We have had such a marvellous spell of fine weather - clear blue skies, warm sun during the main part of the day - that it’s almost like summer. We have had lunch outside almost every day for a week or more, and work in the garden has been quite strenuous and pleasant - tidying away the detritus of winter, and preparing for the light and heat to come. It is an act of wilful extravagance to come inside to write this when I could be out there, luxuriating in the joys of a perfect English spring day. But actually it’s easier to see to type inside. We are so fortunate to have this house, these options. I feel we are like Roman senators in retirement, wanting for very little, just aware of the distance from the centre (and also from those we love).
For us, untouched by any personal grief or deep anxiety (or any anxiety) for the last week or so, this is like a prolonged holiday, and that is what people passing by say too. We are tranquil. We enjoy the peace. We tut-tut about silly other people congregating in parks or beaches, who may be endangering others by the massed proximity. The police are out and about sending people home. But in the main, things are rather complacent. There are horrible sad harrowing personal accounts of death and loss online - how swift, how unfair, how lonely. The official protocols hardly allow time to say goodbye or press a hand, or make any sort of farewell, or arrangements. Quarantine is all. People are dying, or helped on their way all alone, in harassed hospital wards. It’s a sharp taste of vinegar on the fat squashy chips we are all feasting on.
My beautiful Lucie seems to have mastered her spell of loneliness and horror a few days ago. The Irish Mussetts have had a fine Easter-egg hunt this morning. Neighbours stop to chat, reporting they are ok and only vaguely wondering how and when this will all end. Today the Prime Minister has come out of hospital and will go to Chequers to recuperate. His lacklustre sidekicks in the Cabinet have made a very poor showing during his illness - little Matty Hancock ducking a question about deaths, Priti Patel issuing glycerine statements about loss but sticking to her cruel rhetoric about who is worthy of staying in the UK longer than the few months which is estimated for their usefulness. Turkey and Germany have been sending emergency medical kit to help the UK out. The death toll rises. And warnings are starting to emerge about how the capitalist system will swing back into action with huge marketing campaigns to get everyone back on the industrial bandwagon as soon as this iso over. Goodbye sweet peace and calm, clean air, clean waters. On with the show.
Yesterday we chopped up the red-stemmed bamboo which we’d bought ten? years ago from Fordingbridge. It had grown to the very extremes of capacity in its pot… we had to chop that in half to get it out, then split it into pieces and I sold them at bargain prices outside on the pavement. Made £25 or so.. .enough to buy a new pot, I suppose. We cleared out and re-ordered the planters outside in the alley, and today we planted two little plum trees from the market into a pair of pots. The garden is to be more food-focussed now. I think I am grateful for the barbed wire and high fencing round the allotments. I foresee food scarcities later this year.. .however odd that seems when things are presently almost over-bountiful. The supermarkets are rationing access, and the shelves are returning to normal. But… as the Brexit policies begin to bite, I think our farmers will struggle and prices will go up.
I have been making pastel sketches of the amazing crabapple tree, sometimes twice a day, to try to capture the light as it swings round in such a theatrical fashion. Light and time. The huge moon (full last Monday) is shrinking, and the tides receding. I wonder now if we will ever get our opening bridge. It will all depend on how KCC orders its priorities and budget when (if and when) this ghastly episode comes to an end. The finances of the whole world will be disarrayed. Will Mr Paul Carter have any influence? It’s a slim chance, though still there.
The birds are singing their heads off…. presently a new young male blackbird is establishing his space…. so fluid and penetrating a song. Each bird family needs its territory. We have our space. But are all these little comforts - this is our home, with all our stuff around us - is this just illusory?
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