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| Bridge over the River Otter just before Otter Nurseries |
We are coming to the end of our third week of lockdown here
in the UK. There is no sign of any change.
The daily figures make for very grim reading. The one light
at the end of the tunnel is that the infection rates seem to be slowing. We
need to see them dropping before we can even think about starting to get back
to normal.
The green shoots of spring may well be sprouting outside in our countryside;
however, they are not showing for this Coronavirus crisis just yet.
Thankfully, on the whole, the message of staying at home
seems to have been observed. That saying, there was a report that D&C
Police had turned around 500 caravans at junction 27 of the M5, however, I am
not sure of the validity of that report.
This morning, my wife and I took our dog Murphy for a long
walk. We walked part of the old train track towards the River Otter. Usually,
there is a constant drone of vehicles on the A30. It was quite remarkable as we
crossed over a bridge, how silent it was today.
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| An empty A30 on Easter Sunday 2020 |
When the road was first constructed, despite the environmental
activists such a Swampy, the authorities also had to contend with complaints
about the noise the surface made. Despite the ins and outs of court appeals and
inquiries, nothing changed. There was a promise that at the end of life the
surface would be replaced with a quieter one. Given that the surface will
probably last for some considerable numbers years yet, I don’t think things
will change very anytime soon.
Getting back to our walk, it was indeed very quiet.
Blackbirds, woodpeckers, chaffinch, goldfinch, woodpigeons and ducks could all
be heard calling out on this beautiful Easter Sunday morning. The sun was
shining and the sky was a glorious blue. I would like to be able to tell you
how it smelt. Unfortunately, I have no sense of smell or taste after a presumed
case of COVID-19 three weeks ago.
Our countryside is certainly a different place after these
three weeks of lockdown. I am convinced, along with others, that the general
atmosphere is much healthier. It makes sense to think that it is without so
many cars on the roads at the moment.
Walking through a column of trees atop an embankment, it was
easy to imagine the time when this was a fully functioning railway. Sadly the
Beeching report of 1963 saw the demise of the line from Sidmouth Junction to
Sidmouth via Otter St Mary and other stations. Sidmouth Junction is now the
site of Feniton station on the main west coastline to London Waterloo.
As we carry on into more days of the enforced and very much
justified lockdown, we will come out of the other side, of that I am certain. Will
everything be the same? Will we have the same values; will we have gone back in
time?
I’m not about to make any predictions, I do think that for
better or worse the world is going to be a different place after all this.
These last few weeks have not been very conducive to
writing. I did manage to fire off a letter to a magazine and a pitch to an
editor which has gone down very well. I will be writing that article this week. I then have to write my next assignment and there are still
the short stories to finish.
COVID-19 has done nothing for my goals and aims
this year. I’m certain there are many other writers have has the same problems
and feelings. Having time off doesn’t always mean time for writing. For me, my
time off was a period of illness. I felt so rough I didn’t feel like doing
anything. But the fact that I've sat down and written this blog, I think, means I’m
back on track for writing.
Please stay safe and at home everybody. These are very
strange times for us all. We will come out of the other side. See you soon.
