What else shall we talk about? Anything else would turn it into the biggest elephant in the smallest room ever. I like hearing about your day to day routines. I even find myself reading some of your recipes. Times are changing. Everything is slowing down.
Do you remember a few posts ago when I said that I and H.I. had taken to walking around town on Sundays, then sitting in front of the theatre watching people walk past? (I wouldn't be surprised if you don't). I said that I was beginning to look up and notice details of the architecture with fresh eyes, like a tourist. I saw things that I had not looked at for about 30 years or more. I even discovered things which I had never noticed at all.
The few people who are not shopping but wandering aimlessly around town now are looking up more too. I just caught the eye of an elderly man walking along with his boyfriend and their small dog. We didn't wave.
Out in the country yesterday, I looked up and saw something which hasn't been seen in our area for about 200 years. A Red Kite being mobbed by a Raven with two Buzzards riding the strong wind, looking down from 2000 feet.
Yes Tom - we have more time and less to see - so we start to look carefully. Which isn't a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd Bath gives you so many beautiful sights.
Yes. I spent most of my time looking at people in the streets. I find myself wistfully looking back on the hundreds of girl's backsides that used to promenade by every day.
DeleteA space in our lives when we actually have time to look properly. It would be a shame to look back on this period and think we hadn't used this space wisely - hopefully it might never come again.
ReplyDeleteA bit like the condemned man in The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
DeleteI was thinking of those things that many of us want to get around to "When we have time." Re-reading Gombrich, listening to The Ring from start to finish, learning to make a perfect omlette. This crisis will not (hopefully) give us time to learn the piano, but we can still achieve something worthwhile.
DeleteYes. I have hundreds of books which I have yet to read, sitting on shelves. I'm not sure I would want to sit through The Ring from start to finish though! H.I. can never understand why I get angry when an omelette I cook falls apart due to her insisting I put small tomatoes in her half. She says, "It will still taste the same". She does not understand.
DeleteThose of us who have been retired for years have not found this so hard I don't think - I have been used to filling my time for so long that i find no trouble in kee ping busy but I do miss going out.
ReplyDeleteIt is going to be quite strange when it all opens up again. The first visit to the pub, shaking someone's hand, hugging another person. We will all be self conscious for a while. I don't find it too hard either Weave, but I still go out to (part-time) work and shopping, so things aren't so different for me.
DeleteLike Weave, I was saying to someone the other day that being retired has helped us with the staying in and finding things to do ..... we are much more used to it than the younger ones. I have found myself watching how much I use of everything and using up food in imaginative recipes. The virus has probably been sent to show us all how wasteful and uncaring we have all been in varying degrees and that we must clean up our act. XXXX
ReplyDeleteYes true. I feel sorry for the young too. The whole Summer has been cancelled for them.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first spring of my life (well, since early childhood anyway) where I've been able to sit all day and enjoy the world waking up outside. As I type this I'm suddenly realizing why I've been drifting off every afternoon and remembering things about being a child that I haven't thought about in decades. Things like helping my grandfather plant beans in his garden, and the little old lady who babysat me one summer when I was very small. Sometimes when I'm sitting outside daydreaming all of a sudden it's like I've been transported 35+ years into the past for a little while. Very strange.
ReplyDeleteMy dreams have altered a lot too. Last night it was of a long dead friend living in a derelict house.
DeleteWe are enjoying the slowing down, less gadding about, less shopping, in fact we could carry on like this for a long time. The only thing I really miss is the occasional lunch out.
ReplyDeleteAsk me to repeat this if we're still in lockdown in three months' time and I might not agree with myself!
Most of the time I'm quite happy too. One sort of pressure has been replaced with another, quieter version.
DeleteMy brother and I talked about the afternoon of my father's death as we sat outside in my garden a week ago on our own. It was the first time we have ever spoken about it in 50 years.
ReplyDeleteFunny how - and when - these things surface.
DeleteFunny to have that conversation when we were sitting outside, at least 6 feet apart, while he had tea from a flask because he couldn't come in the house for tea with me. It was of enormous significance to me because it was such a dreadful day and to know he remembered it all in the same way I do was a reassurance of something, not sure what, but I felt better after the conversation.
DeleteThat's something that only close family members can share.
DeleteAt 5am yesterday morning I looked out of the window and saw the Plough constellation clearly just as the dawn was beginning to lighten the horizon over to the left
ReplyDeleteOh yes, it's about time for the Plough. Do you have 'Stellarium' on your computer? It's a great tool.
DeleteI will have a look at that..I am wary of putting too much on my wee tablet..the laptop took a dump and needs TLC from my brother..who is in Yeovil...
DeleteI too feel unreal today
ReplyDeleteI'll be the judge of that...
DeleteI'm finding it amazing that, in the main, everyone has taken the changes in their stride, with barely a murmur of resistance. Like many people deep down have for a long time wanted to get off their hamster wheel for a bit but just didn't want to be the first of their peers to do so.
ReplyDeleteApart from not seeing family now, life's not much different at my place. Mr P. is still off to work as an essential worker - bus driver - and I'm still keeping the home fires proverbially burning and there are still (respectfully distant) encounters with neighbours in our apartment block as there's 54 apartments and nearly everyone is "in residence" right now. But for a Wednesday morning in the city, there's hardly any distant traffic hum and birdsong predominates. Sounds like the Xmas week every day now.
I haven't been within earshot of any adolescents who may be murmuring some resistance, but yes, I do believe many people are actually enjoying the process. It may be slightly tainted by the fear of infection, but they told us that it isn't a holiday.
DeleteA woman came through a door I was about to enter recently. I stopped, and as she came through, smiled and gave her a little wave. She stood totally still for a long minute, then smiled and lifted her hand in return. It was so different, so nice, and now with these masks, also to be no more.
ReplyDeleteNot for too long I hope.
DeleteAt the risk of sounding like a butt-kisser, I do recall that post in which you wrote about seeing Bath architecture almost through fresh eyes. It's a wonderful thing to be able to look up and see things a-new.
ReplyDeleteYou can kiss my butt any time you like, Bea. We see things as anew (or just newly) when we are new ourselves, then again when we get old and stop running. I feel for the people who have the disease which forces you to see everything as new, every few minutes. That must be hell.
DeleteHouse-bound, I just miss sitting in a cafe people-watching and listening to the coffee machine hiss
ReplyDeleteThose times will return, maybe just in time for Christmas.
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