Diaries 6: 2020 Lockdown Letters

Broadhoath Broadsheet 1 – March 15 2020

Dear All

This is an update from Broadhoath on life here in mid-March 2020.

I’m surrounded by fresh air and a large open green where the children in neighbouring houses can get out and play.  I also have my lovely cobnut plat (www.motecobnutsproject.blogspot.com). At this time the primroses are coming into full bloom and don’t seem to mind that the ground is soft and boggy. Hopefully next week will bring more settled weather, at least here in the South East of England.

I have more or less pulled out of all engagements, having cancelled trips to London and probably even my pilates class in the village hall next week.  Sadly the usual spring visitors won’t be coming: Roger and Gay or my friend from Norway to mention just two.  Jonathan and Ruth have had to cancel a long-planned trip to Paris and Strasbourg. Nick and Natasha wouldn’t be able to come from Washington DC even if they wanted to - which they dont, right now, of course.  Nick tells me that World Bank staff are all working from home and Natasha does that anyway.  Next week ‘home’ will be in New Jersey where Natasha’s family have a house, currently vacant, where they will be away from crowds.  They are now taking all precautions with baby due in early September (some of you may not have had this news yet; I am thrilled to be joining the Granny Club).

Hugh works at home in any case. He has recently published a first instalment of music online so fingers crossed for that.  We speak regularly about keeping safe for the duration and exchanging ideas for cookery and keeping stocked up.

I get my supplies of food from various sources including deliveries by the Milkman three days a week (www.MilkandMore.com), who supplies eggs, cheese, bacon and a host of other stuff if I order online before 9 in the evening. Also the weekly open air Farmers Market which is a couple of miles away.  And then the neighbours, the younger ones, who are offering to buy and deliver if necessary.

The Broadhoath community is a network of support and communication, divided fairly evenly into young families, middle and older ones.  I did worry that I could run out of supplies of ingredients for my cobnut muesli, which is proving highly popular at the Farmers Market and local small outlets, as well as (to some extent) online.  I worried about running short of ingredients by not going to the places where I normally buy them, but neighbours have offered to step in and get what I need. I would have more trouble filling my days if I could no longer do my baking.  

You might think this would be the ideal time to settle down and plan a new writing project, but I haven’t summoned the will power yet; everything works towards making one feel jumpy and on edge. One tries not to listen too much to the news (repetitive!) but do so nonetheless as there might be ‘something new’.  Tonight we have a new Julian Fellowes block-buster period drama, ‘Belgravia’ on tv. some welcome escapism.

 I hope I haven’t bored you.  If you feel like it do keep me updated on how you are managing and filling your days.  Meanwhile, follow the guidelines and keep safe and healthy.

Love from

Gilly/Gillian/Mum etc

Broadhoath Broadsheet 2 – 22nd March 2020

Week 2 of ‘self isolation’.  It seems odd that the best thing the over-70s can do to play our part is to stay at home in comfort (in my case), with all the advantages which I outlined in the previous ‘Broadsheet’: somehow it’s counter-intuitive, as if really one should be out there helping others but, as we know, the first duty of my age-group is to keep away from the NHS and not add to their burdens.

No worries about keeping busy as kind neighbours have shopped for me so I the have ingredients and can keep baking the muesli.  The Farmers’ Market stays open and has added home deliveries; that is great for the veg, fish and meat traders but others are not doing so well; the cheese-makers had a consignment worth £2,000 of cheeses returned to them because the restaurant that ordered them closed.

Now seems a good time for the older generation to be writing memoirs. Encouraged by Max Hastings in the Times yesterday, we should write about the little things which can appear strange to the young today – and of tomorrow.  Jonathan and I reminisced yesterday about buying shoes – probably Clark’s sandals – and how interesting it was to stand on a pedestal with feet under the X-ray to see the toe-bones wiggling (explanation to younger generations: this was to check that the shoes were the right size, not squashing the toes and leaving room to grow). 

