Monday 26 October

First day of the half-term break but I went in to work this morning. Myself and others were delivering food parcels for our pupils who qualify for free school meals. It was great to have a team of volunteers giving up their time to ensure some of our most vulnerable families will be able to feed their kids. It really is getting that difficult.

As I was driving with the delivery on the back seat, I was struck with another emotional tidal wave. These have come along occasionally over the past year or two. It has been tough dealing with a few challenges personally and professionally throughout 2019 and 2020. The virus seemed to act as a distraction at the start but has become another cloud to add to the ongoing shit-storm. I guess it was a relief at the beginning because it was happening to us all.

So, I’m driving along and this piece of music is playing on the radio (I’ve never heard before) and the late morning sun is shining on the iridescent leaves on the trees. The branches now showing through like dark veins. The breeze was uncoupling them from their places. And my thoughts came thick and fast about the trials of family and physical disconnect from friends. The future is not looking too rosy as we battle the pandemic, economic turmoil and environmental crisis. And I contemplated that, this year, the whole world has stopped smiling.

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But it has been a day if two halves. This morning was bitter-sweet. This afternoon was simply simple. After lunch, the four of us drove the ten minute journey to Stratford St Mary and we walked Mabel in the beautiful landscape of Constable country.

Getting outside. I know I’ve talked about it before, and it has been mentioned many times by people over the past few months. But a walk in the fresh air and soul cleansing countryside is priceless right now.

Sunday 25 October

The day started with wind and rain but ended with calm breezes and clear skies with distant clouds.

Referee duties again today. As much as I love it, I do feel like I’m missing out on the walking that our friends are doing. Just as we were due to be in Italy this week, so our friends were due to be back in the Lake District.

We had all been going up there for the past few years, each autumn half-term holiday. There was so much to love about it all. The togetherness, the open-space and obviously the mountains. It was these holidays where my love for walking grew. Walking with great friends, beating the inclines and trying to get back to the cars before darkness. The latter, not always achieved. But, even then, there was always a pub and a shared meal around a huge table, seating twenty-plus.

All of this has been cancelled this year. Despite us taking a year off from Cumbria. No one can really travel anywhere unless it’s pretty local. Still, this blog is trying to show me that there is still lots to see all around us.

But it is all becoming mentally and emotionally tougher. As macabre as it may sound, it was a bit of a twisted adventure at the start. This invisible virus reaking havoc on society, batten down the hatches, get supplies in, don’t panic!

But the adventure has vanished, and people are struggling to abide by the self-isolation rules. Everyone is becoming tired of it all, bored even. In a world of instant gratification and low-attention spans, for some, this game is over and they want to move on to something new.

Saturday 24 October

Today’s little Essex adventure took is down to the Heybridge Basin and our much anticipated walk to the causeway over to Osea Island.

Low tide was just after midday so we got there for about 11am. A walk along the sea wall and footpath is not far as the crow flies but is about 3km one way.

The sky was overcast and we were anticipating unsettled weather sweeping in from the west. I love it when you can plan a trip out in the open air, knowing that bad weather is rolling in. Sure enough when we got back in the car, rain drops started to pepper the windscreen.

There is no doubt that some places carry a presence that cannot be captured or substantiated. There is no scientific way of proving it. But Heybridge, Maldon and the Blackwater estuary has it. So does the Dengie Peninsula and the stretch of land up through Goldhanger, Tiptree and Aberton. The whole region oozes soul and spirit, some good and some bad, but all tantalising and attractive.

On the day when we hoped to be walking alongside the Adriatic (our planned trip to Italy cancelled due to the virus), we instead walked along the Blackwater and half way across the causeway to Osea Island. The Romans originally built it. Romantic imagination made a fragile connection in my mind; did a legionnaire from Puglia walk this path? Of course it is so unlikely, but not impossible, and as the atmosphere sweeps me away for split seconds, why not?

Friday 23 October

Our school has been closed today, the last day of the first half-term of Autumn, because of Coronavirus. A confirmed case of a teacher and a number of staff self-isolations means that we cannot see out the week.

I went in today, fielded a few phone calls, worked through my overspilling inbox of email. Constructive and satisfying. We also planned out our distribution of food parcels to pupils’ households on Monday. The government aren’t providing free school meals during the break so will do what we can.

I was able to get back this afternoon with enough daylight to be able to take Mabel for a walk with Adora. I have really missed the dog walk this week. It was real chicken soup for the soul. Mabel ran and sniffed whilst me and my daughter chatted about this and that.

In just this one week, so many leaves have now dropped, making the darker afternoons weirdly lighter in the lanes. Despite there being less light in the sky, what there is is able to seep through the branches.

Laying on the sofa here, waiting for our Thai takeaway, the house is pretty quiet. We are all very tired. The kids are pretty drained from their blended learning of home and college based lessons and tutorials. Wales starts it’s ‘fire-break’ (mini-lockdown) tonight and a whole bunch of other local Tier 3 measures have kicked in across England. The office of national statistics estimates cases of Covid19 are rising by around 35,000 per day.

Thursday 22 October

What a bloody mess.

It’s been a tricky day at work today. Another tricky day, managing the impact of the Coronavirus on the staff and pupils.

But this is was almost wiped from my mind by supper time. On my drive home I listened to the PM program on Radio 4 (catch up as I left late-ish again). The government has pretty much u-turned on economic support for the vulnerable employed. Last night, in parliament, the torries voted against providing free school meals for those that would ordinarily get it at school.

