Green Church

Covid hit our church hard. Several much loved older people died, afflicted by the isolation and delayed medical treatment of Lockdown rather than the Covid virus itself. Some of the members who had been most creative and most generous with their time moved away. One or two developed long-term illnesses. And then our vicar retired.

So coming out of Covid has felt like the aftermath of a nasty fall. Gingerly we have picked ourselves up and tested each limb for strains and bruises.

However, there is now a very tangible sign of new life – the creation of a green space in front of our church. A team, led with great energy by Celia, has packed the modest plot with flowers to attract bees and a wet area for amphibians. Above, there are swift boxes and a swift call playing to attract the birds to nest, (my own contribution). On either side are benches for people to sit and appreciate it all.

The fact that we have accomplished this long-awaited project now in the spring, and that it will blossom and flourish through the summer must be a good sign.

So by the time winter chill creeps in once more, the plants will have become established and our new vicar will have taken up his post.

For more about our environmentally-aware church http://www.saint-lukes.co.uk/

 

Covid Does it Again

This Christmas is a real cup-half-full/cup-half-empty moment for me.

Christmas 2019:- Nigel, me, Pascoe, Carenza and Perran had assembled at our house, the tree was decked, the food prepped, the gifts wrapped.  But on Christmas Eve, I was felled with a mystery virus, like flu but much worse.  I was out of it until well after Christmas.

Christmas 2020:- Nigel, Pascoe and I had assembled at our house, the tree was decked, etc, then the sudden lockdown eliminated Perran and Carenza from Christmas at home.

Christmas 2021:- seeing the way Omicron was spreading, Pascoe arrived early at our house, then Carenza, although somewhat delayed, waiting for the outcome of one PCR after another (both negative).  We hadn’t even done anything about the tree and food at that point.   

We were within just a few days of having the complete family Christmas when a PCR result meant Perran wasn’t coming home after all.

Cup half empty – it won’t be a proper Christmas without him.

Cup half full – he’s not too ill.

Cup half full - we should be able to catch up immediately after Christmas.

Maybe, 2022…

Pre-holiday tension

We had been planning a trip to Bamburgh – a chance to combine a holiday with our grown-up children with visiting Nigel’s family in Northumberland.

A week on the English coast seemed like a very down-to-earth option.

But in the ten days beforehand I realised the holiday was in fact a preposterous proposition.

How on earth could six of us, including three from London and one from Edinburgh hope to escape the surging new wave of Covid?

And even if we escaped Covid itself, how could we possibly avoid getting pinged and told to self isolate?

I began to have a mental picture of Bamburgh Castle surrounded by clouds – we had built a castle in the air.

The solution should have been to undertake as little social contact as possible for ten days before the holiday.

But we all had various long-standing commitments - in Nigel’s case, a trip into central London.

A couple of days before the holiday, Nigel sounded a bit wheezy. 

‘It’s hayfever!’

The next day, still wheezy.

‘My hayfever has triggered my asthma.’

Finally, he took a test.  I had so many parts of my anatomy crossed that I nearly strained myself.

It was negative.

And miraculously, all the youngsters were also in the clear.

I still can’t believe we all got to Bamburgh!

And the other thing I can’t believe is how quickly the long-awaited week rushed by.

Photo shows us with David & Carolyn - Pascoe's godparents

 

 

 

Preparations for a holiday

In the last fifteen months of intermittent lockdown, we have become more connected to our home. As we think about going away for a week, in the summer, we discover just how much.  The prospect of leaving certain things untended is harder, the list of favours that we have to ask of friends and neighbours longer.

Our doves have grown habituated to Nigel’s presence in the back garden.  They crowd round him, ostensibly to be fed, but primarily for his bird-talk, a stream of idle chat suited to domestic fowl.   When on holiday, we can arrange for them to be fed, but who will keep them up to date with the news? 

Likewise, a young friend from church has agreed to water the plants, but they will surely miss our coaching and encouragement.  I’m sure they will continue to photosynthesise without us, but they will lack enthusiasm.

As for the dozens of wild birds who visit our garden, they may never forgive us.  Our regular supply of seed and suet has already helped them raise one brood.  How could we leave them at what is a critical moment for their second brood?

But our young friend has agreed to re-fill the feeders for us.

So we can leave our house for just a little while and spend some time with our own brood.

