Covid has given us a whole range of new words. Furlough - that has been brought into usage again and entered our language . Firebreaks - Wales has gone into one for the next two weeks . As I set off on my morning work I contemplate on what the week will bring . With each step I try to kick the leaves that fall on the ground . All wet and soggy . The air feels thick with dew and mist . It is not raining but it feels wet . Dank . I came across that word when I was about 11 years old. It was Christmas and I had received an Enid Blyton book. The Island of Adventure - the first of many that I would read. I received one every Christmas and The Island was the first in the series. The children went into the cave which was described as dank . I thought at first that this was a misprint . I reached for my dictionary and turned to D . I found dank and it was word that stayed with me ever after. Today was dank . A stillness that you get when the morning
My walk would take me through the estate and down the lanes to the Great Pond of Stubbing. There was about . I had the lanes to myself . As I walked I thought about the firebreak . Would it make the slightest bit of difference . Once it was over the pubs would and life would go on as if firebreak had never happened . Circuit breakers another word being used . Another idea to stop Covid in its tracks . Would it ? I wondered that as I took each step closer to the water . So what else had stopped because of Covid ? Halloween . Outside some houses were carved out pumpkins . The children would not be out this year knocking on doors . Instead sweets might be left on doorsteps or walls for them to take .
It was the end of October . The seasons had moved on . I had watched the lake over the seasons . Spring full of the young cygnets and mallard chicks . Moorhen and coot chicks in the bright green of Spring . The summer sun
shimmering on the water . The anglers catching their fishes . The leaves now turning . Not the glorious colours of most years . This year Covid seems to have muted the colours . The hedgerows red with hawthorn berries and the remnants of the last few blackberries . The cotoneasters bright orange and red berries clothed the house walls . The chapel doors were still closed . I saw a few people on my walk but not many .
I got home glad of the warmth of walking into the house . Glad to be home with a black coffee in front of me . A petticoat tail shortbread biscuit . I ripped off the thought of the day . Today the words of the Buddha were there to be read We are shaped by our thoughts Today my thoughts started off concentrating on dampness and Autumn . November just around the corner . 220 days gone since lockdown . The 11th month of the year just round the corner . Walking burned those thoughts into my mind . But equally the beauty of the scenery straight out of an Impressionist painting made me realise just how lovely the day had actually been . Gran described having cataracts as looking through a veil The mist of today reminded me of her saying that . I felt as if I were looking through a veil too as I looked over the still water of the Great Pond of Stubbing.
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