Prior to this announcement, I'd already been working at home for about a week and had already been limiting my movements as per the Government advice at the time. I began going for a walk before starting work in the morning, already practicing the 'social distancing' that had been advised and has since been more firmly instructed, now with he possibility of fines and imprisonment for non-compliance. A couple of weeks before that, just after my last blog post, I had decided it would be sensible to abandon using public transport and thus the plan for the second 'Barnett's Map' walk. The project has now had to be put on hiatus, or in the language of Corvid, 'furlough', for the foreseeable.
I've mostly confined my 'authorised exercise' to a pretty small radius from home, but struck out a bit further in the last couple of days, partly because I wanted to get a bit more distance and feel like I'd actually had a bit if exercise, and partly due to he possibility of further restrictions when 'local' is eventually defined, possibly following something similar to he Irish example. A half hour walk in the morning was sufficient to get me going in the morning and served the purpose of exploration of the previously unnoticed in the almost immediate vicinity of Coleridge and Romsey. But was insufficient to set me up for a full day indoors, physically and mentally.
Initially I found it hard to concentrate. Or more accurately to stop concentrating on a mixture of work and coronavirus related concerns. Getting out for a walk was supposed to be a distraction from all that and to provide space to escape to somewhere else, spatially and mentally, for a limited period. The exercise period was a psychogeographic ration that ought to be savoured and used wisely. After a few days I was getting better at adapting to operating within these limits. Not always taking the walk at the same time of day and occasionally replacing it with a bike ride helped. If, or more likely when, further restrictions are forthcoming, exercise options will become more limited, even confined to the home. If this happens, I will no doubt look back on the last week as a comparitively golden period to reminised over, while exercise is taken in front of the telly to Joe Wicks or Mr Motivator on YouTube. Psychogeographc activity will be confined to the static wanders; virtual imagined drifts around old maps and clunky trips through Google Street view.
On early walks, inevitably the things that stuck out the most related to Covid-19. Notices stuck in shop doors confirmed (hopefully) temporary closure or social distancing restrictions.
Observing social distancing, by keeping two metres away from others, felt awkward at first. But soon this began to shape the way I walked and became a significant director of proceedings. I began almost unconsciously to adopt avoidance strategies and now continue to employ them without thinking . When someone comes towards me I cross the road if possible, or, if a turning presents itself before I meet them, I go down it.
Of the reduced number of people around, a significant number are, unsurprisingly, joggers and dog walkers. Both present their own hazards. The jogger's perchant to posses an expectation that everyone else must make way for them has diminished slightly, but still exists, so an eye on distance need to be maintained in order to evade them before they get too near. Dogs obviously have no concept of social distancing and once off the lead are prone to running up to strangers to seek attention. I don't know if dogs can carry the virus, but since they have a surface I'm assuming they can and so treat them as something to be avoided.
These necessary precautions have made walking feel a bit like being trapped in a sort of apocalyptic arcade game, where if you accidentally stray within two metres of anyone or get coughed on you lose a life. There is also the possibility of getting stopped by the police. Even with a legitimate reason (exercise) this is something to be avoided. I've been largely keeping away from main roads to reduce the chances of an encounter.
It was good from an early stage to see that most others I passed also seemed mindful of social distancing. This made 'playing the game' a lot easier. On Coleridge Rec I found myself on an informal 'social distancing' path, already worn into the grass parallel to the official path and akin to a desire path, but formed in order to avoid joggers and offer courtesy to other walkers, rather than take a short cut. I've since notticed it's becoming more established by the day.
While the Rec is a favourite spot, it is not somewhere where people are easliy avoided, paricularly later in the day. Veering out of it, a few times I've diverted into the seemingly litle used passages that lead to Derby Road, which in turn leads onto Cherry Hinton Road. Passages such as these are small avenues of edgeland-like space, which is a rare quality in the near vicinity. Passing through them involves running he gaunlet, hoping to get through wihout encountering anyone coming the oher way, while at the same time wanting to linger and take in the world presented by objects such as the rusing corrigated iron fence below, imaginging what it's spikes protect unseen on the other side.
The reduction in cars on Cherry Hinton Road enabled me to at last get an unfettered view of the splendid ghost sign on the wall of a former bakers, without the usual car parking in front. While cars have been fewer in numbers generally, the abscence of the normal traffic jams seems to have encouraged faster by driving by those still out and about, possibly as a way to cope with the 'lockdown' and let off steam. This is a repeat of what happened during the 'Mill Road Summer' a few monthss back when the road was semi-devoid of traffic. I've added fast cars to the list of potential hazards to be avoided and diverted from, along with joggers, dogs, police cars and (more easily) other people.
Judging by the extra unofficial speed limit sign on Devonshire Road, the problem is not confined to Romsey or Coleridge, but extends over the bridge into Petersfield. I noticed the Ipswich Town sticker, further reducing he effectivelness of the official sign. Maybe an attempt by the team's fans at revenge for Town's embaressing early 1980's defeat in the Willhire Cup against Cambridge United.
Back in Coleridge, I was intrigued by the Cherry Hinton Telephone Exchange. A vintage brown single storey building that I'd noticed before but not properly. It is not sited in Cherry Hinton, being about a mile away. I imagined the operation inside was far more hi-tech that the Pertwee Dr Who Era building would suggest, with minimal human intervention required to keep operations going. A worker was starting a van down the track that runs along the side of the building as I passed, promoting me not to hang around. I wondered what was round the back.
