The Day of Small Things

I first heard the quote that gives the blog post its title from the novel The Day of Small Things by O. Douglas (sister of John Buchan), encountered by me when I was about ten in my great-aunt’s house; it and her other titles have been on my comfort-read list ever since.

She got the quote from the Bible, Zechariah, iv. 10: ‘Who hath despised the day of small things?’

I have never been more grateful for the ‘small things’ than in these recent, unprecedented, days.

My daughter and I went out a drive on Mother’s Day (22 March) into the beautiful Border country around Peebles. We admired the scenery, including newborn lambs, without getting out of the car. A lovely memory to have – and not an experience that will be repeated anytime soon, because the day after that came the lockdown.

No going into shops for us for health reasons. So we are very fortunate that many local small businesses have stepped forward to be a lifeline in delivering food to the door – fruit and veg boxes, bread, milk, eggs, other groceries, butcher meat and fish.

One company delivered the goods and after that phoned for payment which restored my faith in human nature to quite a tearful extent.

On second thoughts keeping people fed is no small thing – it’s massive and I’m so grateful, and for:

WhatsApp – for keeping in regular touch with family and friends, whether for reassurances regarding health and well-being, doing silly little quizzes together, dress-up Friday photographs and much more

FaceTime 

phone calls

email

zoom – for enabling meetings of book group and writing class

Face Book (keeping in touch plus there have been some very funny memes and black humour and many heart-warming stories; I don’t read the negative stuff or click through to the horror/tabloid stories)

friends’ blogs showing what their daily lives are like at the moment: Anne Stenhouse and Anne Stormont

cooking something with substituted ingredients that turns out well (those food deliveries, wonderful though they are, are unable to supply plain flour or yeast; who’s got it all?)

 

Richard Osman’s House of Games – 6pm BBC2, brain-teasing fun

blossom

teddies and rainbows in windows

(and in my son’s Greater London street on Easter Sunday painted eggs for children to ‘hunt’)

I can read all day if I want to (and I do), currently the rather wonderful Where the Crawdads Sing and, alternately, a comfort read Mrs Pooter’s Diary.

 

Joe Wicks’ YouTube exercises (to help keep reader’s bottom at bay)

exercise bike (ditto)

early morning walks through deserted streets (ditto, and for fresh air, and to feel some sense of normality while marvelling at the changed, almost vehicle-less, city)

free theatre productions on YouTube

Malory Towers on iPlayer

large garden (communal, south-facing)

sleep (previously I could lie awake worrying about various things but now with these being eclipsed I’m sleeping like the proverbial log – perhaps some form of defence mechanism kicking in?)

time to put together a new anthology Still Rocking and other stories– watch this space.

(all images courtesy of Pixaby)