It is us who are gone in The View from the Terrace

I went to post a letter this afternoon. It’s the first time I’ve walked up the main road since the lockdown. It was so strange seeing all of the shops and cafes closed and boarded up. It felt like something out of one of those post apocalyptic sci fi movies. Even the pharmacy was closed, so I assume that some of the staff are ill, as it is only a small business. I decided to go for a short walk after posting my letter. I went up one of the side roads to a place where there is a wide green between the houses. There was a blossom tree and some late daffodils were still in bloom. The sun was out and the birds were singing. The human race is going through a crisis while the rest of nature just carries on.

Later I was listening to a radio show and the Tom Paxton song Whose Garden Was This came on. It’s about what the future may hold if we don’t care for our environment. In the future, in the song, there are no more flowers or birds and the rivers have been destroyed. The thought occurred to me that the opposite has happened. The flowers are still blooming, the birds are still singing, the river is as beautiful as ever. It is us who are gone, trapped in our houses, unable to celebrate the arrival of spring. Karmic justice perhaps.

We went shopping yesterday and found that The Range was open. The Range is a general store that sells everything from crockery to pet supplies but, because they also sell some food and household essentials like the much sought after toilet paper, they are still open. The Range also sells plants so we went in. Everyone in there seemed to be buying plants rather than household essentials. We found quite a lot of bargains and plan to spend the afternoon together in the garden tomorrow.

I was sitting in the garden this afternoon having a coffee when I was visited by our pigeon. He has been coming to see us for several days now and is very tame. Louise has named him Pickles. He will let you get quite close to him. I couldn’t help but think how strange it was that I could get closer to him than other humans at the moment.