Daily Archives: June 25, 2020

The People

Letters from Cardiff in lockdown: Emily, with the important question…

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Today’s instalment for the Letters from Cardiff in lockdown series comes from Emily, who has a very important question to ask…

Letter and lessons from lockdown – A letter to my post-lockdown self

Life is, as ever, what you make of it. Sometimes, through times of stress and strain we need a bit of perspective. Lockdown has brought challenges to our household (me, my boyfriend*, and our lodger) so I’ve written a letter to my future self, to remind me of all of the things I’ve learnt from lockdown so far

(*he has a real name too – it’s Chris)

Lockdown.

It sounds like something that happens in a Netflix prison drama. A nationwide pandemic is the stuff of Hollywood Blockbusters on the big screen. Then IT happened. You were told to stay indoors. And since mid-June you’ve been living a groundhog day-like existence. I’ve been reading the other blogs, where we’ve heard stories of lost jobs, isolation, relationship fails, green fingers, key workers and alike. But none of them have captured the absolute devastation that lockdown has brought us in our household…

Firstly there’s the fact that my boyfriend is a psychopath. He is one of those hideous, monstrous humans of the worst order: he is a feeder. Goat tartlet, crispy shredded beef, glazed gammon; there is nothing that Elaine can’t whip up in the kitchen. This, paired with the fact that I suffer from an awful condition called greediness, means that lockdown has resulted in us both gaining an extra stone of isolation insulation. I like to think it will help us if food shortages become rife, we have a good head start on most people, having already stored it in our bellies.

Secondly, there’s working from home. We’ve all been there; long video calls, eating your way through boredom, consuming more coffee than a columbian barista convention. It’s insanely boring, strangely tiring and being on calls all day makes you bizarrely obsessed with the appearance of your plain walls. Do you show them your alcohol collection at risk of looking like you might have a problem, or the pretentious bookshelves full of books that you’ve not read yet?

Throw in two stepchildren who visit once a fortnight and rob you of all of your food, sleep and sanity (Especially when they leave strategically placed toys in the shaggy rug – the outcome of which was, in my opinion more painful than simultaneously treading on lego and an upturned plug.)

But, (and you too, dear reader) amidst this tale of lockdown woe, I’ve found some important lessons that I wanted to remember, because I think they are life-changing.

I’ve learnt patience.

I’ve learnt to embrace simple, but perfect things.

A hot chocolate in front of the fire. (Yes I lit a fire in June. This girl feels the cold.) A slow dance in the kitchen, playing rock paper scissors to decide who makes the morning coffee and brings it to the other in bed. We can find surprising satisfaction in the small things that happen when we least expect it. You don’t have to go far, you don’t have to spend money, you can stop and look up to find things you love dearly.

Something else I’ve learnt is how surprising an ‘extreme’ situation can show you another side to someone.

It may not be as extreme as the time I ate a MacDonald’s apple pie without letting it cool first, but lockdown has forced us into some pretty hardcore levels of extreme exposure to loved ones. I didn’t anticipate that my boyfriend would be forced to listen to my ‘work self’ spouting formal phrases about complex legal systems that sounds like absolute gobbledygook, or that I would be forced to spend an afternoon hand-washing his pants. (Another delightful lockdown quirk: our washing has been broken for three months. For this household, social distancing isn’t difficult because no one would want to come into close proximity to anything that’s in my wardrobe.) I know there is a very serious situation that some people forced to be together is negative and detrimental experience but this, for us, has been the opposite. I’ve delighted in seeing him single-handedly home-school, work, cook three meals a day and still remain a kind, patient and phenomenally fun dad. All the while I’m just about managing to do just one thing: my job. I haven’t even managed to feed and water myself – he’s done that too. I’ve seen a wonderful man take the world on his stride and that has been incredible to witness.

Finally, and most importantly I’ve learnt not to wait.

Not to wait until things are “back to normal.” Not to wait for a fresh start. (Why wait until 2021 to start afresh?) No, it’s time to seize the day, not wait around. I’m not waiting until lockdown is over. I’m not waiting to ‘live’ once travel restrictions are lifted. I’m not writing a bucket list of stuff for the future. Why wait? Now is the time, THIS is life. Why miss out on all the fun that we can have now?

Which is why, dear reader, my biggest reflection on lockdown is how lucky I am to have my man by my side making me belly-laugh every day without fail. How lucky I am to love with someone who cares for me so much that they have fed me more calories than a Gregg’s warehouse. How lucky I am to have someone whose children melt my cold heart and ALMOST make treading on lego worthwhile with their jokes, curiosity and constant references to farting and bums.

I said I’d learnt not to wait around; so why wait to make sure that your best mate stays by your side forever? Chris, will you be the bacon to my eggs, the Morecambe to my Wise and the husband to my wife….?

……Will you marry me?*

Tune in to We Are Cardiff to see whether this is a lockdown love story or a COVID catastrophe…!