Something I remember was being made, at quite a young age, to play the role of King in a school play; the reason was, embarrassed at being tall for my age, I held my head to one side.  Teachers and my mother got together and decided that wearing a crown and being made to feel important would make me stand straight.  It seems to have worked.  Later I was much enamoured of acting and took part in many outdoor productions of plays, Shakespeare and others.  I was quite good at it and loved the feeling of holding the audience’s attention.  Committing the lines to memory is something else which has stood me – and my acting friends - in good stead.  Today watching dramas with great actors (actresses – as we used to say), I have to admire their measure of empathy and understanding and in many cases their humanity.  I am currently watching series 3 of The Crown.  I’m not sure that I like how Olivia Colman plays HM (but have only watched the first few episodes so far), or if she has the right face for the part, but I do admire the performance, and enjoy it.  I expect, like me, you need entertainment like this as a change from the daily news bulletins.

Talking of actresses (sorry, actors), I have just received Dame Judy Dench from David Austin Roses; she will be planted to join some other notable names in the bed in the back garden. Hopefully she will flourish there in the company of Lady Emma Hamilton, Desdemona et al.

That other great resource: reading!  I have HM’s latest offer (Not HM as in ‘Her Majesty’, although it would not be inappropriate), The Mirror and the Light, awaiting.  

Now, a quick and shameless plug:  if you haven’t yet got hold of my latest, Under The Microscope’, do go onto Amazon and put in an order.  I get a monthly report from Amazon about royalties paid into my account, so obviously some people are buying.  Help me turn the trickle into a flood, and when you receive your copy – and hopefully read it –return to the Amazon page and write a little review.  This can be quite short but it appears that a large number of reviews encourages sales.  Apparently scurrilous reviews are especially helpful!

Nearly forgot to mention it’s Mother’s Day!  Both sons have been in touch so I’m not feeling at all neglected.  My lovely Broadhoath neighbours took their children to the nut plat to pick primroses for their Mum and also to help clear up the prunings which are still lying around.  They are thrilled to do this as it will give them a chance to let off steam in the days to come and they can have a bonfire. It’s good to be able to offer something that helps

Broadhoath Broadsheet 3 – 29th March 2020

It’s Sunday already; where has the week gone?  Mother’s day seems an age ago and the clocks went forward today:  time for another Broadhoath Broadsheet.  The importance of a routine has been emphasised by those counselling the self-isolating and the very-vulnerable ‘sheltered’. So:  Saturdays see me slicing, dicing and drying apples then cracking, sorting and roasting nuts.  Monday is baking day and Tuesday is packaging and labelling.  Wednesday is delivery day: to Farmers’ Market manager and other local outlets and I can do that without having to meet anyone at close quarters.  Afternoons is gardening or going for a walk.  The unusual and constant flow of emails, phone-calls, etc keeps me in touch with everyone and fills many spare moments. Rationing the intake of news is important; there’s a limit to the amount of sombre information one can take in when not in a position to do anything to help.  Those family members who are very much helping - Douglas, Charlie, Annabelle and Chris’s Sue - my thoughts are very much with you – if that helps at all. For the rest of us: we stay home, and keep doing the disinfecting. With all those packages and supplies of essential items; how obsessive are you? ‘Bleach is best’ is probably a good slogan, a quarter of a cup in a gallon of cold water is my recipe.  One night last week I woke from a dream about touching dangerous surfaces: so real and disorientating. I found myself going immediately and doing the whole hand-washing routine, in the middle of the night!  It just shows….

