‘And the Bells will Ring on Christmas Day’

Well the inevitable has happened.

On Saturday we got the dreaded NHS ‘Track and Trace’ text to tell us that we had been in contact with someone who has tested positive for Coronavirus.

Inevitable?

It certainly feels like it.

That’s the bad news.

The good and better news is that we are now 4 days into our own personal self isolation and we are still well and symptom free. If that continues until midnight on Monday 11 January, I for one will be very happy!

‘Please release me and let me go’ seems an apt tune for the moment!

Self isolating certainly takes some getting used to.

Last night, we, like most of the nation, watched Boris deliver his Lockdown 3 pronouncement. It gave me no pleasure to hear that the whole of Britain was now in a similar boat to us. The fact is, being restricted and denied of our most simple of liberties is not very enjoyable.

For me, that liberty has always been expressed best by donning my boots and heading out for a very long trudge, at least once every week.

This was no longer possible for 7 more days and I was grumpy!

I reflected that I should actually have known that this was going to happen.

After all, just 4 days earlier as I had laced up for the long walk to Stoodley Pike that I blogged about last week, (https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/186084468/posts/183), 2 of the eyelets on my right boot had snapped.

I didn’t realise it, but those boots must have had prior knowledge of our present predicament. I thought drily that this lace-snap was clearly an attempt by them to tell me that I was going to be bootless and banned from long distance walking for a couple of weeks.

Why is that our favourite things always break at the worst time?

I reflected with increasingly dark humour that if I was ever to be invited on to the popular BBC Radio 4 show, ‘Desert Island Disks’ then my boots would have been my chosen single luxury. Until now!

I was reassured by the knowledge that an appearance on that show was highly unlikely and that I could now justifiably buy a new pair of Scarpa’s from my favoured outdoor shop: BAC of Elland.

Those flipping boots fitted like a silk glove ………. or should I say they used to!

In recent months since retirement, I have taken at least one long distance walk around the Calderdale district every week and I have loved it.

After a career where planning for the long term future was always a necessity, I have thrived on the opportunity to just walk where I felt led and have totally enjoyed having the time to just follow my (quite considerable) nose.

It has been fantastic fun whether walking with my sons or ‘flying solo’.

It has has taken me to stunning parts of West Yorkshire that I previously, had no idea existed.

At a time where planning for any of our futures has already been put on hold for 10 months, with several more to follow, planning for a stroll around Calderdale has been very liberating.

Today my biggest challenge, as I looked wistfully at the Calderdale Way, literally on my doorstep, was looking at the open garden gate and resisting the desire to stick on those boots and just disappear.

The horses seemed to understand my plight and came closer to my vantage point on my doorstep, to offer equine sympathy.

I was still tempeted.

After all, if I left my phone at home, ‘NHS Track and Trace’ would be none the wiser. I could do it and I could dare to get away with it.

Perhaps that is why I have already outed myself and declared in this blog that we are having to isolate. It holds me to account and prevents any weakening of my resolve to do it by the book!

Unfortunately I knew my conscience would be pricked and I just couldn’t sign up to that rule break.

So I looked at Wainhouse Tower in the distance and those lovely horses in their field, literally 60 yards from my gate and ……………… I turned round and stayed in!

Temptation! Phew. I had resisted it …….. for now.

The next 6 days will still challenge me I’m sure.

Is ‘Breakout’ the new addiction of 2021?

The predominant colour back in our garden was green. The Hellebores and pansies were the only resistors to that domination.

My eye was drawn to an old and tired red berry on a honeysuckle. The morning light gave it a surreal and uplifting hue that was far beyond its reality.

So I consoled myself with taking some photographs of objects that still boosted my spirits on this, my 4th day of imprisonment.

As I pondered what to snap indoors, my eyes were immediately drawn to an old bell high up on a shelf in our conservatory.

I bought that bell 3 years ago at a car boot sale in Mundersley near Cromer, whilst on a camping holiday in Norfolk.

