Family

*Well apart from our permitted hour of outdoor exercise*.*

So with plenty of time on my hands I’ve been looking back at some photos from our trip to Europe in the Autumn. I last posted in November. Back then my main worry was the effect Brexit would have on future trips. And I was sad that it might not be easy to travel around Europe in the same way again…..

France. And DogStarke

How things change. At the beginning of March I spent a couple of days in Edinburgh. MrS was busy with som e research at the Archives. I had fun, meeting a couple of friends for lunch, spending time with Master S., and treating myself to a new phone.

Then the world began to shrink.

Mid March I had a hair appointment, we were being discouraged from too much contact and large gatherings had been banned so I rang ahead to check my stylist was still happy to see me. As I sat in foils under the heater my phone beeped with notifications. Business after business announcing their closure, pubs, restaurants, small shops. The cinema had closed the day before. By the end of that week we had Covid locally and pretty much went into lockdown, lots of my friends went into shielding isolation. Lockdown became official policy the following week.

Spain and DogS again

Our days changed. Normally I walk to our local shop while MrS takes DogS for her walk. But I’ve cut those trips down to once a week and instead we go out for our hour of exercise together. We have a route that avoids livestock*** (completely) and people (mostly) and gives DogS a chance to walk off lead. After that we’re home where MrS has been working in the garden, aided or otherwise by DogS. I’ve been catching up on reading, trying to write, and failing in my attempts to draw trees**** We do a weekly trip to town***** to go to the supermarket or Food Hub.

Portugal, an apposite caricature we saw there, and you know who.

It’s hard not to see friends, difficult not to go out on a sunny evening and scary to hear the news each night. But I’m lucky, I have a house, garden and live in a beautiful part of the world. Tonight there was some good news, a relaxation of restrictions in Austria, a slowing of the pandemic in Spain, and a downward trend in Italy; but still too much grim news.

views from our walks*****,* my attempts with pencils, and DogS

What will life be like after? Different, probably for quite a while. Relaxation of restrictions will be gradual and perhaps not the same everywhere. Many businesses won’t have survived to reopen. There will be hardship and recession.

And too many people missing their family and friends.

Here’s hoping that even though things change, so the good things stay the same.

And looking forward to being with friends again.

Marina x

**permitted at time of writing, and hoping it continues.

***although we are rural we can’t walk in the fields as it’s lambing/calving season

**** you might imagine I’ve never seen an actual tree

***** it’s about 12 miles to our nearest town

****** we’ve been doing much the same circular walk most days, but in different directions.

I arrived home after my walk today to a missed call on my mobile and the message light blinking from the landline. Looking up the number I recognised it belonged to MrS’s cousin. Oh that’s nice I thought, she must be coming to visit her friend and wants to drop in on her way.

And so we listened to the message.

She’s dead.

I can’t really take it in. Whilst she was (so hard to write) in her seventies, retired, a grandmother she was by no means old. And not ill. She was always full of life, walking travelling, keeping up with family and friends. Both her parents lived into their nineties.

Now she’s gone.

It’ll be worse for MrS; the cousins are the senior generation of his family. A chain of births stretching from the ’40s to the ’60s. And now a link is gone.

We’ll talk about it later no doubt. Remember.

But for now there is just shock.

And sadness.