Walk with me (2 metres apart...)

How are you? 

It’s an up and down kind of time, isn’t it - thinking/worrying about stuff, people and livelihoods, trying not to overdose on the news, checking on friends, feeling indebted to all those keeping things going.  Then needing to give yourself some breaks, get lost in levity and little bits of normality and trivia wherever possible.  I think that’s just going to be a pattern for a while now.

So, like an obedient dog I took my daily walk yesterday and gave myself time to think some silly thoughts.   My walk incorporated a stop at the shop to buy some essentials – only a short list but a bottle of wine included, essential surely.   It was colder than I expected and every step felt like I was waging war against that northerly wind, one of those that’s so icy and strong it seemed to lock my features into what I can only imagine was a horrifying grimace. 

It was an interesting study in behaviour, though, and I guess many are experiencing this on our eerily quiet streets:  that each time another person came towards me on the pavement or path, one of us would actually stop, pull in and give way to let the other walk by at a safe distance. I realised it was exactly as if we were each driving an imaginary car (mine’s an E-type Jag then please, may as well go for the full fantasy).  Just like motoring down a narrow lane and using a passing place, with a little wave of the hand to say thank you. Maybe we should all start wearing miniature headlights on our coats that we could flash at each other, just to save any confusion, especially if it gets foggy.

Making the most of my outdoor exercise allowance I took a diversion along my favourite lane, noticing a pile of plucked feathers in the grass verge signifying a recent sparrowhawk attack (either that or someone really has got desperate on finding empty shelves in Tesco).   I could hear a chiffchaff in the tall lime trees, it’s a lovely sign of Spring.  If you don’t know already it’s very easy to identify the call of a chiffchaff.  It goes chiff chaff, chiff chaff…   And there were already newborn lambs in the field, all wobbly black legs and curious faces.  I know I'm lucky, things feel more normal when you’re surrounded by nature.

A chiffchaff

Most chiffchaffs migrate to warmer climates for the Winter

and return here to breed in Spring and Summer.

I found myself thinking (this is the silly, trivial thinking) about how, when this is over, we might all come out of it looking like something from the ‘70s.  It’s the haircuts I started with – are we all letting it grow wild, or risking a dodgy home trim from an unqualified family member?  The last time I properly cut anyone’s hair was in the '70s....  and that was a doll's...  (If only I'd realised her long glossy locks actually originated from just a handful of broadly spaced plugs! I was so mortified in case my mum found out what I'd done that I hid her in a box for a year).  Will pudding basins and comb-overs become fashionable again?  

What about teeth?  Perhaps classic vintage ivory will make a comeback, now there are no professional whitening services open for those who like their gnashers to glow like ultraviolet light.  Botox-addicts may learn to embrace their wrinkles and the lips of many female celebrities may finally return to normal human size; body hair will flourish again at last in the comfort of its own home.

And we’ll wear down the heels and soles on our footwear so much through all this daily walking that, with no heel bars open, we’ll decide to revert to longer-lasting platform shoes and boots…   

I finished my walk and as my frozen face thawed out and my hands lathered up the soap, I allowed myself a little (20-second) escapist reverie – a vivid image of a whole new world of very hairy, yellow-toothed, wrinkly, 1970s-throwback, platform-boot-wearing cave-dwellers emerging blinking into the light.  We'll all have terribly chapped hands too.  

Then I listened to this!

The Temptations: I Can't Get Next To You

Take care x