Daily Archives: April 3, 2020

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Coping with Covid-19 . . .

Two weeks in lockdown . . . and counting!

One thing I’ve already discovered is that to keep me sane, I must limit my news intake. Why?

First, much of the news about this global pandemic is just too depressing, despite the tales of heroism about those on the frontline: the doctors and nurses, those keeping us supplied with food, or maintaining vital services when almost everything else is closed down.

Second, I just can’t listen to all the cant that spews from the mouths of politicians who I never trusted in the first place. In the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson and his Cabinet colleagues spouting their fancy Brexit-like slogans that say nothing, making commitments they will probably be unable to meet, and the Prime Minister displaying his usual bluster and lack of command of detail (until he went down with the virus himself). He and his government appear to have no clear strategy to combat the epidemic in this country (well, England at least).

And when I look across the Atlantic to see what is going on in the USA under the leadership of Donald Trump, it’s appalling. I use the term ‘leadership’ very lightly indeed. It is disgraceful how he has behaved and continues to do so.

I think that when the crisis has passed, there will be a political reckoning, and I hope and expect these incompetent individuals will be consigned to the cesspit of history.

I’m sure for many families working from home, the lockdown is a real challenge, especially if there are children in the house, and young ones at that who often find it harder to keep themselves amused.

I guess, in one respect, Steph and I have an advantage. We’ve been retired now for a few weeks short of ten years. So we’ve already had to find things to keep us amused and occupied.

For Steph, it means spending time each day on her beading projects. She’s been doing this for a couple of decades, and first started when we lived in the Philippines. One of the downsides of the lockdown for her is being unable to make her bi-weekly trip to the shops. She has sourced many of her beads from charity shops, purchasing pieces of jewelry (bracelets, necklaces and the like) at knockdown prices, then deconstructing them into new pieces that she has designed.

She also has the garden to keep her busy. I only mow the lawns. We had started the year thinking we’d be moving to Newcastle upon Tyne by mid-summer or thereabouts, and hadn’t expected to spend too much time working in the garden (apart from the usual tidying up). It looks like the garden will need much more attention for many months to come. Our house move is on hold—almost indefinitely—until the housing market reopens and it’s safe to even contemplate reviving viewings and the like.

As for myself, I have this blog to keep me busy.

If you read my blog on a regular basis you will appreciate that it allows me to bring together two of my main hobbies: writing and photography. As well as the pleasure of designing each blog post, deciding what topics to focus on, what extra resources I might need (Wikipedia is a great source), and choosing the photos I want to include. And I have thousands of images to choose from.

So, with fewer opportunities to get out and about, I’m finding more time to work through stories that I had put to one side. Certainly it has been an opportunity to catch up on my posts about the many National Trust and English Heritage properties we have visited since 2011 (and some from even before then, when we joined both organizations).

I guess we are more fortunate than many countries. Provided we keep the recommended 2m physical/social distancing, we are permitted one period of exercise outside every day.

Since I retired in April 2010 I have tried to get out most days, in any case. I regularly walked three or four miles or more. But since I broke my leg in January 2016, I find that more than three miles is not very comfortable, and my leg swells up, aching for the rest of the day. So I limit myself to around two miles, about 45 minutes, and I have a regular set of routes that I follow. This has been useful since I’m able to navigate those that are reasonably quiet, as you can see from the images below. I mainly encounter folks walking their dogs. Steph has joined me on occasion.

However, shopping for food is quite the most stressful thing I have to do right now. Apart from the infection risk of having to mix with others (even though reasonably strict physical distancing is in place), but also because I’m a member of the over-70 ‘vulnerable’ demographic, we always wonder just what will be available on the shelves. At the start of the lockdown, many unreasonable (and irresponsible) people did panic buy, and stripped the shelves of many of the essentials.

The Morrisons supermarket we frequent is over a mile away, so we have to drive there. Since last week, the supermarket permits just one family member inside at a time (one per trolley), so the shopping trip has fallen to me alone, rather than together which has been the norm until now. I had to queue the first time to get inside; yesterday at 8:30 am there was no queue at all, and I was able to source almost everything that was on Steph’s list. Just a few minutes ago, our next door neighbor (who is a theater sister in the NHS, and who has special hours access to the supermarket) has just brought round the one item we needed but I couldn’t buy yesterday: plain flour! Simple pleasures.

So as far as food is concerned, we are managing fine for the time-being. I can feel my anxiety levels decreasing once I have left the supermarket with a full trolley. There really is no shortage of food – yet.

I also have music playing throughout the day. That’s a great comfort. It has to be Radio Paradise in the morning and early afternoon. Followed by Classic FM late afternoon and over dinner.