Sidebar on that subject: 

Just a few days ago Hugh was a bit over-zealous in sloshing the disinfectant around and in the process putting paid to his mobile phone: a bad moment. However, he dried it out with couscous over the course of a few days, so we are now back in touch.  Chatting about the process yesterday led to a conversation on the subject of detergent; did you know the origin of the word? (or were you interested?)  To save you getting out your Dictionary of Word Origins, which may be inaccessible on an upper shelf, I can tell you that it comes from the Latin detergere, ‘to wipe away’, but we were not sure when the term was first coined.  That led on to sorting out whether we were discussing etymology (word origins) or entomology (insect life).  Misuse of the phrase ‘coining a phrase’ gets me jumping up and down with pedantic rage like John Humphreys on Today.  To coin meaning ‘to mint’, as in ‘to produce new coins’ is what they do at the Royal Mint, so coining a phrase is inventing something new and not, NOT! (see me jumping up and down?), to borrow a phrase or to use someone else’s phrase. Even the best radio presenters and journalists insist on this misuse. Rant over. 

I return to looking out of the window, only to see that it’s snowing - no actually its hail and the ground is turning white.  On Friday I did a walk in brilliant sunshine, taking in the cobnut plat and returning via lanes and footpaths. There were lots of flowers: primrose, violet, ladies’ smock, dogs’ mercury, blind strawberry, celandines, dandelions of course, and bluebells are sprouting up, ready to go.  

Some good things from the past week:  clapping at Broadhoath was an exciting moment.  No-one was certain it would happen but around our circle of houses and across the green space, the wind had dropped, lights were on in windows and we could hear each other clapping.  

Another good thing was this international rendering of a Bach chorale; if you haven’t seen it yet, take a look; its uplifitng. https://youtu.be/4nV8NakYNfs . 

Final thought: it’s the young who are on so many front lines or losing their jobs and thinking of going to work on farms, which would be good for us all.  But for oldies, when things go back to normal, whatever the new normal will be, it may be time to sacrifice our free bus passes, tv licences and maybe more, for ‘inter-generational justice’ and a thank-you for all you, the young, are doing.

Meanwhile, stay safe!

Broadhoath Broadsheet 4:  5th April 2020

The sun is shining, the wind (cold!) is blowing and the ground beneath our feet, until recently spongy and soft, is firm again.  The footpaths in my area are entirely walkable. It’s actually surprising how few people I am meeting on my daily walks and when it happens, we do a little dance of avoidance. I try to choose a route that avoids narrow paths because that means a stand-off to decide who is going to retreat.

Talking of ‘the ground beneath our feet’: we are all feeling how it has shifted in recent weeks – in different ways for people in differing circumstances: a movement of tectonic plates is a metaphor that springs to mind.  How good are you on matters geological?  Do you know your eons from your eras and your epochs from your ages, your Holocene and your Pleistocene?  Can you put them in their right order?  I’m sure some of you do and can, but I found them mystifying when I started to look them up. For example, which age are we now privileged to be living in?  That last is a good question.  Officially we are in the Holocene age (it started after the last retreat of the glaciers) and within that, in the Quaternary Period.  But increasingly, it is considered that right now we are in a new age of the Anthropocene, and that is how and why I got started on this.  Anthropocene hasn’t been recognised officially yet, (by whom?  By the geological arbiters of such matters) but the clue, as usual, is in the name ‘anthropo-‘ to do with humankind, and Anthropocene signifies the age in which humankind has changed not just the surface environment and biodiversity of planet earth but the underlying geology and the atmospheric conditions as well. You can, of course, look it up for more on the subject; and whether pandemics are also a part of this may be a question for future scientists to determine.  To me ‘Anthropocene’ appears indisputable and should be the perspective within which we look at our responsibility for management of the planet. For if we don’t do it there’s no one else who will – at least not until the insects take over the world and is that what we want?

End of rant for the day: but seriously though….

Last week I mentioned a startling dream and how it led me to get out of bed, half-awake in the middle of the night, to perform the hand-washing ritual.  Since then I read in an article (Times, online edition, Friday April 3rd) that plenty of people have been experiencing dreams more than usually striking.  Whilst waking hours at Broadhoath are calm and peaceful, at night and under cover of sleep, underlying anxieties make themselves felt.  Not all my dreams are about the current emergency; some appear to be completely unrelated, if nonetheless vivid - and no, I’m not taking any unusual substances.  Are there other similar experiences out there?

