Today’s reflections come from Sybil and Colin who live in Norwich and have an allotment.
Week three of serious social distancing for us. Colin has Type 1 diabetes. Before the restrictions were brought in, we decided, to the relief of our son and our daughter, to cut down social contacts.
To be quite honest, we are coping pretty well.
Our allotment now provides not only our vegetables, fruit, and flowers but also our exercise and our mental well- being. The soil on the allotment is very sandy allowing us to plant things a lot earlier. We have planted all our potatoes, first earlies, second earlies and main crop, broad beans, peas, parsnips, beetroot, carrot, spinach and lettuce. The allotment provides us with a lovely supportive community as well. Telephone numbers have been exchanged in case any of us catch the dreaded virus so we can look after each others’ plots. We are very lucky.
White sprouting broccoli on the allotmentWe are fortunate too with our local shops. There is a wet fish shop which also sells bread, brought in from a local bakery, fruit, vegetables, dairy produce, herbs and spices and delicious local honey, and delivers to our door twice a week. Our butcher also takes and delivers our orders. Anything else we need our daughter or son gets for us.
And thank goodness for technology. We FaceTime our grandchildren often. Today we read ‘The Squirrels who Squabbled’, ‘Rhinos don’t eat Pancakes’, ‘The Selfish Crocodile’ and ‘Each Peach Pear Plum’. Daniel who is 4 loves cooking and gardening so we also look through various magazines for his favourite recipes. Last week we planted seeds and put them in the electric propagator and have been watching them emerge from the compost. Jessica who is eighteen months likes to have some input to what is going on as well, so, at times, things do get a little noisy. It is lovely to see them and still be part of their lives. We are missing them so much.
Every day we make sure to phone a friend or a family member. Our neighbour, who is ninety, and taking self- isolation very seriously, likes an email to stay in touch. We sometimes get several from him if he has found a joke online about COVID-19!
The days, at the moment, seem to fly by, but it’s still early days yet. How we will cope if this goes on until late summer? Well, that seems a long way off and today the sun is shining, the birds are singing the garden is full of spring flowers and the allotment is looking reasonably tidy!
Let us all keep safe and COVID-19 free.
