Friday 05 March

I’ve just clocked that it’s day day three hundred and fifty on my one year blog quest. I wonder how different things will be for us all in fifteen days time compared to the same time last year? Quite a bit I hope, and expect.

I started this blog because of Coronavirus and the national lockdown that we were entering. Exactly a year on and we will be emerging from lockdown number three, bleary eyed and bewildered, into a new version of the world that will have changed forever. The extent of these changes will become more apparent as the forthcoming year pans out.

One change that is happening on Monday is that schools are reopening for all pupils. We have missed them and the energy they bring. That’s not to say that our school has been empty, we have had a number of young people in everyday and today we completed there latest lateral flow tests. We will test the others on Monday. We need to do three for each pupil onsite before we then give them a test kit for them to continue doing at home. The staff already have theirs as well as having been vaccinated also.

There will, however, be a number of pupils and staff nervous about next week, with the full classes and busy corridors. Pupils who haven’t seen each other for weeks all coming together and wanting to talk and share experiences. We will manage it all, the one thing schools are great at is coping with challenging situations and seeing them through resiliently and with calm.

But right now, I am tired. There has been so much to manage over the past  couple of months and I remember how crazy things have been at other stages over the past year. It has been relentless. I’ve learnt alot about myself and those I work with, everyone copes with things in different ways and some people don’t cope very well at all.

Authority with empathy is going to be the order of the day next week, but right now I am going to start a new book, sip my wine and enjoy the fire on this frosty evening.

Wednesday 03 March

I’ve missed getting out and about this week. Last weekend seems a lifetime ago and I’ve had no sun on my face and very little fresh air in my lungs. I’ve only just about reached my daily steps.

The weather has also turned a little dreary, grey and damp. But this morning I went outside and topped up the bird feeders at work. A couple of robins sat side by side almost immediately which was an unusual sight.

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I’m coming to the end of my subscription to the British Newspaper Archive and thought I would have a little trawl through the ages for our local area and other regular haunts. It is fascinating how the history of a place, even as seemingly sleepy as one where I live, holds a history of surprises when you take a bit of time out to look that little bit closer.

In August 1924, a murder took place not a mile or so away from where we live. A husband murdered his wife over what would appear to be an ongoing quarrel about the house they lived in and its ownership. Witnesses watched him chase her from the cottage door to the end of the garden path and stab her in the back with a knife that he had only purchased a few days before in Colchester.

The man was given the death penalty despite the jury which “included three women” had urged the judge to consider a prison sentence rather than execution. With just days to go before the scheduled date of the hanging the vicar from Clacton wrote to the Home Secretary to plead mercy for the man on death row on the basis that he was provoked by his wife. One witness claimed that they were always “on the jangle” with each other.

This was not granted and, in late November that same year, he was hanged at Ipswich jail. The article explains how he died instantly as “his neck broke”.

Everywhere has its macabre, gruesome and upsetting stories that over time become secrets and then mysteries or myths. The passage of time provides the opportunity to embellish the facts and add faces to the names and mental pictures to the places. Smells and sounds and images come off the page and create a tale to be told rather than a newspaper article reporting the facts (albeit affected by time and cultural differences). These events are so long ago to some of us, especially those of us with no family ties to the area, that they blur and become fiction rather than fact.

Another reminder of how the mind works creatively if you let it. Adding colour to the monochrome.

Tuesday 03 March

Every now and then I am aware that the days seem to drift by, being ticked off, from what is a limited lifetime.

I realise that sounds pretty depressing a thought, not really what’s needed on a Tuesday night. But I got home after work, later than I wanted to really (but that seems to be the way of things for the past few months), and I realised that that was another day gone.

Now, I don’t have days like this very often. It was actually quite a productive day, a few laughs and plenty of positives but there is still a sense of emptiness about things at the moment. It doesn’t help that we are all in purgatory waiting for the world to open up again. It feels like I am just subconsciously drumming my fingers until things return to normal.

And tomorrow the government will announce the new budget. Another homage to the future, whatever that looks like. More time for change and time to wait and see what happens.

And that is what’s driving everyone’s unease and anxiety at the moment. The ‘what might be?’ because there is so little certainty that we can rely on. Many of us have become doubters for what the politicians tell us or scientists predict. Will this really be the final lockdown? What if a new strain becomes virulent and the vaccines are ineffective?

Talking with Stan this evening whilst washing up he was telling me how many of his friends are apprehensive about the tests they will be doing when they return to college. Not the academic tests that they should be revising for in the subjects they are studying, but the lateral-flow tests that they all need to do before they are allowed to go to their classes. The world’s wild at heart and crazy on top.

Monday 01 March

I start the first day of the final month of my one-year blog. And I start it in good spirits, it wasn’t raining today but wasn’t sunny either. We had such wonderful weather over the weekend and then it turns grey on the Monday when I can’t be out enjoying it. That’s when I feel things are working in my favour.

I have been getting to sleep an hour or so earlier than normal the past few days and I feel it’s already starting to pay off. I felt more awake and energised this morning which is rare for me on a Monday morning in particular. And the day was productive too as the countdown continues towards the schools fully reopening and all of the kids coming back. Just one week to go.

