The Flow of Time: Lockdown, Day 27

Posted on 19/04/2020 by Bobby Seal

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that: remembering where we were, what valley we ran through, what the banks were like, the light that was there and the route back to our original place. It is emotional memory—what the nerves and the skin remember as well as how it appeared.

Toni Morrison – The Site of Memory

Lockdown Day 27

 

Someone sent me an email about my Lockdown blog the other day. He said: ‘Thank you for sharing about your life, your family and your concerns – it is probably making a bigger difference to folk who read it than you realise’.

I’m so grateful for his message. I think we all need a kind word these days. So, if someone shares one with you, pass it on. If you don’t get one, pass it on anyway and it’ll catch you on the way back.

 

Picture of the River Mersey at Rock Ferry ©Bobby Seal

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The Flow of Time: Lockdown, Day 26

Posted on 18/04/2020 by Bobby Seal

I didn’t put on my hat even though it’s cold as forever and the hat’s right there in my bag at the bottom. My mascara came away in the night and for that hat to look any good requires a little recent eye adornment – I realise that. And I didn’t say anything, not a word, about the creature beneath the water. No mention of the monster. The flowers are lovely instead, especially the roses.

Claire-Louise Bennett – Pond

Lockdown Day 26

Marijeka continued reading as if she had not heard this exchange. But she did, she heard every word. She would ignore Uncle Janek. If you ignored bad things, they would go away. The book helped to put such things out of her mind.

She was the youngest of the three princesses. No more and no less beautiful than her older sisters, but more loveable. Yes, that was the word, loveable. She inspired love, and her name was Marijeka. They lived in a country far away, somewhere beyond Katowice, where the hills were bare and grey.

 

Picture of Black Brook, near Ruabon ©Bobby Seal

Extract from Marijeka and the Crow ©Bobby Seal

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The Flow of Time: Lockdown, Day 25

Posted on 17/04/2020 by Bobby Seal

Flow on, ye lays so loved, so fair,
On to Oblivion’s ocean flow!
May no rapt boy recall you e’er,
No maiden in her beauty’s glow!
My love alone was then your theme,
But now she scorns my passion true.
Ye were but written in the stream;
As it flows on, then, flow ye too!

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – By the River

Lockdown Day 25

 

 

An Easter card arrived this morning from Georg and Maria, some friends we made in Germany last Summer: happier, freer times. The hand-made card wished us a Frohe Ostern and had a seasonal quote from Beethoven. It also included a handwritten message in Welsh, which I thought was really touching. For someone to go to such an effort to connect with a person in another country and from another culture is a reminder that our current need for short-term social distancing does not mean we should turn our backs on the rest of the world.

 

Picture of River Mosel at Cochem, Germany ©Bobby Seal

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The Flow of Time: Lockdown, Day 24

Posted on 16/04/2020 by Bobby Seal

Allied to the bottom of the river rather than the surface, by reason of the slime and ooze with which it was covered, and its sodden state, this boat and the two figures in it obviously were doing something that they often did, and were seeking what they often sought. Half savage as the man showed, with no covering on his matted head, with his brown arms bare to between the elbow and the shoulder, with the loose knot of a looser kerchief lying low on his bare breast in a wilderness of beard and whisker, with such dress as he wore seeming to be made out of the mud that begrimed his boat, still there was a business-like usage in his steady gaze. So with every lithe action of the girl, with every turn of her wrist, perhaps most of all with her look of dread or horror; they were things of usage.

Charles Dickens – Our Mutual Friend

Lockdown Day 24

 

 

 

 

Day 24. One of these days I’m going to lose track of how long we’ve been in lockdown…

Thursday is usually my walking day. I walk every day, but Thursday is the best day in my weekly schedule, and those of a small group of like-minded friends, to go for a longer walk. We try to go every week, but it doesn’t always work out that way, and our numbers vary between two and six depending on who’s available.

Most of our walks this year have been in the Clwydians or the Berwyns but, in mid-March, everything had to be put on hold. Normally we would take turns planning a route and, until the COVID-19 crisis, I had several interesting ones up my sleeve for April and through into the  Summer. I’m minded to share some of those routes on this blog. After all, one’s imagination need never be locked down.

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The Flow of Time: Lockdown, Day 23

Posted on 15/04/2020 by Bobby Seal

From where they lay, they could watch the lights going by on the river, and Kit – in this darkness – could forget the squalor of the room.

Elizabeth Taylor – The Soul of Kindness

Lockdown Day 23

 

 

Try some kindness. Smile at a stranger. Speak to a friend. Remember me? Physical distance but not isolation. Technology need not make us less human. Shop for a neighbour. Show you care. Leave some flowers on a doorstep. Put a picture in your window. Join love’s fifth column.

