SHOPS

Friday 25th September, 2020

My time alone has come to an end. I am being plunged back in to the new reality, what is called the 'new normal'. It is quite a shock to the system.

First always wearing a mask, distancing and washing or gelling hands....when on my own walking in the empty landscape I have been able to breathe in the air and warmth and smell the trees and canal water. I have realised how oppressive this pandemic has become. Of course one simply re adjusts so long as we do not allow it to stop us living. Sunak, the Chancellor, is reported to have said we must not fear the virus but learn to live with it. We must live not survive, not run away, not be addled but use the crisis as an opportunity. It has already educated me a little in my own character, my own fears and anxieties, my own stresses and prejudices and characteristics. It will teach us if we are open to learning.

So I have been to the local railway station to book my ticket home. The place was deserted. The ticket teller was behind perspex. I had almost to shout as my mask muffled the sound.

Then I helped take an old barbecue set to the recycle centre. I was amazed at the amount of traffic on the road and the queue for the centre. My host said he had never had to wait so long...it took an hour of queuing. We wondered why in the middle of a Friday.

Later to Aldi to pick up their foods etc for charity use. My hostess was shocked at the car park. She had not seen it so full for months. Suddenly she realised that of course people were panic buying. "They fear lockdown". As she said that so I saw with my own eyes two people coming out with large trolleys laden with lavatory paper! Deja vu! The till worker said there had been pandemonium ever since the national news had mentioned the town by name as having a particularly noticeable spike in infections. The shop was heaving ( and amazingly just coping with social distancing ) and the shoppers were rather brusque and distracted....maybe focussed on loo rolls!

Finally back to the house....the tortoise still in his/her straw lined box. The hens still fussing and looking hungry and scratching the earth. The dog still neurotic. The sheep indifferent and the Pygmy goat being as a Pygmy goat is!! I felt I could breathe again. The sun had come out, the quiet belied the hassle of half an hour before. The silence simply blotted out the noise and jostle of the shop and recycle centre. How lovely to forget the pandemic, to reduce pace and heart beat and stress levels, to know I can walk the tow path and the swans, Canada geese, the moorhens and the duck will still be being themselves unconscious of viruses yet aware of their own constant danger and search for food.

Now for a siesta and then for the walk. The forays in to the town have made me appreciative again of what I have had. Back to the train journey and reality ( is it reality?).

To prepare myself for the 8 hour journey I have bought a picnic of pitta bread, humus, chorizo and salami plus baby tomatoes. Water from the tap will do. I was shocked at the £6.47 price tag! Help, inflation on top of panic! That is certainly a reality!