BACK IN THE COVID - The Lockdown Diary Day 31

Day 31 was an odd sort of a day for me. Very little sleep last night largely due to excruciating back pain and so after about a week of steady work, digging and planting I took the day off. I know this is all doing me some good because I took to the bathroom scales this morning and discovered that I had put on 2.7 Kilograms of new muscle since before the lockdown.

I am never bored. I am an introvert and I like it that way. I am very much in my element when doing nothing active or physical and instead just sitting or mooching around either cogitating, musing, puzzling, inventing, writing or dabbling. I like my own company and prefer silence to distracting noise. It seems to me that anyone who insists on a noisy background of radio or TV is avoiding confrontation with their inner self. Dialogue with and consideration for oneself is essential to a truthful outlook and calm balanced mind. I could do nothing whatever all day and for days on end quite contentedly and so I did just that for most of today.

I found myself reflecting on how much of the fine detail of life I am noticing for the first time. Today’s photograph is a good example. The tree is a Luma apiculata, commonly a Chilean Myrtle. It was at one time a member of the myrtle family but has been re-assigned to its own genus of Luma. It is supposed to be too tender to be grown in the UK and does tend to suffer winter damage to its extremities but I bought it as a one foot high seedling because of its tremendous rusty bark. As with many plants in our garden (and things in our home for that matter) it retains some great memories. In this case a holiday in Cornwall and a visit to the Lost Gardens of Heligan which is where we bought it. To my utter surprise and in spite of growing in this location for at least 20 years I noticed for the first time that it’s spring foliage is also a rusty red colour and in this state it is exceptionally pretty.



I conclude that this finer and brighter focus on our surroundings is due to a distorted perception in the passage of time we must all be experiencing. Time is not rushing by right now. We have time to study the detail of it, the finer truths behind it, our appreciation and love of the world around us, those memories in it that we treasure and those people we are lucky to still have close to us. It’s a good time to do nothing, stand still and listen to your heart beat falling.