Tag: lockdown

liminal spaces

For me, one of the positive things about the recent coronavirus lockdown has been that there were far fewer cars about and far fewer people in the street.

The decrease in traffic and the halt to normal activities meant that for a few brief weeks the birds were more audible, the green spaces were not quite so tended, and there seemed to be more wildlife around. (Although, to be honest, the only unusual wildlife I saw was a rat in the supermarket car park.)

It was almost as if the world had paused to take a breath.
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drifting away

It’s a couple of months since we went into enforced lockdown in the UK. Even now, we are supposed to be continuing with social distancing and limiting activities and time spent with anyone beyond our own household bubble.

To be honest, it hasn’t made a huge impact on my life as I can continue to work from home and although virtual meetings are not the same as face-to-face, there is so much time saved by not having to travel, that there’s time to talk to far more people and my diary is more full of appointments than ever before.
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blue horizons

For me, some flowers and plants are inextricably linked to books I have read. I can’t see a periwinkle flower like the one above without its other name – Joy-of-the-ground – springing to mind alongside images of Maria Merryweather and her pony at Moonacre Manor in Elizabeth Goudge’s delightful story The Little White Horse.

Salmon pink geraniums also take me to the same story, but they don’t fit this post’s colour theme, and, really, it’s colours not books that I’m thinking about today.
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encounter with cows

During the lockdown, I’ve begun going to the racecourse when I have time for a proper walk, as there is plenty of space to avoid people. As well as the paths around the track, there’s also a small wooded area, where I know I will be completely alone, and there are a couple of places where you can climb over stiles and get onto footpaths that cross the adjoining fields.

There’s a proper made-up path on the inside of the track, but I prefer the natural path thats skirts the racecourse; this is quite narrow, but you can always dip under the fence to ensure the recommended distance is adhered to.
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cracking the code

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago the slightly strange fact that during this lockdown my muse seems to have been liberated and I am writing again. Admittedly, I’m not writing a huge amount of poetry, but then, I don’t think I ever did write that much, and I’ve always accepted that poems can take years to evolve, so the fact that I have some jottings may mean that more poems will come in time.

There’s also prose, both creative and associated with my business. As I said yesterday, social distancing actually seems to have encouraged conversations, and each conference call or webinar seems to produce at least one gem of an idea that could be worth working up into a full-length article or essay.
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