Tag Archives: lockdown

The beginning of the end?

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“Season of damp grey mistiness
Close bosom friend of the hidden sun. 
Conspiring with him how not to bless, 
the miserable people who round the pavements run.
Desperate for warmth and blue sky…”

I may not be Keats, but if he’d written about January instead of Autumn, it might have gone like that… a bit!

January has to be one of the most depressing months of the year. Christmas is over and I haven’t even seen a snowdrop yet. However, I am one of the chosen few to have a birthday this month. It’s not the best time of year to celebrate, but as this was a significant round number I decided to give it a try, with a lot of help from family and friends.

Ever since the first lockdown I have been spoiling for a party. As the youngest of five, I evolved into a bit of a rule-breaker. It’s just a modus operandi which I slip into as soon as someone lays down a rule. It must have started young, because I remember being told not to climb the high brick wall around our garden and walk along it. But there it was, a rule to be broken, and the result was a nasty fall into the bushes with scrapes that wound right round my torso. My mother said, “I told you not to climb on the wall!” It’s hard to explain why that sounded like an invitation to the seven-year-old me.

It was even worse at secondary school where there were dress codes laid down rigorously about not rolling up shirt sleeves and doing up your top shirt button under the tie. But if you were wearing a tie, who would know if the top button was undone? The headteacher apparently, who had eagle eyes and caught me offending on all counts, repeatedly. Somehow, I managed to escape expulsion – just!

So fast forward a few years and Covid strikes with its rules and lockdowns. I have honestly done my best to keep the rules, mostly. I understand why they are there and have attempted to comply with the important stuff. But the lack of freedom, isolation and list of what wasn’t allowed over the past two years has made me crave company and fun and yes, a party.

So, when my family asked what I wanted for my birthday, I said, “A party!”

The planning began and invitations were sent – the future was looking bright – not orange. Then Omicron landed and I felt that cold trickle of disappointment slide down my back again – yet another fun event cancelled. Covid strikes again!

But there is a God. He made January after all and gave us the resources to develop vaccines and so after a few wobbly weeks, the party was back on.

There was shopping to be done, table plans to be drawn up, cake makers to be chivvied. We hit a few speed bumps along the way. There was one memorable moment in a supermarket, when the card machines had gone loopy, just as we were trying to pay for two huge trollies piled with food and drink. One of them had to be wheeled into the cooler, while I trekked to a cashpoint, meanwhile the car had run over time in the carpark. “You couldn’t make it up,” said a voice beside me.

One of the funniest cards I received on the day summed it all up!

But it wasn’t all problems. The venue was pretty perfect. All the family remembered shoes – even if some were the wrong colour. Guest arrived on time from almost every corner of the UK, including Ireland and Wales. We didn’t need to call on Jesus to turn the water into wine because there was loads and we even toasted Her Majesty with glasses of port.

At the end of the evening, I felt like my party shaped vacuum had been well and truly filled to the brim. I had hugged (because we’d all done lateral flow tests!) laughed, listened, gossiped, giggled, and sometimes just watched my nearest and dearest in animated conversations or tirelessly moving between kitchen and table with delicious food and drink to keep the party going.

So misty, miserable January has turned out OK this year. The party actually felt a bit like the end of a long diet, having been starved of all the things I love, I have finally been able to sit down to a truly delicious meal of friendship, family and just being alongside people without masks. I am really hoping this is the beginning of the end of covid rules and lockdowns for the foreseeable future. Whatever happens next it has been a good way to begin 2022.

the clock is ticking

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If your life is a day, what time do you think it is?

I guess this question only springs to mind as the ‘day’ begins to run away with you. However, the clock is always ticking and none of us have a clue how long we’ve got on this earth.

February tends to be a gloomy month for many of us and this year it seems particularly so – thanks to COVID, we don’t even have holiday plans to look forward to. For me it’s also heading towards the time in February when I lost both my parents. They actually died more than 25 years apart, but at exactly the same time of year. 

Even more gloomily, next year I will be the same age my mother was when she died, so I guess the ticking clock thoughts are somewhat inevitable. I’m sure my elder sisters had similar experiences approaching the same milestone.

