My neighbour and I go for a walk. A blustery warm early summer day where weeding, transplanting, planting and rearranging all fit together and then time for a walk and a few days of freedom enough to not be part of the desperation being felt throughout the world - to be able to continue with the garden and some sense of normality. Another week of long days will set the garden up for high summer and – who knows what that brings.
Here, we’ve barely been affected by the virus. Many of us live quietly on the fringes of great suburban sprawls. Apart from masks I’m not affected. Notwithstanding the ‘Lucky country’ irony and reality, we’re in just as precarious a position in the context of a wider world.
Here, and nature flourishes, Tiger Lilies burst forth out of the ground, TreeFerns unfurl their fronds in some ecstatic harmony which reminds me of ships setting sail.
‘Covid’ – say it fast enough and it sounds like Covert, under the cover. Don’t know quite what to make of that but ‘track and trace’ is all in place, all for ‘good and sound’ public health reasons and it won’t disappear when the pandemic gets replaced with yet another urgent problem.
Our local pub has started up their weekly live music nights again. Hooray for a bright spot. Most ‘sign in’ with their phones, a quick and easy QR scan, a matrix bar code which has become commonplace. My phone is old and I’m allowed to sign in with pen and paper but … for how long is anyone’s guess. It’s the ease with which our lives, our behaviour is being changed and manipulated which is of concern, the flow on effect as our children and grandchildren become accustomed to a reality which is basically being manufactured before our eyes in a way never seen before. It’s not benign, it’s a business model where we become the product.
Still … many a slip between cup and lip.
