Derbyshire 179 - Chesterfield /the luminous fingers of the watch/Day 183 and the start of week 27

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What time is it ? It is dark and gloomy and I have little idea what time it is . The sun has not risen and there is no finger of light punching its way through the curtains . It could be anytime between 4 am and 6 am. I lean over to try to read the time on the alarm clock . That is shrouded in darkness . . The luminous fingers of my watch are slowly moving around the dial but they are so weak that without my glasses I cannot work out what time they tell. It is Monday . I know that . I also know it is day 183 and the start of another Covid week - week 27. I should not be lying here screwing my eyes up trying to work out how much longer I can lie in bed . I went to bed later having rushed out to look up into the night sky. My reminder told me that the International Space Station was passing overhead now . There it was . On time and where the app told me it would be. It was lit up. Illuminated and slowly passing overhead. I moved slowly across the sky from right to left . I might have missed it if I had been a minute later. It was up there with the astronauts working hard watching me watching them . Beyond them in deeper space two bright lights . Jupiter and Venus . I could rise now and hope that I could go outside into the darkness and see the 59 Elon Musk satelites making their orbit around our earth . Instead I lay there counting the seconds in my head waiting for the alarm to go off .

The alarm did go off and I set off for the first swim of the week . What would this week look like ? The usual suspects were in the swimming pool . I swam up and down counting the lengths , looking for colours on the walls, on the posters. I filled my head with nonsense until it was time to get home for the morning coffee. Today we heard from the chief scientific officers . It was woe and tales of dreadful times ahead . Six months more of this misery . Six more months of lockdowns, of businesses failing . We could look ahead to a winter of discontent . Flu vaccinations were starting in a vain attempt to protect the older population from the seasonal flu bouts . Hospitals would be full again with Covid 19 patients . The numbers were going up and the R rate was in the headlines . We are seeing over 6000 new cases a day . Is this because we test more ? All I want is normality and not all this doom and gloom .

Will our house move be affected by lockdowns and Covid ? It is clear that rationing might start again as panic buying sets in . I head for Chesterfield and it feels almost normal with the exception of masks. What is not normal though is being unable to buy a battery for a watch or a watch strap . We gave up on those and pick up windscreen wipers to replace Gabbys old ones. There is always maintenance to do on a van whether you use her or not .

Tuesday - Day 184 a walk today . Autumn has set in. The mornings are much darker than last week . They feel much colder with a distinct chill in the air . Covid in the spring and summer might have been acceptable and bearable but Covid in the Autumn and over the winter does not bear thinking about. We are told we should go to work and then in the next breath we must work from home . The pubs are closing at 10. The young still party. Students are locked down in their hostels . They are angry . We are walking on a foggy morning . The mist hangs on every tree . Clinging like a limpet . Gone are the mornings when we can go out in T shirt and shorts . Even a jumper is not warm enough. It is coat and gloves weather . I am not sure where to walk . Walking less I should enjoy it more but somehow it does not appeal quite as much as it did six months ago . Have I exhausted the area and need pastures new ?

I choose Hockley Lane . A bungalow which was empty is now having work done on it . A conifer hedge has come down . I am reminded of the overgrown one in the new property we are buying that needs a serious haircut . It has been left to grow out of control . We meet our friend with his dog "Cooler this morning " he cheerily shouts . Yes it is cooler . We are going down the unmade road which is Central Drive . Out of the corner of my eye I notice a sold sign on a house . It has been up for sale for around 2 years and has finally sold . I wondered if our buyers who found our house too small had bought this one . I made a mental note to go past again next week and check for a blue car . I hope I dont meet them . My neighbour is walking towards us . No dog - I enquire where the dog is . Only to be told the dog is old and has bad hips so no longer able to walk far . We dont meet anyone else as we walk along the playing field . No gundogs being trained nor anyone on the tennis courts . Nor do we see or hear anything on our way down Hill House Lane . The birds are strangely silent . Not many cars about and certainly no walkers . The flowers have gone over . Shall we go left and walk back home ? I make the decision to continue up to Bole Hill . Oddly I dont get far . I decide to cut across the field to Salem Chapel . The grass is wet and the mist still hangs low giving an eerie feel to the world . The silence is more evident in the mist don't you think ? "A path is made by walking on it " so said Chuang Tzu . Someone walked this path before us . The large size 10 boots have left a wet patch heading into the distance . What we cannot see though is the person who made the footprints . It was as if he had never existed .

Salem chapel stands quiet . I wonder if services have started again . I have to get home - a funeral today . A covid funeral where only 30 mourners are allowed in and all names collated for track and trace . We walk past yet another sheep dip. I had spotted it but forgotten it was there . In the distance mallards are quacking . No fishermen today . A couple of swans glide by . Too far for me to photograph them . The other side of the causeway stands a lone photographer . With his long lens he captures the swans beauty and the swirling mists before he drives away and leaves me to the wanderings my mind is taking.

A Covid funeral . Odd affair . Only 30 allowed so we mill around outside the old church . Our aunt was a life long member so it was fitting that she would be remembered here . A guard of honour stood outside formed by the Womens Institute members . She had been a life long member of that band of ladies . The jam and Jerusalem brigade . They clapped her coffin in to the sounds of Cwm Rhondda . We spaced outselves out thinly around the church . The church pews were bland . The Victorians probably removed the medieval seating and replaced them with simple wooden pews . I did not like them. We had no hymns . The music was piped . No choir and no bellringing. The Saxon font caught my attention . I think my mind wandered as the vicar gave the eulogy . She had lived a long life . Well she was 102. She had her trials and tribulations . Less said about that the better . The readings were the usual suspects Johns Gospel - the story of the many rooms in the mansion of the Father and Corinthians Chapter 13. Our school reading - I listened to words - and remembered the starts and ends of school years. I could hear the headmistress - Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels ..............It took me back to 1963. I probably was not thinking about the funeral at all as my gaze fell on the vestments on the pulpit . Almost the same as my dining room chairs . We sidled out to the rousing Jerusalem . The W I anthem . I found myself silently singing "And did those feet in ancient times " in time to the music . If there is a hymn I like it has to be Jerusalem .

. A cousin announced that the older generation had finally gone and that he was the elder statesman and the top of the pile. We filed into the pub for the wake ." A sobering thought to be the next one on the list to go" he said . A Covid wake . Table service , the tea and coffee were cool when we finally got them. Sandwiches , quiches . An air of oddness about the whole thing . It was good to come home .

Wednesday - Boris came out and told us that we had been good children behaving ourselves . His message was tinged with praise and then heaped mixed messages . We will get another lockdown unless ..................... he told us . He looked as if he had been dragged through a hedge backwards . By the end of the message - a message that would be the first of many we knew nothing more than we knew before . Perhaps that is the way of Covid and the way Boris and the government are mishandling it . I cant help but feel I need a holiday .

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Comments

[Home and Away]

I must have missed something...
in what village is your new home?

[JenGog]

Bangor on dee
Hi Bob - if we ever get there Bangor on Dee a tiny village on the River Dee a few miles inside the welsh border . It is near to Wrexham and Chester . Sounds interesting reading your post on FB about your local politics .