It’s one o’clock in the morning, I’m not asleep and I can hear the wind howling round the house and whistling through the trees. Thankfully there is no sound of a ticking clock!

Still, I am wondering what time is it for me?

When I was very young time often dragged. I seemed to have to wait ages for everything whether it was Christmas, birthdays, the summer holidays, or even just the return of my siblings from a bicycle ride… 

Then I stopped marking time so much, I was too busy living and loving it, racing from one exciting event and experience to another.

Somewhere along the way life began to speed up. I can remember my children learning to walk, their first days at school and now suddenly, one of them is settling their own child into nursery and watching for their first steps.

Life seems to have moved suddenly from lunchtime to late afternoon – well I’m hoping it’s afternoon and not evening, but who knows?

The thing is I haven’t a clue what time it is and I’m glad. Not knowing means I need to make the most of each day, savour each moment, just in case it’s getting later than I’d realised and the sun is about to set.

Some years ago, a very good family friend lost his daughter in a car accident. It was a terrible shock – a beautiful young life cut short. His words to many of us, as he battled on through the pain and grief each day, were “carpe diem” – seize the day. He was right – we shouldn’t be watching the clock afraid of when it’s going to strike midnight. 

I want to try and seize each day, making the most of all that I have, even in lockdown!

I hate seagulls

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I hate seagulls. No, I really hate them. Even more so because I’ve realised they’re just like the coronavirus. You’re walking along in the sunshine enjoying life when all of a sudden you get knocked for six and seconds later you realise you’ve been robbed!

Seagulls have mugged me twice in the last year and almost in the same spot.

The first time I was tucking into a very tasty Cornish (West Country – because it was in Devon) pasty on a bench looking out to sea. Out of the blue something hit me on the head and a large chunk of pasty was being whisked into the air. Yuk! Ouch! I tried covering the rest of it over with my hand as I munched, and then another swooped in for a bite. I retreated to a shelter to finish eating, but I’d lost my appetite and the pasty didn’t taste right after being pecked at by the flying bandits. They’d spoilt the treat entirely and I also felt a little traumatised. 

Yesterday I hadn’t given the gulls a thought, but they must have recognised me. I was enjoying a double ice cream – mint choc chip and Turkish delight – odd combination but I couldn’t decide what to have. As we walked in search of a suitable bench I was relishing my first few licks, anticipating the rest, when suddenly, whack! Something hit me on the head and when I looked down the two balls of ice cream were splattered on the pavement while a seagull pecked at them. I didn’t even know they liked ice cream. They’d struck again… all that was left was a dry empty cone with a trickle of mint ice cream smeared down one side.

Coronavirus has felt a bit like that seagull attack. Much anticipated joyful moments for our family have been thrown into disarray, and special things we were looking forward to have effectively been stolen away, knocked out of our hands. The arrival of our first grandchild was a delight, but couldn’t be celebrated or enjoyed in the way we’d hoped. Our son’s wedding has had to be postponed, with all the emotional trauma, disappointment and uncertainty that involves. And the many precious family times around both these events have also been hijacked.

It’s been hard to put into words how I’ve felt these past few months, but the seagull ambush made me realise that most of us have been robbed by the coronavirus. For me it has been the loss of precious moments with family, for many thousands it will have been far worse as they mourn the death of loved ones, for others lost jobs and for some isolation and spiralling mental health issues.

Now as we try to ease out of lockdown,  it isn’t like turning back the clock. Everything has changed, even walking into a shop is not an enjoyable experience anymore. We’re awkward, anxious to do the right thing, worried about touching and moving around in smaller spaces. We know the seagulls of coronavirus are hovering above waiting to swoop, so it’s hard to relax.

Staring at the seagull pecking at my ice cream was a reminder that it’s easy to let precious things slip through your hands. I want to hold onto the moments I have with my family and treasure times together even in the midst of this uncertainty. We can’t let the seagulls win – the virus has been sucking our joy away, replacing it with fear and anxiety. 

But we need to keep eating ice creams while taking sensible precautions. Next time I visit Dartmouth I will take my umbrella – I think that should do the trick! 

I wish there were such simple solutions for coronavirus.