Lockdown, Part 30: Whatever!

The weather's been changeable. There's been rain. It's stopped me riding the bike. The frequency of my cycling has dipped from six days a week to three. Not cycling isn't good, it always makes me feel sluggish, unhappy, doomed and I get a little depressed as a result. I shouldn't be like this. The less I go the more difficult it is to motivate myself, I start to find it all too much. I find myself in the garage, looking at the bike and wondering whether it's worth unpadlocking it or simply going back in the house and forgetting about everything. It happened last week. I started imagining myself riding along Ellenbridge, heading up Church Way and then riding along the Limpsfield Road and it made me feel weary. I went back inside the house and forgot about it. It's different at the weekend. At the weekend I don't have to work so I can go cycling in the morning, meet Andy at the churchyard and if the sun is shining I feel good about the world. Last week I managed three rides (Sunday, Thursday and Friday) and to be fair, I feel good about that too. Today I started the second week of riding since the bike was returned to me - or rather since I went to the bike shop to get the Rockhopper. I've decided not to fret about riding or not riding. I'm accepting that things change. The run of good weather that motivated me to ride six days a week has gone so from now on it's the luck of the draw and also whether I'm feeling up to it. I hope that nine times out of 10 I do feel motivated to get out there, but if I don't, then so be it.

Swimming in the sea...

I think the lockdown is starting to get on people's nerves, it's getting on mine. People are looking for change and it's coming, of course it is, but it's more about what kind of change and the fact that we've all got to socially distance and people keep talking about the 'new normal', which nobody wants. We all want the old normal, although I'm thinking that I don't want the cars back on the road or the planes in the sky. I quite liked it without them, but now things are looking like the old days. When I cycle along the Limpsfield Road there's increased traffic, so while it's supposed to be 'the new normal' there's some of the old normal too. But hey, the economy has to bounce back somehow or we'll all run out of money.

What annoys me about 'the lockdown' is the way it's portrayed on the television. I keep seeing advertisements showing people 'stuck at home' tutoring their kids or exercising in the living room or singing from their balconies and I find myself thinking why are they doing that? Since lockdown I've been riding miles and miles on the bike, going out shopping, walking, you name it, there's no need to be stuck indoors and yet that's the picture the media wants to portray, that we're all at home, stuck indoors and slowing driving ourselves crazy.

Wisborough Green

I was listening to LBC on Saturday and the presenter (I can't remember his name) was asking listeners what drastic changes have they made to their lives or their way of thinking as a result of lockdown. And this is something else I find odd about the media portrayal of the situation, the assumption that the experience, for all of us, has been life-changing and that whole World War ll analogy. My problem with this is that I don't think it has been life-changing at all; we've all been stuck indoors, that's all. We haven't been at war, or under siege, there's always been food around, even if we've had to queue for it, so why should we be experiencing anything life-changing? And then I started wondering how things had changed for me. Well, I need a haircut, that's for sure, but I'm not getting uptight about it. I mean it's only been possible to have a haircut since yesterday. Up until then it's been a case of leave it alone or reach for the clippers. In all honesty, I can't be bothered, let it grow, that's what I've been thinking. Who cares if it's long? I've been eating more than normal, but all good stuff. I'm buying more food than I was pre-lockdown. I get through a family pack of Alpen in a week, I'm eating lots of fresh fruit and I've started eating bread like I used to, but I try to limit myself to just four slices per day maximum. Chocolate bars are back on the agenda. I often find myself eating a Wispa bar while waiting in the queue for the check-out. That's got to stop. And I'm staying up late watching box sets, that's new. I'm now on Season Six of the X Files, I watched the whole of Ozark, the whole of Cardinal and now I'm on to The Sinner with Bill Pullman and the jury's out on that at the moment. I've stopped watching the news. And that's because we've become a one news story nation. It was Brexit and now it's the pandemic and I've started taking a different perspective on it all. I mean, with the pandemic, what's the story? There's a virus, it's bad news for some, but not so bad for others, it's highly contagious and the Government has been bungling everything as it goes along. End of story basically. And it looks as if Brexit is going to come back. There's also the intensifying soap opera of the Epstein case, that's hotting up now that the FBI has arrested Ghislaine Maxwell, and here's hoping she's going to blow the gaff on all the establishment figures involved, especially Prince Andrew. But other than that, there's little else.  I swam in the sea, that's the big news from me of late. About a week ago I headed down to Felpham on the south coast on a very hot day and hit the beach, there was nobody there (hardly). I shared the sea with a couple of people and their kid and I went straight in, without hesitation. The sea was warm and I spent around 40 minutes in the water. The last time I swam in the sea was in 2015 in Brazil, Copacabana Bay, and the following day I went down with an upset stomach. Not nice and you can read about it here. Sea swimming again was great fun and reminded me that I'd really like to live by the sea, but I doubt I ever will.

The shops are empty...

I must point out that I know people have suffered from the lockdown. I feel sorry for anybody stuck in a flat without a balcony or a communal garden, I feel sorry for people who are getting on top of one another in a small space with no possible escape, I feel sorry for those who haven't discovered cycling or a means of escape like I have. 

What I can't get to grips with is the future and how it's all going to change or get back to normal. And by normal I don't mean the new normal, I mean the real normal, the old normal, the world we used to know. I don't want to have my haircut by somebody wearing a visor. I don't want to put my name down to go to the pub.

I suppose I wish the whole thing would stop and go back to normal. I guess everybody feels the same way.

Today I rode to the churchyard to meet Andy. We sat there in the sunshine chatting and chilling for around half an hour and then we headed home, parting company at The Ridge like in the old days. I carried on down the 269 and reached home at 1220 hrs. The weather's been great today. 

When I reached the churchyard, Andy had yet to arrive...