Monday 15 March

Six days away from the start of spring, Saturday 20th March, and the end of my year long blog. I can’t help but smile and think of how fitting that is. In a year as tumultuous and, at times desperate, that it should so fittingly end with the start of the season of hope and rebirth. Hope will be in the air and on everyone’s minds.

As has become customary for a Monday post, I have saved a few prize thoughts and images from my weekend walks. As we pass through the woods, daffodils nod gently on the breeze that bobs and weeves through the trees over their shoulders. I’d like to think that they’re looking at the smartly stacked logs that have been considerately chopped to size and pyramided together. A thoughtful bit of woodland husbandry that has, in its wake, left a clearing that is being replanted with fresh saplings. I am so grateful of our national network of footpaths but equally appreciative of the landowners who allow public access through their land.

As we walked through the woods and out the other side we come to a pasture. A large field of grazing land that, when not inhabited by sheep, becomes the playground for big rabbits and baby rabbits which shoot across the tufted grass like little brown pebbles skimming on a rippling pond.

Then I notice a single, well-defined narrow track. It’s not big enough to have been caused by humans, surely. Animals often share tracks and paths between foraging spaces and can cut a pretty identifiable pathway through a field. The one we saw at the weekend is likely formed by badgers with contributions from other wildlife. Once it has formed a direct means of getting from A to B, many will use it every night. This also runs parallel to a stream, but not enough of a stream for an otter to have made it. And here we were, walking the same narrow track.

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I left work this evening and noticed the sky was clear and the stars were just about visible through the haze. Three Canada geese flew overhead honking rhythmically with each massive wind beat. When I got in the car I called Dad, he is so excited to see Mum again tomorrow, and although I can’t see her myself I am quietly comforted that he can. After all this time of being together, then apart, he still gets silly happy about seeing her.

Sunday 14 March

This time next week my time will be up. Three hundred and sixty five days of this blog and we find ourselves right back where we were. Restricted in our movement, meaning we can only travel for essential reasons and we can only exercise once a day outdoors and only within our own household bubble. A whole year. But I am grateful that no one in our immediate families have suffered massively, everyone is still here.

Still feeling pretty tired today but got up and decided to wash the cars whilst the sun was shining. Then pressure washed the patio ready for the longer days. Possibly a tad early and fuelled with shovel-fulls of wishful thinking but there is definitely a need to ‘look forward’ to something. Although we have our national road-map to see us out of the lockdown, there is still a way to go and I know things won’t be back to normal for a few months yet.

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But there’s still the outdoors on our doorstep to enjoy, and the simple things in life to revel in. Plus those little everyday qwerks that present a twist of the odd, obscure and mysterious.

Today we went on our walk with the dog just across some local fields and a woods. The sunshine was only going to be a temporary thing and we knew rain was coming. As I write this, the rain is tap-tapping on the skylight above me, so we did well to enjoy the dry and fine weather earlier. We’re really getting to know these local routes, perhaps too well. We’d obviously like to spread our walking wings just that little bit further afield but, as this blog has shown, look close enough and even the most familiar places can offer something new each time. Particularly at this time of year.

Spend any time in the back garden this time of year and almost immediately after I come inside the birds have taken my place. There is a huge flock of birds swinging around the orchards. I can’t really decide what they are, Fieldfare still? But they also look plumper like pigeons? I’ll keep a closer look. Then, as well as the usual visitors to the feeders, a magpie was sat proud on top of the central pole. Glad I saw that this afternoon.

Saturday 13 March

I have noticed over this last year, that Saturday for me is day of emotional release. During the week I store up different experiences, which create different emotions and, whilst we are locked-down, there is little to no opportunity to let it go. It’s not all negative stuff of course, but it easier to celebrate the positives when your couped up. Then there’s the consistent bad news items; Italy goes into another major lockdown, Murray Walker dies, etc.

So, this morning I lay in till after 9am. No coffee in bed. And I got up, had a shower, and felt pretty grumpy and groggy. But we had a clean up and then a cooked a full-english brunch, and I was able to mentally brush myself down and get into the day.

