Covid-19, Lockdown Easing - A Rural Diary, Down By the Stream
Friday of week 10, 29th May 2020
Another glorious hot, sunny day in what had been another gloriously hot, sunny week. At about 4pm I walked down the lane to the centre of the village to post the birthday card for my mother-in-law's 89th birthday. The lane was edged in billowy cow parsley, the lambs were growing fatter in the fields, and there were some giggles and glimpses of blue emanating from paddling pools in gardens with grandmas. I felt nostalgic for the days when my own girls loved nothing better than getting the paddling pool out, filling it with colourful plastic balls from The Early Learning Centre and splashing about till the water was murky and grass-filled. Happy days! How quickly the years have passed since those innocent times and now, here I am, just an observer, hovering somewhere between Motherhood and Grandmotherhood, a Nomad in the No Man's Land of late middle age. Did I feel sad? A little yes, but the day was too beautiful to dwell on wistful thoughts for long. I had decided to walk without my glasses on, or my contact lenses in, so that my focus would remain entirely on what was in front of my nose rather than the longer vistas. It was a deliberate attempt to cut myself off from anything but my immediate senses, to take in the detail, rather than being distracted by other things or people. In short, to lose myself in the simple act of posting a letter in a country letter box and giving me the excuse to absorb the natural beauty around me on this sublime, sleepy afternoon.
The centre of the village is strangely quiet these days, but it held a sense of peace as the sun shone from the clear blue sky, the popular pub now silent and still. My card safely deposited in the iconic red box, I continued up the main lane out of the village, turning left after the railway bridge following a footpath through the field towards the reservoir. Ewes and their lambs lay in the shade of puffy white-flowering hawthorns, chickens pecked lazily around their coop, and cows with their calves chewed the cud in the long grass and shadows down by the banks of the stream. I spotted a large sawn-off tree trunk enticingly placed by the water, in dappled shade, and I sat there a while, dangling my feet above the cool waters of the stream. Hover flies danced in the filtered beams of sunlight and pools of light on the water revealed the bed of the shallow brook. Voices drifted from unseen spots around the reservoir, walking dogs, having picnics. A couple picked their way through the long grass beyond the stream, basket and blanket in hand, trying to find that perfect spot to lay them down. A couple of topless lads walked by, holding a pack of beers. I felt happy that people were out in the sunshine, enjoying natural beauty - more than they would have been on a Friday afternoon in more 'normal' times. I knew my own youngest daughter was there with some friends, enjoying some newly announced freedoms, when in a parallel universe she should have been revising for her A levels. This was May half term, the last formal school holiday we were ever going to have as a family, now lost forever in the false long holidays of Year 13s in Lockdown. Writing those words now makes me feel inexplicably sad, but in that moment of time, all such complex thoughts and feelings were banished by the sheer simplicity of my surroundings.
I got up from my tree trunk seat and wandered over to the narrow wooden bridge to take me to the other side of the meandering brook. Here the water is shallower, bubbling over a pebbly beach. Some child had built a dam. I explored a section of it I had not really noticed before, usually just crossing the bridge and heading back on the path across the meadow towards home. Today I lingered longer and found a little nook between man-made stone walls where moss, red campion, purple foxgloves, yellow buttercups, white cow parsley and tall green nettles were softening its strong, angular edges. I stood here awhile too, just observing, and thereby noticed something on the other bank. Without my glasses (!) I was not sure what it was, but it looked like a bird. I doubted this when, after some minutes of observation, it still hadn't moved. I edged closer and it was indeed a wood pigeon, nestled in long grass in the shade of the hazels and elders. It was stock-still apart from just one tiny movement as I got a little nearer. I've no idea what it was doing - resting or nesting - but it was delightful simply to share that quiet moment together in the cool, green shadows as the brook babbled past, oblivious.
