Wrexham County Borough 23 - Overton /There are some anniversaries you want to forget

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Anniversaries are things you rather like - sometimes . Sometimes you prefer to forget them . This week we celebrate a year of Covid. Now that is an anniversary I never saw coming . A few weeks of something that sounded and acted like flu and things would return to normal . Less than two months away and we would be heading for Holland and Scandanavia. Even as the months slipped by I never for once thought that we would have a Spring and Summer of Covid restrictions. Nor that our Autumn holiday would not be going ahead . I doubt many of us expected to see a Covid Autumn as it gripped our world . Heaven forbid we would not get away at Christmas . But it all happened and 52 weeks of our lives were with one swipe taken away from us . We couldn't go to work . Home working became the norm. We couldn't visit friends nor go to the gym or swimming pool. We could not meet in public nor could we go out of the country. The race was on to provide a vaccine that would bring life back to normal .

So that year has passed . The anniversary of one year of working from home . One year of life being very different . Buying more hand sanitizer , exercising locally and not being able to have a hair cut, go to the dentist or visit the doctor in person . On line buying meant shops shutting . Furlough became the buzz word . Redundancies followed furlough thick and fast . For once most of us are not celebrating an anniversary . Instead we are wishing things would get back to normal whatever that is .

Perhaps things will never be the same . The doctors have realised that they can discuss patients problems over the internet or on the phone . We know we can get everything we want delivered to our home addresses . We don't need the outside world so much . Or do we?

We are all missing work and human contact . I had found myself up in Overton waiting to get into the doctors . It is an odd feeling to see fewer cars on the road and less people on the street . I was probably the only person walking on the High Street and found myself wondering if I would ever get back to work or would home working remain the norm. The yellow of the daffodils caught my eye . Now that is a sure sign of Spring in the air .

There was something else that caught my eye. Pebbles on the church wall . Pebbles have become a symbol of Covid . They have been painted with faces . Messages painted on them . Placed at the side of the war memorials the pebbles of various sizes were decorated as Poppies . As I walked I looked at each one . Something to do with Ruby . Ruby must have been a young girl at the local school who had the idea of trying to cheer people up. It was hard not to smile at the designs and wondered what they said about the children who painted them.

Across the road was a Britains best Kept Village sign awarded to the group winner for the area. Overton had managed to win the group many years ago. What had happened to the Best Kept Village competition ? Was it still going strong ? I somehow doubted it . It seems that once upon a time in the 1970's the competition was founded. Overton would have been visited and assessed on the absence of litter and unsightly dumps on verges. The condition of the village green, the playing field , the school yard and public seats and noticeboards would have been assessed. A visit would have taken in the graveyard and the war memorial, the public hall , any sports facilities and finally the car parks . They would have moved on cleanliness of any toilet , bus shelter and telephone kiosk . I thought of those three only the bus shelter probably remained . Footpaths , stiles , field gates , ponds and streams would all have the once over. They then would move on and give points for the condition of commercial and business premises and look at initiatives in the village that benefitted the community .

I was wasting time waiting for the surgery to open . It gave me chance to look in the shop windows . Even a small place like Overton found itself with empty shops .

I walked back on myself passing the war memorial . The memorial had been erected in 1921 and contained the names of the dead from the first and second world wars . The poppy wreaths still surrounded the base . Finally I found myself standing in front of the town twinning sign . Twinning - now that was popular from the 70's. to the 90's. Towns and villages across the world twinned with each other based on similarities . Overton being a small village would have looked for a similar small village with something in common. They chose La Murette a village near to Grenoble in South Eastern France in the departement of the Isere . I couldnt quite work out the similarities between Overton and La Murette . On the face of it they were both picturesque. La Murette surround with the mountain ranges of the Charteuse , the Vercors and the Belledonne. . No mountain views in Overton . La Murette is famous for walnuts Someone , somewhere must have put names in a hat and Overton and La Murrette became married to each other in the world of twinning . Before I had chance to think too deeply about it I was returned to the the present, The church bells struck 9 and the surgery had opened . I hoped that we wouldnt have another Covid anniversary this time next year .

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