For so-called ‘oldies’ like me who are nonetheless self-reliant and resourceful, it can be difficult to open up and accept offers of help.  A neighbour from my pilates class emailed offering to deliver my muesli to the local shop as she felt I should not be going out and doing deliveries.  I bridled somewhat – if you can bridle online – but reflected that she was being truly helpful and doing her bit, playing her part, so I accepted gratefully and also explained my difficulties about obtaining supplies of muesli ingredients from a certain store, due to not going out.  Next day she rang to tell me of someone she had come across who had just started to work for the store in question and could get what I need.  It just goes to show….

Frequent phone calls, Facetime and Skype keep us all in touch and Zoom is zooming ever closer (I’ll get there soon).  In 16th century France, Michel de Montaigne was a sociable person who also enjoyed his solitude. He was a winegrower as well as a local magistrate, diplomat and writer of Essays.  But it was a time when religious wars and violence were putting distances between people and setting up barriers.  Montaigne reflected deeply on the subject of ‘proximité´’ and ‘betweenness’, the significance of being close enough to a person to interpret their signs and body language, the expression on their faces, to mirror them and empathise with them.  He believed that there was no substitute for the handshake and human interaction at close quarters. Today the distances and the barriers are different but very real; technology goes a long way to overcome them, and who would have thought twenty years ago that we could be talking to our nearest and dearest in such ways and over great distances?  Still, we can surely all agree with Montaigne that there really is no substitute for the real thing. Keep looking forward to when we can get together again.

Broadhoath Broadsheet 5:  13th April 2020

It is week 5 of this broadsheet; Easter has come and gone.  We Broadhoathians basked, walked, jogged or cycled in glorious sunshine, but today, whilst the sunshine is still glorious the wind is bitter, and the summer shorts have been put back where they came from.  As I walked out this April afternoon, I could see that the rows of lavender flanking the footpath have woken from their long winter sleep and are showing green again and skylarks are doing their soaring and singing in the blue sky which is clear and free from airplane vapour trails.  So many signs of life: but so much sorrow for those who have lost their lives; and distressing thoughts for people in nursing homes and care homes and those looking after them. 

We can all be grateful that Boris is one who, thanks to dedicated nursing care, has come through the ordeal and is recovering. Boris gave emotional, deep and heartfelt thanks for the care he received.  I would like to think he will express equally deep regret, in due course for – where shall I begin? – for his belittling of experts, for his antagonism to immigrants and his deeply ambivalent attitude toward immigrant staff – not just in the NHS but in so many areas of employment; for neglecting the offer of equipment for the NHS from the EU, for his encouragement of narrow populism as opposed to international cooperation; for his disregard for the realities of international treaties, for his casual relationship to truth on so many occasions; for cheering on the divisions in our country into warring tribes and camps. And so on and so on…. Should he try to deny those charges he can’t deny that his bluff and blustering has encouraged others with lesser but shriller voices on those and similar subjects. He sought power without regard for the responsibilities, to society and to the world at large, that come with it. So much offense needlessly given to experts of all sorts (but especially scientists) and to anyone with an internationalist point of view.

Long rant over: for the time being.  

Returning to Broadhoath, life seems to be settling into a routine and there is not very much of note to mention; the older generation stay at home; of the younger, some are working at home and looking after children, others – one farmer and one key worker for example – go out.  The two very elderly ladies have carers coming and going several times a day, and they appear to be equipped with protective masks.  We pool our various online deliveries – Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose, Farmers’ Market, small local stores, all doing deliveries; and clapping still takes place on Thursday evenings. Gardening, exercising, baking; exercising, gardening, baking etc.  I am signing up for on-line scrabble and have started the new Hilary Mantel.   Radio 3 is great company in the mornings.

How long will it continue?  Discussion today is around the use of a smart App as one way forward towards loosening the lockdown.  I feel sure much of the population will buy into this idea as it makes perfect sense – with, of course, safeguards, caveats, sunset clauses and all the rest.