I meandered with the stream, Lily sniffing and paddling and foraging in equal measure. I saw everything with new eyes having never taken the trouble to explore this little corner of nature before. Sunlight danced in and around branches of fresh green leaves and white wild flowers in the long grass. I reached the densely vegetated railway embankment and the dank tunnel from which the brook emerged into the dappled light. I could smell the damp Victorian brickwork and felt a shiver of dark energy emerging from that lightless tunnel. I examined the broken structures and tried to understand what it had all been like when it was all first constructed - and completely failed. Evidence of cobbles, broken stone bridges - but I have no idea whether they were Victorian or from an earlier age, pre steam and industrialization. The railway cuts the the village off from this lower end of the glacial valley. Two brooks which run from the heights of Combs moss, down into the valley, join just he other side of the railway and now out through this tunnel. The village was artificially severed from it's natural landscape at this point, trapping it behind the railway line. The road out of the village was deviated, the original one now just a dead end behind the pub. I often think of how the landscape would have been and how different the village would seem without this manmade barrier. The footprint of man and progress.
Losing myself in the reflections on the still surface of the water as the brook re-grouped in the confines of its stone walls before finding its natural path again, I let my thoughts hang on times past - times I have not lived, times I will not know. The only time I have is this time. My life. Our lives. The journey I am sharing with all those living this moment with me. A coincidence of birth, lifetimes which are blinks in the eye of the universe. Yet we all leave behind an imprint, even if we don't realize it. If you sit quietly and tune in, you will sense it too.
And so I tore myself away from my contemplations and walked over a dried-up muddy bed where in winter there is water. I noted the imprints of hooves and paws - cows, sheep, dogs. The meadow grass was waving gently in the late afternoon breeze and I allowed my gaze and mind's eye to drift, blurrily, down the valley towards Manchester and the northwest, then on out to sea and the endless expanse of deep blue ocean that eventually leads to the New World. Crossing through the tunnel at the top of the meadow that leads back to the lane which leads back to my home, my horizons shrunk once more as I revelled simply in having finally got to know a little better a tiny corner of our beautiful planet.
Another glorious hot, sunny day in what had been another gloriously hot, sunny week. At about 4pm I walked down the lane to the centre of the village to post the birthday card for my mother-in-law's 89th birthday. The lane was edged in billowy cow parsley, the lambs were growing fatter in the fields, and there were some giggles and glimpses of blue emanating from paddling pools in gardens with grandmas. I felt nostalgic for the days when my own girls loved nothing better than getting the paddling pool out, filling it with colourful plastic balls from The Early Learning Centre and splashing about till the water was murky and grass-filled. Happy days! How quickly the years have passed since those innocent times and now, here I am, just an observer, hovering somewhere between Motherhood and Grandmotherhood, a Nomad in the No Man's Land of late middle age. Did I feel sad? A little yes, but the day was too beautiful to dwell on wistful thoughts for long. I had decided to walk without my glasses on, or my contact lenses in, so that my focus would remain entirely on what was in front of my nose rather than the longer vistas. It was a deliberate attempt to cut myself off from anything but my immediate senses, to take in the detail, rather than being distracted by other things or people. In short, to lose myself in the simple act of posting a letter in a country letter box and giving me the excuse to absorb the natural beauty around me on this sublime, sleepy afternoon.
The centre of the village is strangely quiet these days, but it held a sense of peace as the sun shone from the clear blue sky, the popular pub now silent and still. My card safely deposited in the iconic red box, I continued up the main lane out of the village, turning left after the railway bridge following a footpath through the field towards the reservoir. Ewes and their lambs lay in the shade of puffy white-flowering hawthorns, chickens pecked lazily around their coop, and cows with their calves chewed the cud in the long grass and shadows down by the banks of the stream. I spotted a large sawn-off tree trunk enticingly placed by the water, in dappled shade, and I sat there a while, dangling my feet above the cool waters of the stream. Hover flies danced in the filtered beams of sunlight and pools of light on the water revealed the bed of the shallow brook. Voices drifted from unseen spots around the reservoir, walking dogs, having picnics. A couple picked their way through the long grass beyond the stream, basket and blanket in hand, trying to find that perfect spot to lay them down. A couple of topless lads walked by, holding a pack of beers. I felt happy that people were out in the sunshine, enjoying natural beauty - more than they would have been on a Friday afternoon in more 'normal' times. I knew my own youngest daughter was there with some friends, enjoying some newly announced freedoms, when in a parallel universe she should have been revising for her A levels. This was May half term, the last formal school holiday we were ever going to have as a family, now lost forever in the false long holidays of Year 13s in Lockdown. Writing those words now makes me feel inexplicably sad, but in that moment of time, all such complex thoughts and feelings were banished by the sheer simplicity of my surroundings.