Exam Season

 

 It's not the exam season - it's the teacher assessed grades season. The children are not sitting exams but assessments.

My memory of this time of year is having to choose between the streaming eyes of hayfever and medication which made me fall asleep.  I chose hayfever.

Nowadays the medication is much better.
However, what has not changed for the pupils is that this is the most beautiful time of the year, intersecting with some of the most exciting years of their lives and  here they are stuck in an exam room.

 Sorry, an assessment room.

And yet, most pupils don't really wrestle with a subject until they approach exam revision.  Maybe having that hard-won feeling of mastery over an area of knowledge makes it all  worthwhile?

 Certainly when I asked that question in class last week, one pupil said yes.

And for a class full of teenagers that is a high percentage of positive responses.

Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash

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.

A Year On

Looking back at my blogs from a year ago, it brings back vividly the weirdness of distancing from people I was used to hugging, the panicky feeling of being on holiday in Lille at the point where it was locking down.  

However, I also remember a sense of relief at life becoming less frantic.  Travelling to work and to see relations ground to a halt.   There was suddenly time to address calming domestic tasks in the  house and garden.  There was tinkering with pot plants and with baking recipes.  There were leisurely with neighbours across a two-meter gulf.

My photos show a backdrop of dazzling blue skies behind frothy blossoms, the delight I took in each new spring flower – celandines, violets, wood anemones. And so many long walks as the spring evenings lengthened.

What is clear, however, is we never guessed Lockdowns would continue so long.  There was the sense that the first Lockdown was a little oasis in everyday life.  I remember teaching into the Easter holidays because I thought it would mean fewer lessons in the summer term when everything would be back to normal.

I also worked through a list of long-postponed projects, rushing to finish them before everyday life resumed.

But Lockdown has been a marathon, not the sprint I first envisaged.  If I could send a message back to myself in Spring 2020, I’d say ‘Slow down – You’ll have plenty of time at home!’ 

 

 

Vaccination II

 

For me, today is vaccination day.

Unlike Nigel, my first opportunity to book was via the NHS website and the jab would be delivered at a local pharmacy rather than the louche nightclub surrounds of Batchwood.

A pity – I’d been looking forward to the vaccination-with-glitterball experience.

However, that was a minor detail.  The main thing was to get jabbed, especially as the news this morning mentioned that the vaccination rate was slowing.

All my friends who’d been ‘done’ have said how efficient it was, so I wasn’t anticipating any problems. As an afterthought I stuffed my letter of invitation in my pocket in case I was asked for my NHS number.

When I arrived, many stewards were in view, wearing high vis or toting clipboards, but as far as I could see, I was the only actual punter.

When I said my name, two young women both got me to repeat it, then to spell it. They flicked rapidly through their lists.  I wasn’t there.  My appointment had somehow not registered.   It felt just like a bad dream.  Had I missed the boat?

Panicking I got my letter out and flapped it, wishing now I had also brought the print-out of my appointments. 

Given that I had my letter and that nobody else was waiting, it was decided to give me my jab.  Oxford Astra Zeneca, thank you very much!

One of the staff confided there had been a few cases like mine.

I feel very fortunate to have been vaccinated and only hope that moment of having the rug pulled doesn’t come back as a recurring nightmare.

Vaccination 1

 

The roadmap out of Lockdown had two opposite effects on me.  I foresaw with delight the prospect of having family and friends round to our garden.  On the other hand, I was apprehensive at the possibility of catching Covid, or worse, of Nigel catching Covid.

Most of our friends have made a good recovery, but just a very few had to be hospitalised or have Long Covid.  It’s a bit of a Forrest Gump/ box of chocolates situation – you never know what you’re going to get. 

I doubted the vaccination programme would reach us any time soon because just as our cohort became eligible, many older people also needed their second jab.

So when Nigel got his invitation we were thrilled. 

Incongruously, our extremely efficient GP-led vaccination centre is Batchwood, usually a nightclub.  Our children have many times boogied the night away there, but did they ever feel as happy as Nigel did when he received his jab and took a selfie under the giant chandelier?

Then two days later, I received an invitation to book my shot.  It felt like a privilege.  Sometimes things do go right after all.

And I can also refute the conspiracy theory that the vaccine contains microchips – although I have tried very hard this week to reprogramme Nigel, he is still doing exactly as he pleases 😊

Standing up for all of us

Today Nigel attended a London magistrates’ court (via Teams videoconferencing), was found guilty of obstructing the highway, given a conditional discharge and asked to pay court expenses of £331.

