I guess you had to be there

I always visit the bluebells with my walking buddies. 

Except last year the Lockdown rules kept us apart. We WhatsApped eachother photos of blue woodland floor, but it wasn't the same.   

However, this year we were able to gather for the stunning annual flooding of the woods with a tide of bluebells.  Carol led us to a small, far-flung wood that was not infested with other bluebell-peepers.

And so we were able to add one more photo to the already high stack of pictures of 'Us with bluebells'. This year's variant was 'Us with too-long hair with bluebells'. Our priority had obviously been getting out to the woods, not booking a hairdresser.

There is also an annual event we don't aim for but which happens anyway. More often than not, I am with my friends when we spot the first swallow. It happened again this year and as the wispy dark shape sped over our heads, we made the annual joke about 'one swallow doth not a summer make'.  

I guess you had to be there.  

And that's the point - after a long Lockdown, now we can be there.

The Most Exciting Thing in 2021

 Seeing our friends in three dimensions is still a novelty following Lockdown.  So meeting Mark and Adri in Epping Forest was already an exciting prospect. 

Then it got even better!

We set off for a walk in the mature Robin-Hood-style forest.  After ten minutes we noticed wood smoke drifting through the trees and assumed it was a group having a (probably illicit) barbecue.  But something bothered me - I couldn’t hear any voices.

We went to investigate, and sure enough, discovered a forest fire.  A broad stretch of blackened leaf mould was scattered with smoking branches, and fresh flames licked at a large dead tree. 

If the dead tree caught fire, there would be no putting it out. 

Nigel beat at the flames and extinguished them while the rest of us scuffed at patches that were still smoking. 

However, the forest was very dry and the fire seemed likely to erupt again.  Mark and Adri phoned the fire brigade and returned to the car park to await them.  This left Nigel and I battling with a few stubborn logs which we could not stop from smouldering.

‘If only we had our water bottles with us.’

‘Or if there were a stream...’

After some time, Mark and Adri returned with four cheery firefighters carrying tanks of water on their backs and holding nozzles.

Nigel and Mark whispered to each other ‘Who you gonna call?’ ‘Ghostbusters!’

As the firefighters damped the area down, we went on our way only to discover that over the very next rise was a large pond. 

If only we’d known, we could have carried the smouldering logs and quenched them here instead of wasting half our afternoon.

‘Never mind,’ I said, ‘This is probably the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in 2021!’

‘Or indeed, 2020.’ agreed Adri.

Delayed Gratification

Covid Lockdown has deprived our senses so that going to the shops for the first time is a veritable orgy of textures and smells.

The prospect of feeling fabric between finger and thumb, of holding it alongside your face to see if the colour suits, of trying it on instead of trying to guess how it will fit from an online pic of a model who has no curves (in tiny writing: model is 5’11 and wears a size 8).

And books!  To inhale that new-paper smell and flick through a new novel, reading snatches of dialogue, to pore over a table of bright new titles and want to buy all of them.

However, Covid also means that this year teachers are assessing pupils.  Busy trying to pull together various assessment programmes, I haven’t yet had the chance to go to the shops.

Perhaps when I finally get there I shall run amok...If you see a middle-aged woman cantering through the streets of St Albans wearing six new frocks, one on top of another, price tags flying in the breeze, and hefting armfuls of new paperbacks, it will be me.

The End of the Twin Shortage

Socially Distanced Easter Walk with Perran and Carenza

When Christmas got banned, we were lucky enough to have Pascoe already with us.  He had arrived early to avoid crowded trains.  However, the twins were stuck in their London flat.  We dropped off gifts and food on the doorstep, waved a tearful farewell and Zoomed on Christmas Day.

We had not spent time with them since meeting in Kew Gardens in early October.  It was to be six months from then until the Easter weekend when finally we saw them again.  Of course we had been in regular touch, but having less and less to chat about over the long, dark, solitary weeks of midwinter.

It could be that Covid Lockdown has been the world’s largest experiment to test the hypothesis ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!’

I await eagerly revelations about the evil genius who masterminded the experiment.  Given the origins of this Corona Virus, surely it has to have been one of Batman’s arch-enemies…?

But I digress.

Thing was, we did at last see Perran and Carenza.  We had lunch in our sunny, breezy garden and walked down our street, lined with magnolias framed by a blue sky, and out into the fields which were wearing their new green coats trimmed with the white lace of blackthorn blossom.

And it was beyond lovely.

All we have to do now is solve the current Pascoe shortage!

The End of the Social Drought

At times I have been so grateful to have Nigel’s companionship over this period of isolation, at others, I have wondered whether Rentokil ever deals with husbands.

A particular low point was the day when I was trying to write a short story at my desk close to the front door and Nigel decided he would fix the doorbell.  It involved testing the doorbell repeatedly over a long period.

I went into the hallway and said, ‘You know, yesterday I saw an interview with Margaret Atwood.  In 2019, she lost her partner of many years, Graeme.  It’s very sad and she clearly misses him….But do you know what she doesn’t miss at all?’

‘No?’ said Nigel, ‘What?’

‘Him playing with the bloody doorbell for hours on end.  Apparently it in no way helped her to win the Booker Prize.’

Leaving him with a thoughtful look on his face, I retreated back into the office.

But, for the time being at least, the social drought has ended and both the joys and the frustrations of one’s life partner will be diluted to safe levels by friends and family coming for a cuppa in the garden.  And probably a good thing too.