Lockdown Diary - Saturday 5th June 2021

The days of this being called 'Lockdown Diary' are numbered, hopefully, though maybe the delta variant might have the last word on that. All that being said, I haven't actually settled on a name for the diary/blog postings yet so I'd better get the little grey cell working.

Shopping early with son #2, returning home for breakfast and then a crash course in washing (four loads to do) to get it outside and drying in time for me to head off for lunch with book club friends at the Fisherman's Cottage (he knows we're coming).

Amidst all this activity son #3 is heading to town to meet his gf, go to the cinema and generally chill.  Weather is absolutely gorgeous so we both should have a good time.

Final wash out with ten minutes to spare before my carriage arrives.  As I'll probably be outside for a few hours I've suntan-lotioned my exposed areas (?) - much as I like lobster, I don't want to be one.

Four of us have lunch together next to the canal, my second pub visit since we could and my first meal out (literally, as we were sat outside - still not eaten in a restaurant), though hopefully not my last.  Slightly trepidatious about the outing as I'm told that the district (if not the location) is in one of the delta variant surge areas. I guess I'm double vaccinated, as are my companions, we're taking all the usual precautions, and we're outside in the fresh air away from people, passers by excepted, then my risk is still relatively low. Nevertheless we all make sure we check in with the app and will keep an eye on things over the next couple of days.

After the pub lunch three of us walked to the Forbury Gardens to meet up with a couple of other book club members for more conversation and some ice cream.  It was very busy there, lots of families and groups of friends, even a wedding party, and it seemed almost like normal life, whatever that is. 

Whilst queuing for ice cream I learn that 'affogato' (the dessert which has an espresso poured over ice cream) is Italian for 'drowned'. Somehow it makes me like the dessert even more.

Gradually the group of us dispersed, one heading off for trial run of her hair style for her upcoming wedding (she's the bride to be!!), until finally two of us headed for the station so I could get a taxi home and back to reality.

Returning home is an anti-climax.  Being out with friends is an 'in the moment' enjoyment, just being.  After I return my mind is up to its usual tricks and manages to change my mood, as if a switch was flicked. It's both the distance between us as well the reminder that there is no one as close as my wife and I were, anymore. ('Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."')

I had planned to listen to music but my mood change puts paid to that, nor can I read the papers, which I've not started, as that also requires to much motivation/concentration.

This week's poem is 'Dover Beach' by Matthew Arnold and for some reason I've not quite worked out, I find it strangely compelling.  Several phrases or lines from it are often quoted, but it has some imagery that speaks to things I don't fully understand.

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

It's film night and as dinner is served we're one son down, though he's graciously given us the go-ahead to watch a film without him.  Son #3 chooses 'Falling Down' the Michael Douglas 'bad day (not) at the office' drama.  It takes a few swipes at corporate / capitalist America, whilst carefully not aligning Douglas's character with the forerunners of today's extreme right.  Ten minutes or so into the film, son #3 returns to the fold and so gets to see most of the film anyway.

Not seen the film in years, but I quite enjoyed it in a nihilistic, bleak and destructive way. 

Sleep beckons and I am only too willing to submerge.

Neil Cowley / 'Prayer' / 'Hall of Mirrors'

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