We had a dog walk this afternoon that was also a little mixed too. It was very dramatic weather-wise – really cold, windy and wintery showers. The drama of all of this is played out in the amazing skies. One view can contain deep inky blues and greys, and bright crisp blue sky. With glowing, billowing white cloud in between.

But Saturday is still a day of sport, even though we can’t actually go to the games right now, we can watch pretty much every premier league game on the telly. Colchester United are on the local radio as always and we can also watch the games via live streaming if we pay for it. Home games are covered in the cost of the season ticket but away games cost ten pounds each. Today we go for the radio option, the U’s performances have not been good this season. I can’t help but feel detached from the club and indeed the game. I’ve also not refereed a youth game for months now.

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The evening sunlight has found a crack through the persistence of the shower clouds. I see one of the pair of resident Buzzards sweeping across the orchards at the end of the garden and head out to take a closer look.

By the time I get there it’s moved on of course but the sun set is incredible.

I felt absolutely shattered today. I don’t think it’s due to any one thing, just an accumulation of stresses and strains, at work and elsewhere. It happens, and is probably to be expected, under the current circumstances.

But it’s Friday and I drove home this evening with a car boot full of Aldi’s finest groceries and some comforting tunes playing on the radio. Home made curry and two days of relaxation and recuperation to look forward to.

Just as I walked out of work this evening, and headed across to my car, I was conscious again of how the daylight is staying with us noticeably longer now. Nearly 6pm and it was still reasonable. And my eye caught on to a splash of bright white in the fading light. A medium sized hawthorn bush sat in the grass on the edge of the field, sheltered by a larger, more established group of trees and shrubs.

It was glowing, as if it had soaked up loads of sunlight from earlier and was now radiating it from its own store. It was a really positive vision to end a challenging day and week. Just a few yards away a scattering of mangled pigeon feathers with no carcass to be seen.

Symbolic, I thought. Death and new life. Darkens and light. Out with the old in with the new, etc. I could get particularly cheesy and talk of ‘hope from despair’ but that would be really pushing the metaphor. Let’s just say it was a bright end to a tiring week, and leave it at that. Another wonderful reminder that spring is most certainly knocking on the door.

I managed to drag myself out of bed this morning and do my run. No mean feet, it was wildly windy and grey and angry looking.

As I scanned the skies I noticed gulls and crows edging and banking into the gusts. Then diving into them, oncoming, beak first, before spinning one-hundred and eighty degrees and shooting, arrow-like, in the opposite direction.

Then I came to the end of the mostly sheltered lane, flanked on both sides by a dense spaghetti of gnarled branches and barbed bramble creepers. This would be full of birdsong, green and gapless in a month or so. And I turned the corner onto the main road and headlong into the fifty mile per hour gusts. My eyes started to water and I wondered how you never see birds wiping their eyes. How do they protect them, they don’t even have eye lashes!

Birds have the largest eyes, relative to their size, in the animal kingdom. They do have two eyelids that operate similarly to other vertebrates but they do not use them for protection or cleaning like we do. These are simply for sleep. They do however, have a transluscent nictating membrane that sweeps horizontally, like a windscreen wiper, and an oily secretion that prevents the eye from drying out in sun or wind. So, now I know.

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It is well observed, that windy days always tend to raise the energy levels of school children. Some of ours were finding self-control more challenging today, but despite this it was a good day. And as I left work, walking to the car, I noticed two more gulls simply playing in the gusty wind which, by then, was much tamer.

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Finally, there’s lots in the news that starts with the words “A year ago today..” as we get ever nearer a year since the first lockdown. A year ago tonight three-thousand Spanish fans came over to England to watch their beloved Athletico Madrid side take on Liverpool at Anfield. The last fully attended sporting event. Spain had a full ban on mass gatherings and sporting events at that time. We didn’t.

Wednesday 10 March

The days seem to be whizzing by at the moment and I am struck by an increasingly regular thought. One which has increased as I have gotten older and even more so, I feel, since all of this Coronavirus lockdown thing has been happening.