And I am proud of him.

He was arrested 07-10-2019 while sitting in the road at the junction of Northumberland Avenue and Trafalgar Square.

It was part of an Extinction Rebellion protest.

His defence was ‘Necessity’ - by drawing attention to the Climate Emergency and trying to get the Government to act Nigel was attempting to save lives, both in the immediate future and throughout the years to come.

Representing himself in court, Nigel said:

‘The number of deaths as a result of the climate emergency is going to rise, and rise dramatically. Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England, and now UN climate finance envoy, put it very simply in a statement to the BBC on 6^th February:

"When you look at climate change from a human mortality perspective, it will be the equivalent of a coronavirus crisis every year from the middle of this century, and every year, not just a one-off event. “

Covid is an emergency.  Currently it has caused 100,000 deaths in the UK, and 2.4m globally.  But by the middle of this century, the climate emergency will cause that number of deaths every year.  Every year. 2.4m every year.’

However, even though thousands of people have indeed died since Nigel sat down in the road in October 2019, of the drought, floods and storms caused by climate change, the court did not consider the danger immediate enough and convicted him.

We knew beforehand that this was the probable outcome, but time will prove that it was not the right one.

 

I Believe in Summer

 

In the middle of Winter there are days when it is easier to believe in unicorns than in Summer.

Stricken by icy temperatures and a constant unsatisfactory ‘dandruff’ of snow (as Annabel put it),  we have had to exercise our faith and our imagination.

I put together a necklace from some butterflies which I had enamelled in bright colours.  There WILL come some sunny day when I can wear it above a strappy top.

Nigel has been filtering his elderberry wine.  One day it WILL be one of the ingredients of a ruby-coloured sangria on a warm summer’s evening in the garden.

I guess these things we have made are little pledges to ourselves, signs that we are trying to believe in Summer.

Little Lockdown Project for the Ears

My eyes hurt.

As a teacher, I used to get to spend time focusing on the far-away back of the classroom, trying to guess what the pupils in the back row were looking at under the desk and calculating whether I could sneak up on them before they put it away.

Now all those long-distance moments have been replaced by staring at my screen.

I am worried my bloodshot eyes will scare my pupils.  But luckily the picture’s not crisp enough.

So for my current Lockdown project, I have decided to use my ears.

The birds believe that spring is on its way and are giving three cheers, each in their own way.  I am trying to tune in to the different calls there are out there.  I’ve got the RSPB app on my phone so I can listen to bird song and try to figure out what I’m hearing.

It can be difficult to remember, so the best method for me is to fit words to the call, like the yellowhammer who sings ‘A little bit of bread and no cheese.’

Today’s morsel of learning?

‘It’s me, it’s me, it’s me.’ – coal tit

So if you spot me stopped still in mid-step with a thoughtful look on my face, that is what is going on – I’m listening to a tiny bird!

https://community.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/b/notesonnature/posts/birdsong-masterclass

 

Snow Fest

 

In the past, I’ve always valued a snow day – one where there has been a deep enough fall to stop traffic and close schools. 

It has meant a lie-in, and the complete slow-down of life. 

Everything we meant to do that day goes by the board.  Might as well take a long walk then bake some bread.

However, this year saw yet another complete inversion of the norms.

On Sunday in St Albans, we had a reasonable fall of snow.

Usually, most people wait until the flakes stop falling before they go out. 

But I thought there might be a lot of people on the paths if we delayed, making it hard to socially distance. 

‘We should go out now, while it’s still snowing!’

So Nigel and I set off to cross the local public playing field. 

It turned out nobody had waited for the snow stop.  There were scores of people and nearly as many snow-people.  Snow fights, snow angels and sledding were all happening.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so busy. 

Clearly, in the absence of anything else in the diary, a snow day was no longer a peaceful oasis in the hubbub of everyday life.  Instead, it was the very epitome of excitement.

And it was great to see the everyday outlines of our local neighbourhood transformed.  Due to Covid restrictions we can’t travel to see a different landscape at the moment.  However, it came to find us.

Blue Monday

The third Monday of January is traditionally known as ‘Blue Monday’ and is the most depressing day of the year.

Even without the help of a Pandemic

Overcast and a cold and a bit rainy, the weather was in on it.

