Blog Archives
Let’s go to the park.
I watched a little boy scoot past today with his face mask on. Happy to be going to the park to play with his mum.
Are children going to play face masks in school history lessons and write about what it was like to stay in their houses?
What did you do in lock-down?
Discuss
Curtain call.
The roads are busier now, there seems to be more people going out.
I wish you well, I’m glad you haven’t been affected or infected.
Maybe you will be lucky why should I judge you?
Why should I even bother to draw my curtains to look out at the road so busy with cars.
We all have our reasons, hard not to feel something when you hear the noise of cars back on the road.
The news is split into where you live now. Wales will continue the lock-down for three more weeks, opening garden centres for essential begonias and fast food drive throughs. In England there is talk of primary children returning to school but Westminster is still keeping parliament on reduced numbers. That’s nice.
The infection numbers have risen today.
This is not over.
Goodbye.
Myles’ brother left his house for the last time today.
Long steps, hat off, the funeral director bows his head. The hearse leaves the house slowly, slowly down the steep hill to a small ceremony of fifteen at the crematorium. There can be no more.
The escort of twenty Welsh Water vans and the children in their rugby shirts waving from the sunny streets.
Goodbye Hugh, Swansea turned out for you today.
Thank you for always reading my blog.
Heaven has a huge cheeseboard but don’t eat the chives, your Dad picked them.
Rest in peace.
Head in the clouds.
We might not be able to let our feet roam right now but our heads can soar in the clouds any time we like.
A book, a day dream, a song, a drawing, a tree that sways, the clouds that build in the sky, the birds that ride the wind, the perfume in the breeze from the blossom.
Float away and never feel the time is wasted because that is when your mind is truly free.
Remembering.
It’s the 75th anniversary of V.E. day today and there is bunting everywhere. The street behind us have all moved into their front gardens and are having a socially distanced street party. The music is thumping away and I hear laughter. There is an eager d.j. on a microphone and children laughing.
The sun has been shining all day, a light breeze and dancing seagulls in the sky.
Our road is a little busier so there is no sitting outside in the spring sunshine here.
I didn’t make bunting, I drew it on the pavement outside with chalk. Coloured arms and a smudgy face.
We don’t really feel like joining in.
Myles’ brother will be cremated next week. It was sudden and quick.
He didn’t get to say goodbye. There wasn’t time. Cancer moves in that way, I know too well of that.
The sun shines on and the news can’t tell me enough how the lock down will be gradually eased and that it’s brilliant.
I see no good news yet, I see 30,000 dead.
I want to stop crying now.
Dogs and lock down.
They know when you need them. Even if you have to pay them in sausages.
They know.
Feather busting.
Cats on stairs.
Cats in pairs.
Watch out!
They go for your toes, they go for your head.
Sneaky little murder mittens swipe-swiping through the banister.
Watch out!
Just seventeen (during a global pandemic).
Dear Millie,
This birthday is very different this year.
No party*, no shopping trip, no friends and not very many presents and a global pandemic. It’s a bit rubbish.
I promise you that the postman has got a bit lost and I’m sure that the present I ordered will be here very soon…
In the meantime, let me remind you how utterly lovely you are and how unique you are. Please don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
There are many people on this planet but I got one of the very best the day you were born and I knew it (even though at the time I still didn’t know how to do your nappy, you always gave me the look that it would be alright).
I will always love you for being you.
*I did make a cake and so far the cat hasn’t eaten it.
Feathers and blossom.
White feathers and white blossom in the air this morning.
It has been an awful week. The very worse.
The air is too heavy.
Wet.
Now it’s hammering down.
Washing is soaking wet, my socks are wet, the cats are coming in wet, the dog stinks of wet.
Wet.
Another day in? Ah go on then.
Petrichor and fabric conditioner.
Grey skies are back with the rain, the smell outside is earthy and heady. Blossom and fabric conditioner from a neighbouring tumble dryer on the go and petrichor.
News is arguing with itself about the death numbers.
They’re higher in care homes now but they’re old and they weren’t included initially as they didn’t die in a hospital (because they weren’t tested so they didn’t belong in the Corona death party) and now they are because the news realised they were human too.
The rest of us are just folding washing and wondering what is going on.
A Grey Day.
Now this is Swansea, this is the great, grey, gloom that descends when everywhere else is basking in sunshine.
And a bright green face mask. (Get off Bonnie you don’t know where it’s been).
The rubbish tells its own tale of the pandemic, gloves and masks litter the floor. Why the rush to drop these things? Does it chase you?
I hurry home just in case.
The rise of the rainbows.
Lots of rainbows in the windows as I pass by with dog.
Drawn by children. Thanking nurses, doctors, healthcare workers and front-line workers.
Some are painted, some are pieces of paper stuck together, some are prints of little hands, safe behind glass.
None have been drawn by dogs, or cats just in case you were wondering.
A grand day out.
Weekly shop time.
I was doing well until I lost my pound for the trolley so had to make two trips with a basket, queued up twice to get in and queued up twice to get everything on my list.
No one can go near anyone else, one person in at a time. It’s pleasant enough but it’s strange and I cried when the announcement was made over the speaker system.
No one else looked up so I got away with it, felt a bit stupid crying amongst the dairy produce but I suppose I didn’t cry around the beer or I’d had just looked like a desperado needing her Special Brew.
I forgot the beer too.
Tonight’s walk highlights, a blue protective glove on the floor, a few discarded face masks, a discarded hedge cutter and a pile of broken children’s toys.
The news tells us that the pandemic is peaking here in the United Kingdom.
I see graphs and charts and explanations of numbers. Beautiful graphics and animations. A huge moving virus. If it was that big, I’d be able to avoid it (like my washing pile).
The dead are numbers, on a chart. Wavy lines that ascend and now, like a roller coaster, are plummeting down and down.
Freeze.
Another day in.
Been anywhere nice?
I went up the greenhouse, poked at some seeds, sewed some more just in case knowing they’ll all come at once again but you never know…
Laundry basket was over flowing again so I rammed another wash in the machine.
Bumble bees were ginormous in the garden, did you know they were queens? I didn’t. Evie read somewhere that you only see the queens this time of year. These ones are black with red fluffy bottoms, I have no idea how they manage to fly being so huge.
The police helicopter has been hovering too above the houses for an hour this afternoon, the scream of police sirens in the distance made it all feel quite normal (well for the area I live in it did).
The week before I fell ill and the subsequent lock-down, I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t function, I felt I was frozen, like you do when faced with a big task but you have no idea where to start so you just sit there, frozen. I had lots to do but I just couldn’t knuckle down, I was restless and annoyed with everything. The news made me scared, now the death numbers become a daily thing and the news has done a full u-turn and is trying to remind us that these are people.
And now I am again, frozen to the washing basket.
Darks or whites first?
Doodlemum 