With these few thoughts I will close the current series of Broadhoath Broadsheets: my thanks to you if you have been a regular reader.  I may start up again when there is something interesting to say but meanwhile, I can only admire those newspaper columnists who produce copy week in and week out for their readers:  Matthew Parris and the rest of you: I salute you!   

 Broadhoath Broadsheet 6:   2nd May 2020

In my last broadsheet before the pause I remarked that nothing much worth reporting had happened. That changed yesterday when, guess what, we went on a Tiger Hunt:  oh yes indeed.

It was surely one of the more bizarre incidents of the lockdown, which I was witness to on my Saturday morning walk when, deep in the glorious Kent countryside I came across a group of police officers, clustered around two police cars and a black 4WD.  They declined to tell me what was going on, saying I ‘might be worried’. As I continued on my way, a third police car approached up the dusty farm track, and the officers in this one looked rather more fierce than the first group.  Then, to add to the mystery, a helicopter joined the party, hovering overhead.  Speculation was rife among the scattered groups of socially distancing walkers that I met as I walked up the lane past Ightham Mote: 

‘There are guns!’ ‘They’re looking for a body’, ‘It’s a Big Cat!”, ‘It’s a Tiger!!’ Phew!!!

There was nothing to do but carry on up the steep pathway back to Broadhoath, stick in hand, and seek the answer online. 

The Kentonline website had a version of the story but it was still puzzling. Today further online research reveals that the alarm was caused by a model of a tiger crafted by our local sculptor, Juliet Stevenson of Underriver (the Guardian online report has a nice picture of Juliet and the Tiger).  One has to admire the brave police who turned out in force, armed to the teeth and with airborne reinforcements.

But now its back to normal – at least to lockdown-normal.  The first of these commentaries was written when the trees were barely starting to show signs of green. Now they are almost fully out and there is lilac in bloom.  My bay tree has been covered in fluffy yellow blossoms smelling of cloves, the clematis similar and now the wisteria buds are swelling. Solitude has contributed to this close, week by week observation of the startling rush of spring; maybe it happens this way every year but the progression seems to have been more remarkable this time, for obvious reasons.  Five weeks after the clocks went forward its now light until 8.30 in the evening. Friday is the spring bank holiday.  Will we still be in lockdown at mid-summer? (Will I finish The Mirror and the Light before lockdown ends?)   Early on, I found keeping track of the days became a problem – especially mid-week: ‘is it Wednesday today? Or is it Thursday?’  I cross the days off on the calendar now, so I can check, like a prisoner – but I don’t feel like a prisoner at all: in some ways I feel liberated (but from what?)

 Jonathan Friedland wrote in last Saturday’s Guardian (April 25th): ‘Lockdown is bending time’. ‘The weeks seem to pass surprisingly quickly’ a friend wrote to him, ‘but the days seem to last an eternity.’  He compared notes with an ex-prisoner: if anyone knows the tricks restriction can play with time, he wrote, it’s a former inmate. To break up the monotony, prisoners hunger for milestones, especially seasonal ones, but also milestones like the Boat Race, May bank holiday or Wimbledon, the delineation of weeks that a football fixture list can provide.  Wimbledon is not going to happen this year, nor the Chelsea flower Show, or Glastonbury, or Test Matches it seems likely, so mostly we have to fall back on the markers of the seasons. Spring happens quickly, changing from week to week, winter drags, offering few changes to the dark and the drabness; although apparently prisoners remark that winter passes quicker than summer, because the days are shorter.  All the same: not another lockdown please, and especially not in winter. 

Some days ago I woke in the morning with a word in my head which came, I would say, from nowhere: ‘endymion’.  The word seemed to ring a bell. ‘Keats?’ I thought vaguely, before looking it up and yes: it’s the poem that begins with the over-quoted lines ‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:’ not a poem that I had ever studied or even read and apparently Keats himself thought it was flawed and was in two minds as to whether it should be published.  But as I read the first stanza online, some lines did jump out as particularly suited to our times: how trees and flowers and the things of nature can cheer us up in dark times.