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The People

Letters from Cardiff in lockdown: Sharon Brace

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Today’s instalment for the Letters from Cardiff in lockdown series comes from writer, tutor, and facilitator, Sharon Brace. We’re looking for your stories, so please contribute to Letters from Cardiff in lockdown! 

Dear Isobel,

‘We live in interesting times.’

Pandemic… Lockdown… Panic buying… Isolation… As we approach the second month of lockdown, I feel that I have settled into a sort of bespoke routine which has minimal interruptions from the world beyond my walls and ironically, those words of fear have turned this place into one of love and security once again. I don’t plan to stay here forever but I rejoice that the lockdown found me here not elsewhere.

I am comforted that the universe knew the plan even when I did not and, after many years of roaming the world I have returned to the unexpectedly sunny valleys and shores of south Wales only fifty days pre the possibly the grim reality of lockdown.

Lockdown…? The dimensions of this area, so much smaller than the worlds I’ve wandered in the last decade or two, alarmed me somewhat and the thought of being literally ‘home alone’ for the foreseeable future sent waves of claustrophobia through me in the same way that the apprehension of take-off had myriad times before. Yet I had a pre-pandemic mission; to study until my ultimate qualification was complete and then to return to the me this house had created and begin to cram in as much living as I could beyond its confines. However, a microscopic virus was able to change so much.

The reality of lockdown is, however, disparate. I have established my own routine from which I draw comfort. In a bid to diversify and live a more complete life than merely a quest for a qualification, and as lockdown became inevitable I filled the house with food, yanked up my metaphorical drawbridge and prepared for a sit-in but I also invested in a packet of tomato seeds, a packet of pepper seeds and several cumbersome bags of compost which I dragged home and housed in the garage. I’d grown nothing but houseplants so I dug my fingers into the huge newly-filled pots I found in yesteryear and dropped a few seeds into each. Within weeks I had lain waste to my dining room, filled it with constantly developing living things which were a conciliatory paradox to the death that raged in so many homes in so many of the lands I’ve walked.

In an effort to remain at one with the outside world I have now walk at 7. And 12. And then again at 7. I have begun to see the cul-de-sac in which I played and made friends in three different lights, in three different seasons and, thanks to climate change, in an increasing amount of sunshine. These hills which have witnessed wars and previous pandemics look on silently, and as I now have time to look up, I gaze back adoringly never before grasping that these hills have framed my life. Their varying colours of green, a little yellow and a little a brown yet now in Summer, vibrantly green. The blue, unblemished sky is free of vapour trails and the and the clouds which so often appear to be held up by these intangible barriers scurry along unrestricted.

I embrace a sense of community from people whose presence was always on my life’s periphery but where in bygone days I felt the bond of an interloper.

Saturday morning as I queue, two meters away from the person before me, I have time – and interest to engage with others. Once, I would have found their conversation banal and unnecessary but my current lack of human contact has granted me a curiosity in my fellow man.

Friday evening, as I call my newly acquired yet lifelong neighbours and discuss their grocery needs and prescriptions, I feel vital in a way which is quite distinct from the professional imperative of a mere half a year ago. And as I deliver their groceries to their front door and step away, we joke at a distance. I’ll make sure their curtains and blinds are open by 9 and call them midweek just for the joy of an octogenarian perspective on the new world we inhabit equally.

Friendships and telephone calls have become a lifeline and as we gather at 11 each morning for cyber coffee and chats, I acknowledge that those bonds too have intensified, braced and bolstered by the imposed isolation. We fight each day to imprison each other’s isolation and to forbid it becoming loneliness. Friends around the world, traditionally held near often only in Christmas greetings, are now weekly contacts as we Zoom in and out of each other’s realities all in agreement that people are our principal priority.

I don’t go to the shops; I haven’t purchased any new fashions in half a year, yet as I student again, I was expecting not to need anything more than patched jeans and numerous leggings; I order books online in such volumes I now know both postman and Amazon delivery driver by name; I no longer spend £3 a day on coffee but rather have coffee indoors with people who will always be part of my home even when I can’t invite them there; my car has guzzled less than £50 of fuel in three months; my uncut hair touches my belt and my attire is occasionally the same sweater twice consecutively; I cook vegetables each evening and struggle to invent new menus by the next; I try only to imbibe twice a week and still respect the rules of a school night; in the safety of my childhood bedroom eight hours of good sleep has once again become my norm and my mind is grateful for the silence that sleep affords me.

Lockdown has changed us but mercifully and by some quirk of fate and the joy of education, I was home to experience it and ever so grateful that my new chap had stayed over the night it was announced. I fear that things would have been dreadfully different without him.

I am so terribly woeful for the people who have been robbed of their people by the Virus; tears often slide down my cheeks as I absorb the daily figures. Yet somehow this hell has given me so very many people and ironically turned the panic of a pandemic and the loss of so many lives into a reaffirmation of my own.

As I have relegated my triffid-like tomatoes to the sunshine of the garden, my dining room feels empty and lifeless and, with no prospects of a dinner-party to fill it with life and love, with the easing of lockdown on garden centres I bought a goldfish; no I bought five goldfish. Animals can be lovely too. The continual movement of the steady and silent Moby, Jane, Alice, Pip and Stig and the grandeur of the mountains of my childhood reminds me that, despite the hardship we face together, all things will ultimately continue as they have before.

