Just a few clouds scudding across Mr Blue Sky as I head out on my daily walk to try to keep me (relatively) sane. Although the sun is shining brightly, there’s a cold wind blowing and I have returned to my joggers for my journey.
As I leave, I observe a family member visiting her mother just across the green. She walks straight into the house. No social distancing there and, to be fair, they’re not the only people around here with a cavalier attitude to social distancing. People dying is okay for some, I guess when it’s not them or their families. Yet.
Down the narrow lane to the left, a middled aged female dogwalker brushes past me, smoking a cigarette, probably not the healthiest activity in the middle of a murderous epidemic that attacks the airwaves. That I can smell the cigarette is bad enough in itself but what if within that second hand smoke are small particles of Covid-19? My asthma, currently well under control, comes back briefly and I cough and move on, cursing under my breath.
Onto a wider lane now and there is a scorched pathway from the other night when unknown cretins thought it a cracking idea to set fire to a moped, sending flames into the air and setting off several explosions. I have not seen anyone else, yet.
At the end of the lane, I turn right and ahead of me is Bristol Parkway railway station. Cars speed down towards the station and then realise that if they use the station road as a shortcut, they are being filmed and could look forward to a hefty fine. All bar one turn around and go back. One driver, fag in mouth, driving a big Audi (of course), glowers at me, as if I am responsible for the virtual T junction. I nod and smile at him. He glowers back.
Several cyclists hurtle through at breakneck speed, followed by a number of sweating, panting joggers who, as per usual, pass within inches of me. I cross the road and climb the steps to the upstairs level of the outdoor car park from where I can view the lack of trains. But I am in luck. An old fashioned Cross Country HST set roars into the station, heading, with no passengers, to Plymouth. I stop to watch as the ghost train heads off in the distance on the curve towards Filton Abbeywood and the south west. I have always loved watching trains, never more than now.
The station is almost deserted, save for a couple of young women who are either waiting for a taxi or a lift. Empty buses rattle in and out of the forecourt. I walk down towards the main road, turning right into the churchyard and pause to look at the gravestones. I know some of the names, too, ranging from the old postmaster from our village to a village legend who lived just a few yards down from where the post office used to be.
In normal times, the churchyard is not some kind of haven of peace, with trains arriving at all times and the traffic maintaining a constant hubbub. But it is today. There are occasional cars roaring by at what seem to be as ridiculous high speed and the wind is blowing through the trees, but today it’s quiet. Even the dead can enjoy the quiet.
I leave the churchyard and head down past the tree and bench that stand as tribute to another village legend, Ben Hiscox. The local pub, the Beaufort Arms, would normally be rammed on Easter Monday – I’d probably be in it – but it’s eerily quiet today. The outside furniture was moved when the lockdown started.
I pass the local Tesco, heading down Hatchet Lane. There are a few shoppers waiting in a line, observing the social distancing that’s almost impossible to observe in the shop itself. An old lady moves her facemask down so she can scratch an itch on her face, which rather reduces the already limited effectiveness of facemasks. I cross the road and the first of a series of joggers, pass me by, including one woman I bump into at least three more times as I continue my walk. I reach the traffic lights before the Gipsy Patch Lane roundabout and observe cyclists ignoring, as they always seem to do, red traffic lights which are plainly for the use of motorists but not them.
The park is virtually empty. There a couple of dog walkers on the other side of the park and more joggers who run straight along the middle of the path I am on, as I move to the side. They are wearing earphones, listening to music, in order to deflect from the sheer boredom of what they are doing. As one man goes by, I’m sure I feel a bead of his sweat on my face. I briefly consider going after him and tapping his ankle, but rise above it. Just.
The jogger theme continues as I reach the park exit where a large Sikh man stands across the entire exit, doing stretching exercises. I cannot get past him so I stop three or four metres away. He has either not noticed me or he has concluded he’s going to finish his stretching come what may. “Excuse me, mate,” I say. He looks at me, startled, and moves slightly to the side. I wait until he moves back further. No words are exchanged but I don’t bother to thank him. I’ve had it with joggers for one day.
Ratcliffe Drive is a quiet ring road through Stoke Gifford but it doesn’t stop an Audi driver acting like he’s competing in the Indy 500. I wonder if he might have been responsible for the squashed hedgehog further along the road, the third such crushed hedgehog I see on my walk. Death, as well as life, goes on.
Finally, I return to our village and all is almost quiet. Most people are observing social distancing and social isolation, others not. However, it’s true that you can’t educate pork.
Like many of you, I am finding this semi-lockdown very tough. It’s having a poor effect on my mental health and I’m deep into any reservoir of strength I still possess. My little daily walk is undoubtedly the best way of clearing my head, despite the irritation caused by joggers, cyclists and some motorists. Not all joggers, cyclists or motorists are selfish, irresponsible, ignorant bastards. In my mind, only a large majority act like this and it gives the small minority who behave with a modicum of decency a bad name.
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