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

Jorge Luis Borges – Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings

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

In the beginning there was the road. But before the road, there was the river.

Gillian Tindall – The Fields Beneath

Her fishlike eyes adjust to the dimness of the church’s interior. The walls, she notices, are alive with colour. The colours dance and shimmer and she is drawn towards the nearest wall. As she approaches, trailing a faint spoor of weed and river water along the floor of the church, the colours first separate and then coalesce into what she discerns is a picture. Dragging her river wet body along first one wall and then across to another she sees that there are three pictures that stand out from the others. One is of the Apostles’ Creed, another illustrates the Seven Deadly Sins and the third, a stylised skeleton figure, represents Death. Its eyeless sockets stare out at Julie, drinking in her mortality.

Picture of River Gwenfro, Wrexham ©Bobby Seal

Extract from Swimming Against the Stream ©Bobby Seal

Oh, I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby say goodbye.

Joni Mitchell – River

Yesterday evening we held a signing ceremony in our back garden. We set up the documents on a garden table and brought in, separately, two of our neighbours. We all stood overlooking the table, but several metres apart. We each then took our turn to come forward and sign the documents, two of us as signatories and two as witnesses. Naturally, we all brought our own pens.

We all laughed and joked that this was like something taking place in the Korean De-militarised Zone, or some other unhappy trouble-spot. Despite the serious nature of the task, it was good to be with other people, albeit all of us maintaining an appropriate distance.

The serious matter in hand was not a peace treaty, though we hope completing the task will give us some peace of mind at this time when we are all facing the threat of COVID-19. Mrs S and I were simply updating our Wills and asking our neighbours to witness them.

Everyone should have a Will, not just rich people or old people. We first drew up ours in 2013, when our youngest daughter was 13 and we wanted to make arrangements for who would look after her should we both suddenly die. Yesterday was just a matter of updating the arrangements now she is an adult.

Our youngest tells us she wants to make a Will too. She doesn’t have much in the way of assets, but she tells us that she’s read that, should she die, all of her student debt will be expunged. She reckons, therefore, that she should take out the maximum loan each year and leave it all to her beneficiaries!

Picture of Ruisseau des Écudets, Savoie ©Bobby Seal

A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.

Marcel Proust – In Search of Lost Time

The fortitude shown by some people in this present crisis is really quite humbling. My eldest daughter, as people who have read this blog before will know, lives in a small two-bedroom flat with her husband and two young children. They have been self-isolating now for three weeks, having been advised to do so for at least twelve. Her three-year old son had a stroke last year and underwent brain surgery less than two months ago, so he is regarded as highly vulnerable to COVID-19.

She has lost her main source of income, as a supply teacher, and the family is confined to a small, first-floor flat, albeit with its own little yard at the back. They manage to get out on their bikes once a day, but the government are now suggesting even that privilege may be withdrawn.

Yet, whenever I speak to her she is positive and upbeat. I know she worries, and has done so since her child first became ill, but to the kids she’s just a cheerful, lively mum. As a committed teacher she’s thrown herself whole-heartedly into the task of home-schooling her kids – on the first day of self-isolation she sat down with them and they drew up a learning schedule together. Everything is turned into a learning opportunity and every lesson is turned into fun: thus, a water pistol each and numbers chalked onto the wall of the yard becomes a maths lesson.

But we can get this whole appreciation of ordinary people doing amazing things in difficult circumstances thing a bit wrong sometimes. Last week I was out for my morning run and passed, having crossed to the other side of the road when I spotted him, a council worker sweeping the pavement with a brush and a push-along cart. Just an ordinary guy, but one who was doing an amazing job for his community and someone who deserves our appreciation.

‘You’re a hero, mate!’ I called across to him, ‘you’re doing a fantastic job’.

I left him looking puzzled and embarrassed as I ran on, and I’ve worried ever since that he might have thought I was using irony to take the piss. So if the town centre street sweeper ever reads this blog…

Picture of Old Dee Bridge at Chester ©Bobby Seal