We’ve been catching up on the first four series of the excellent BBC crime drama Line of Duty (we hadn’t seen the first three series when they were first broadcast). Last night we watched the first episode of Series 5.

I find myself often going to bed earlier than normal, and enjoying an hour or so of Radio 4 before listening to the news headlines at 10 pm, and then settling to sleep.

Both Steph and I are avid readers. Her genre is crime fiction (I hope she doesn’t have anything planned). I read what takes my fancy, usually less fiction, even though I did read mostly fiction during 2018 and 2019.

My Kindle is great; I wouldn’t be without it. I’m currently well into Howard Goodall’s The Story of Music published in 2013. It’s an excellent read, but certainly technically difficult in places for someone like me with zero background in music theory or composition. Nevertheless it’s fascinating, and I look forward to viewing the BBC TV series of the same name that someone has kindly uploaded to YouTube. Here’s Episode 2.

We’ll manage . . . And life is still good.

 

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Following in the footsteps of Izaak Walton

Izaak Walton

The River Dove is a 45 mile long tributary of the River Trent (the third longest river in the UK), and for much of its length is the county boundary between Staffordshire to the west, and Derbyshire to the east (map).

It’s a sparkling trout stream, and was partly the inspiration for The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton first published in 1653.

The river cuts through the Peak District’s limestone dome to form a series of deep valleys covered in ash woodland, known as dales, of which perhaps the most well known is Dovedale.

Dovedale is a National Nature Reserve; the land is owned by the National Trust, and apparently receives a million visitors a year, so you can imagine just how crowded it might become at the height of the summer tourist season. But not in these Covid-19 days, regrettably.

The entrance to Dovedale from the south, with Thorpe Cloud on the right.

I grew up in Leek in North Staffordshire, just 14 miles to the west of Dovedale (about 25 minutes by car). My paternal grandparents, Tom and Alice Jackson, lived in the Derbyshire village of Hollington, just 10 miles south of Dovedale, between Ashbourne and Derby.

Dovedale was the destination for many family outings when I was growing up in the early 1950s. I was born in November 1948, so these two photos below must have been taken around 1952 or 1953.

Crossing Dovedale’s famous Stepping Stones, with L-R: my eldest brother Martin, my elder brother Edgar, my cousin Marion, ??, my sister Margaret, my cousin Alec, me, and my mother Lilian Jackson

With my father, Fred Jackson, my brothers Edgar and Martin, and sister Margaret. I remember sailing those yachts.

The famous Stepping Stones connect the Staffordshire bank with its counterpart on the Derbyshire side. On the Derbyshire side there are trails up to the summit of Thorpe Cloud, or along the valley beside the river. Several spectacular limestone outcrops are exposed in the valley sides.

Looking south along the River Dove at the Stepping Stones.

My wife Steph is from Essex (to the east of London) and had never visited Dovedale until she moved to Birmingham in 1971. After we returned from South America in 1981 and set up home in Worcestershire, we took our daughters Hannah and Philippa on several occasions to enjoy the beauty that is Dovedale, the last visit being in July 2006.

Crossing the Stepping Stones
Steph on the Stepping Stones
Philippa and Hannah thinking about climbing Thorpe Cloud
Steph and Phil beside the river just before ascending Thorp Cloud
Steph on the summit of Thorpe Cloud
Philippa on the summit of Thorpe Cloud
Looking north along Dovedale from the Stepping Stones
Thorpe Cloud
Along the river
My mother, Lilian Jackson and our Jack Russell terrier, Chem
Ilam Rock
Steph coming down from the summit of Thorpe Cloud
View north along Dovedale from the summit of Thorpe Cloud
Me and Steph near the Stepping Stones
Footpath up to Thorpe Cloud
The entrance to Dovedale, and Thorpe Cloud
The view south beyond the entrance to dDovedale.

My sister Margaret had friends who farmed land near Alstonefield just above Dovedale. When I was in my mid-teens (around 1964, I guess) a friend of mine and I camped for a week on that farm, and enjoyed many excursions over the lip of the valley into Dovedale. And, being in those days a keen birdwatcher, I saw for the first time (but few times since) the iconic bird of Dovedale: the dipper.

It’s a remarkable little bird, and feeds underwater, scurrying along the riverbed in search of crustaceans and the like. I came across this video showing a dipper feeding in mid-stream.

The limestone landscape of the Derbyshire dales is striking, and botanically very interesting. In 1970, after I had graduated (in geography and botany) from the University of Southampton, for a few days I assisted my friend John Rodwell (now Professor, who was a graduate student studying for his PhD under renowned plant ecologist Joyce Lambert) in his field work in Cressbrook Dale, about 18 miles north of Dovedale. It’s part of the same geological formation, and the botany is similar.