‘Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways

Made for our searching: …

… Such the sun, the moon,

Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon

For simple sheep…’ 

No use speculating how, on waking, that name came into my head.  At the same time another phrase was there: ‘the sense of an ending’.  I looked that phrase up too and it’s a Julian Barnes novel and an acclaimed film - neither of which I had read or watched. The ways of the subconscious are strange indeed, as many are finding in these unusual times, but a suitable note to end on.

 Broadhoath Broadsheet 7:   18th May 2020

 It’s beginning to feel wearisome, this lockdown: don’t you think?

Beginning!!  some might cry; it began to feel that way some time ago!

Last Friday, VE Day actually, we had a socially distanced Broadhoath gathering on our wide green space. eight or perhaps more, of the households came out on a warm, sunny evening, with their glasses in hand, much pleased to see each other and to be in each other’s company.  The children were especially happy to be out together, and two exuberant dogs were delighted and hadn’t a clue about keeping their distance as they romped around.

The following week the cold north winds returned, rattling trees and blasting the blooms of the rhododendrons, scattering them inelegantly across the grass.  Changeable weather, one minute warm and the next back to cold again: talk of the weather improving: talk of the lockdown easing; uncertainty everywhere.  When can we greet our relatives again?  When can they come and stay?  It’s a tough sentence to live with, ‘up with which we will just have to put’ – to paraphrase WS in a rather boring way.  Perhaps it’s time to dig in for the next phase, take several deep breaths and just get on with it. Hmm… grim, let’s face it.  Will it be back to normal or a ‘new normal’? and if so, what will the new normal look like?  Will we take to it? Or simply rebel?  

I cant help remembering that our grandfather, on our mother’s side, died in the Spanish flu epidemic – the third wave, in 1919.  Following that enormous catastrophe which, I hardly need to remind you, killed more than the total number of lives lost in the first World War, it seemed that people, understandably, wanted to turn their backs on it, forget it and party as never before, on into the ‘roaring twenties’.  I’m listening to the three-part series on that pandemic, on Friday mornings (BBC Radio 4, 11 am, catch up using the Sounds app).

Now how about lifting the gloom and feeling hopeful that the human race might make a start at pulling together?  I wonder how far the pessimism of Lord of the Flies, in the years it was part of the school syllabus, affected the natural optimism of 17-year-olds?  You need to know about the back-story of William Golding to appreciate how he came to write such an intense diatribe against the innate wickedness of the human race and its tendency to evil.  One story from the past week has offered a different perspective; that of the boys from Tonga, young rebels who bunked off school, stole a fishing boat and set off to sea only to be caught in a storm, to crawl ashore eventually, exhausted, on the deserted island  of ’Ata.  I won’t spoil the story for you if you haven’t yet read about it in Bregman’s book, Human Kindness. Here’s the link (sorry it’s so long, but it gets you there!) 

 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi0gZHL7rrpAhUgXhUIHYLAAlYQxfQBMAp6BAgJEAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbooks%2F2020%2Fmay%2F09%2Fthe-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months&usg=AOvVaw2Pk198uFNm5WKJMqpcnd0F

Islands were the central feature of both stories, the first, in Lord of the Flies, fictional, the second one fact.  My reading at the moment is also about islands, Mauritius, (formerly known as the Isle de France), St Helena, Tahiti, and then it will be on to the Caribbean islands, St Vincent and Tobago.  The connecting theme is the surprising history of an environmental and conservation movement of the 18th century.  More of that in due course. 

 Meanwhile, with apologies to Hilary; I have got somewhat stuck on page 649 of the M and the L, with some 200+ pages still to go; but I have been told that the last 100 pages are really good.  Onwards!

