Younger in the field
Hugging at the point-to-point has been replaced by solitude and counting sheets of loo roll, but Eve Jones finds there is no less action – just look out of the window…
THEY’VE said that history books will look at life in terms of before and after the COVID-19 virus. The weekend before social distancing came into our lives was action packed, spent in Cornwall with Mr D’s brother. Currently he and his husband have some 100-odd rare animals in incredibly designed enclosures in the back garden of their house, with a flamboyance of flamingos in the pond out the front. It’s a serious set-up – we’re not talking Joe Exotic of the West Country here (although he’s eccentric enough to have once been reported in the Evening Standard as the Leopard Man of Peckham). So, a unique weekend began with stroking cheetahs and feeding lemurs, then we went on to making gin at the Salcombe distillery, feasting in Fowey, eating fresh Cornish crab in Newlyn and devouring fish at the Seahorse in Dartmouth. We meandered home via the Dart Vale & Haldon Harriers point-to-point, where hunting friends were still optimistic of finishing their season. Elsewhere in the UK, people were going loopy over loo roll but Cornish supplies were still in abundance and we were happily naïve of the reality looming.
We got home and the PM’S instruction became more serious. Cornwall felt aeons ago and before that the fun of Cheltenham Festival a galaxy away. Had we really all met there just weeks ago? And had I actually stood that close to hundreds of human beings in one go? Hugged and kissed so many? As lockdown was laid down, we totted up how much loo roll two adults and two part-time children might use in three weeks at home, concluded we did not need to join the bun fight and settled into the new normal.
As it happens, my day-to-day isolation is not so different to my usual weekly routine. Get up, walk dogs, have breakfast, walk two metres to my office, do some work, find a reason not to exercise, go to bed. With nowhere physically to be, however, I can lose entire days staring out of the window and generally procrastinating (coronasticrating?) My lockdown browsing history reads: Do I have corona? Is my cough and tummy ache corona? Will I go bankrupt if self-employed? Did Carole Baskin really kill her husband? How to get an Ocado slot; Hunters for sale; Houses in the Borders for sale; Odds on winning lottery; Will hunting happen next season? DIY haircuts; Collective nouns for animals; How do frogs mate? I went down a week-long Whatsapp wormhole of Tiger King memes (that bitch Carol Baskin!) and laughed a lot at sports pundit Andrew Cotter’s comforting Scots-accented commentary on “great rivals but great friends” labradors Olive and Mabel, and Nick Heath’s Twitter videos describing life in Tooting under lockdown: #Lifecommentary #Livecommentary: National Championships Spaniel Speedway; Pigeon Dressage; Honey Harvest Marathon “this is the Bee team, they’re buzzing to be back”. While idling, I contemplated #Lifecommentary #Livecommentary from my office view, and decided it would account for something between the ‘My dad wrote a porno’ podcast and Springwatch, with a few Beatrix Potter x Tarantino scenes thrown in.
During the first week in isolation, for example, our pond banks seemed to be shifting and squirming. On closer inspection I realised an army of frogs was shagging at the water’s edge, a mass amphibious orgy of slimy black and brown squelch. Post-hump they heaved themselves up the bankside for a rest. I half expected them to roll over and light up a fag. The mallard drakes have been behaving appallingly – frankly, they should be on a sex offenders list – and there are daily vicious gang wars between the moorhens and the crows. The numerous bunnies have been at it like, well, rabbits, much to the terriers’ delight. They spend hours tearing down the lawn after them and stuffing their grubby snouts down burrows. Various beheadings have occurred, and I’ve routinely scooped up entrails to fling over the fence for Charlie to clear up. The squirrels find new routes into the chickenhouse daily, which entertains the dogs, which run circles around the pens, and Mr D, who occasionally joins them as Master of the pack. Most exciting is when the heron appears to eye up the carp. This sends all humans and dogs into a hysteria of shrieking and flapping to chase it off, to which it languidly obliges and circles back minutes later. Things aren’t always so aggressive. The flight path from Luton is gloriously silent and the lambs down the valley can be heard bleating over the bumble bees’ buzz. One day a Buddhist monk appeared in the middle of the lawn. The apparition, with his flowing orange robes against the springgreen backdrop, looked quite prophetic but he’d actually just taken a wrong turn off the bridleway during his daily hour of exercise.
Confinement gives time for reflection and I know our situation is not typical. A sobering stint in A&E and Watford hospital operating theatre over Easter, peak pandemic, hammered home exactly why our NHS workers are simply saints and that we’re incredibly fortunate folk even to be able to run a ‘5km for heroes’ in solitude, far from the virus hotbeds and frontline. Life before COVID19 had been pretty extraordinary and I hope that the very special places we all love survive so we can visit them again. For one of life’s huggers, I can’t wait until I can bundle some people up again, visit my family and meet friends’ babies, born into this madness. For the immediate, we’re staying home and staying apart to save lives. With the space and the quirks and characters of nature to isolate with, I’m thanking my lucky stars and sitting tight.
With nowhere physically to be, I can lose days staring out of the window. Coronasticrating?