Lockdown week 4

One of the things I’m enjoying most about this strange time is being able to amble down the middle of quiet streets that would normally be busy with noisy traffic. Why do most people remain on the pavements?

Most afternoons I make my way over to Daubuz Moors, a small nature reserve under the railway viaduct on the banks of the River Allen very near where I live.

Each day, I have been watching the same hawthorn branches slowly bud, burst into spectacular white blossom then turn vivid green. Cornwall is being transformed from a long wet winter to a dry, sunny spring and as ever it’s magical.

Lockdown week 3

This week Hélène Pidassa, the great-grandmother of my adopted Kabiye family in Togo, died of natural causes at the age of 97. It is a merciful release for her, as she had been unwell and housebound ever since her husband died seven years ago.

Normally for someone of this ripe old age, the entire population of both villages – her natal village and the one she married into – would attend the burial. It is considered to be an occasion for celebration as well as mourning. But Togo is in lockdown like everywhere else, so only ten witnesses were allowed by the graveside and the police were present to enforce the restriction.

As Faustin, her grandson, poignantly commented, “We buried her as though she was a child”. In Kabiye culture, only the burial of a child would ever be restricted to close family members.

A fixture of the Kabiye calendar is the annual “funeral season”, when families organize a celebratory wake for anyone over the age of 70 who has died in the previous year. The next funeral season is February 2021, so we will have to wait until then to honor the passing of Hélène Pidassa.

Lockdown week 2

Everyone seems to be living this lockdown differently. I’m an introvert, and I have a great capacity for spending long periods of time by myself, in silence, and this is especially enjoyable if I’m sharing my living space with others who are doing the same, which I am right now. I just steadily plod on with my work, staying focussed on writing and editing. Meditation techniques honed on numerous monastic retreats are coming to the fore and proving to be of immeasurable value. So the lockdown is, at is were, familiar landscape, and I am sparing a thought for my poor extrovert friends for whom these are totally uncharted and scary waters.

Lockdown week 1

Day 1: The UK government announces lockdown.

Day 2: Dad (92) is admitted to hospital with a stroke. None of us can visit him of course.

Day 3: Rosemary, Dad’s sister (91), is taken to hospital with a mini-stroke; recovers quickly. No, they are not twins.

Day 4: Dad is discharged, but his speech is slurred, his mobility reduced, and he’s having to adjust to a diet of puréed food and gloopy liquids. Yuck.

Day 5: Rosemary has another mini-stroke; recovers quickly.

Days 6 and 7: Relatively quiet, hurray.

Hoping that the rest of the lockdown won’t be quite as eventful as this…

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in time of trouble.