Broadhoath Broadsheet 8:   31st May 2020

Good heavens, the last day of May; where did that month go?  And April too for that matter?  The last day I had visitors in my house was March 14th when we were already anticipating lockdown and met for a last glass of red wine together.  Now we meet for a cup of tea at a distance ‘under the tree’ on our green space.  For the first couple of weeks, when we were instructed to go for exercise just once a day, I walked as if defeating the virus depended on it. Acquiring the electric bike, a good investment, made exercise more enjoyable - yes, you do still have to pedal – and the possibility of trips further afield: taking the phone in case of mishaps of course.

 Winter can seem never-ending but when the days lengthen and the transition to spring begins, I feel a momentary regret for leaving behind the warm fireside, the curtains drawn against the dark and hopefully something good on tv. So now, as unlock begins, regardless of whether it is too soon or not, I am not alone in feeling some uneasiness at leaving behind the safe, circumscribed, rule-governed days we have been through to face the unknown new world almost as emotionally challenging as what has gone before.  Soon I will have to take the car to a petrol station – help! Can I remember how to do that? Two of my neighbours have to take a train for a hospital appointment in London; I really feel their anxiety. I guess a lot of us have become ‘institutionalised’ into lockdown mode. 

It’s hard to imagine the emotional and mental challenges that many, especially young people, are going through, but one good aspect is that such needs are now more recognised.  I watched Prince William’s programme last week on footballers and mental health (I dipped in and out of it as I came and went from another room.) I have come around from an out of date view which instinctively took exception to that phrase ‘mental health issues’. As if it was in some way dramatising or attention-seeking.  But I see that many of the conversations which used to be in hushed tones about mental illness, are now refocussed to mental health or well-being.  I am happy to think, metaphorically, of mental and emotional well-being as like building up a different type of (metaphorical) muscle. Restoring that kind of muscle when it has suffered damage, is a positive concept.  How many  - perhaps only a fortunate few -  can say that we have never suffered with mental health?  And have felt shamed and  fearful that if it were known we would be marked down.  Applying for a job meant completing a health questionnaire, one question being ‘have you ever suffered from mental illness?’ As the pen hovered over the yes/no box, what thoughts went through the applicant’s mind?   What counted as a mental illness?  That period of depression when one never asked for support?  Or was that just ‘a few dark clouds’ and banished to the past?  The more open attitude is, in my revised opinion, a healthy one, especially because it allows a person to reflect honestly with themselves on emotional problems rather than denying them even to themselves.  There was much to admire, after two world wars, of the refusal to complain and the philosophy of ‘just get on with it’. Today’s more open attitude doesn’t imply that we have become soft but on the contrary, more open and more resilient in the face of the different sets of problems of today.  

 Forgive this little digression; some of you may say I have come very late to this particular party.

I have been thinking about how to make the days of the weekend look different from other days when all seem to merge into each other.  So, Saturday can be relaxed (like all the other days!) or a catch-up day, i.e. try and finish off the tasks not completed during the week – any bookshelves left to be sorted? Cupboards under the stairs?  Sunday needs to be different again in some form or other; re-order the timetable? catch up with phone calls?  How about dressing for dinner?  No, really! Our mother always changed what she was wearing at supper time and – don’t laugh! – I carry on the tradition; nothing splendid: just get out of the garden clothes and into something more civilised.  Then reward yourself with a drink before dinner.  I had better stop before giving away any more secrets.

Back to the garden again where ‘Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,’ soon to be June. The roses are standing up resiliently to some very strong gusts which have been with us for a day or two and look like continuing into June. To end on another poetical note: ‘Summer is icumen in!’ Enjoy!

Broadhoath Broadsheet 9:   14th June 2020

 If the last Broadsheet was on the sombre, reflective side, I will start this one on an altogether jollier note:  We can go to the Zoo!  Hooray!!

I read, or heard, somewhere, that it was Boris’s father, Stanley Johnson, who urged his son to pull his finger out to help the London Zoo in these difficult times. Yesterday, as I walked the circuit around the lavender fields behind Broadhoath that song came into my head;  you must know it, I feel sure:  

Daddy’s takin’ us to the Zoo tomorrow, Zoo tomorrow, Zoo tomorrow

Daddy’s takin’ us to the Zoo tomorrow,

We can stay all day!

