Lockdown

 This is the word on everyone's lips in countries all over the world. I haven't written about lockdown, or indeed anything else for over 6 months as the experience of the restrictions in my live particularly as I was a shielded person led me to a moderate state of depression and I was incapable of writing anything. Thankfully I'm beginning to become creative again and can only thank with the deepest gratitude my friends in my Buddhist sangha, the wonderful community where I live who've been enormously supportive in every possible way and my joy in walking again in the beautiful countryside where I live. This is a one-off blog for the moment but I'll see how things go. My local friends have been wonderful too in many ways but I do miss the chat over a cup of coffee that we used to have once a week and our community activities like the Reading Group and our Creative Writing group which are both now taking place online.

So much has changed this year. I used to sing, dance and swim as well as volunteer in the local library. All of that has stopped and Facebook versions of our groups doesn't quite hit the spot. I'm enormously grateful for Zoom which allows me to meet and share virtually. Without this wonderful technological miracle I feel that we would all be so much worse off.

So what next , , , well we're going back into lockdown on Thursday. Thankfully it doesn't really affect me but it does adversely affect the local community businesses which were only just getting back after the first lockdown. I really hope that they can survive and to help them I do shop locally for practically everything.

And then there's Brexit and most important of all climate change. Oh what interesting times we live in!