Stop, look and listen.
This is my view when I stand on my doorstep and look out. There are rows of stone terrace houses, there are fast moving clouds in the blue sky today but there are no aeroplanes flying.
The air feels fresh with a hope of spring.
I can hear the bus coming up the steep hill. Plenty of people on it too, I hope they’re keeping their distance (but also I hope they’re talking to each other too).
There are dandelions growing by my feet ready to flower.
I can see a bumblebee flying by, it’s a whopper, (god knows how that manages to fly) and Bonnie (my dog) wants to snap at it.
This is my view of my world. It’s become an awful lot smaller recently due to us self isolating.
What is your view? What do you see? Is is nice? Is it busy? Is it ugly? What do you hear? What do you smell? Tell me, let’s talk. Let’s make the world bigger for a bit. Doesn’t matter how small, if you mopped the floor today I want to hear it.
Tell me.
Posted on March 20, 2020, in Uncategorized and tagged coronovirus, covid 19, Drawing, Illustration, pandemic, quarrentine, sef-isolation, self isolation., Sketchbook, Swansea, Wales. Bookmark the permalink. 27 Comments.
Doodlemum 
Comments on a blog are a lovely thing (speaking as someone who only gets a few – I don’t know how many you get and that’s not a hint by the way!) I’ve been in the garden but it is really too cold for me yet – like a tortoise I’d like to hibernate for a bit longer. My children are grownups, single, living some distance away. We text more than we used to these days.
This week I’ve gone from being a peri piano and music teacher, working in small unventilated rooms or stuffy classrooms, cheek by jowl with upwards of 90 students in seven schools as well as at home, to – me, my husband, and the two cats. Isolating, trying to stay well as I have a lung condition. Unreal times.
But new times – I started drawing and painting doodles (partly inspired by your blog) and now that’s what I like to do, more than piano teaching But that could be because when you spend five or six hours a day with your ears full of sound, drawing seems so blessedly quiet.
I’m hoping to rediscover the piano for myself in a day or two.
On Sunday I will put candles in the window (battery, I don’t want to set the house alight) to join with mothers everywhere celebrating Mothering Sunday.
Blogs are a lifeline, aren’t they! I set mine up to keep in touch with the offsprings and also friends far and near.
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Hi Kirsten, yes I did set up my blog to cope with isolation and depression.
Ten years on, things are different for me but this pandemic has brought me full circle to where I began!
Blogging is wonderful and has allowed me to express and share my drawings and observations.
These are indeed very scary times, thank you for sharing and best wishes.
Angie.
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Being outside is the best therapy. We are retired and have the option of not having to go out to work etc. I am also very lucky to have a large yard and many garden beds. We are having summer temperatures and are about to go to the front porch to rock for awhile. This is a tragedy, but the whole world is in it together. PS My blog is full of gardening photos, if you can’t get out.
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Oh thank you so much. So evocative too. I will pop over to your blog and have a look. Best wishes, Angie
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Here it’s a bit overcast today, the sky’s filled with grey cottonwool and there’s a definite autumnal nip in the air. From my doorstep I can see the lawn is starting to green up after being burnt to a crisp this summer, our tiny (8) flock of very spoilt sheep are standing at the gate telling me I should stop lurking and start moving. I can hear a milk tanker roaring up the road …it’ll be past us in a moment…yep, there it is. On the side it says “carrying our milk from Canterbury to the world”. Wonder if this virus is getting in the way of that. My poor geriatric waterpump is trying to start, wheezing away like a beginner bagpiper. Today, everything smells a bit damp, the faint aroma of an old woollen cardy. Hope this helps stretch your horizon. Your image did so for me x
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Oh that was lovely.. I’m looking forward to warmer days here.
Thank you so much. Angie
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I live on a small Scottish island. The ground including my garden is peat bog so not much grass but lots of interesting bog plants make my “lawn”. Over the fence are free roaming Shetland sheep which by sheep standards are very small; the owes will be lambing in about a month so are getting quite barrel shaped. If I’m lucky I see the dog otter whose regular path to the sea passes my house. If I look a bit further I see the two ferries which link us to the Mainland 20 minutes away; they are huge as they carry away lorries full of fish every day. Even on a calm day the sea has turbulent areas. It has been sunny today but a brisk wind; here we notice when it’s not windy. Houses are scattered but we all have our washing lines and horizontal sheets are a local feature! This week we have been making plans to help us cope with what is to come. We have had to close our local Hall which is an important social centre but we know we will look after each other and we have lots of space for fresh air and exercise.
I love your drawings and have wondered what you would choose to capture if you were here.
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Oh Caroline, sounds wonderful. I think the movement of the clothes and sheets on the washing line with the landscape would d be wonderful to draw.
