Page 155 - Through a glass brightly

in August and I’m hoping to start wrapped up in my anorak, scarf, walking stick and rucksack with a YouTube movie of Lindisfarne running behind me as though I was coming from Lindisfarne. I’m not of course! I shall still be at home in Glasgow! And all this is just for three minutes of Welcome! I have three Zoom meetings a week and last week managed to show a videoviathe“share”button. Ihaveanewprinterwhichisruthlesslylogicalandatthemoment our minds are not meeting! Then there’s the flipbooks (see next email), speech dictation, specialised microphone, and so it goes on. I manage to master everything and then the following morning nothing works! Either it or I go AWOL during the night! One of the overseas students who attends our International Club at the church and who has got Locked Down in Glasgow is doing a Masters degree in how the elderly (!) are coping with the new technology. I think she’s had to rethink her thesis. The upside is that much of what we considered normal has become “new normal” and will never go back to the old way of doing things. Eighty-plus year-old’s are investing in new laptops, learning to Zoom and joining in activities which they thought they would never see again. And people all over the world, who once studied in Glasgow, attended one of the clubs (we serve student lunches every day) are now joining us. The Walking Club which is now in its 35th year also attracted students who long ago returned home but who are now following all our online videos and keeping in touch. I keep getting emails about weddings and babies and happy memories of walking in Scotland! Despite being legally able to open the church by 16th August the restrictions are so restrictive that I doubt if we will be doing it until next year. So we plough on. But I am really NOT getting any younger! But no one has died for 10 days so here we are – healthy, coping, learning and just beginning to pick up the threads again.
Love to you all - and, with any luck, Version 3 will be out today!
From Pat at 15.42
Apologies for trying to win the slow race on this one, not deliberately, just poor organisation and motivation - but I've been more than content to read all the stimulating accounts coming in from all of you. And delighted too to hear that Maggie and Cary are managing well in their benighted corners of the planet.
I'm glad to be continuing to enjoy some of the many benefits that lockdown has brought, not least my daily walks in the ever-changing countryside. Watching the crops growing - wheat, barley, cabbages, lettuces, sweetcorn - has been something of a revelation. I'd never realised how productive and fertile the land around here is. And so rich in bird and plant life too. This type of exercise has been so much more rewarding than a twice-weekly gym session!
Anyway, to get to the point... like everyone I've welcomed the opportunities to meet up with family and friends again, albeit still confined within the guidelines. Picnics have been the go- to activity so far, although our first took place on one of the few days of continuous rain, and had 7 of us retreating illegally to a convenient spacious but chilly garden room. The next was a gathering of 9 of my walker friends at Wakehurst Park (NT), complete with our own fold-up chairs, sitting in a wide socially-distanced circle, swapping places at intervals, and resorting from time to time to hoods and umbrellas as the showers arrived. All great tho, and much needed contact for some who live alone, including 2 who had sadly lost partners just prior to lockdown. It does bring home how greatly some have suffered in this crisis by comparison.
Hairdresser, yes, on the very first day; dentist clothed in plastic (him), to retrieve a repaired partial denture left before lockdown - and which of course now doesn't fit; plumber to replace a leaky tap; builder to repair soffitts blown down in the winds. All unexciting but necessary catch-ups, an indication that life is beginning to regain a sort of normality.
154