My itchy eyes and sneezing could be down to the fact that the increased light and milder temperatures are bringing out some of the tree blooms. But I do feel my soul swelling when I see everything bursting into life, and the birds are bringing a soundtrack and an animation to it all.

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Then, I get home, and Erica has sent me a picture of a beautiful warbler near their home in southern Italy today. At first I immediately think it’s a Eurasian blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) but the colour around its eye is not something I have noticed with the Blackcaps I have seen in Britain. Not that I’ve seen many. I’ve heard more than I’ve seen, on warm days perched deep amongst brambles and scrub.

So, with a bit of clicking here and there I think it’s actually a Sardinian warbler (Curruca melanocephala). They are very rare visitors to the UK and tend not to travel much further than their breeding grounds in the Mediterranean. Thanks, Erica, that really brightened up my evening.

Sunday 28 February

I woke this morning with a satisfactory feeling of having a deep and long sleep. My mind and body felt well-rested and thankfully my sneezing had stopped. That said, I decided not to venture any further than my back garden this morning and only maybe would I go for a shirt dog walk later. One of those ‘let’s see how it goes’ days.

I may have woken with a little more metal clarity but the view outside was far from clear. “It’s foggy out there” I proclaimed to Lisa as I nudged the bedroom door open with my elbow. I put a couple of mugs of coffee on our bed side cabinets and picked up my phone to check the weather forecast for the rest of the day. “Actually it’s mist,” I said, “I’ve never known what the difference is.”

So, it turns out that it’s all about viewing distance. If you can see further than a kilometer it’s mist, if it’s less it’s fog. Oh, and haze is different altogether. Both fog and mist are condensed water droplets, formed when warm air passed over colder air (or colder ground or water). Haze is formed by dust particles, not water.

An opportunity to get out into the back garden and do a bit of a clear up and cut back. Then a fire to get rid. Some goes on the compost heap. The crackling and popping is quite therapeutic. As is watching the flames flicker and ripple, and the smoke rises into a cloudy sky where the sun is forcing it’s way through.

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1pm and finally the sun has made its way through. All of the cloud has burnt away as has all of the garden rubbish. Lisa has made leek and potato soup and now a cup of tea. Simple pleasures.

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I’ve just been round to see Dad after our dog walk this afternoon. The walk was beautiful and the late afternoon sunshine in our eyes and on our faces, just as the air was beginning to chill, was a real treat.

I took a bird feeder over to Dad. It will be great to attract some different species to his garden. It’s currently just pigeons that come in to drink from the water dish. And whilst I was round there I saw a brick propping up a waste water pipe out side. Brilliant.

Saturday 27 February

Such a beautiful day today, but personally ruined for me by wall-to-wall sneezing and itchy eyes.

I started today by fixing the window to our bathroom. It’s the window that the cats use to come in and out of the house through, so it needs to be opened and closed regularly. I’m not keen to pay out for a specialist if I can make repairs myself. It’s not just the money that can be saved, it’s the challenge of widening my DIY experience and skills. I don’t think half of what we can resolve ourselves, was doable back in my Dad’s day, without the internet. Last weekend I removed the worn-out locking system, looked for a similar one online, made a purchase, and it arrived in the post on Wednesday.

It wasn’t a like-for-like replacement, the original mechanism was no longer available. But I watched some YouTube videos and read some forums and then improvised a little. Touch wood (or PVC) it has worked, for now.

I remember when I was growing up, there was always one or two small piles of used house bricks in the back garden. With my Dad being a bricklayer, wherever we lived, the trade mark burnt red Jenga stack seemed to follow us.

My Dad would always seem to know what to do when a problem cropped up in and around the home. And, regardless of whether it was plumbing, wood, electrical or structural, the solution always seemed to involve a house brick at some point. It’s the ultimate ingredient for solving problems.

Today, I used a brick to rest a mirror against, at an angle, which allowed me to see the underside of the window frame. But it might be to weight something down or raise something up, to prevent something from tipping or to even knock something in to place. All rise for the humble house brick! Thanks, Dad.

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Anyway, we had a lovely walk this lunchtime, but I sneezed continually. Then I watched Colchester United lose again (still on the telly, still with no fans in the grounds), and I sneezed some more. Just hoping I feel better tomorrow.

Friday 26 February

This morning’s drive to work was pure joy. Not only was it quick and congestion free (to be fair it has been since the first lockdown) but it was also so many other things.

The sun was so bright from the start. Dazzling through the windows and in the mirrors making driving a bit tricky. But it contributed to a journey where everything came together to make a utterly pleasent forty-five minute commute.

I’m not normally one for country music but it seemed right this morning. The Bellamy Brothers on the radio proclaiming how there’s a reason for the sunshine sky. The birds were silhouetted all around animating the clearest of blue. And it all suggested that it was going to be a good day.

And that’s what it turned out to be. A really lovely day at work. There’s a noticeable change to the atmosphere in the school, I can’t pin down particularly why. It’s probably a combination of things but there’s a positive energy.

And today we even found some time to feed the birds and start planting tree saplings in the school grounds. We have some nesting boxes to go up too, ones that the pupils have made and donated to us.

Then on the way home, I played some John Denver. And the day ended great too. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but it went with the feel-good vibe of the day. I’m really looking forward to the weekend.