What joy! Real social interaction, again

FUNNY isn’t it, that after all the TV coverage and the hype, the biggest factor deciding if people behave themselves or not during the pandemic is that greatest of all British levellers and the one permanent feature of our national conversation, the weather.

Blast us with unaccustomed sunshine, and vast numbers of Brits are suddenly fighting the hidden enemy on the beaches or in one another’s gardens having an early-evening drink. But send a cold northerly wind our way filled with rain, and we’re all back self-isolating like so many hermits.

Politicians can strut their stuff and make all the decrees they like and there will always be a backlash one way or the other – but when the weather gods speak we do their bidding without a murmur.

This week has seen both worlds at play. We have seen sunlit beaches laden with more buttocks than pebbles and we have seen empty coastlines as black clouds arrived over the Bristol Channel to bless the West Country with welcome rain.

I avoided beaches and all other busy places after driving along Minehead seafront on my way to see my poorly mother. And that is a slightly weird thing to do, by the way… She’s inside with her French windows open and I’m out in the garden.

The situation reminds me of a tiny window I happen to know. It is a feature of Culbone Chapel, the smallest complete church in England, and it was built into an exterior wall so food could be handed to the lepers who long ago set up a colony in Exmoor’s remote coastal woods.

The difference (apart from the size of mum’s French windows) is that today we are all lepers – or the modern equivalent thereof. My mother is as frightened of giving me the virus as I am of handing it to her.

Strange… to mention lonely, silent, Culbone in the same column as Minehead seafront. The latter was so crowded last weekend that I thought perhaps some crazy postpandemic beach festival had been organised last minute. Or more probably the hordes heard about the spike in coronavirus which hit Weston-super-Mare up the Somerset coast and had made their way further west to grab a slice of sun and sea.

There were so many people, I didn’t even like having the car windows open.

I am not being at all judgemental, by the way. I know how lucky I am to live in spacious countryside and feel sympathy for families with kids who’ve been cooped up in towns and suburbs for months. I’d be wanting to go somewhere nice and airy if I was them.

It’s just that I avoid crowds at the best of times. Despite being regularly offered a free press pass to Glastonbury Festival, for example, I haven’t been for 40 years. Just too many people in one place at the same time. I can just about manage four or five hours at one of our marvellous county shows, then I hit the eject button.

So this lockdown hasn’t bothered me in the least. Indeed, I have occupied myself each day by producing Exmoor Lockdown Diary on my website ( www.martinhespfoodandtravel.com).

But, having said all that, I have thoroughly enjoyed the couple of social outings we’ve been able to make since the lockdown rules eased.

What joy! Real social interaction. Who’d have thought sitting in a pal’s garden sipping a glass of wine could be so fulfilling, meaningful, soulful and profoundly enjoyable?

A Zoom or Skype conversation on a screen is one thing – and thank god for the new ability we have to meet one another digitally. But it doesn’t come anywhere close to the experience of actually sitting around together.

Which isn’t surprising, as we’ve been in the habit of doing that for the past 300,000 years, or however long it is we homo-sapiens have been around.

The other evening my wife and I were invited to a friend’s spacious garden in the village for a drink, although we took our own bottle and glasses with us. And I had the great pleasure of being able to chat to an old friend who lives next door – a real old-fashioned countryman whose company I have always enjoyed. As we chatted about wildlife and all manner of other rural subjects, Eric cut a huge cabbage – bigger than a football – and threw it 20 feet across the fence to me.

Lightly steamed an hour later, and served with a nob of Trewithen Dairy butter, it was the most delicious vegetable I have eaten in three months.

Thursday night is traditionally “locals’ night” at our village pub. Or used to be. So one of the regulars, who has a large patio area with a huge round outdoor table, invited the legal half-dozen of us (including the pub landlord) to his garden for a pint.

I’ll tell you how much we enjoyed it – and perhaps it gives the lie to what I said in the beginning about the weather. Even when the meteorological gods turned up with a blast of wind and rain, we sat there soaking up one another’s company, as well as the H20 provided by the shower.

It was one version of the new normal. And I’ll raise my glass to it.

I avoid crowds at the best of times. Despite being regularly offered a free

press pass to Glastonbury Festival, I haven’t been for 40 years