"Whoop-whooop! Deedle-eedle-eedle-eedle!"
I knew almost immediately what that sound was and it was one I hadn't heard for at least a year. Climbing out of my boat I saw the red, cream and very lived-in liveaboard vessel of an old acquaintance from the first flush of Middle Level Bill activism. From a couple of hundred metres away S was holding something aloft, which I assumed to be a glass or a bottle of something strongly alcoholic as he slowed and drifted towards me. We were going to have a mardle. I love a mardle, but can count the times I have had real life chats with real life people during the eight or nine weeks of "lockdown"on the fingers of one hand. As for physical contact, that would be the goodbye hug and the kiss exchanged with P as he dropped me at the station on the day France shut down, 18th March 2020, two months and ten days ago. S drew level and immediately enquired after my stove. S was the man who introduced me to a retired welder friend of his own who repaired the mild steel back boiler that had rusted through during the time I was church sitting two or three years ago. In particular his welder mate had welded in a piece of stainless steel, which I am told requires more skill and knowledge than replacing like with like. The welder's wife came downstairs one morning recently to find her husband sitting in front of the television just as she'd left him the previous evening with one hand comfortably behind his head, stone dead.
Sadly, S has not seemed to be able to climb aboard a wagon, let alone stay on one, but as always he was cheery and effusive. I've heard he can sometimes turn aggressive, but I've never seen that side of him. What I know is he couldn't do enough to help me when I was in trouble. As we greeted each other what he was actually brandishing was a small black plant pot containing three four-inch high tomato plants. "Here," he said, handing me the pot. "Beefsteak tomatoes. you'll love 'em and they'll be huge." He mimed a spherical version of the fisherman's measurement. I took the pot and he grabbed my hand to give it a vigorous shake of greeting that turned into one of those mutual thumb-grabs that most of my musician and nomadic friends share to express that special layer of understanding. I fought off the urge to panic and withdraw, and the only thought that went through my mind with any coherence concerned the Prime Minister's boast of shaking everyone's hand shortly before he contracted covid-19. "Mustn't touch my face, mustn't touch my face," I repeated over and over in my head as we caught up each with the other's past year. I didn't even have time to collect my face mask that I've used for all conversations recently. He told me he had been trapped on the Great Ouse for months owing to the extensive Autumn flooding, the mild freeze, the weeks of very strong winds and then the covid lockdown and was only now able to move. I guess he must have been on the move for the past three or four days at least (mustn't touch my face). His boat is a similar length to mine, about fifty feet, but has a completely different layout. During the last times I'd been a guest the interior was fully "open plan" and he has a semi-traditional stern. This certainly gives him more space to move about on the back of his boat. He was also towing a GRP cruiser that had clearly seen better days. It may even have survived a great naval battle for all its apparent wear. We mardled for a while and just as the wind was carrying his boat on to the opposite bank, threatening to crush the cruiser that had jackknifed between the narrowboat and the bank we bade our farewells and he easily corrected the heading and set off up the river. If only I had as much confidence in my boat-handling skills. He waved and called until he rounded the bend, disappearing out of sight.
"Whoop-whooop! Deedle-eedle-eedle-eedle!"
Mustn't touch my face, I rushed indoors and with two large squirts of hand soap and to the tune of four Happy Birthdays rubbed and scrubbed any potential lethal virus to oblivion. By this time my moustache was so horribly itchy. Funny that I actually felt slightly less clean after the manic hand-washing ritual.
Farewell, my friend. Until next you pass this way.
Thursday, 28 May 2020
Monday, 11 May 2020
Letters To A Kingfisher - 4
Hola Kingfisher,
It was lovely to see you speeding past the galley window this morning. Do winds such as we have today make the flying harder? more exhilarating? both? I saw you land on a reed that was bowing at the command of the wind. You looked as though you took it all in your stride .. er, flap?
I ought to apologise. You've been getting the dulled edge of my low moods lately. Thanks for not complaining. Yes, it has been tough and I've been finding it hard to keep my spirits up. I realised I'd perhaps been overdoing the self-pity when a friend messaged me after reading the previous missives to check that I was okay. That was really kind of him. As you know I haven't really been okay. I like solitude and time and space to think and be in my own company, but solitude is very different from loneliness. I miss P. I miss being able to see C when she is feeling low and I really want to see B, before it's too late. I miss being able to give and receive hugs. Yesterday saw a return to the colder, windy, rainy weather we endured for weeks before the recent protracted sunny spell. Saturday was, I believe, the hottest day of the year so far. I may have told you that I don't thrive in the heat; although truth to tell, I'm not a fan of the cold either. I lit a fire for a couple of hours last evening. That took the chill off the air and warmed some water so it felt good not to be washing my hands in icy water every time.
C phoned. She'd been working and also needed to vent, but not about work. She's got some stuff going on with some members of the family and some of her friends. She seemed a little cheerier for having talked some of it through with me.
Last night we had a second family quiz night. My ex, all the kids except C, their partners/husbands/wives and all the grandkids Zoomed in. Some of the families were on multiple devices, so it was chaotic. The sound was dreadful and I found it difficult to hear some of the questions and the songs in the "intro round". I don't suppose that would have made much of a difference had I heard them anyway, since I only knew two or three out of the ten intros. There was a lot of hip-hop and rap and I know nothing about that kind of music. There was also a guess which celebrity's hair is in the picture. I did better on that round strangely, although, to be fair, I may not have done had R, the quizmaster general, not included Amy Winehouse, Kim Jong Un and the Mona Lisa! It was fun to connect with everyone, but conversation is impossible. As in real life, the young ones take all the attention, or in this situation the bandwidth, and the oldies rarely get to exchange a word. It was sad that C didn't feel up to joining in this time. She's been stewing further on the perceived slight we'd discussed earlier and didn't feel she wanted to mix.
Although it rained earlier today the sun is shining again and I am sitting outside to write this. The wind is still blowing hard, but I am sheltered in my lovely summer house. I really wanted to tell you that today is a much better day for me than any day for a long time. I washed my hair, trimmed and tidied my beard and at last felt able to set up and run through a few songs. It has been weeks since I played. My fingers are so stiff and the tips are so soft and my voice is so weak, but it felt great to pick up the music again. I found a new footdrum fill. It needs a lot more work, but I think I can manage it as I'm playing guitar and harmonica. I knew if I could manage to play some music I would feel better about life, but it has been so hard to find the motivation even to set up the stool and get a guitar out of the case. I may even venture back into the lockdown folk club if this carries on. I'll see if I can manage to get back into practising every day. It is shameful that I am not using this time to improve. I really would like to do a bit of recording too. I started recording "Fish On Fridays" a few weeks ago. Then the depression got the better of me and I couldn't manage any more.
Three days ago the swans went past. They were heading south at speed. This year's brood had obviously hatched within the past few days. Only two were hitching a ride on mama's back. Then the following day they came back again. This time they were in not so much of a rush. I saw the adults in the middle of the river in the distance as they approached the boat and carefully got out on to the landing stage with my camera. As I normally do when the swans go by I started talking when I judged they were within earshot. They normally come over for a little while if they have no other pressing mission. I thought they wouldn't approach this time because the cygnets were still so small. However, they came almost as close as it's possible to get to where I was standing. With the babies in between mama and papa they stayed near the bank for a while. There was no display or warning from either cob or pen and indeed, both were craning into the river to pull up some duckweed, which they proceeded to shred into smaller pieces that the cygnets would find more easily manageable. I know it is easy to anthropomorphise, but it really felt as though the cob and pen wanted to show off the family of nine babies. Wikipedia tells me that swans lay up to eight eggs. Ha!
I'm shortly off out for a bit of an adventure - yes, I know, I always say that adventure is over-rated. It's the day to collect the groceries that I ordered last week. I wonder how this works. At least I shouldn't have to queue and maintain the appropriate social distance as I wander disconsolately around the supermarket. I'm afraid last evening's Primisterial Broadcast was very lightweight in terms of new information. It seems that anything is possible or possibly not ... In the meantime I guess I carry on trying to carry on.