Then there’s the impending Brexit deal or no-deal. Negotiations have broken down then restarted, broken and restarted too many times.

Leaving school this evening, the air was pleasingly cool and the sky was kind. The moon was very present. A coot or two ‘cuks’ away on the other side of the trees, where the canal is.

I am absolutely spent right now. Glad we are at the end of the half term and that we will have a week off. We are all done in and, this coming week, I need to counter the negative news and feeling across the country with some walks in the countryside.

Wednesday 21 October

As the nights draw in and each morning takes longer to arrive habits change. The daylight hours (minutes) that I experience are greatly reduced. I leave home underneath the inky-blue morning skies to drive to work and arrive home in the pitch-black darkness.

It’s not helped by the thick cloud and rain. Or the cool winds and well-lit windows of people already settled in for the night.

The doorways around our home and my place of work are scattered with dusty, empty shells of what were various insects. That flew and crawled into webs and lacked the energy or enthusiasm to escape from. They shake and shiver in their silk-spun graves for all to see as the gentlest of breezes swirl around the porches. The spiders that once came out to investigate have long since upped and gone. Indoors.

But alongside them, there is life. If you look carefully enough. So many moths are seeking sheltered space on walls and door frames, utilising all the available nooks and crannies.

Not the only creatures on this planet being drawn to the lights in the houses.

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An amazing thing happened last night. The NASA Osiris-Rex probe the size of a transit van landed on a space on a asteroid the size of three car parking spaces. All done 200 billion miles from earth. And it did this via a pre-programed sequence. The aim is to bring back about 2kg of material from its surface back to earth. The trouble is, it won’t get back for a no other three years yet. Miracles everywhere.

Monday 19 October

One hell of a day. Coronavirus complications a-plenty as we experience the app pinging. It’s a challenge to keep things operating, business as normal, to the backdrop of this world-wide mess. Wales have announced that they will basically raise the drawbridge on Friday imposing a full lockdown until 9th November.

This is at the same time that Ireland contemplates a possible national lockdown too. Scotland lockdown the central belt including the two main cities, whilst Northern Ireland strated their school closure and deeper measures from today.

Then there’s England. Doing its own thing and trying, valiantly I suppose, to focus on local restrictions through the three tier system. The government chose to ignore the scientific advice of SAGE three weeks ago to impose a short, sharp ‘circuit breaker’. Public opinion is supporting a countrywide, temporary lockdown. We will see what happens but time ticks by and the numbers go up.

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Birds come back to raise my spirits as always. This weekend a mad rush of twitchers (I don’t get that weird world) descended upon north Norfolk to Stiffkey to get a glimpse of a Roufus Bush Chat. It must have veered off course and ended up in the UK on its way south.

I played football again tonight with my son and others. We both went for a ball and collided, he stood solid, I fell like an old man. I felt laboured tonight but still loved it.

Sunday 18 October

I was wondering today what might stay after Coronavirus has subsided.

During the football matches that I officiated at the subtle changes are the ones that I feel might hang around. Before the game there are pitch side sanitizer stations with gel and disinfecting wipes. And there is the now obligatory laminated track-and-trace QR code for everyone to zap with their phones.

Then afterwards, we all mingle haphazardly around the centre circle bumping fists or elbows. Some still get a little confused as one approaches with an outstretched fist towards someone with an elbow and they kind of meet in the middle with a forearm. Players used to all line up in a very orderly way and shake hands or low-five as they passed alongside each other repeating the words “Well played” at least eleven times. I wonder what will stay and what will go?

I mentioned how, a few weeks back, I shook hands with Stan. It was a very odd feeling. I wonder how much of that will come back? Will people remain as festidious as they currently are about hand hygiene? I used to watch blokes not wash their hands after a visit to the gents toilets. I hope that changes.

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A couple of things pinged the bell of my local little world today. First, there’s this lump of moss that has been growing outside our bathroom window for as long as I can remember. In the summer it contracts and browns and appears to have finally died. But this morning it was lush and green and has been joined by a few other ‘lumps’.

Then, a crow flew above me today when I got out of the car. It rasped out it ‘caw-caw’ call and put me on edge. As a species it really doesn’t do much to endear itself to us. Cloaked in black, it hangs together at this time of year, circling tree canopies. Making that haunting sound.

Saturday 17 October

Saturday is still the best day of the week for me. Most Saturdays mean an easy start, relaxing times and activities around the house and garden. Plus football.

Went to see Dad this morning. It was a good thing to do. We arranged for a Covid test as his sense of smell and taste was off, but then it always has been. But it became clear that his emotional health was as, if not more, vulnerable. He was clearly lifted by my sister and me physically checking in on him today.

It dawned on me today another way that this virus has impacted on us all. We have all had birthdays during the pandemic, exam success, new jobs, anniversaries, end of term etc. All of these would ordinarily be celebrated in some way. We would all get together, share laughs and hugs. That hasn’t happened and it feels intense.

Those seminal moments when we are all in the same space as each other. Within the same physical space as each other, facing one another, with exposed smiles. Laughing out loud. So much of what we take for granted is [still] missing. I need to remind myself that it will come back. I miss hugs so much.

I took Mabel for a little scrumping walk in the orchard this evening. I tried to find the Buzzards nest from the spring and see if any feathers were underneath. We found the nest but no feathers, but loads of leaves. Looking up through the bare branches, to the cool grey sky, was a reminder that winter is coming.