I appreciate that each day is a gift and say that to the kids and adults how ask me how I am, and how I am so positive and optimistic (seemingly) all of the time. Well, truth be told, I am not like that all of the time – my family will testify to that. I know that it’s probably an over-used line but I really do have moments nowadays when I genuinely feel that.

This year, or parts of it, have felt like a bit of a right-off. Lost to lockdown and disconnected from others, it’s very easy to let the days float by like leaves being blown by the wind. And, I suppose for many, one day may have seemed very similar to the next. I have been fortunate in that school has essentially remained open albeit with fewer pupils and so the possible monotony has never been there. And now, we are all back and some quite surprising positives have come from it.

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Some great news from yesterday was that Dad was able to visit Mum in the care home for the first time since well before Christmas (I think). He had to have a test done before he was allowed to see her and his time was limited to one hour, but that’s a fair amount all considered. He reported back to us in a very positive way as is his way, and he was clearly so happy to see her again. But I sensed, and I may be wrong, that he recognised that her condition was that little bit worse since the last time he saw her.

Of course, she has had two trips to hospital in that time having two seizures. Plus, the dementia “hasn’t got any better” as Dad would say, but then he would continue by saying “but it hasn’t got any worse either”.

Tuesday 09 March

So, I did it! This morning I honestly surprised myself by plucking myself out of bed at 6am. I tugged on my jogging gear, fumbled with my trainers. Then, creeping downstairs, past the dog, I made my way through of the front door and walked out into the dull but steadily lightening outdoors.

It was really refreshing being out that early. I saw and heard no one until I got to the main road, and then it was just transit vans making their way speedily to the jobs they had on. Only the larger birds were noticeable as dark blobs in my peripheral vision. It’s a strange and unmistakable light just after dawn, before sunrise. Not quite at the start of the new day, but also not fully let go of the night before.

And I did feel alot better by the time I got in the car to head to work. The traffic on the A12 is getting back to pre lockdown levels, the past two days I have been held up in traffic. But I didn’t get frustrated or anxious, I already felt like my morning had started simply by having that run. Those fifteen little minutes, connecting with the outdoors and the cool fresh air was doing it’s stuff already.

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I had a training course session this morning. It’s about the adolescent brain and is fascinating. We already know the brain develops by making connections across its multiple ‘parts’ but these develop well into adult life. And, in the adolescent brain, the amygdala, the emotional part of the brain develops at a sprint, whilst the rest of the brain plods along. Thus, the emotional teenager!

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And finally, I heard one of the most amazing awe and wonder news stories whilst driving to work today. As I sat stationary on the southbound lanes of the A12 between Kelvedon and Marks Tey. A couple of fragments of a fireball meteorite landed and were found in Gloucestershire. On someone’s front garden. Rock billions of years old, travelling from way out in our solar system fell on someone’s doorstep. Only a few years ago Japan spent millions of pounds to get the same results by launching a rocket.

So, I discovered that an asteroid is a large rocky object orbiting the sun, a meteoroid are smaller fragments orbiting the sun. And if any bits of these enter the earth’s atmosphere and survive the journey, when they land on the earth’s surface they are meteorites. What a day!

Monday 08 March

I had every intention of waking this morning and going on a run. Nobody thought I would do it, they thought I would capitulate and give in to the warm bed sheets and the meagre satisfaction of ten more minutes cocooned in the duvet before having to get up and get ready.

Well.

They were right. No matter how many times I told myself before bed last night that it would be good for my energy levels ahead of what was a big day. Or reminded myself how good I felt on Saturday morning after I did that reasonably short circuit. I gave in, but it probably wasn’t a bad thing. I will try again tomorrow, meaning I could do Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday each week. I must do something though, these weeks and months of relative inactivity have not been kind to my fifty year old waistline.

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But it went really well today. It was such an anticipated start to the week with all schools nationwide opening up to all pupils. It also marks the start of of our journey out of lockdown, the last lockdown we are going to have.

Most of our kids came to school, they engaged and were smiling (on the whole). And they did their rapid-result Covid-19 tests and helped us keep the school as safe a place as possible.