Once again, best wishes to you, dear kingfisher.
Hasta mañana,
marsh
It was lovely to see you speeding past the galley window this morning. Do winds such as we have today make the flying harder? more exhilarating? both? I saw you land on a reed that was bowing at the command of the wind. You looked as though you took it all in your stride .. er, flap?
I ought to apologise. You've been getting the dulled edge of my low moods lately. Thanks for not complaining. Yes, it has been tough and I've been finding it hard to keep my spirits up. I realised I'd perhaps been overdoing the self-pity when a friend messaged me after reading the previous missives to check that I was okay. That was really kind of him. As you know I haven't really been okay. I like solitude and time and space to think and be in my own company, but solitude is very different from loneliness. I miss P. I miss being able to see C when she is feeling low and I really want to see B, before it's too late. I miss being able to give and receive hugs. Yesterday saw a return to the colder, windy, rainy weather we endured for weeks before the recent protracted sunny spell. Saturday was, I believe, the hottest day of the year so far. I may have told you that I don't thrive in the heat; although truth to tell, I'm not a fan of the cold either. I lit a fire for a couple of hours last evening. That took the chill off the air and warmed some water so it felt good not to be washing my hands in icy water every time.
C phoned. She'd been working and also needed to vent, but not about work. She's got some stuff going on with some members of the family and some of her friends. She seemed a little cheerier for having talked some of it through with me.
Last night we had a second family quiz night. My ex, all the kids except C, their partners/husbands/wives and all the grandkids Zoomed in. Some of the families were on multiple devices, so it was chaotic. The sound was dreadful and I found it difficult to hear some of the questions and the songs in the "intro round". I don't suppose that would have made much of a difference had I heard them anyway, since I only knew two or three out of the ten intros. There was a lot of hip-hop and rap and I know nothing about that kind of music. There was also a guess which celebrity's hair is in the picture. I did better on that round strangely, although, to be fair, I may not have done had R, the quizmaster general, not included Amy Winehouse, Kim Jong Un and the Mona Lisa! It was fun to connect with everyone, but conversation is impossible. As in real life, the young ones take all the attention, or in this situation the bandwidth, and the oldies rarely get to exchange a word. It was sad that C didn't feel up to joining in this time. She's been stewing further on the perceived slight we'd discussed earlier and didn't feel she wanted to mix.
Although it rained earlier today the sun is shining again and I am sitting outside to write this. The wind is still blowing hard, but I am sheltered in my lovely summer house. I really wanted to tell you that today is a much better day for me than any day for a long time. I washed my hair, trimmed and tidied my beard and at last felt able to set up and run through a few songs. It has been weeks since I played. My fingers are so stiff and the tips are so soft and my voice is so weak, but it felt great to pick up the music again. I found a new footdrum fill. It needs a lot more work, but I think I can manage it as I'm playing guitar and harmonica. I knew if I could manage to play some music I would feel better about life, but it has been so hard to find the motivation even to set up the stool and get a guitar out of the case. I may even venture back into the lockdown folk club if this carries on. I'll see if I can manage to get back into practising every day. It is shameful that I am not using this time to improve. I really would like to do a bit of recording too. I started recording "Fish On Fridays" a few weeks ago. Then the depression got the better of me and I couldn't manage any more.
Three days ago the swans went past. They were heading south at speed. This year's brood had obviously hatched within the past few days. Only two were hitching a ride on mama's back. Then the following day they came back again. This time they were in not so much of a rush. I saw the adults in the middle of the river in the distance as they approached the boat and carefully got out on to the landing stage with my camera. As I normally do when the swans go by I started talking when I judged they were within earshot. They normally come over for a little while if they have no other pressing mission. I thought they wouldn't approach this time because the cygnets were still so small. However, they came almost as close as it's possible to get to where I was standing. With the babies in between mama and papa they stayed near the bank for a while. There was no display or warning from either cob or pen and indeed, both were craning into the river to pull up some duckweed, which they proceeded to shred into smaller pieces that the cygnets would find more easily manageable. I know it is easy to anthropomorphise, but it really felt as though the cob and pen wanted to show off the family of nine babies. Wikipedia tells me that swans lay up to eight eggs. Ha!
I'm shortly off out for a bit of an adventure - yes, I know, I always say that adventure is over-rated. It's the day to collect the groceries that I ordered last week. I wonder how this works. At least I shouldn't have to queue and maintain the appropriate social distance as I wander disconsolately around the supermarket. I'm afraid last evening's Primisterial Broadcast was very lightweight in terms of new information. It seems that anything is possible or possibly not ... In the meantime I guess I carry on trying to carry on.
Once again, best wishes to you, dear kingfisher.
Hasta mañana,
marsh
Friday, 8 May 2020
Letters To A Kingfisher - 3
Dear Kingfisher,
I didn't mean to bother you a daily basis, but that seems to have been the case so far. I guess the advantage is that you don't have time to read and I need someone to talk to. Actually, I'd really like a hug too, but I know you don't do those.
I know other people have it worse, but I also know how I feel and I'm trying hard not to feel guilty or self-indulgent. It's not working. I feel bad for feeling weak and I feel worse for moaning to you about it. At least that means some of my human friends won't have to know what's going on and we can pretend to keep on keeping on, stiff upper lip and all that - appropriate perhaps on this 75th anniversary commemoration of the Victory in Europe Day. Such commemorations add to my despair. I cannot possibly say things like this out loud, but bunting and union flags are really not my thing. That the horrors of war should never be forgotten should go without saying, but an awful lot of people seem to have a different take on this from me and are driven to say quite a lot. I find the line between a meditative contemplation with a commitment to do better in the future and barmy triumphalism almost invisibly thin. Once again I know that such a dichotomy is my burden to sort. Maybe it's the tinnitus, but there are so many clanging bells about this commemoration ... and all the others. I read one article that somehow managed to call today's event "Victory Over Europe" Day! I don't know whether that was a wind-up or a deliberate lie, but it disgusts me. It was a war. By definition, everyone lost. I see nothing to celebrate, certainly not with union flags and bunting. I find all that quite horrifying. I find the exhortations to remember ... lest we forget, of course (no chance of that, mate) sits very uneasily. I also feel I am in a massive minority; possibly I am the only one who feels this way. I feel a massive pressure to join in the party. I don't want to. I don't even want to join in a virtual one, because those are the only parties I'll be attending for some time to come - and possibly not even any of those if someone finds this essay and determines I am a traitorous blackguard of the very worst kind.
