it become another victim of this pandemic? But how long I will sustain any creative juices in a world with greatly reduced horizons, I don’t know.
I must already be going slightly crazy, anyway. In these sprouting potatoes (for life, and the garden, must go on) I see little people, sitting in their boxes having a pre-planting natter. Or in the case of the couple to bottom right, a gentle cuddle.
I have exhibited no symptoms of viral infection. No one around me has exhibited them either. So I am not locking myself up in my house, not yet. What will be the overall impact on public health of the proposed lockdown (and along the way, creation of a police state)? On mental health, levels of domestic violence and abuse, et cetera? The UK is not the only country launching a massive experiment in depriving tens of millions of people that they have come to rather like. Maybe it will relieve pressure on the health service. But maybe it won’t.
Anyway this lockdown is not quite yet in operation. Hence, I got outside today, because there may not be many more chances in the next few weeks. This is the summit of Watson’s Dodd, above Thirlmere in the Lake District — behind, the peak of Helvellyn, at 3,117 feet the third-highest mountain in England.
Somehow it seems to be a time to say hi to old friends. It’s been a while since Mr B appeared on here.
Being 42 