Ironically, the panic of a pandemic, for me, has swiftly turned into consolidated friendship and a renewed sense of community and old-fashioned values. My intention to leave when my purpose is served is unchanged but as is human nature, we face a siege from our stronghold, I have faced this from mine.

As the lockdown decreases, I hope to see you very soon.

Until then…

Sharon

Sharon Brace is a writer, tutor, and facilitator. Visit Sharon’s website for more info.

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The People

Letters from Cardiff in lockdown: Peter Gaskell

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Today’s instalment for the Letters from Cardiff in lockdown series comes from writer and actor Peter Gaskell. We’re looking for your stories, so please contribute to Letters from Cardiff in lockdown! 

Here’s from a culture-vulture, about what Cardiff means to me while under lockdown.

Peter with Thea Gilmore at Acapela Pentyrch in 2019

I am a writer and actor so lockdown has deprived me of opportunities to earn from public performance. I had been costume-fitted for a supporting artiste role in His Dark Materials just before filming was suspended; I just hope Bad Wolf can maintain their presence as the premier film producer in Cardiff after such success with the first season.

I miss Chapter Arts Centre, where Everyman Theatre has given me years of pleasure attending and acting, and the Sherman Theatre too, where I volunteer front-of-house. Some productions they have put on YouTube, e.g. by Gary Owen, whose Killology script in 2018 so helped win the Olivier Award for Regional Theatre of the Year for the Sherman.

It’s not all been deprivation though. I had a script (Pigs In Muck) produced as part of the Lockdown Monologues short film festival, and which is now being rehearsed by A48 Theatre Company for performance as a virtual theatre piece. A48 you may know for their graveside performances in Cathays Cemetery Heritage Trail and Tales last year.

As much as drama productions, even more than eating out and pubs, what I have been missing is live music. I was looking forward to the Roath Folk Festival at the Gate after enjoying the event last year, and more of Beethoven 250th anniversary celebrations at St David’s Hall after the 6 hour extravaganza in January which replicated the great composer’s 1808 premier of 5th & 6th symphonies in Vienna. St David’s Hall has provided a first class classical programme year after year, and I never miss a Beethoven concert there.

My consolation under lockdown is walking among the rhododendrons in Cefn Onn park while plugged into Beethoven Unleashed on BBC Sounds, which is featuring his work and life-story throughout 2020.

The Millennium Centre now closed till 2021, in the absence of live venues, I follow my musical friends on Facebook, some of whom were entirely absent from social media till lockdown since when they have taken to broadcasting their offerings from their parlours. Great though Virtual Open Mic is, hearing music played through a mobile phone speaker in an individual’s living room is no substitute for the ambient spaces of Cardiff’s fine concert halls.

Living alone, I’m relieved at last I’ve been able to ‘bubble’ though I haven’t been able to have contact with my daughter in London and I wonder if my young grandson will know who I am when we next have the chance to meet. As a fan of quizzes (once a Mastermind semi-finalist!), I’ve partaken of several online, including the Brains quiz hosted by Martin Williams. It makes you feel engaged though you’re not really interacting socially and at a disadvantage unless you have others in the same room looking up the answers!

Social distancing has become second-nature to me and I am happier staying away from crowds, particularly in shops, though as well as concerts, I’m missing my cricket at Sophia Gardens. Despite Cardiff Council writing off 70% of the club’s mounting debts in 2015, Glamorgan CC remains an impoverished club so I’ll be attending when the cricket season starts next month to support its continued existence; I’ll be gutted if it can’t survive the pandemic.

For exercise I love walking in natural surroundings, glad that Cardiff has more green space per capita of population than most cities. I don’t like indoor workouts but I am missing my regular swim at Maindy.

For my mental health, I shall keep using the opportunity the isolation brings to write. It keeps me buoyant, not just the creative expression but the hope my work gets commissioned or published somewhere. As well as scripts for film and theatre, I write poems and a novel for which I am trawling a list of agents to find the right ones to approach for the genre. That’s a chore but you need a break from seeking inspiration sometimes!

In response to more of your prompts,

1. What do I miss the most about my “normal” life?

Travelling more than 5 miles

2. Is there anything you’ve been surprised by in terms of not finding it as bad as you had thought?

Satisfyingly filling the time I used to spend watching sport on TV

3. Any tips for other people struggling with lockdown for whatever reason?

If others like the therapy of writing I’d recommend haiku. It’s a satisfying way of condensing your thoughts into 3 lines of verse. I recommend joining The Daily Haiku group on Facebook and check Georgia Carys William’s site for a guide to writing haikus. It’s a great supportive blog which focuses on promoting wellbeing.

4. Your hopes for the future, anything you’d like to take from this time into future life?

That we continue to take the stress off Nature, pollute less. Plant more trees and encourage wildlife to flourish.

Follow Peter on Twitter @thatpetegaskell

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