At lunch time I turned on my internet radio. It's the best way to get any kind of radio reception where I am presently moored. The news was on and I knew what the content was going to be, so I turned to one of my favourite community radio stations, Future Radio broadcasting from Norwich. I don't know where else one might tune to hear accidentally "Dixie Chicken" by Little Feat playing at lunch time, but there it was. I sang along to the slide guitar solo in my best falsetto slide guitar voice and sang the chorus, or as much as I could remember. I bought the album decades ago, but I no longer have any means of playing my precious vinyl. That happened to be the last record in that show. The next programme started with Glenn Miller's "In The Mood". I had to switch it off because I knew what was coming and I felt sick again. I have a friend on a social media platform who seems to spend a lot of the day scouring the web to find odd little videos to send me in private messages. Some are funny and some are quite disturbing and some are simply politically not quite correct. I don't begrudge him this indulgence, how can it be any of my business? I am very proud to know him and to know that he is managing not to give into his alcohol addiction. I don't know if I could be so strong under these circumstances, but thankfully it has never been something I have had to face personally. He's stayed dry for a few months now. One of today's amusing little videos came with a message: "Pass this on to everyone. It would mean a lot." With trepidation I clicked on the "play" triangle and the black screen faded to an aerial view of the sea. Land came into view. Then cliffs, white ones. Cue Vera Lynn soundtrack. I didn't manage to stop the film before the drone swept over the coast and closed in on a military character standing on the edge of the white cliffs wearing what looked like WW1 uniform - don't ask why. I have no idea why whatever was in the video was important enough to presume on my acquaintance that I would be prepared to acquiesce to his request to pass it on. I have no idea why it would "mean a lot". I perceive such encouragement as being very close to bullying. If I dare dissemble from the prevailing narrative I am somehow betraying the legacy of those who "gave their lives" in a terrible conflict. Again, I cannot see it that way. Most of the men who fought in the two world wars may have "given" their lives from the perspective of grieving families. They undoubtedly signed up for a cause they honestly felt was just. But then, just as now, propaganda was rife. How is it possible to know who is telling the truth? So, in another sense, their lives were also "taken". I'm certainly not going to deny that very many of these soldiers whose lives were taken showed immense courage in the face of paralysing fear. Indeed they were the stout-hearted lions who were badly let down by the donkeys who couldn't work out any other means of resolving conflict and who never left these shores. Neither can I deny that many acts of bravery were carried out in pursuit of their work. However, I also suspect that those who fought against what must have been overwhelming pressure to enlist showed great courage too. Courage like that needed to be even more resilient, because accusations of cowardice last forever. I think it takes courage for families and individuals to endure shame for taking action consistent with a principle in a moral cause. I feel the same discomfort over the annual pressure to buy and wear poppies. I've been aware of this antipathy for well over fifty years. I met up with an old school friend for the first time since our school days a few years ago and he had remembered how rabidly anti-war I had been at the time. Now, of course, I realise that life is far more complicated and even professional members of the military can be anti-war. We go about expressing our principles in different ways perhaps. However, I have never had to take part in any kind of military action and for that I am very grateful. I was born ten years, a week and a day after Victory in Europe was declared. I never had to come to terms with the aftermath of the country of my birth having been invaded. Having a French partner I see the evidence everywhere when I'm there. It's in the street names in every town. I have a Dutch friend who remembers a line across the school playground. His friends never crossed that line. On one side of it were the children of the families of collaborators and on the other the children of families associated with the resistance during the war. How does one ever come to terms with something like that? For me the waving of national flags, the display of the bunting serves more to perpetuate what divides us than what we have achieved since then.
Sorry, that wasn't what I wanted to mention. My concerns seem so petty now. I'll come back to them perhaps.
I've put it off all week, but I was forced to go out and buy some food today. I know I have the click and collection on Monday, but I have been without fresh fruit and vegetables for a few days and that is upsetting. Everything's upsetting at the moment. I am near to tears all the time. I should be strong. I could be maintaining vigilance because I know I don't trust the government not to take full advantage of the diversion this pandemic is providing. I should be writing letters to my MP, but I can't see the point. Despite having written a number of letters to him over the years I have can count the replies I have had on the fingers of two fingers - that's not counting the automatic "out of office, will get back to you soon" or the soothing nonsense of an unpaid lacky. The MP for my previous place of residence usually took months to reply, but he eventually got round round to it, not that his replies were ever useful in the terms that we might find ourselves in some sort of accord. Anyway, I'll go and cook something to eat.
Did you see the swan family this afternoon? Eight cygnets, probably no more than a week or so old. No doubt they'll be back. I shall probably try and get a photograph. They were in a hurry to get somewhere. They don't function on your scale of speed though. I wonder if they even register on your vision?
I'm supposed to be singing something in a virtual folk club tonight. I can't bring myself to practise anything. Once again I shan't be able to go in. I'm going to have to force myself sometime. Just not tonight.
Goodnight dear Kingfisher.
marsh
I didn't mean to bother you a daily basis, but that seems to have been the case so far. I guess the advantage is that you don't have time to read and I need someone to talk to. Actually, I'd really like a hug too, but I know you don't do those.
I know other people have it worse, but I also know how I feel and I'm trying hard not to feel guilty or self-indulgent. It's not working. I feel bad for feeling weak and I feel worse for moaning to you about it. At least that means some of my human friends won't have to know what's going on and we can pretend to keep on keeping on, stiff upper lip and all that - appropriate perhaps on this 75th anniversary commemoration of the Victory in Europe Day. Such commemorations add to my despair. I cannot possibly say things like this out loud, but bunting and union flags are really not my thing. That the horrors of war should never be forgotten should go without saying, but an awful lot of people seem to have a different take on this from me and are driven to say quite a lot. I find the line between a meditative contemplation with a commitment to do better in the future and barmy triumphalism almost invisibly thin. Once again I know that such a dichotomy is my burden to sort. Maybe it's the tinnitus, but there are so many clanging bells about this commemoration ... and all the others. I read one article that somehow managed to call today's event "Victory Over Europe" Day! I don't know whether that was a wind-up or a deliberate lie, but it disgusts me. It was a war. By definition, everyone lost. I see nothing to celebrate, certainly not with union flags and bunting. I find all that quite horrifying. I find the exhortations to remember ... lest we forget, of course (no chance of that, mate) sits very uneasily. I also feel I am in a massive minority; possibly I am the only one who feels this way. I feel a massive pressure to join in the party. I don't want to. I don't even want to join in a virtual one, because those are the only parties I'll be attending for some time to come - and possibly not even any of those if someone finds this essay and determines I am a traitorous blackguard of the very worst kind.
At lunch time I turned on my internet radio. It's the best way to get any kind of radio reception where I am presently moored. The news was on and I knew what the content was going to be, so I turned to one of my favourite community radio stations, Future Radio broadcasting from Norwich. I don't know where else one might tune to hear accidentally "Dixie Chicken" by Little Feat playing at lunch time, but there it was. I sang along to the slide guitar solo in my best falsetto slide guitar voice and sang the chorus, or as much as I could remember. I bought the album decades ago, but I no longer have any means of playing my precious vinyl. That happened to be the last record in that show. The next programme started with Glenn Miller's "In The Mood". I had to switch it off because I knew what was coming and I felt sick again. I have a friend on a social media platform who seems to spend a lot of the day scouring the web to find odd little videos to send me in private messages. Some are funny and some are quite disturbing and some are simply politically not quite correct. I don't begrudge him this indulgence, how can it be any of my business? I am very proud to know him and to know that he is managing not to give into his alcohol addiction. I don't know if I could be so strong under these circumstances, but thankfully it has never been something I have had to face personally. He's stayed dry for a few months now. One of today's amusing little videos came with a message: "Pass this on to everyone. It would mean a lot." With trepidation I clicked on the "play" triangle and the black screen faded to an aerial view of the sea. Land came into view. Then cliffs, white ones. Cue Vera Lynn soundtrack. I didn't manage to stop the film before the drone swept over the coast and closed in on a military character standing on the edge of the white cliffs wearing what looked like WW1 uniform - don't ask why. I have no idea why whatever was in the video was important enough to presume on my acquaintance that I would be prepared to acquiesce to his request to pass it on. I have no idea why it would "mean a lot". I perceive such encouragement as being very close to bullying. If I dare dissemble from the prevailing narrative I am somehow betraying the legacy of those who "gave their lives" in a terrible conflict. Again, I cannot see it that way. Most of the men who fought in the two world wars may have "given" their lives from the perspective of grieving families. They undoubtedly signed up for a cause they honestly felt was just. But then, just as now, propaganda was rife. How is it possible to know who is telling the truth? So, in another sense, their lives were also "taken". I'm certainly not going to deny that very many of these soldiers whose lives were taken showed immense courage in the face of paralysing fear. Indeed they were the stout-hearted lions who were badly let down by the donkeys who couldn't work out any other means of resolving conflict and who never left these shores. Neither can I deny that many acts of bravery were carried out in pursuit of their work. However, I also suspect that those who fought against what must have been overwhelming pressure to enlist showed great courage too. Courage like that needed to be even more resilient, because accusations of cowardice last forever. I think it takes courage for families and individuals to endure shame for taking action consistent with a principle in a moral cause. I feel the same discomfort over the annual pressure to buy and wear poppies. I've been aware of this antipathy for well over fifty years. I met up with an old school friend for the first time since our school days a few years ago and he had remembered how rabidly anti-war I had been at the time. Now, of course, I realise that life is far more complicated and even professional members of the military can be anti-war. We go about expressing our principles in different ways perhaps. However, I have never had to take part in any kind of military action and for that I am very grateful. I was born ten years, a week and a day after Victory in Europe was declared. I never had to come to terms with the aftermath of the country of my birth having been invaded. Having a French partner I see the evidence everywhere when I'm there. It's in the street names in every town. I have a Dutch friend who remembers a line across the school playground. His friends never crossed that line. On one side of it were the children of the families of collaborators and on the other the children of families associated with the resistance during the war. How does one ever come to terms with something like that? For me the waving of national flags, the display of the bunting serves more to perpetuate what divides us than what we have achieved since then.
