Staff ‘awayday’ for us today — which in geographical terms, of course, meant little more than a different Zoom URL and, for me, the latest in a series of shots taken in Clare’s treatment room. It was a big day for me in a way as copies of my new book arrived, but all played out on the same stage. And not even with a very clean screen on the Mac.
What’s been lacking over the last three months is not just variety of scene, but variety of event. There’s nothing happening, no parties, no shows, no sports, no conviviality. We just plod on.
At least there is still variety of light. The morning, indeed the whole day, was a beautiful one. This becomes the first pre-8am shot since I was still commuting to Manchester at the beginning of February. But this one is taken within yards of my house, and despite the glorious weather was one of only two photos I felt moved to take today.
Doing this blog for nearly nine years has started to affect my behaviour. Today I decided that my record streak of English-only pictures had gone on quite long enough — specifically, 142 days. The nearest point from my house that lies in any other country is where the Welsh border crosses Bumpers Lane beside the Deva Stadium, Chester, which lies approximately 53 miles from my house as the crow flies. With nothing but reading and thinking to otherwise do today, I set out for it — and here is, more or less, the first scene that I saw after crossing into Wales at said point.
Looks a lot like England really, doesn’t it. I mean, social distancing an’ all. Hwyl anyway to my nearest unEnglish neighbours. And their dogs.
Three months ago, as lockdown started, I presented a picture from inside the private tutoring service from which Clare rents her room in town. Today when I went in, there were, for the first time since then, signs of life; these pencils laid out on a desk, a hand sanitising station at the front door, etc. I welcome these greatly, as I did today’s announcements from the Government announcing the easing of lockdown from the 4th July. There was a shocking negativity about this from some quarters if you ask me, but that has nothing to do with pencils.
This squash plant is growing on the window sill of our room. Now I’m no expert on botany, and it is true that one rarely gets the chance to observe flowers in such controlled conditions. But I have never seen a plant that blooms in such an ephemeral way. This flower had not opened at all last night: here is what it looked like at 8.30am. But it was already withering. By 11am it was visibly drooping and by not later than 4pm it had shrivelled away to the state of the one visible behind it — which had done all this two days ago.
I hope it got what it wanted out of its few hours of glory, anyway. You have to hope that evolution still knows how to build things that are fit for purpose.
A long-awaited visit to my family, unseen since lockdown began. A welcome interruption that highlighted how pointless all this is becoming. Why my sister Vicki was dishing out the whisky samples in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, well, that’s a story hidden beneath the surface of this picture. Particularly as I don’t even like the stuff. (I know whisky is a noble drink with much character and history: I just can’t stand it.)
One of those days where I pointed my camera a lot at nice things, but didn’t manage to come up with many photos that I liked. But these cows will do — they look suitably ruminative and peaceful, a state of mind I am trying to occupy at the moment, even if mostly, I am failing.
I accept that we are not strictly trapped, whether at home or in the Calder valley itself: but with nothing open out there except a few shops (and by no means all), it’s still house arrest in all but name. I agree there are worse places to be stuck but this afternoon and evening I felt like my head was going to pop unless this ends soon. But there are too many people who like this situation — profit from it, even. These are the ones who will drag us all down.
My last picture taken outside England was captured on February 2nd, 137 days ago in Bucharest. That span of time isn’t all that long, I know, but it is nevertheless now the longest period I have spent only in England since I started doing this blog: and I guess it is due to go on for a little while yet.
The nice people who put me up in Indonesia in November (UKSW in Salatiga) did want to hear from me again however, hence the webinar I did this morning — to an audience of 500+, according to the counter of ‘Participants’ at the bottom of the Zoom screen. I, on the other hand, just talked to a computer screen, as I have been doing for the last three months. Like the Premier League footballers who restarted their well-paid activities last night, I made do with a bunch of artificial ‘fans in the stand’, namely Clare’s Russian doll collection.
137 more days from now takes us until the end of October; will sanity have returned to the world by then? I’m not taking bets on it.
This is very Hebden Bridge. Strictly a one-person only library, however — which I guess at the present time is seen as healthy.
Being 42 