I got up from my tree trunk seat and wandered over to the narrow wooden bridge to take me to the other side of the meandering brook. Here the water is shallower, bubbling over a pebbly beach. Some child had built a dam. I explored a section of it I had not really noticed before, usually just crossing the bridge and heading back on the path across the meadow towards home. Today I lingered longer and found a little nook between man-made stone walls where moss, red campion, purple foxgloves, yellow buttercups, white cow parsley and tall green nettles were softening its strong, angular edges. I stood here awhile too, just observing, and thereby noticed something on the other bank. Without my glasses (!) I was not sure what it was, but it looked like a bird. I doubted this when, after some minutes of observation, it still hadn't moved. I edged closer and it was indeed a wood pigeon, nestled in long grass in the shade of the hazels and elders. It was stock-still apart from just one tiny movement as I got a little nearer. I've no idea what it was doing - resting or nesting - but it was delightful simply to share that quiet moment together in the cool, green shadows as the brook babbled past, oblivious.
I meandered with the stream, Lily sniffing and paddling and foraging in equal measure. I saw everything with new eyes having never taken the trouble to explore this little corner of nature before. Sunlight danced in and around branches of fresh green leaves and white wild flowers in the long grass. I reached the densely vegetated railway embankment and the dank tunnel from which the brook emerged into the dappled light. I could smell the damp Victorian brickwork and felt a shiver of dark energy emerging from that lightless tunnel. I examined the broken structures and tried to understand what it had all been like when it was all first constructed - and completely failed. Evidence of cobbles, broken stone bridges - but I have no idea whether they were Victorian or from an earlier age, pre steam and industrialization. The railway cuts the the village off from this lower end of the glacial valley. Two brooks which run from the heights of Combs moss, down into the valley, join just he other side of the railway and now out through this tunnel. The village was artificially severed from it's natural landscape at this point, trapping it behind the railway line. The road out of the village was deviated, the original one now just a dead end behind the pub. I often think of how the landscape would have been and how different the village would seem without this manmade barrier. The footprint of man and progress.
Losing myself in the reflections on the still surface of the water as the brook re-grouped in the confines of its stone walls before finding its natural path again, I let my thoughts hang on times past - times I have not lived, times I will not know. The only time I have is this time. My life. Our lives. The journey I am sharing with all those living this moment with me. A coincidence of birth, lifetimes which are blinks in the eye of the universe. Yet we all leave behind an imprint, even if we don't realize it. If you sit quietly and tune in, you will sense it too.
And so I tore myself away from my contemplations and walked over a dried-up muddy bed where in winter there is water. I noted the imprints of hooves and paws - cows, sheep, dogs. The meadow grass was waving gently in the late afternoon breeze and I allowed my gaze and mind's eye to drift, blurrily, down the valley towards Manchester and the northwest, then on out to sea and the endless expanse of deep blue ocean that eventually leads to the New World. Crossing through the tunnel at the top of the meadow that leads back to the lane which leads back to my home, my horizons shrunk once more as I revelled simply in having finally got to know a little better a tiny corner of our beautiful planet.
Comments
I have been reading the essays of Chris Arthur - they are wonderful - at one point he writes 'Each moment that we live moves us simultaneously further from and closer to the enormities of time in which we don’t exist.' It stopped me in my tracks.
Must fly now - but lovely to catch up on your blog again.
And Mark - welcome back! Lovely to hear from you again 🙂. Yes indeed we have come a long way over the years when we both first started out on this lark, though you probably rather further than me! With strange coincidence I have just written about the passage of time as it was a key theme in the last couple of weeks. Once more I find our sentiments and view of life are so very similar at their heart. You will be pleased to hear that I now have a considerably better writing room!! The result of a major re-build 😁. Love to you and the family.