 

Picture of the Thames ©Bobby Seal

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The Flow of Time: Lockdown, Day 22

Posted on 14/04/2020 by Bobby Seal

Paradise is a salvage operation,
A reckoning of what we desire stretched,
Unbroken, from here to infinity,
like syrup twisted onto a spoon, lifted up high,
tipped to a skeining – a long stitch of sweetness
mending the ordinary.

Liz Lefroy – The Square Root of Paradise

Lockdown Day 22

 

Slowly, moving her stiff limbs in crab-like fashion, she edged away from the middle channel of the river and pulled herself to the safer, shallower waters near the Dee’s eastern bank.  Gradually her breathing steadied and the racing of her heart ceased.  She allowed herself to drift along for a short while and then allowed herself to drift along for a short while and then swam on.

 

Picture of River Alun near Loggerheads, Denbighshire ©Bobby Seal

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The Flow of Time: Lockdown, Day 21

Posted on 13/04/2020 by Bobby Seal

By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

T S Eliot – The Waste Land

 

Lockdown Day 21

 

I hit a wall last night. I’ve managed to keep myself busy and feeling positive during this last few weeks under lockdown, but last night I ran into a wall of sadness. The trigger, the thing that opened the valve and let out what had been building up for some time, was simply seeing pictures on a sharing app of the various people I love trying to make the best of a holiday weekend while under lockdown. All of us trying to enjoy our time off and the lovely weather, but separate from each other, when normally this would have been a time for us to get together,

This morning things seem a lot better. I am very fortunate: I have a family, a home, a garden, enough food to eat and I enjoy good health. But for so many other people loneliness, anxiety, frustration and money worries have become a part of daily life. The government talks about repairing the economy once this crisis is over, but I wonder how long it will take to repair so many shattered lives.

 

Picture of Black Brook running alongside Wat’s Dyke ©Bobby Seal

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The Flow of Time: Lockdown, Day 20

Posted on 12/04/2020 by Bobby Seal

No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow.
Bob Dylan – Watching the River Flow

Lockdown Day 20

From the safety of my study I went to the pub last night. It’s something I would normally do at least once a fortnight with the same three friends, two of whom I used to work with, but for obvious reasons we haven’t been near a real pub for a while. Though, with our new virtual pub, it was as if we’d never been away.

The conversational tropes were certainly the same as ever: music, films, politics, though with rather less about sport and more exchanging of lockdown tales. What was different was that the beer and wine was at supermarket prices and the whole atmosphere rather more family-friendly than a Saturday night in the town centre, with dogs, kids and partners putting in appearances to say hello.

Even when it’s only a virtual pub one still has to dress appropriately, from the waist up at least. I wore the Joy Formidable t-shirt, the one with the Ralph Steadman design, that my friend brought me back from a gig in Manchester last year. I’m pleased to say he noticed it. Virtually.

Picture of the River Dee at Farndon ©Bobby Seal

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The Flow of Time: Lockdown, Day 19

Posted on 11/04/2020 by Bobby Seal

Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river.

Jorge Luis Borges – Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings

Lockdown Day 19

I’ve worked hard in my locked down vegetable plot this last couple of weeks. I’ve planted out seedlings I’d previously sown, sowed more seeds, built a polytunnel greenhouse and have dug over some more ground. I invited the self-isolating old couple from next door to come in and take a look because I know they’re always interested. They wandered around happily leaning on each other while I stayed behind the window smiling, waving and worrying about trip hazards.

 

Picture of Cascade River, Alberta ©Bobby Seal

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The Flow of Time: Lockdown, Day 18

Posted on 10/04/2020 by Bobby Seal

Many ravens flying south. The cattle keep stamping during transport, they are restless. The Rhine seems to me like the Nanay, although there’s absolutely nothing at all that could remind someone of the Nanay. I wish the ferry had taken longer coming over from the other shore, as a crossing such as this is meant for a man to fully digest. With me are three or four cars, the water is light brown, no other ships in sight.

Werner Herzog – Of Walking in Ice

Lockdown Day 18

 

Julie is in her room. Grey. Four grey walls. Grey ceiling. Grey floor. A high window with grey blinds lets in some reluctant light. Grey light. Just enough grey light to see her grey room. She lies on her narrow, metal-framed bed and her head is full of grey. Greyness seeps even into her dreams.

 

Picture of The Rhine near Rüdesheim am Rhein ©Bobby Seal

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