Only a short distance along the road I paused outside a previously unnoticed electricity sub-station and allowed my shadow to project through its gateway and onto the gravel floor for a short while, inhabiting the space briefly. As I did so, I considered the immediate 'danger of death' that lurked within and by contrast the dependence we have on the eletricity provided by the infrastructure these nodes are part of. The current crisis is a stark reminder of this, in particular the reliance on the internet and modern IT to communicate. But, despite the electricity still flowing, we have yet to be presented with much in the way of decent public information films about the pandemic. There has been one, featuring Chief Medical advisor Chris Whitty reminding us of the Government's instructions, but this was not something on parr with Protect and Survive or The Aids Iceberg. It has now emerged he has contracted the virus himself, which surely presents an opportunity for a more convincing sequel.
The communal noticeboard on Fanshawe Road was even less informative. Evidently, no new notices had been inserted for years. One advertised an American Line Dancing event from several years ago. The others were too faded to read properly. I found the lack of current information perplexing and ominous. The noticeboard could be a vision of a possible future where the current predicament means that all noticeboards will eventually look like this having become redundant.
Another relic of the past, which spoke of an abandoned future, was an old sign for 'The Barn' in Cherry Hinton Road. I hadn't previously noticed it, despite walking past numerous times. I recalled a bring you own booze Pizza place being here about twenty five years ago which may have been 'The Barn' but it was too vaguely remembered to be in any way sure. The previously unnoticed sign now seemed to occupy a prominent position in the now eerily near deserted street.
Later in the week, I went beyond Coleridge, via Rock Road and into Hills Road where a large red dragon's head glowed on the side of Homerton College. Another previously unnoticed sign, this one I had no explanation for.
I continued into Long Road where I entered the field via a miniature graffitied concrete henge. Obiously meant as a barricade to prevent vehicles entering, but it looked more like a mysterious cold war checkpoint. An object of the Covid age.
The field beyond, though, brought a calming atmosphere akin to that experienced on entering an allotment site. The only other beings were crows and seagulls. The seagulls bobbed about in the grass, while most of the crows were roosting in the trees that stretched along one side of the field. A couple of the corvids wandered tentatively on the grass, as if inspecting it prior to some sort of avian field sporting event that was about to take place between crows and seagulls. I followed the desire path across the field, the only human witness to the surreal spectacle. Much better to be among the Corvids than the Covids, I thought.
From the field I joined the Busway, a starkly surreal place at the best of times, but particularly when near deserted. A couple of joggers to be avoided and a near empty train passing the other side were the only moving things I saw before arriving into Brookgate, the privately owned estate around the Rail Station. This too was largely devoid of people or other moving objects. A police car was parked up outside the front of the station. I picked up the pace to 'purposeful' and carried on past, back into Mill Road and home soon after.
The final authorised exercise walk of the week took me through the South of Coleridge and into Cherry Hinton. I passed through the post war council estate where my nana and grandad lived when I was growing up. This had the feeling of the comforting and familiar as well as containing previously unknown passages on some of its less travelled routes.
I passed through Cherry Hinton Hall, avoiding the few others I encountered. I found the old horse chestnut tree I remembered 'conkering' by throwing sticks up at as a kid. I stood under its canopy for a few minutes, dwelling in it's calm certainty. But I was soon forced to move on by the approach of another pedestrian.
I left the park due to this sudden imposition and the sight of a slightly higher concentration of people. I headed to Limekiln Close Nature Reserve, a place that used to be known as The Spinney. When I was young, it had no nature reserve status but ironically the plant life was much more prolific than it is today. The first time I remember going with my Dad, the nettles came up waist high immediately on entrance. I sat on his shoulders while he waded through. Beyond the nettles were brambles, vines, trees and overgrown bushes between which narrow desire paths had been created. There was also an array of disgarded objects to be found. Old mopeds, iron bars, random piles of dumped detritus and of course, bramble mags. There was no sign of any of these things today. As I entered the now almost manicured opening into the 'Spinney', towards the gently sloping grass mound which resembled a tumulus, the atmosphere was a bit Lord of The Rings crossed with a stranger-danger public information film. The latter due to the sudden immersion into a place where nobody was apparently around but with the slight uneasy feeling that someone or something was lurking unseen, watching.
I'd had a vague notion that it would be possible to reach the Whovian mounds and buildings of the water reservoir at the top of Limekiln Hill from the back of the Spinney. I tried to find the chalk hill that we used to sledge down, which at its submit, opened out into a farmers field. But I couldn't find it, which was odd as it used to be the most prominent feature, a focal point with an unexplained importance. Instead I clambered up through some trees roughly where I thought it should have been. At the top there was a break in the fence into the field. In one direction, part of the field was being prepared for development. In the other, just the bare field pending the emergence of crops. No official or unofficial path existed towards the reservoir. In normal circumstances I would have chanced shuffling along the edge of the field, but didn't want to draw attention to myself, aware that such an act would take me outside the boundaries of 'authorised walking'. I stood and looked across the expanse towards Fulbourn and beyond. Places far beyond where I would feasibly be able to go for the foreseeable future. I already felt like I had walked to the outer limits, pushing the envelope of 'local' only two, at most three, miles from home. The world had temporarily shrunk and become more concentrated. I wondered if there would be further instruction in the week to come to further reduce limits and enforce more defined boundaries for 'authorised walking'.
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