Tag: lockdown

#365daysofbiking Ghost town

April 4th – A trip out to buy essentials – once a casual, carefree, incidental thing – is now a mission. It involves queueing, or planning which shops to visit who might have stock of what you need.

Nothing is simple anymore. Everything is an extra effort, or requires planning or more time. Even finding a curry or getting fish and chips.

In Aldridge, mid Saturday afternoon. There was the odd, waiting, mostly empty bus. The supermarkets – Morrisons, Home Bargains, Iceland – were steady, but with social isolation measures, a queue to get in each made shopping tortuous.

And then, beyond the carparks this… sunlit ghost town.

These are the strangest days I’ve ever known, or will again.

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#365daysofbiking Fallen silent

April 3rd – A dusk ride out on a Friday at 7pm and there’s an unnatural silence descended on the area. The Shire Oak Pub should be alive, homely, lit up and buzzing with activity.

Because of the Coronavirus restrictions, it is silent, and shut.

Curtains drawn, it’s fallen silent, like the roads around it, in which I feel like an alien intruder.

These are very strange days indeed.

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#365daysofbiking Daffed

March 31st – The weather seems to be improving every day now – and despite the fact that my commute to work is on virtually empty roads, I’m still taking about the same time to ride it as the springtime attractions are far too beautiful to miss. This fantastic crop of daffodils cheer and welcome me every day on the industrial estate where I work.

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#365daysofbiking Trying to see clearly

March 29th – The first light, British Summer Time evening of 2020 was grey, but quite soft. At Pelsall Road on the canal the old Victorian railway bridge took on an ethereal air in the mist, which was actually caused by a garden bonfire nearby.

Up on the old Cement Works bridge, I continued my mission from the night before, as I tried to clear my head. I stood here in the chill, watching the lights come on.

These are incredibly hard times. I’m better off than most – I am reasonably financially secure, and I have a job which is needed. But I have no idea where I’m going or where this will end.

I can’t see if there’s a way through, so all I can do is to take the next step.

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#365daysofbiking In a grump

March 25th – The country in which I live is slowly shutting down in a way I never considered likely, or even possible. Little things that make my daily life normal – stopping for coffee, calling into the supermarket – nipping out to the park – are now either not going to be possible, or require a lot of planning.

I have key worker status, and for now cannot work from home. So I continue to be out and about, but always with a letter, announcing my status and reasons for being considered so, should the police stop me.

There is now a normal, defensive hostility from strangers – like this gorgeous ginger and white floof who gave me the shoulder in Walsall Wood from the opposite side of the canal.

We’re all in a grump now, I guess.

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#365daysofbiking Water carry on


March 24th – As I get older and wiser I realise that mallard ducks are just loud, shouty idiots with very unpalatable mating habits.

Here on the canal at Walsall Wood on my way to work, two males were competitively battling each other to mate with a female.

They were fighting for some time and the noise and disruption was considerable. Interesting that a coot seemed to be refereeing.

We are now under some kind of lockdown – I can only got to work if I can’t from home, or if I am a ‘key worker’; I can have some exercise every day and got to the shops. Most everything else is restricted or banned.

Unless you’re a duck. Then any old shit goes.

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