I walked into my spare bedroom to check if the window was open and noticed my gardening coat hanging up on the coat hook rack, just inside the door.
Still with large amounts of mud up the sleeves and down the front where I'd collided with plants and carried bags of soil, it reminded me of when isolation began this year and how, as I now watch the closing in of the nights and the falling daytime temperatures, how it will still be the same when I pick up the coat to attend the pre-winter cut and cover.
It began positive enough
Early March and the world watched, holding its breath, as the virus spread its tentacles around the world. Outbreaks were getting closer to our shores; little did we know it had probably already made land fall and people experiencing the worst flu of their lives. Now we suspect they were probably falling ill with it, and unwittingly spreading it gently through those people they knew.
I joined them and sweated it out semi-conscious for about a week. I was as weak as a new-borne with a headache which felt as though the top of my head would erupt. The pain in the muscles was immense and I shivered and sweated so much my bed became sodden within hours. Hallucinating dreams and nightmares accompanied my fitful sleeping. It was some four days later I started to wake and felt as though I had been run over by a bus, and was still sitting on my chest.
I didn't have the 'covid cough' but I developed one which dogged me for weeks. The illness seemed to effect the gut more than anything, with food and I having different ideas.
What I had been able to eat was not sitting well with me any more and as time went on, I would walk into the kitchen, look and then walk out. I had little appetite and in the end I stopped eating, it was easier. I lost a lot of weight, not that I had much to lose.
Still the flowers continued to bloom and I missed the pleasures of watching them open.
Yes, the plants were beginning and my journey was also beginning into that new existence where the garden became my world and the gardening jacket my most favoured attire.
Taking short trips out to the local shops was the furthest I went and a tank full of diesel lasted three months I used the car so rarely.
Shortages of different items began; the great loo roll hunt, cleaning products, bleach, vegetables, milk, cereals......the list went on and scenes of empty shelves made hoarding more prevalent.
Slowly, life came back into my bones and although stamina was still very low, I began by clearing out cupboards; tidying, skipping, assessing what I really wanted to keep and what really wasn't necessary.
I'd experienced something which frightened me more, once I was through it, than it did going through it. Realisation hit, what if I hadn't recovered and need the hospital? Who would have known? I could have died and living alone with the mobile phone still switched off (I'd not had the strength to waken long enough to be coherent) no-one would have known for days.
Time for changes to be made
I went outside and started caring and preparing for early summer. New buds were forming and I vowed to make a difference in my life and in my world. What I valued was reassessed and what was important to re-discover was noted for implementation.
It was time to move on.
As the garden changed, so did I.
The illness, which I am convinced was the virus, had substantially affected my gut. I could no longer cope with digesting meat and the smell of it made me physically sick.
Sweet things also left the food list as did many breads. I was becoming more and more vegan without the pleasures of the spices and many of the herbs. Even eggs and cheese left me. Any food stuff my system was unwilling to process was either expelled within minutes of it hitting the stomach or caused intense stomach pains (IBS) and then the runs as if I had norovirus.
Projects developed and were installed and as the Spring finally gave way to the Summer, I was able to sit back and enjoy the fruits of all the labours.
The rituals of daily covid counting
A very new way of life entered the society; daily covid updates, restrictions, rituals, avoidance of each other to the point where fear, nervousness, mistrust and distrust of each other entered our consciousnesses. Queuing, hand washing, social distancing, it began in earnest and most people played by the stringent rules.
People were asking when we could get back to normal....and the garden kept growing, the bees continued their hunt for pollen and nectar and my garden began to burst into a myriad of colours.
Time moves on with constancy as does our adaptations
It's late August now and we have had the tropical days and nights. Temperatures have sunk back from the 90s and have returned to a new normal. The wind whips round the houses and both bedecked trees and sea defenses brace themselves against the combination of high tides and gales whipping them up into a frenzy.
I sit in my creative art room and watch the cat as she sleeps yet another day away; it reminds me how easy it is to sleepwalk through life especially now when holidays abroad are fraught with problems and I have received refunds on all bar one which is possibly going to be cancelled depending on covid outbreak numbers in December.
We watch the maps and plot the development of hot spots and prey we're not in one.
I use the maps to work out where is 'safe' to travel and how much interaction is wise.
Face coverings are an everyday occurrence and as natural as putting on a seat belt when driving.
I have used another tank of fuel now, but I limit where I drive and the reasons why.
This is indeed a very different 'normal' to how it was in 2019, different rules of social engagement, changed language and different wants and desires.
I have only one desire: I really don't want that virus again!