My Latin pupils, glimmering pale green and glum in the Zoom-light lesson, were in on it.

As if to emphasise the fact we would be going nowhere, Nigel had made an appointment for the car to be MOTed.  He was in on it too.

Outside, the garden looked grey-brown and dead.

However, I channelled the overly-cheerful 1913 literary heroine, Pollyanna, and looked for some things to make me glad.

One was the flock of redwing, wintering here from Scandinavia. (They clearly don’t know there are visa issues since Brexit.)  They landed on the cotoneaster tree outside my window, much to the consternation of the local blackbird who shooed them off.  But as soon as he turned his back they returned, swallowing down the bright red berries whole – like you or me gulping down an entire tennis ball.

The other was ‘Running Family’.  We see them sometimes when we go for a walk.  Dad, Mum and two small boys.  They belt along the pavement with the Dad zig-zagging backwards and forwards encouraging the boys.  Dad probably thinks they are doing it for the sake of the boys.  But Mum probably suggested it so Dad would run off his surplus energy and settle down quietly when they got home.

There.  Done it. Got through Blue Monday.

 

How was your Christmas....?

This year, Christmas was different.  Pascoe had come early to avoid crowded trains so was with us before the new restrictions curbed our Christmas plans.  The twins, however, were still in their flat, so we drove to Bermondsey and delivered gifts, food and decorations on the doorstep, but didn’t scoop them up and take them home despite the huge temptation which our parental instincts urged on us.

What can I say?

We admired the twins’ splendid Christmas dinner on Zoom and were impressed that they had dressed for dinner. Turns out Christmas is much more photogenic without us oldies.

It was a privilege to have Pascoe home.  Our own Christmas centred on knee-depth mud as we rambled with him over the Hertfordshire countryside every day.

And on Christmas Day, we had a very special encounter.  The three of us had reached Nomansland Common as the sun sank.  At a time of year when not many birds sing, we could hear a virtuoso performance from a song thrush, reminding me of ‘The Darkling Thrush’, by Thomas Hardy (below).  But although we stared at the tree, the bird remained hidden.  Eventually, I got out my phone and played a recording of a song thrush.  Immediately, our invisible entertainer appeared and flew straight at us, only just stopping short of dive-bombing us.

We laughed with delight. 

It may not have been an ideal Christmas, but once we started to look, there was so much to appreciate.

 

For those of our friends, however, who have been ill over Christmas, there has not been much fun and our thoughts are with you for a speedy recovery.

The Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy

 

I leant upon a coppice gate

      When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

      The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

      Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

      Had sought their household fires.

 

The land's sharp features seemed to be

      The Century's corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

      The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

      Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

      Seemed fervourless as I.

 

At once a voice arose among

      The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

      Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

      In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

      Upon the growing gloom.

 

So little cause for carolings

      Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

      Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

      His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

      And I was unaware.

 

 

 

Birthday Surprise

Nigel’s birthday was coming up just at the very end of Lockdown.  There weren’t many options for celebrating.  As a family we are largely vegetarian, so scotch eggs were out.

I proposed to the children that we meet up with just a few old friends to have a surprise Zoom quiz for Nigel.  I arranged the call and the kids came up with rounds on topics which would interest Nigel – growing fruit and veg, lightbulbs, getting arrested while sitting in the road and ‘What was Nigel doing in that photograph?’

The day dawned and Nigel was none the wiser.  I personally defrosted a lovely birthday supper and unwrapped his birthday cake.  (I go to endless trouble on these occasions.)

Then we began what Nigel expected to be a call with the kids.  As his friends rang in, he said umpteen times ‘I wasn’t expecting this’.

And there was a surprise for me too.  Apparently I had forgotten to tell the kids that it was supposed to be a surprise, but somehow nobody had blown the secret.

Over the Zoom call with friends, I said to the children,

‘But didn’t you wonder why I’d set up a new WhatsApp group to make the arrangements?’

‘No Mum,’ said Carenza, ‘I just thought it was some sort of manipulative behaviour.’

Thanks, Girl.

Who Stole the Road?

 

On Monday afternoon, Nigel strode into my study.

‘Clare!  Look outside! Somebody has stolen the road.’

We live at the end of a very long cul-de-sac.  Both of us working at home.  For the last month, most of our interactions whether work or social have been via Zoom or the phone.

