Easter Monday. Cooler than the weekend, when we spent most of our time dozing in the sun with a book each. A sharp-edged breeze swirls the candy-floss blossom from next door’s apple tree up into the air. Baby pink against a cloudless blue. We move some tubs and planters around, repot a thyme, do some watering. I trim some of the thyme to put into a tray-bake of vegetables later.
Outside, All Hallows Road is empty. The Easter traffic that’s usual for the home of one of Reading’s major cemeteries during a national holiday is non-existent. The boneyard gates are closed and chained. No fresh flowers on Grandma’s grave. The irony of a shuttered cemetery in the midst of of a global pandemic is almost parody. The blackest of comedies.
We’ve seen little of the mass gatherings that have social media fussbudgets in a conniption. We haven’t been near a park in weeks. But then, we’re lucky to have a garden to flop in when the sun comes out. If I was stuck in a flat with no easy access to green, it’s very likely I’d be heading to the river every day, risking the scolding. For what it’s worth, everyone we’ve seen on our perambulations have been very careful about staying away from each other. Smiles, waves and nods seem to be the norm. People are gentle with each other, as best they can at least.
As an introvert, this whole social distancing lark has come easy. I get on well without needing to socialise. My problem is that I find webcam chats almost as exhausting as the actual face-to-face stuff. If anything, the extra energy you have to put into a Zoom or Skype call to be noticed and heard wrings me out even more quickly than a normal meeting would. I make the effort with group chat though, as much for the other people on the call as myself. It is, as the old BT commercial put it, good to talk.
I’m even calling the parents once a week. Yes, I am a saint. Good of you to notice.
The creativity of the community in isolation has been incredibly inspiring. Art has been pouring out of us in every form imaginable, from drawing and painting to textiles to music to short films and photography. A remarkable and unprecedented flood of joyfulness.
You notice I didn’t mention writing. That’s a sore point. While many of us have lifted the banner of creativity to stave off the black dog, I have stalled. This is frustrating and worrying. I’ve always laboured under the delusion that whatever else happens, I can always write. Now, at the point where I actually have the time to settle down and get some serious word count down, the urge to do so is hiding wide-eyed under the stairs, refusing to come out no matter how much I shake the bag of Dreamies.
Excuses? I have a few. I mean, check the title of the blog. For one, I’ve actually been at work. Part of a skeleton crew that’s taken our usual twenty staff down by seventy-five percent. There’s much less to do, but more than enough for one person. That ends as of tomorrow, when I go onto a rotating furlough pattern. Maybe then the evening brain-fog will lift. Who knows, I might even be able to lure the muse out from her hiding place.
Meanwhile there’s always dinner to be made. We’ve started using local suppliers and embracing their delivery options. Our first veg box from Caversham’s own Geo Cafe contained all manner of goodies and has me tearing up the weekly food plan in favour of something more aubergine-heavy. Loddon Brewery, up the road from us in Dunstan Green, sorted me out with a lovely selection of brews in time for the Easter break. Both have been friendly, chatty and a joy to do business with. We’ll drop an order to the brilliant Grumpy Goat for cheese (and yeah ok maybe some more beer) this week. With two Co-ops a ten minute walk away, we haven’t needed to go near a supermarket in weeks. That trend is probably going to continue after the restrictions finally lift, and we wander out blinking into the summer to finally get that haircut or pop to the pub.
Gods, I miss the pub.
It would be easy to make light of the situation and the last thing I want to do is minimise the struggles that millions of us are facing right now. Look, I am fully aware of how lucky I am. Money is going to be tight, sure. But we have no kids to educate and entertain while trying to hold down a strange home bound working day. We are, for the time being at least, secure. TLC and I, quiet homebodies as we are, are almost perfectly suited to the challenges that The Rony has set us. Even for us, there are broken sleep patterns, times of anxiety and inertia. Gods only know how the rest of you are coping. The fact that you are, and with good humour, creativity and determination, gives me hope for all of us.
Outside, late afternoon light dapples the rough end of the garden. Shadows play over the apple trees we planted a couple of years back, their branches thick with new buds. I’ll be out there tomorrow, doing battle with weeds and overgrown borders. Perhaps the muse will follow me out, green eyes glinting, tail held high. Perhaps she’ll drop an idea into my head that will send me running back indoors for a pen and paper.
Perhaps we are one day closer to the end of this, and the beginning of something new.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 