Chorus (all together please!)

We’re goin’ to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo,

How about you, you, you?

Were goin’ to the the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo,

You can come too, too, too.

In case you don’t know the tune you’ll find it on Youtube and the lyrics of the other verses also find applications to the Westminster zoo.

 Now, that’ makes us all feel better, doesn’t it?  And what makes me feel really great is the thought of Boris, humming and whistling as he goes about his business:  Daddy’s takin’ us to the Zoo tomorrow, Zoo tomorrow, Zoo tomorrow….

That thought kept me smiling and humming for the rest of my walk home.

So now it has been three months since it all started.  Like many, my own lockdown started a week before the official one. There was the phase when walking seemed to be the thing that would stop the pandemic, then there was the feeling of delight at the quiet of the skies and the roads and the countryside.  I have neighbours with a young family and I offered them the freedom of my cobnut plat in return for them helping with work which had been brought to a standstill. I may have mentioned this before.  Their Mum said they felt like the Famous Five, having all sorts of adventures.  So lucky to be living where we do.

May passed in the glory of uninterrupted sunshine until the farmers and gardeners did a rain dance and cast a spell.  A week of rain and grey skies had the rest of us feeling glum and I admit my own spirits took a nosedive, so much so that at least one kind family member remarked that ‘if even you’ can feel that way it meant it really was getting on top of very many others.  If I have been developing – consciously or unconsciously - a reputation for resilience it certainly doesn’t mean I am immune.  

Talking of biting, my first real ‘outing’ took place last week with a trip to the dentist.  If you remember, they were allowed to open up on June 8th and, in answer to my petition earlier, I had an appointment on the first day back. Hmm, feeling nervous; but it was fine: lots of PPE and gel and one-way systems at the dentists and the Town Council has suspended parking charges!

Now I am going to prepare myself for the afternoon’s event which will be coming live from New Jersey, USA.  Natasha has reached the seventh month of her pregnancy and is looking great. According to Indian custom there will be a blessing ceremony, a ‘puja’ and I shall be a virtual part of it.  According to Nick it involves symbolic moves with rice, rose petals and a host of other things, which I can imagine from my experience of the wedding of James and Priya ten years ago in Houston but on a smaller scale. I think about eight family members will be there in person with a few others looking on from cyberspace so I shall now go and find something suitable to wear:  at least for the top half of me which will be visible.

Stay safe as you begin to unlock.

Broadhoath Broadsheet 10:   2nd July 2020

Dear All,

This final Broadsheet is mostly photos.  I hope they arrive and that I haven’t overloaded your systems.

Yesterday was a simply super occasion - the marriage in Washington DC of my dear Nick and Natasha.  It was a lovely intimate occasion conducted by a judge from the Washington DC Magistracy, a delightful man, he conducted the ceremony with solemnity mixed with good humour and smiles.  You can see in one of the photos how the couple stood on the porch of the house with the screen in front of them set on a music stand.  Hugh and I watched from home here at Broadhoath with roses from the garden and champagne at the ready.  Several of you reading this will also have been watching.  When the vows were completed and the couple were declared officially husband and wife there was a chance for a few words and I was invited as mother of the groom to say a few words: which I did, welcoming my beautiful new daughter-in-law and telling Nick what joy he always brought me - no Kleenex tissues were required in the making of this very short speech - followed by Hugh who congratulated the couple and wished Natasha ‘Welcome to the family’. Others then joined in with congratulations and good wishes.

If this is the new paradigm for weddings it worked very well for all of us (despite the occasional glitches, stutters and confused moments in the cyberspace).

A couple of hours later Hugh and I celebrated again with all our neighbours gathered, but still distancing, on the green.  Thanks for bearing with ten issues of the Broadhoath Broadsheet - and enjoy the photos!