Sorry, that wasn't what I wanted to mention. My concerns seem so petty now. I'll come back to them perhaps.
I've put it off all week, but I was forced to go out and buy some food today. I know I have the click and collection on Monday, but I have been without fresh fruit and vegetables for a few days and that is upsetting. Everything's upsetting at the moment. I am near to tears all the time. I should be strong. I could be maintaining vigilance because I know I don't trust the government not to take full advantage of the diversion this pandemic is providing. I should be writing letters to my MP, but I can't see the point. Despite having written a number of letters to him over the years I have can count the replies I have had on the fingers of two fingers - that's not counting the automatic "out of office, will get back to you soon" or the soothing nonsense of an unpaid lacky. The MP for my previous place of residence usually took months to reply, but he eventually got round round to it, not that his replies were ever useful in the terms that we might find ourselves in some sort of accord. Anyway, I'll go and cook something to eat.
Did you see the swan family this afternoon? Eight cygnets, probably no more than a week or so old. No doubt they'll be back. I shall probably try and get a photograph. They were in a hurry to get somewhere. They don't function on your scale of speed though. I wonder if they even register on your vision?
I'm supposed to be singing something in a virtual folk club tonight. I can't bring myself to practise anything. Once again I shan't be able to go in. I'm going to have to force myself sometime. Just not tonight.
Goodnight dear Kingfisher.
marsh
Wednesday, 6 May 2020
Letters To A Kingfisher - 2
Dear Kingfisher,
Blow me down! It's almost as though one of my trolls has been following me ...
Last evening after I'd posted yesterday's letter I received an unexpected e-mail from Second Troll. It was a lovely message enquiring after my health and general well-being considering that I must have lost a substantial part of my income. This person has lived with significant health issues for decades and had just yesterday experienced a first hold up in the delivery of live-saving medication since becoming a person at serious risk. It was nice to resume friendly exchanges of messages. I just wanted to go on record to mention that.
I meant to mention it yesterday, but I hope you appreciate that I made an attempt to ease some of the danger from your nesting season. I saw a mink disappear under the shed door at the weekend. I thought it was an otter because I've only seen black mink until now, but this one was coconut brown. Then, after a little research, I realised that otters were actually a lot bigger than I thought and mink now come in many colours. I don't visit the shed often but it is useful for storing stuff. When I opened it, the smell was unmistakeable and there was a pile of the distinctive mink droppings spread around the floor, but heaping up into a pile in the corner. Sad to say there were also a lot of black feathers about the place. I thought Mrs Moorhen's family seemed a little less in evidence this year. This discovery explained it. I could hear and catch glimpses of the mink as it moved to hide behind the boxes, tools and spare, probably useless, parts for the boat engine. I wasn't going to be able to manage this alone so I went to find Barry The B. Barry is an elderly terrier that is part of a small pack that occasionally sniffs, barks and makes a nuisance of themselves on my mooring. We are on very good terms now, but it did take a few years for him to stop nipping at my ankles every time I walked anywhere nearby. Being fourteen years old he is not now as agile as he once was, but he got to work immediately. He managed to corner the mink in a box, but had to be careful because mink are savage, vicious predators and this one would think nothing of attacking Barry and inflicting some serious damage; particularly so because I suspected she was nesting. By this time the Farmer had also arrived with a gun. The mink was dispatched with a single shot (hissing and screaming as she lunged at the intruding muzzle) and Barry was allowed to deal with the six kits. They can't have been very old at all since they were blind, hairless and each was still in an almost foetal ball. It makes me very sad to have been responsible for the death of these animals, but the damage that seven mink could cause, not to mentioned the devastation they would inflict on all the wildlife round here require that they are dealt with as soon as possible.
In slightly better news, I made another attempt yesterday to get into the online food shopping thing. I know this won't interest you since you forage for your own food, but I managed to locate most of the stuff I want to buy on the supermarket's website. When I tried before it was a time-consuming and highly frustrating experience and I abandoned the miserable process before completion. I was surprised to see that, if I was quick, I should be able to arrange a pick up that day. I clicked to collect between 4 and 6pm. Somehow though, I didn't notice until I received the confirmation e-mail message that 4-6pm was not yesterday, but next Monday. I tried to change the booking (or "slot" as they are quaintly designated) but that was the earliest available. I may have to become a bit smarter in how I do my shopping if I continue in this manner. The £1 or £1.50 charge for the service is bearable, but the prices in the store were cheaper for two of certain items. The discounts weren't applied to this online list. That's kind of incidental to the real conundrum though. I've run out of a few things and some other supplies are going to be used up before Monday. Do I risk a run to the supermarket? If I go, how much should I buy? I don't want next Monday's provisions to go off because I have insufficient storage on the boat. I think I am also losing some of the confidence to go out. I've been putting it off until having to go out is unavoidable. It's difficult being human sometimes.
I'm saving the best news for last. Like me, you will have noticed the return yesterday of two pairs of swallows; at least I'm assuming you noticed. I can't tell you how much joy that brought me. Do kingfishers experience joy? I know you're here with your family all year round, but the swallows travel some six thousand miles to return here after wintering south of the Sahara Desert. A few weeks ago I read of a tragedy in Greece. Thousands of swallows had been discovered dead from exhaustion while others were found staggering around on the ground too exhausted to continue flying. The blame was placed on the protracted period of wind from the north, which made their journeys so much more difficult. Normally I would expect swallows to begin arriving in April but, until yesterday, there was no sign of them. I feared they would not get back here at all. My heart swelled inside me when I saw the first pair swoop over the river. I'm not ashamed to admit that I also shed a tear or two. This isolation is hard going and I have to take my joy as, if and when it comes.
Anyway, that's it for today.
Love and best wishes,
marsh
x
Blow me down! It's almost as though one of my trolls has been following me ...
Last evening after I'd posted yesterday's letter I received an unexpected e-mail from Second Troll. It was a lovely message enquiring after my health and general well-being considering that I must have lost a substantial part of my income. This person has lived with significant health issues for decades and had just yesterday experienced a first hold up in the delivery of live-saving medication since becoming a person at serious risk. It was nice to resume friendly exchanges of messages. I just wanted to go on record to mention that.
 |
| From discover wildlife.com |
In slightly better news, I made another attempt yesterday to get into the online food shopping thing. I know this won't interest you since you forage for your own food, but I managed to locate most of the stuff I want to buy on the supermarket's website. When I tried before it was a time-consuming and highly frustrating experience and I abandoned the miserable process before completion. I was surprised to see that, if I was quick, I should be able to arrange a pick up that day. I clicked to collect between 4 and 6pm. Somehow though, I didn't notice until I received the confirmation e-mail message that 4-6pm was not yesterday, but next Monday. I tried to change the booking (or "slot" as they are quaintly designated) but that was the earliest available. I may have to become a bit smarter in how I do my shopping if I continue in this manner. The £1 or £1.50 charge for the service is bearable, but the prices in the store were cheaper for two of certain items. The discounts weren't applied to this online list. That's kind of incidental to the real conundrum though. I've run out of a few things and some other supplies are going to be used up before Monday. Do I risk a run to the supermarket? If I go, how much should I buy? I don't want next Monday's provisions to go off because I have insufficient storage on the boat. I think I am also losing some of the confidence to go out. I've been putting it off until having to go out is unavoidable. It's difficult being human sometimes.