I didn’t think we could get much more isolated until the road resurfacing team came and took away our route to anywhere.  Where once there was asphalt now there is only a lumpy, uneven surface.

Perhaps tomorrow I will look out of my window and see only mist and clouds, indicating that finally we have been entirely cut off from all time and space.

Like the tardis. 

I shall remain stoical, as long as the wi-fi still works.

But the promise is that by the end of the week, we shall have back not only our road, but some of our freedoms.

For a while anyway.

The Egg Incident

 At the weekend, Nigel was cultivating our smallish garden and I was inside, writing.  Every so often he would stride purposefully past the window carrying a spade or fork.

After 8 months of gardening, particularly intensive due to this year’s special circumstances, I wondered what could be left to do out there.

Suddenly he rapped on the glass, making me jump.

‘You’ll never guess what I’ve found!’

‘Is it a frog?’ Tetchily.  It is usually a frog.

But no, just by an iris, a complete chicken egg, partially buried.

‘Could it have been kids egging the house on Halloween?’ 

No – it was several feet from the house and not even cracked.  As if it had been laid down carefully.

Laid.

The Vicar next door sometimes kept chickens.  Occasionally the chickens got out.  Once in a blue moon they appeared in our garden.

We could think of no other source for this egg, so we shared the story with him.

He said that they haven’t had chickens recently due to the depredations of particularly active urban foxes.  So that egg had to be more than a year old.

Nigel shook it.  Something inside rattled.  Yep. This was an old egg.

So it makes you think, doesn’t it – if something as large and obvious as a chicken egg could remain unnoticed in our well-tended small garden, what other amazing creatures are there for us to discover on this great planet of ours?  And can we find them before they become extinct?

 

The Gin Incident

 When the R number soared at the end of October, I booked in a series of online shops. 

For each one I put in a placeholder order of a high-value item which takes me over the £40 limit needed to get a delivery.

A couple of days before the delivery I go in and remove the high-value item and put in the list of what we really need.

What could possibly go wrong?

Now my high-value item of choice just happens to be three bottles of gin.  Doesn’t really matter which gin as I’m going to take it off the order. 

I had idly thought that the profile derived from my shopping habits would portray me as an acute alcoholic, purchasing three large bottles of spirits each week.

This Monday, when the doorbell rang, I went to receive my supermarket order from the young delivery man.

“Good morning.  Would you mind taking it through to the….”

The words died on my lips. 

At my feet was only one crate.

In the crate were three large bottles of gin.

“This isn’t my order!”

The young man smirked.  He had heard it all before. 

In retrospect, I gave in too quickly.  I should have insisted on seeing the paperwork or asked that he take it back.  But I knew deep down that it was my mistake – I had amended the wrong order.

Looking around nervously in case any of the neighbours was about, I grabbed my haul of gin and retreated indoors, clanking.

My shopping will come next week.  At least the gin will make the wait pleasant. 

The Goldfinger Incident

I’m a bit of a fidget.  If I’m talking on the phone I like to use a headset and find a task to keep my hands busy.

It was time to ring John, an elderly friend from church.  So I decided to make some Christmas decorations out of materials I already had, the remnants of previous projects.

“Hello, John.  How has your week been?”

Since John is confined to his house and my adventures have been curtailed by Lockdown, it is hard to make the conversation sparkle.

“It’s been mild for the time of year, hasn’t it?”

I laid out some cones gathered from a giant redwood and drilled holes in them.

“The Autumn colours have been lovely, but the leaves are falling now.”

So far, so good.  I was having a nice catch-up with John and being creative at the same time.  I felt positively smug.

Looking at the decorations however, they seemed very…brown.

A little gold paint would make it SO much better.

I found a half-used spray can. Unfortunately the gold paint had formed a crust which meant I couldn’t depress the nozzle. 

I pressed down harder.

Suddenly, there was a crunch and the nozzle was now stuck down, in spray mode.  Gold paint was bubbling everywhere and pooling on the worktop. 

I gave up trying to have a civilised conversation.

“Oh no.  This is the only gold paint I’ve got!  I have to use it.  So I’m putting my hands in it and rubbing it over the pine cones…It’s going everywhere.  I look as if I’ve been in a punch-up with Tinkerbell – and lost!”

Judging by the chuckles from the other end of the phone, I think John enjoyed my combination of craftwork and phone call rather more than our usual sedate chat.

And the paint did stop coming out eventually.