If car boot sales are your thing, then then Norfolk really is the ‘Staycation’ county for you. In coastal Norfolk they run a car boot sale every single day, in a 15 mile radius from Cromer, from early March right through to the end of October.

I’m no real fan of boot sales. I don’t hate them, I just find I can ‘do’ them in 10 minutes. I find them to be a bit like supermarket shopping. Both can be done and dusted in 20 minutes in my experience.

My wife Nicky, on the other hand, can easily spend many a good hour doing either.

At a good boot sale I will rummage for tools, old maps, camping gear, plants and books. I can’t be as bothered with clothes, jewellery, ‘niknaks’ etc. In my experience most of the stock on sale at a boot sale is pure junk. I have enough of that already thank you.

A bargain hunting wife is not easily led off a boot sale field though and fair is fair. Whilst I get my fix through long walks so it seems only fair that I support Nicky’s love of a bargain-hunt. She is good at it. Very good. She loves a bargain!

So it was that I bought this lovely old school bell at that particular boot sale on the coast. As I left the stall I rang it loud in celebration and drew disdainful glances from across the field as I disturbed the peace and tranquility of that ‘Norfolkian’ gathering.

Why buy the bell? I certainly didn’t need it.

Quite simply it drew me back to my early childhood and my years as 7 and 8 year old pupil at Seething primary school, in a small village, that also happened to be in Norfolk: albeit 20 miles inland.

I had acquired the privileged position of playground bell ringer in that tiny village school and I loved it.

As every school playtime drew too a close, I would proudly march up to the bell’s resting place on the window sill by the school entrance and ‘ring my bell.’ I was the envy of the school, for all of minute.

Ringing that bell was the only thing I can remember excelling at in that sleepy village school.

By buying this £3.00 bell, I guess I was remembering good times and the good old days: an age of innocence, a time when the sun always seemed to shine and we always seemed to play out.

At a time when I’m in an enforced personal lockdown, albeit for just 10 days, I now realise that the bell and its chime is a nostalgic reminder that better times will come.

Whilst my wife and I may feel an incomprehensible sense of the ‘unclean’ in this 10 day wait to see if we are positive or negative, I was reminded yet again, that within every difficulty there is a seed of hope.

Our isolation period will end eventually. There is a good chance that we may avoid the virus and I remembered that for me, this was my very first true experience of Covid restrictions where they were truly restricting me. 10 months into the lifespan of this pandemic I remembered and felt very fortunate.

How many people do I know for whom this is the 10th or 11th month of a personal lockdown?

Their endurance and spirit to keep on going on truly is inspirational.

I simply have no right to moan or mourn my temporary loss of mobility and independence.

I thought of the parental community at my old special school in Halifax having to face yet another Lockdown.

I thought of my mother-in-law Jenny having to self isolate because we ourselves, are having to self isolate.

The ‘shielded’ within ‘our bubble’ was now the ‘shielder’ and yet she turned up on our doorstep today loaded with oranges, peaches and salad for us. I appreciated her!

I thought of my 89 year old mum Val, still living in desperate isolation in a care home in France. Restricted by life in a wheelchair and a serious hearing loss what right did I have to complain?

I remembered that we had all been told that January was going to be difficult. So why were we moaning when that difficult reality struck?

I also remembered that we have nearly completed the first week of January and I remembered that both Jenny and Val will be getting their jabs in the next 2 weeks. Many of us will be jabbed by Easter. That has to be an optimistic thought surely?

Day by day, week by week, just like those daffodils, we will creep into a spring and then a summer where we can dare to dream of the return of hugs, embraces, hand shakes and living life fully and gloriously.

The lilies that I bought my wife for our 32nd wedding anniversary on 23 December were still in full flower. they have lasted 16 days so far. The sight and smell of them reminded me to be grateful.

Gratitude and kindness cost us nothing.

Happy New Year

Thanks for the read

Martin x

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