I'm saving the best news for last. Like me, you will have noticed the return yesterday of two pairs of swallows; at least I'm assuming you noticed. I can't tell you how much joy that brought me. Do kingfishers experience joy? I know you're here with your family all year round, but the swallows travel some six thousand miles to return here after wintering south of the Sahara Desert. A few weeks ago I read of a tragedy in Greece. Thousands of swallows had been discovered dead from exhaustion while others were found staggering around on the ground too exhausted to continue flying. The blame was placed on the protracted period of wind from the north, which made their journeys so much more difficult. Normally I would expect swallows to begin arriving in April but, until yesterday, there was no sign of them. I feared they would not get back here at all. My heart swelled inside me when I saw the first pair swoop over the river. I'm not ashamed to admit that I also shed a tear or two. This isolation is hard going and I have to take my joy as, if and when it comes.
 |
| From livingwithbirds.com |
Anyway, that's it for today.
Love and best wishes,
marsh
x
Tuesday, 5 May 2020
Letters To A Kingfisher - 1
I break with my own convention of writing "of" this or "of" that, because I think this sequence of messages to myself (although admittedly theoretically also to the rest of the world) will have a different feel and purpose. A friend, a fellow songwriter, noticed I was getting low. We were both in a Zoom meeting and he followed the meeting up, with a personal message on one of the social websites we both use, to express his concern. For that I thank him. He was correct. I am finding it increasingly difficult to keep my spirits up in this horrible time. I am confined to a beautiful and remote spot in the Fens and most days are beautiful and sunny, but the motivation to do or be anything worthwhile is leaving me standing while it gallops away apace. Songwriter Friend (SF for short, although that does bring to mind a Pretty Things album that sums the mood well) suggested I address a series of letters to the kingfisher. Few members of the homo sapiens community will read them if the experience of this blog is anything to go by, and almost certainly no one will respond to this stream of consciousness. That is perfectly acceptable to me. If I wanted a response I'd write something on, say, Twitter. I think that any further blog posts under the heading of "Letters To A Kingfisher ..." or labelled "Kingfisher Letters" should, however, be considered more extreme self-indulgence than usual and avoided like a ... virus? I may read these back in a year's time and choose to delete them all.
A few weeks ago I thought I would make a lighthearted reference to my irritation at being unable to alter or get a refund for some European rail tickets I had booked to a friend's concert. The concert was the opening of a twenty-date European mainland tour and most of the shows had been sold out. I also booked overnight accommodation since the journey on the three trains there was going to take me six hours. It was a birthday present to myself on the occasion of what would once have been a significant birthday. It is no longer significant, because the government changed the rules and I have to wait an extra year for my seniority. Having mentioned the pension, I feel I now have to make reference to the appalling scam perpetrated on women who were diddled out of six years of their pensions, but I shan't ... oh bugger ... and, oh, that's just like the women who have to tell me that FGM is a far bigger social issue than MGM, whenever I sing "Circumcision". They're probably right, but my song is what it is. If they feel so strongly they could always write their own bloody songs and, no, that doesn't feel better.
These days it appears that people are not allowed to express an opinion without being "called out" on it. I appreciate that there are points of view that endanger other people and these should probably be challenged, specially when expressed in a public forum, but chiding me for expressing disappointment felt excessive. To be honest it took me back to the time I was made to stand in the corner of the dining room in junior school for returning the pea my mate, Glen, flicked at me across the table. I wasn't a naughty boy (not often anyway - although to be fair Glen frequently was - I think that's why we became friends) and being made to stand in the corner felt like an unjust response to something that was simply amusing. If the dinner lady disapproved of what we were doing a verbal warning would have sufficed to deter me from continuing the game.
But no, it seems my feelings of disappointment are invalid in light of the "bigger picture". I managed to get refunds for the hotel and the show has been rebooked for next year, but I seem to be able to do nothing about the trains. A friend who is on the verge of being designated "Third Troll" decided a telling-off was required. Verge? No dammit, I now have a 3 trolls on social media. I could hear the disapproval in the message as I read it and see the expression of disgust on the face of the writer in my imagination. Yes, 3rdT has daughters on the front line of medical care and is worried to distraction for their safety. If 3rdT feels my worries are trivial in comparison, that is a valid opinion. I am ready to acknowledge that and offer whatever degree of support and sympathy remain within my power to offer, but to be shamed in public for a triviality seems disproportionate. I don't know how helpful it is for anyone to play "my woes are bigger than your woes, so what are you moaning about?" Still less do I want to graduate to the other game - you know, the one that starts "look what I'm doing for the good of the nation, what are you actually doing?"
As it happens I had actually prepared the ground on this occasion. Every penny counts and all my work disappeared over the course of two or three days while I was still in France. My concern was that I could not get a refund or re-book the travel for a later date. Somehow I am expected to support a huge and international organisation because it is withdrawing its service when I am not entirely clear how I can afford to put flour in the bread-maker, assuming I can find any on shop shelves to purchase. Okay that is an exaggeration, I can probably afford it, but my situation is not exactly secure. The self-employed sole-trader is not at the head of the queue for the government's 80% offer.
Bearing in mind I have somehow acquired three trolls, all of whom were once undoubtedly my friends, I have given up trying to articulate a point of view and more recently I have even stopped sharing interesting articles on social media. Responding to every rant they write takes hours. I try to do it with politeness, depth and with more light than heat. If they actually change my mind by something they have researched that may have been news to me beforehand I acknowledge that and thank them. Mostly though, what I see when they post to my page is just ranting; often having little to do with the subject I raised. First and Second Trolls, have hobby-horses, favourite subjects they like to introduce into any and every discussion. First sees socialists and anti-Semites everywhere while Second sees "remoaners". I am sick of trying to be reasonable and I am worn out with trying to be polite. The fire may return eventually, but at the moment, the ashes are not glowing brightly on my sense of humour and I am not just self-isolating, but self-censoring. This has been going on for weeks.
I guess what has brought this to a head is that another friend of mine posted something about trees. Because she had tagged me her post attracted the attention of all three of my trolls and they responded very true to form. It was horrible to see this feeding frenzy. My friend is autistic and I have no idea how she has taken the verbal duffing-up she has just received.
I want to be kind, but some people make it very hard.
Dear Kingfisher,
Thanks so much for listening.
Lots of love,
marsh
x
A few weeks ago I thought I would make a lighthearted reference to my irritation at being unable to alter or get a refund for some European rail tickets I had booked to a friend's concert. The concert was the opening of a twenty-date European mainland tour and most of the shows had been sold out. I also booked overnight accommodation since the journey on the three trains there was going to take me six hours. It was a birthday present to myself on the occasion of what would once have been a significant birthday. It is no longer significant, because the government changed the rules and I have to wait an extra year for my seniority. Having mentioned the pension, I feel I now have to make reference to the appalling scam perpetrated on women who were diddled out of six years of their pensions, but I shan't ... oh bugger ... and, oh, that's just like the women who have to tell me that FGM is a far bigger social issue than MGM, whenever I sing "Circumcision". They're probably right, but my song is what it is. If they feel so strongly they could always write their own bloody songs and, no, that doesn't feel better.
These days it appears that people are not allowed to express an opinion without being "called out" on it. I appreciate that there are points of view that endanger other people and these should probably be challenged, specially when expressed in a public forum, but chiding me for expressing disappointment felt excessive. To be honest it took me back to the time I was made to stand in the corner of the dining room in junior school for returning the pea my mate, Glen, flicked at me across the table. I wasn't a naughty boy (not often anyway - although to be fair Glen frequently was - I think that's why we became friends) and being made to stand in the corner felt like an unjust response to something that was simply amusing. If the dinner lady disapproved of what we were doing a verbal warning would have sufficed to deter me from continuing the game.
