Easing restrictions...

From tomorrow the lockdown restrictions will be eased a little more, though, with today being a sunny Sunday, most people will no doubt assume that the easing has already begun. They’ll head to the busiest beach or beauty spot, where, after a barbecue, a few cold beers and a kickabout with a football, they’ll forget all about social distancing.

I’ve heard people saying that if Dominic Cummings isn’t prepared to stick to the rules, then they won’t either… which sounds petulant and makes no sense at all. Coronavius is as contagious as ever; every day in England there are still about 8,000 new infections. I worry that there’ll be a second spike in transmissions, leaving us back where we were a couple of months ago.

Escaping the crowds, on the way to Wetwang...

God's plan...

A lady rang a radio phone-in last night to reassure people that, despite appearances, “God is in control” and that all we have to do is to “put our faith in him”. He “has a plan for us”, she said blithely, and is “allowing scientists to investigate the coronavirus” and, in time, to come up with a cure. The call-in host was too polite, or too slow-witted, to point out that this kind of wishful thinking is incoherent nonsense.

The problem of theodicy - why a just God would allow evil in the world - is not a clever argument formulated by atheists. It is a problem engendered entirely by believers, insisting that their God is both omnipotent and omniscient. If God gets the credit for all good things - “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens” - then he surely can’t escape culpability for floods, typhoons, earthquakes, cancer… and virulant pandemics.

America is going up in flames and the pandemic is spreading around the world. If this is an example of God being “in control”, then planet earth is surely in need of better governance.

It's just possible that these shops - in Castleford - may never re-open...

Personal space...

Like most people I see when I’m out, I keep my distance. The last thing I want is a face full of pepper spray because I’ve strayed too close to someone on the street and invaded their now-enlarged ‘personal space’. Yet the truth is that most people are being very considerate. Social distancing is, ironically, a license to talk to anyone, young or old… albeit from a distance of at least two metres. And, as we move out of each others’ way, with a bit of nifty footwork, a shy smile is our shared reassurance that it’s “nothing personal”.

The River Aire and Ferrybridge Power Station...

Unwanted records...

American fatalities from coronavirus have now passed 100,000, more than the number of combatants who died during the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. And the UK currently has one of the world’s highest rates of coronavirus deaths per capita: 4.49 deaths per million people per day, with only Sweden and Brazil coming out worse.

Here we are: two great nations united in our incompetence when faced with a global pandemic, ‘led’ by a pair of narcissistic chancers who are unable to rise to the challenge. One day we will discover how countries such as Israel, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwam, Singapore and Japan seemed to have handled the pandemic without such catastrophic loss of life.

Licensed today: boats bobbing about in Padstow harbour…

Asking questions...

Words from Krishnamurti, which arrived in my email inbox today.

To ask a question is not to find an answer, but to discover and find out for oneself. Questioning becomes important when this is understood, and the question itself makes the mind sharp. But if one is expecting an answer to a question, the mind naturally becomes expectant, awaiting, and is therefore not clear, decisive and capable of discovery. In asking questions, the conscious mind is deliberately aware of what it is asking. It is aware that any answer must always be verbal and therefore non-direct. 

When one asks a question, one has also to find out why one asks it. One should ask questions about everything, but it matters very much why one is asking those questions; what is the background, the state of the mind that is asking those questions? Is it awaiting an answer, expecting to be told? If it is waiting for an answer, who is going to answer it? A mind that is waiting to find the answer is not an active mind; it is just waiting, expecting. So if one is aware of the content of the question, why the question is being asked, and who is going to answer it, then the question becomes very important. Such questions have a catalytic effect; such questions produce an answer in themselves.

Licensed today: the island of Scalpay in the Western Isles...

 

Delivering the goods...

I had a stroll down Boothferry Road in Goole yesterday, now a pedestrianised street lined with shops, most of them closed. The banks are gone (for my nearest branch of Barclays, I have to drive to Selby), and a lot of the shops look as though they are unlikely to open again in their current guise.  Just outside Goole, close to junction 36 on the M62, is a huge building site, where Siemens will be manufacturing tube trains and rolling stock for the railways. This will bring much-needed jobs to the area, and hopefully provide the impetus for a revival in Goole's fortunes.

Of the half-dozen images licensed this morning, half of them feature delivery vans: a sign of the times...

VW camper...

Licensed today: a pic of a VW camper parked up in the Duddon Valley…

Pedal crankers...