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I like your view. Mine is of a street with very few cars but lots of people walking and riding bikes. I does seem much less hectic. In fact, last night, when I took the trash out I noticed how very still and quiet the night was. Eerie but cool too.
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Thank you Nancy! 😊
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Sometimes it’s the simplicity of just people passing that makes it endlessly interesting and varied.
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Agreed.
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Amazingly, the world seems to be adopting my lifestyle. Staying home (for extended periods of time) is my idea of heaven. My view is green, from every window in our very small house. The first thing I see in the morning is the creek running past our side window. Our dog goes out to greet the dogs next door and I go back to bed with coffees in hand (where I am now). Bird sounds and mowers, on weekends. Currently, we have a fifth-generation of drummer practising off in the distance. Very few people get to step through our front door. It’s bliss.
Terry
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Hi Terry,
Sounds blissful. Thank you for sharing 😊
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A tiny apartment in Austin, Texas, but with big windows looking out onto oak and pecan trees and green grass and shrubs. In the city but out of it, surrounded by streets and highways, but also a creek and and even a deer now and then. A thunderstorm last night, rainy, overcast, the kind of weather I love and get too little of here. Periodically a dog with a human attached to a leash walks by. Squirrels in hiding. Silence.
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Kathy, thank you so much for sharing. My world is a little bigger again 🙂
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A friend of mine says “isolation does not necessarily mean incarceration.” We both live on the edge of woodland, so we can escape without endangering ourselves or anyone else. But just about everyone can stand on their doorstep, or go into the back yard, or simply raise a window and lean out a little, to get a different view from usual…
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Here in Nottingham, on the city fringes, I can hear only the faintest hum of traffic now. Looking out of the backdoor, our littlest bit of sprawling garden is waking up. There is blossom budding on our apple and plum tree; the geranium and peony as poking up their leaves and the helebore are in full swing. Being my garden it is full of bramble, dandelions and wild garlic too.
The morning chorus is getting louder everday and the bird feeder is busy at its set times.
From our front window I can see my neighbours houses all closed under their curtains for now. Further up the road us our beautiful park. This is a mix of beech, chestnut and oak on one side and pitch and putt smoothness on the other. The park is home to woodpeckers, owls, nuthatch and more. We are so lucky to be in city that is full of these green spaces.
As we head into isolation, I am hatching plots to read a daily chapter for our school website. The story is barely begun and my class need it’s ending. I hope all is well with you and yours as time moves on and you all begin to recover.
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Ah thank you for this. I wish you well too.
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Hullo Lady! My story is pack, pack, Packing! We are leaving my Home state of California and moving across this big ol’ country to Florida. My only child, and her family moved there almost 3 years ago. The grands are growing lightning fast and I am missing so much! Like Lily showing her 🐖 at the fair, Ro T-ball – little guys version of baseball and my oldest granddaughter Em, is having a baby in May. Here I sit, surrounded by oddly smelling cardboard boxes! I fly Sunday morning. My husband will drive a big truck, caravanning our cars with his sons and brother, “Road Trip”!!
It’s exceptionally nerve wracking because of the troubling virus….
Further, more thrilling post once we make it to the new house.
Loved your pensive view of the neighborhood!
Love your drawing/paintings! ( I remember your wonderful video!) Be well sweet lady!!
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Thank you for all of your lovely drawings. I’m a longtime reader but have never commented before.
Our social distancing started at the same time as a week of unusually wonderful weather here in Vancouver – sunny, clear skies and temperatures up to 15C. Our indoor cat is thrilled that we have opened the windows; I have been enjoying watching her breathe in the smells in the air and chitter at the birds we can now hear as we try to adjust to working and studying from home. As I type this, I can hear crows and sparrows competing to see who can greet the morning best, and yesterday I saw the first American robins of the season.
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Ah it’s so nice to feel spring in the air. I wish you well in your readjustment to staying at home. Best wishes, Angie.
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I like your dog’s nose in your sketches
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She has the best snoot 😊
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Need to differ on best snout. But your drawings really capture that enquiring nose
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❤️
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March has passed by now, and it’s april 9th, my grandson is turning 2 today.. and i can’t be with him. I am with my lover, at his home, boyfriend sounds so stupid when you’re 48 years old.
And what do i hear, well, they are working in the street in front of the house, in this part of the Netherlands, there are not many planes that cross over, where i live, it’s nearby Schiphol, and that was peacefull. Right now, i hear the birds and the working man are there again, started at 7 this morning.
They are renewing the sewage system, so the whole street is one big sandpile…. So that is what i hear right now. But soon, you will hear the dishes clinging, since i have no dishwasher over here so i will do it by hand. 😉
X
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