But no, it seems my feelings of disappointment are invalid in light of the "bigger picture". I managed to get refunds for the hotel and the show has been rebooked for next year, but I seem to be able to do nothing about the trains. A friend who is on the verge of being designated "Third Troll" decided a telling-off was required. Verge? No dammit, I now have a 3 trolls on social media. I could hear the disapproval in the message as I read it and see the expression of disgust on the face of the writer in my imagination. Yes, 3rdT has daughters on the front line of medical care and is worried to distraction for their safety. If 3rdT feels my worries are trivial in comparison, that is a valid opinion. I am ready to acknowledge that and offer whatever degree of support and sympathy remain within my power to offer, but to be shamed in public for a triviality seems disproportionate. I don't know how helpful it is for anyone to play "my woes are bigger than your woes, so what are you moaning about?" Still less do I want to graduate to the other game - you know, the one that starts "look what I'm doing for the good of the nation, what are you actually doing?"
As it happens I had actually prepared the ground on this occasion. Every penny counts and all my work disappeared over the course of two or three days while I was still in France. My concern was that I could not get a refund or re-book the travel for a later date. Somehow I am expected to support a huge and international organisation because it is withdrawing its service when I am not entirely clear how I can afford to put flour in the bread-maker, assuming I can find any on shop shelves to purchase. Okay that is an exaggeration, I can probably afford it, but my situation is not exactly secure. The self-employed sole-trader is not at the head of the queue for the government's 80% offer.
Bearing in mind I have somehow acquired three trolls, all of whom were once undoubtedly my friends, I have given up trying to articulate a point of view and more recently I have even stopped sharing interesting articles on social media. Responding to every rant they write takes hours. I try to do it with politeness, depth and with more light than heat. If they actually change my mind by something they have researched that may have been news to me beforehand I acknowledge that and thank them. Mostly though, what I see when they post to my page is just ranting; often having little to do with the subject I raised. First and Second Trolls, have hobby-horses, favourite subjects they like to introduce into any and every discussion. First sees socialists and anti-Semites everywhere while Second sees "remoaners". I am sick of trying to be reasonable and I am worn out with trying to be polite. The fire may return eventually, but at the moment, the ashes are not glowing brightly on my sense of humour and I am not just self-isolating, but self-censoring. This has been going on for weeks.
I guess what has brought this to a head is that another friend of mine posted something about trees. Because she had tagged me her post attracted the attention of all three of my trolls and they responded very true to form. It was horrible to see this feeding frenzy. My friend is autistic and I have no idea how she has taken the verbal duffing-up she has just received.
I want to be kind, but some people make it very hard.
Dear Kingfisher,
Thanks so much for listening.
Lots of love,
marsh
x
Tuesday, 31 March 2020
Of Death Chants, Lockdowns and Military Waltzes Part 4
I'm guessing there are a lot of people in a similar situation. Here I am on Day Fourteen of my second period of self-imposed isolation due to rampaging COVID-19; this also means thirty days or thereabouts in quarantine since my return from Venice. I am, of course, relieved that I have not developed any symptoms, but how can I know if I am a carrier without taking a proper test? Will I recognise a dry persistent cough? Probably, because I don't normally cough much. I've no idea what feeling hot on my front or back is meant to mean. I hope I never find out. I do feel very sad for those people who are worried about (or who have indeed lost) loved ones. To the best of my knowledge the worst thing that seems to have happened in my family is that one of my granddaughters has very sore hands from washing them so often and so thoroughly. Other friends have not fared so well. At least two have lost close friends or family members. Whatever has happened so far, I still see this experience as a warning shot across our bows. We have abused our world by poisoning it and decimating the variety of species, we continue to abuse each other over our differences and, a few nights ago our smirking prime minister delivered a message I imagine he never expected to deliver when he was metaphorically elbowing his way through the crowd to succeed Theresa May in Downing Street. Taken from the gov.uk website the message was:
“… the government is now (23 March 2020) introducing three new measures.
- Requiring people to stay at home, except for very limited purposes
- Closing non-essential shops and community spaces
- Stopping all gatherings of more than two people in public
Every citizen must comply with these new measures. The relevant authorities, including the police, will be given the powers to enforce them – including through fines and dispersing gatherings.
These measures are effective immediately. The Government will look again at these measures in three weeks, and relax them if the evidence shows this is possible.” New legislation has been rushed through to reinforce this decree. Emergency law has a tendency to become fixed. We’ll have to see where this goes.
Such measures are, of course, unprecedented within the memories of most people I know. I've never taken to the term, “baby-boomer”, but I am of that age. Now, of course, baby-boomer has somehow become “boomer” - a term of abuse for the allegedly avaricious ageing generation that was born during the twenty years that followed World War II, somehow forgetting we were also a generation that fought for and won rights quite unknown before. For certain, there are many people in my generation who enjoyed comforts and social advantage never before experienced. I have been privileged to experience the National Health Service actually being free, before charges for prescriptions, dental treatment and optician checkups were introduced. I received a grant to attend college to train as a teacher. There was no expectation I would ever have to pay it back except the moral one to stay in the job long enough to make a contribution. With twenty-one years service I think I managed that. I was employed in the state education sector until my bosses saw fit to make my job redundant and had it not been for that event I would probably still be in education to this day. Strangely, within weeks of losing my job I was receiving phone calls and offers of work to compensate for the support that no longer existed to maintain the quality of music education in schools. Salaries in education for the frontline workforce were never generous, but we did take home a more modest income in return for the expectation that an occupational pension would be paid at a later time and based on the final salary we had worked up to during our careers. This was also true in health and social care, the civil service the emergency services, the justice system, the armed forces and even the established church and no doubt a number of other occupations that came mainly under the headings of "service".
Successive governments under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher and beyond, worked hard from 1979 onwards to begin the process of dismantling all the important advances that society had made in the post-war years. The police became an arm of state control rather than simply law-enforcement when Mrs Thatcher used them to battle one set of workers after another, stripping away hard-won rights. I don't know, though, that even she foresaw how far the whole process would be taken by the governments that followed hers although none went as far as she did when she declared “there is no such thing as society”. David Cameron did say that “we are all in this together”, but we knew straight away that he didn’t mean it. How could he? It didn't really matter what colour the flags of the post-Thatcher governments were, we were betrayed by all of them to some degree. I have seen this happen gradually over the last forty years. People can now be given on the spot fines for being out in public without being there for one of a very few specified reasons. We are teetering on the edge of martial law. The face of that edge bears the smirk of our present prime minister, Boris Johnson.
I doubt that any government has ever been capable of pleasing everyone, but we have been witness to progressively smaller numbers of people taking a bigger slice of the pie. This, of course, is inevitably and by definition at the expense of the majority. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is greater than it has ever been. Until very recently I was of the opinion that climate change, species depletion, hyper-industrialisation and the subsequent pollution that has resulted would be the causes of our demise as a viable species on the planet. We have certainly squandered the riches we accumulated and handed them over, along with increasing numbers of our rights to multi-national business interests. Somehow we have come to believe that we needed austerity to be able to pay back the banks after the knock-on effect of the madness of selling debt as a commodity that began with so-called "sub-prime mortgages" in the USA. This started the gambling affliction that infected bankers around the world. We were led to believe that the countries that had come together for a common good after the horror of war on a massive scale were moving towards the formation of a super-state that would control every aspect of our lives. For four decades we were subjected to propaganda that has resulted, rightly or wrongly, in the Disunited Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland pulling out of the European Union, a process that has been likened to attempting to remove the eggs from an omelette. I find it hard to embrace the irony of this happening just as the world, and Europe in particular, is itself embraced in the arms of a pandemic, a microscopic virus for which we have no cure, that is seeing people everywhere being subjected to emergency "lockdown" regulations. Just when we need cooperation and kindness on a global scale we are distancing ourselves from our friends and allies. We are out in a metaphorical desert and waiting for the circling vultures to land and pick off the remaining bits of scraggy flesh.
