More shake, less speed
Don’t know about you, but I am struggling to shake myself back into action for Life after Lockdown. Getting through the last 100 days has not been a bundle of fun as we fought coronavirus.
The New Normal doesn’t fill me with much inspiration, either. Of course, I’m happy hairdressers have re-opened. My wife and daughter were queuing up at Haringtons on Saturday for an overdue cut, but all the visors, masks and PPE gear seem so strange.
As for pubs, I feel sorry for the staff. One friend who works behind a local bar had a 70-page pdf new training schedule to learn before welcoming back punters. He has his temperature taken before each shift and is constantly sanitising and cleaning… just so he can pull us a pint behind Perspex.
With 20:20 hindsight I would vote we give the year 2020 a wide berth and hope for happier horizons in the future.
The shocking death toll, care home crisis and political shenanigans have had me on an emotional rollercoaster for too long. Maybe, given time, nostalgia will paint a rosier view of how we all hunkered down in isolation, supported our neighbours, gardened excessively and baked and drank our way through the pandemic. But, right now, I am not feeling any feel-good factor behind my mask.
Once a week, to improve my mindfulness, I have taken a walk around the town centre with a mate to see what has been going on in the big outside world. We spotted Monsoon had cleared out its stock days before they said the chain was going bust.
It has been strangely therapeutic to see familiar faces – such as Kerry on the door at Lloyds Bank controlling the queue – and we have given imaginary gold stars to Bakedd for their takeaway coffees and black marks to Barclays for being the only High Street bank not to open throughout.
For many folk, it has felt like time has stood still over the past three months. No work, little leisure activities with all the emphasis of staying safe and keeping healthy.
But, while I’ve been pottering around, simply noting shops were opening later in an almost sleepy continental style, high-flying developers have been up early working on bold new horizons for our town.
Apparently undeterred that work on the flattened triangle site next door has ground to a halt, they have produced a proposed £400 million redevelopment of the Nicholsons shopping centre.
Their glossy blueprint for our town centre future focuses on a mix of retail, office space and high-rise living in an eye-catching 25 storey block of flats to replace the current shops and
Broadway car park.
All of a sudden, we have only got until Tuesday to get our views to council planners for a scheme which would change the Old Normal, New Normal and any other normal if it gets the goahead. For once, after lockdown, I don’t feel up to speed to give you my opinion, but have a look online at the Maidenhead Neighbourhood Forum’s informative videos to find out more.