Sales of new bikes are doubling or tripling, and bicycle repair shops can barely cope with the extra business, as rusty old bikes are being hauled out of sheds and garages. People are going for bike-rides, and they’re not obsessed with dressing up in day-glo lycra or pretending that they’re competing in the Tour de France. And, of course, the flatlands of East Yorkshire are perfect for people who may not have ridden a bike since their schooldays. Alone, or with family and friends, cyclists will be out in force today: yet another sunny Saturday in this strangest of summers.

Guy cycling in Withernsea. I hadn't realised, till I read an information panel, that Withernsea once had a pier, and that this castellated gateway is all that's left of it. Almost as soon as it was completed, in 1877, disaster struck. The pier was damaged by a storm in 1880, and ships collided with it so regularly that what was left of the pier was dismantled in 1893...

Painting depicting the wreck of the coal barge 'Saffron', which had punched a 200ft hole through the middle of the pier.

Values...

According to Mary Portas, the self-styled ‘shopping guru’, what we’ll want, once the pandemic is over, will be “brands that reflect our values”. Hmmm, instead of picking the brands which reflect my values, which sounds rather difficult, it might be more convenient just to change my values to match those of the retailing world: “pile it high, sell it cheap” or “flog as many units as we can between now and doomsday” or “bully the punters into signing up for the extended warranty”.

Wow, just read an article by an (anonymous) NHS doctor, which says everything I feel about the way we lionise the "heroes" of the NHS, by clapping and banging saucepans, even as they are forced to go to work without PPE. Anon writes "Don’t feel you need to clap. Enough with the rainbows. When this ends, people need to show their value of key-working staff in practical ways; pay them enough to be able to live in our cities, and recognise, support and welcome immigrant staff who prop this country up". Amen to that.

Licensed today: the cascade in the gardens of Holker Hall in Cumbria...

Close but no cigar…

Just saw this, erm, ‘celebration’ of our NHS key workers, and had to get a snap. I’m sure they meant well, but what the hell were they thinking? The nurse even has a 'sexy' garter...

Mother Nature...

During lockdown, phone-in programmes are taking over the radio airways. A guy rang in yesterday to say that coronavirus was Mother Nature’s way of teaching us a lesson for our arrogance. We obviously find it easy to imagine being ruled by a celestial dictator - who judges our behaviour, then dishes out rewards and punishments - whether we choose to call it ‘Mother Nature’ or ‘God’…

Licensed today: colourful houses in the Cumbrian village of Caldbeck...

Loose change...

A year or two back you’d get a funny look if you tried to pay for a round of drinks with a card; if the bill came to less than a tenner… forget it. Yet now you get a funny look if you try to pay for anything with cash. It’s seen as grubby, potentially tainted, an obvious barrier to social distancing. I’ve had the same handful of coins in my trouser pocket for a couple of months now; I might as well keep them in a jar.

I'm becoming more cosmopolitan with my cooking. May I present the Full English Breakfast Pizza...

Euphonious words...

It’s not every day that I learn a new word. I really don’t know how I’ve managed for so long without knowing that ‘petrichor’ is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry land (and I'm not the only one). The word is actually a fairly recent coinage, first appearing in the pages of the scientific journal Nature in 1964. (The Oxford English Dictionary defines petrichor as “A pleasant, distinctive smell frequently accompanying the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather”). But I doubt if I’ll ever use it; ‘petrichor’ sounds like an unfortunate by-product of the petro-chemicals industry. 

Phonaesthetics is the study of words which sound intrinsically beautiful (even before we consider what the words actually mean). ‘Cellar door’ has been pronounced as particularly euphonious by writers such as Dorothy Parker, C S Lewis, Norman Mailer and J R R Tolkien (who may have coined the term ‘phonaesthetics’). If ‘cellar door’ looks too mundane to be mellifluous, it can be reconfigured as ‘celador’. My own favourite word? ‘Nubile’, of course.

St Mary's Church in Riccall, a village a few miles north of Asselby...

God's punishment...

According to a new poll, two-thirds of American believers see coronavirus as a punishment from God for the wickedness of mankind, and a divine mandate for humans to mend their ways. Almost as many believers insist that God will protect them from being infected. This is where superstition, wishful thinking, religious exceptionalism and bad science intersect - giving us a few clues about why it is that a nation as powerful as the USA should be handling the pandemic so very badly.