Within a period of days I, like many of my musician friends, have lost all the paid work I had in the diary for the foreseeable future. My diary is quite light, but so are my needs, but one friend saw the unravelling of several sold-out dates on a German tour. All the arrangements, the fine detail, the booking of musicians in the band along with the road and administrative staff and the merchandising operation that makes this sort of thing possible has had to be changed. I'm personally affected because I had booked four trains and an overnight hotel to travel from France to one of the gigs in Bavaria. Thankfully I hadn't yet got round to organising the other ten trains that would get me to my start point of the trip in France. It was to be a birthday present to myself.
So I have no income and no prospect of any. Fortunately I am not destitute and I have managed to live carefully enough for long enough to be able to survive for a while longer. However, the inadequate and overly complicated arrangements being made to compensate people in formal employment are going to prove a very difficult path for me to negotiate as a self-employed sole-trading musician. Being already outside the system it feels like I'm being buried.
It is March. The weather is all wrong. After the floods of winter we have had little rain for a while and I am sitting outdoors to write this. The Farmer tells me the UK will need to find 50,000,000 tonnes of wheat to make up the UK's shortfall later this year. The fields were too waterlogged to be able to plant winter crops. Winter wheat is best for bread flour. Those same fields are now baked too hard to plant the usual spring seeds. We don't have any of the promised "easy" international trading arrangements in place after leaving the EU and we have a government that seems to have been paralysed and incapable of fulfilling its moral obligations to the people and the planet.
I have no idea of how the end of the year is going to look. I don't understand how the new boy chancellor has managed to find the three-figure billion sum when last week we couldn't fund the nurses or the labourers who are leaving or being sent home after "we got our country back". I've been told the voluntary work I started this year for a local homelessness trust has to stop. Once my latest quarantine period shows me likely to be virus free I shall be allowed out for exercise for just a short period once a day, although I cannot meet up with any other people and I can only go out otherwise to shop for necessary items of food. I tried registering online for a supermarket delivery, but the website does not list most of the items I usually buy from its nearest branch and I would starve to death before I could get a slot either to "click-and-collect" or book and pay for a delivery to the farm. Of course that always assumes there is actually anything left on the shelves anyway after the pointed elbows of the shoving crowds, the beaks and claws of the vultures have stripped everything bare. I have seen footage of rampaging crowds smashing their way through stores in Mexico and Sicily.
I don’t think optimism comes easily to me, but I have also seen some extraordinary acts of kindness during this very strange and unsettled period. My near neighbours here on the farm (near being a relative concept) have variously brought and left food for me whilst I have been in isolation. They have checked whether I needed any provisions brought in, they have brought logs for the stove. The Farmer added some books to a box containing a delicious lentil stew and some vegan ciabatti made for me at the weekend by his partner. Even more touching than that he made sure the books were on subjects that he thought might interest me (Rebellion and Tom Waites as it happens). A friend who fears greatly for her two daughters (one a nurse and the other a hospital doctor) has offered spare rooms in her house to hospital staff who need somewhere to stay closer to their place of employment, while they are having to up the number of shifts they work. I was particularly moved by that gesture. A little further afield, a woman I know who runs an online zero waste eco-shop stepped up when she discovered that the scandalous national shortfall in personal protective equipment for health workers was being exploited by more unscrupulous vultures. A friend of hers could not get hold of surgical masks for work, but she did find one on e-Bay for £100! She had no choice, but to buy it. Eco Woman immediately set about finding normally-priced masks through a business contact and set up a crowd-funding campaign. Within twenty-three hours she had raised enough money for 2,600 masks which will go to hospital staff in her area. In the Czech Republic there has been a national effort to make masks for people who need them. Everyone will be aware of many small acts of kindness that have brought out some of the best in our society. Maybe strangest of all, Boris Johnson - in his self-isolation after experiencing apparently mild symptoms of the virus - has also distanced himself from Margaret Thatcher by declaring that there is such a thing as society after all.
Wednesday, 18 March 2020
Of Death Chants, Lockdowns and Military Waltzes Part 3
Finally I made it back to England last night after my unexpectedly long trip to the Venice Carnival. I nearly didn't make it and at no stage of the journey, until I sat on the last train home and we'd pulled out of Ely, was I completely confident that I was going to get back to the boat. The relief of making it by ten o'clock in the evening after twelve hours of travel was very real.
As I have already mentioned I was in two minds as to whether to stick to my original plans and come back a fortnight ago or whether to rebook my rail journeys - all five of them. Because the public were so worried about the publicity surrounding people who had been to Italy, it felt the responsible thing to do would be to isolate myself and rebook my journeys. What I didn't take into account was that there would be a domino stack of countries closing their borders and pretty much all their facilities and services. I guess it is not just the Brexit effect that can do that then!
Having escaped Venice a week before the Italian borders were closed and everyone told to stay indoors I barely made it out of France before the same thing was due to happen. Schools in France had already been closed and P's brother sent us a warning text message on Monday afternoon that the notice had been issued. France was due to close at mid-day yesterday (Tuesday) and my train from Geneva to Paris was due to leave at 12.29 - half an hour after shutdown. I expected getting over the border into Switzerland to be easy enough if I left in plenty of time, but I had no certainty about what might happen next. I didn't know if I would be stopped from crossing back again on the Geneva to Paris train or whether any of my trains would be cancelled at the last minute.
As I have already mentioned I was in two minds as to whether to stick to my original plans and come back a fortnight ago or whether to rebook my rail journeys - all five of them. Because the public were so worried about the publicity surrounding people who had been to Italy, it felt the responsible thing to do would be to isolate myself and rebook my journeys. What I didn't take into account was that there would be a domino stack of countries closing their borders and pretty much all their facilities and services. I guess it is not just the Brexit effect that can do that then!
Having escaped Venice a week before the Italian borders were closed and everyone told to stay indoors I barely made it out of France before the same thing was due to happen. Schools in France had already been closed and P's brother sent us a warning text message on Monday afternoon that the notice had been issued. France was due to close at mid-day yesterday (Tuesday) and my train from Geneva to Paris was due to leave at 12.29 - half an hour after shutdown. I expected getting over the border into Switzerland to be easy enough if I left in plenty of time, but I had no certainty about what might happen next. I didn't know if I would be stopped from crossing back again on the Geneva to Paris train or whether any of my trains would be cancelled at the last minute.
The new Léman Express train into Switzerland operates about six trains an hour. I arrived at our local French station to be met by the usual posse of helpful functionaries asking what I was hoping to do. The booking desk was closed and shuttered and all the self-service ticket machines had been switched off. I explained I was trying to get to Genève and one uniformed SNCF employee told me, "depêchez-vous à voie F, monsieur". I dépêched for all I was worth, down the steps to the linking tunnel between the platforms lugging my heavy suitcase. As I was to find out at many points throughout the day, very few of the escalators or lifts were working and who wanted to be trapped in a lift with other people exhaling who-knows-what contagions anyway? Still less did I fancy poking at the buttons that had been pressed by who-knows-whom. Despite the rush I was beginning to form in my head more worries about travelling without a ticket. Fines for travelling without a valid ticket can be huge and I've seen people caught out. As I ran I was trying to work out how to say in French that I couldn't buy a ticket before the journey and was told to hurry to catch this train. I managed to board the train, albeit glowing hot and out of breath - really not a good look. Fellow travellers were obviously on the lookout for passengers displaying the symptoms of covid-19. I collapsed in a seat and not for the first time tried to work out if the plan was for this train to head across the border to Geneva. This wonderful new regional rail service has monitors viewable from almost every angle, which, of course, display destinations and the intermediate stops - just not all of them. The suspension points indicating that the story of the impending journey was not being told in full missed out "Genève". The audible announcement only listed the first couple of stops and the final destination which, although normal for this part of the world is always slightly alarming for the traveller more used to the rather more affirming British system of listing every single stop, the number of carriages and where to sit for when the train is divided as it inevitably is at Cambridge. The hurry had been a little pointless too. We missed three timetabled deadlines before the train actually left the station for Switzerland. This turned out to be a feature of the day as I was to see more cancelled train journeys than timetable slots being honoured. Also groundless was my anxiety about travelling sans billet on this occasion. There were no inspectors on this train and there are no automatic barriers in Geneva on the buses or the trains, but the fines are huge.
