Saturday, June 06, 2020

Letter from home


I've started having early morning nightmares again, as I was earlier on in the lockdown. I think it's because I took my eye off the day-to-day and was thinking about the future, wondering when family and friends and community happenings will be possible again, and thinking it might not be for another six months.

Yesterday I had to write a piece for our Quaker newsletter on my hopes for the future. It was hard to write about hopes for the future at the end of the week we've just had - the continuing dishonesty and mishandling of the pandemic here in the UK, and the dangerous and threatening response to the justified demonstrations in the USA. I have been horrified by the response of the president (no capital letter deserved) and I've felt physically sick on seeing the video footage of the police brutality. Where will it end?

But I found this comforting quote from Seamus Heaney's The Cure at Troy:


History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.


Let's hope for a tidal wave of justice.
Let's do what we can to bring it about.
There is something every one of us can do to make the world a better place. 


Here at Hepworth Towers as well as writing three times to my MP, I've been making a patchwork cot quilt for my friend Mary's first grandchild, expected in July. When it's finished and been presented I'll show you a picture.

The potatoes that were scorched by the frost are recovering:



The two runner beans and one dwarf bean that managed to germinate are looking perky:




The lettuce is thriving, and delicious:





And I managed to plant out some of my cosmos seedlings before the heavy rain arrived:




I've put wood ash around them to keep off the slugs. 


Yesterday I found another lovely review of DAYS ARE WHERE WE LIVE and it warmed my heart. It's so rewarding to think I'm bringing pleasure through my writing.





Lastly, I saw some wonderful news on Twitter this morning - the writer and poet Michael Rosen who was dangerously ill with Covid is recovering steadily in a rehabilitation hospital.  


I hope you're all well, and your indoor projects are engrossing.

Onward and upward, dear friends.

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