Another unremarkable pic, licensed yesterday... for TV transmission...

Neighbours...

Neighbours... everyboody needs good neighbours. Pic licensed today...

Strensall Common...

Had a wander this morning across Strensall Common, another area of heathland near York. Plenty of people about; we all made elaborate little detours to ensure ‘social distancing’. And everyone was so friendly and polite! Have we all graduated from charm school, or are we just glad to be alive? Plenty of birdlife, including more cuckoos…

Swifts...

Just seen my first swift of the summer. I don't feel quite as proprietorial about swifts as the good folk of Aldebugh in Suffolk...

Conditional changes...

As a sign of just how dreary things can be during lockdown, I was actually looking forward to watching Boris Johnson address the nation this evening, even though I was aware that, if we are to keep the numbers down, I couldn’t see many opportunities to loosen the constraints on our behaviour. A few weeks ago we looked at Italy, with appalled fascination, as their death toll rose, and yet now the UK is ahead in a race that nobody wants to win (only the USA is in worse shape, and Americans are unlucky enough to have an even more incompetent narcissist at the helm).

Had a weekend sale of this pic: St Lawrence’s Church in the village of Snaith…

Small things...

A happy juxtaposition of articles on the Guardian website today...

North Cliffe Wood...

In an effort to explore some of the local nature reserves, I ended up this afternoon at North Cliffe Wood. The air was warm, the woodland floor was tinder-dry and I sat, watched, listened and waited to see what would turn up. I heard my first cuckoo of the summer and a couple of green woodpeckers with their laughing call. Two kestrels hovered overhead and a buzzard described lazy circles in the sky. It was so good to be outside… and to be reminded that the rest of the natural world is entirely unconcerned by our battle with coronavirus…

Skipwith Common...

Skipwith Common: a good place to enjoy my daily walk...

Stoicism...

I no longer have any immutable dates in my diary. When the PM put the country into lockdown, on March 23, I imagine that most of us were anticipating staying home for a few weeks. Now, six weeks further on, nobody seems able to conjure up any date when the lockdown might end. Optimism has been replaced by stoicism.

A solitary sailing boat on Windermere…

Great crested grebes...

Took a stroll round Eastrington Ponds this evening: another little, local, nature reserve. Saw a pair of great crested grebes, with the female carrying three chicks on her back (pic: Creative Commons)...

Mistakes were made...

I recently read a book - Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) - which explores the ways we fail to take responsibility for our mistakes, and attempt instead to shift the blame onto others. It’s a fascinating read, especially during the era when Donald Trump is occupying the White House.

This is what I should be doing - exploring some green lane, to see what's over the first horizon - rather than being stuck indoors...

Prayers...

According to an article in the Guardian, a quarter of adults in the UK have watched or listened to a religious service since the coronavirus lockdown began, and one in twenty have started praying. The most frequent subjects of prayers since the lockdown has been family (53%), friends (34%), thanking God (24%), the person praying (28%), frontline services (27%), someone unwell with Covid-19 (20%), and other countries with Covid-19 (15%). So a quarter of prayers have been to thank the creator of the universe for… well, what exactly? For sparing the prayerful petitioner, and choosing to kill someone else instead? Being omnipotent, God could have spared everyone from the horrors of coronavirus, but decided, in his infinite wisdom, not to.

It seems like the air itself is trying to kill us. My neighbour’s white doves are dying, one by one, from some air-borne respiratory disease. And here’s a local farmer’s tribute to the NHS…

Lakenheath Fen...

A weekend sale of this image: a path through the RSPB reserve at Lakenheath Fen in Suffolk. I have many good memories of watching birds, while living in the Romahome for five years, but maybe none better than a day spent here, watching about 50 hobbies hawking for dragonflies over the reedbeds...

Book finished...

I’ve just finished the last edit of my belief book, which now comes in at a total of 126,288 words. I kept an open file for stuff I deleted from the text, and even that adds up to more than 100,000 words. I’ve almost written the book twice! The next time I edit the book will be when - or if - a publisher expresses interest.

It’s been quite an adventure. I wasn’t sure I was capable of writing a book of this size and scope, so at least I’ve proved - if only to myself, so far - that I can. The task of selling the project starts here. I’ve roughed out the chapter headings for another, shorter book, and I’ll be making a start on that today.

Coincidentally, I've just licensed this bookshop pic (a decent price, for once)...