Arriving in Switzerland at Gare Cornavin, the main station in Geneva, I had to transfer from platform 1 to platform 8, from where the majority of the long-haul trains through France leave. Before being allowed on to platform 8 one has to pass through a border control station complete with Swiss and French customs points . A few months ago somebody had the bright idea that passengers were no longer to be allowed through border security and customs more than thirty minutes before their train is due to leave. The holding area now is a single bench seat in a small and stuffy area separated from the main station shopping precinct by the inevitable sliding doors. Beyond border control there is a much larger seating space with public toilets. Swiss pragmatism? French bureaucracy? Who knows? The only people who care are the passengers who stand outside by the shops because there is no seating for them in the waiting zone. I don't care much for this arrangement at the best of times so yesterday, I sat outdoors on my suitcase on a paved area outside a café among the smokers and the beggars. It was a nice day and the air tasted much fresher - no hint of virus ... well not much, anyway part from a few people wearing an interesting variety of protective masks and a few others with scarves wrapped around their faces.
From here I had a view of the departure board for Voie 8. Of the five trains listed over the course of the following hour, four carried the dreaded "supprimé" label. Just one train was running, a TER service to Bellegarde. Mine wasn't yet listed; more anxiety.
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| Everything is listed in the main three languages in Switzerland. The railway's Italian abbreviation summed the mood perfectly. |
Eventually I went up on to the platform and didn't have to wait long for the train to pull in. I had a seat booked on the lower deck in carriage 16 of this double-decker train. I've learned my lesson about nausea-inducing travelling on the upper deck. As it happened, there weren't many passengers at all, so the next three and a half hours looked to be bearable after all. That was a nice dream until we arrived at the first of two scheduled intermediate stops. At Bellegarde my compartment of about fifty seats filled. There was not enough seating for the luggage being carried. It spilled into the aisle and some people were forced to carry suitcases, but mostly rucksacks, right through the carriage. Before we pulled out of the station a woman started berating another passenger at a volume somewhere north of the threshold of pain. This went on for several minutes, with no apparent pause for an intake of breath despite the wonderfully polite older woman who nobly stood up and implored, "S'il vous plaît, madame, calmez vous." The anger was turned on her with a withering ferocity. A few anonymous jeers were offered by other (mostly male, all seated) voices, but the harangue continued until the agitante was all screamed out. Apart from that the journey was event free until, about an hour later the woman who had implored for quiet began to cough. The young man of student age sitting across the table from her looked all around him in, firstly concern, then helplessness, then mild terror. He wrapped his scarf around his face ... twice.
At the Gare de Lyon I found a different way of getting off the platform. A new gate had been opened to the subterranean Hall 3. Why hadn't I noticed this before considering all the times I have used this station? It saved a lot of walking. I recognised where I was and it was a very short walk from the RER platform for the connecting train to Paris Nord. I shall certainly look out for that next time, whenever that turns out to be. The RER was pulling in as I descended the steps to the platform and I didn't have to wait at all.
At the Gare du Nord I had to lug my suitcase up long flights of steps, since no escalators or lifts were operating, to a concourse that would eventually lead to the mainline station (les Grandes Lignes). As usual I stood to get my bearings. I have made so many wrong turns ascending from the Métro or RER at Paris Nord that I no longer know which is the right direction for the familiarity associated with all the wrong directions I have taken. I guess I looked like a newbie because I was approached by a man who wanted to offer help or so he said. He spoke a little English because, I gathered, he had a wife ... there may have been a connection. He showed me where to go and I was in very unfamiliar territory by the time he led me to some more ticket machines and told me I had to buy another ticket to be able get out into the mainline station. This journey had cost me enough extra money already and I was certainly not intending to buy unnecessary tickets. I've never had to buy them before. I am currently still slightly haunted by the fading memory of the hurt look on his face as I thanked him, but took no heed of his advice, rather walking away and trusting my past experience of getting to the upper levels of the main station. I managed that perfectly with no extra payment required although I did have to lug my suitcase up yet more stairs, a lot of stairs. The exit gates to the Métro had all been left open at Paris Nord. Weird, but not the first weird thing I'd experienced during the day.
At least the escalator up to the Eurostar check-in was operating, unlike the biometric gates for French Border Control. My passport is one containing the appropriate data and usually works. Yesterday it didn't. It is claustrophobic enough being hemmed in by closed gates ahead and behind, without waiting for what seems like forever for the gates in front to slide apart after the scanning process has finished, without said gates remaining firmly fermée and the written instruction to "report to the border police" being displayed. Rubber hoses? Latex gloves? Sometimes it is hard to remember that travelling by air is far, far worse and much more dehumanising. The lone border policeman scrutinised my features very slowly and for a very long time. I suppose he is trained to recognise faces that are hidden by bohemian beards that have sprouted since a passport photograph was taken. He seemed quite undecided about me, but eventually let me through. In contrast the UK border control machine round the corner had no difficulty recognising my features as belonging to a long lost son of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The gates slid open to let me through with only the most cursory examination of my irises. After that it was the metal-detecting archways, scanners and x-ray machines. I pride myself on getting through these without having to spread-eagle for an officer to pat me up and down and I managed that bit. There was, though, a holdup in the queue to retrieve our belongings beyond the magic archway. I was dreading having to open my suitcase and start taking things out. I had packed it very carefully. It was very heavy, very full, though there were hardly any clothes. I'm sure they see a lot stranger items than a computer and a lot of artisanal vegan chocolate. I keep a full wardrobe of clothes at P's apartment although strictly speaking that should be several wardrobes and, apart from the shirts on hangers on a coat stand and a dress rail, my clothes are actually in cardboard boxes. I was relieved that I was not, this time, the cause of the delay. It was a man in front of me whose suitcase needed to be examined in closer detail. I wonder what he was carrying ...
The Eurostar departures lounge was almost deserted. There was one very unkempt man slumped over on a bench looking as though he had been there since the opening of the Channel Tunnel, but very few others. I have never seen this space with so few people in it. Owing to the virus situation none of the food outlets were open either, so I am glad I had salvaged some "breadlets" from P's freezer that morning. There wasn't long to wait until we were called to board the train for Sanponcra Antaernational and it was true, there was hardly anyone else in carriage number twelve. Naturally there was someone sitting in the aisle seat next to my allotted window seat - unbelieveable, or it would have been had this been anyone else's life story. There were plenty of other seats so I told the man there was no need to move. I would find somewhere else to sit. I am so pleased I did. Some time into the journey he began cough constantly and when I looked round he was wearing a surgical mask and looking distinctly sweaty. That was an uncharacteristically lucky escape. Under normal circumstances I would have been trapped up against the window with him in the adjoining seat sharing his germs with extreme generosity.
The train left Paris and arrived in London to time. The evidence of the nearly empty train spread out before me as I strolled along the platform normally tightly packed with passengers jostling to get past security before being allowed out into the Muggle-world of the St Pancras shopping mall. Somewhere close by a man was singing loudly to the accompaniment of one of the free pianos and all the shops, including the food outlets, were open. What a contrast with France. The same was true when I crossed the road to King's Cross for my final train home. The day had one more concern saved up for me. My one-month return rail ticket had expired the day before, so I had to buy another one.
I bought a box of Brazilian black beans and rice from Leon and sat at one of the outside tables to eat it (using the bamboo cutlery I carry with me everywhere) before heading to Platform 0 for the last train of the day home. Is there another railway station anywhere in the world that has a Platform Zero and a Platform Nine-and-three-quarters? There's something about the promises evoked at King's Cross I have liked since I was a child. If anything, it is even better these days.
So today, one day later, I am sitting outside in my outdoor shelter from the rain, next to the boat, typing up this account of my experiences yesterday watching the occasional passing swan, moorhen or kingfisher. I think it's time to go and light the fire.
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| St Pancras International at 6.30pm on the day France closed down. |
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