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The other big news of today is what is taking all of the headlines, not just here but in the US also. Meghan and Harry are telling the world how bad the royal family are/were to them before they left. What a surprise! I am a self-confessed republican so I do take some pleasure from seeing those that were once on the inside, be so critical and finger-pointing once they have defected. But, I find the whole thing pretty sleazy and cheap.

And all of this, because a single family of rediculous privilege, power and wealth, continues to be hailed as the keeper of stability in an unstable democratic system. Bollocks. The sooner this system is replaced by fully elected representatives the better. And this latest sham of events will only help it on its way – out.

Sunday 07 March

It’s beautifully quiet right now. I can hear the gentle tick-tock of the clock on the shelf, the occasional gurgle of my tummy tackling a coffee and almod croissant, and the dishwasher has beeped it’s final beep of its cycle.

The rest of the family are out doing drop-offs for country walks and drop-ins for grocery items missed in the big shop. And it’s beautifully quiet right now. The only other sound is that if the more audibly extroverted birds outside the front and back of the house. It’s so quiet I can hear both.

We have a robin – I think just the one on our patch – who fills his lungs and pipes out his pessary pop-song from the mid-branches of the oak tree out front. He’s there first thing in the morning, last thing in the evening and pretty regularly throughout the day. And he does so to proclaim to the bird world (and probably wider world too), but mainly to other robins, that this is his territory.

They are of course famously protective of their space, which makes me wonder why more countries have not taken up the little red-breasted robin as their national bird. Of course, it tends to be the eagle; strong, powerful, big. And the mighty talons and beak provide weapons that could rip right through human flesh let alone smaller creatures. But the robin is brave, fearless in fact. It will take on other birds and even attack cats if it feels in any way threatened. It may even have a go at itself if it catches a glimpse of its own reflection in a window or puddle. Leave a tin of paint out in the garden with a red patch on its label, and see what fire and fury may prevail.

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I’m sat in the back garden, soil drying on my hands, just sitting and soaking up the atmosphere. I am surrounded by birds and birdsong. The now less conspicuous clackety call of the Magpie is being over layered by the soloist robin and the blackbird and by the chipping and chirping of the tits and sparrows. Also, common across the UK but rare to our back garden, I can also make out the Dunnock and in fact see one skipping around along with a blackbird underneath some of the hanging feeders, picking up the fallen spoils.

Then, in the sound-distance, like the clock in the front room earlier, the unmistakable drumming of the woodpecker. But I think my favourite sound today, has been the bubbling conversation between the Long-Tailed Tits and the constant sounds of small wing beats as they fly from perch to feeder to perch and off again. Perfect.

Saturday 06 March

I woke at a sensible time this morning and decided to go for a run. I had my first coffee in bed then persuaded Adora to join me in a short run, about twenty minutes. I’m aware that I am still not able to walk during the week and haven’t played football or refereed a match in months. I’m also aware that I have to walk a hundred km in September.

When I got back I did feel better. Why can’t I have a bit of that feeling before I go running, it would make being motivated so much easier. My aim is to do the same route every other morning before I go to work. I’ll start on Monday. Stan logged in to another webinar at Sheffield University – this time the politics department. He’s getting understandably excited about starting in September, A’Level grades permitting, and we are for him. I joke how I will be able to pick him up on my way to some northern away games with Colchester United. I joke, but I also really hope we can do it.

Whilst walking with Mabel and the rest of the family this afternoon we pcame across a few more sights and sounds of a change taking place. There were dafodills standing straight and the fields had been sprayed with much ready for turning over next week. The first ploughed fields are always an encouraging sight.

Then home to watch the football on the telly, still no crowds and a relaxing evening with the fire lit again. It’s still pretty cold out there and tomorrow we plan to do a bit more in the garden – cutting back, digging over and edging. Basically getting things ready for the clocks going forward and us being able to spend more time outside. What do they say about the month of March? In like a lion, out like a lamb. We’ll see, but it’s certainly feeling pretty wintery at the moment, but it’s dry.

Oh, and I refilled the bird feeders in the back garden this morning. It was like an aviary without bars out there for most of the daylight hours. Just a constant mass of birds, all the usual appearances.