Business as usual

I can't be alone in wondering if life will ever return to what we thought of as "business as usual" - nor if, when or if it does, we'll be able to cope with it. Over the past year, I've noticed the changes in my first-thing-in-the-morning reactions to being awake, from the burst of nervousness in the early months (what if I get ill? Am I feeling ok?), through the pangs of despair (is this it? is the rest of my life going to be like this? What a waste ...) to a state of acceptance (nothing is happening today; there are no demands; relax ...). And there's little doubt that being locked down brings its torpor, its soothing rituals, its sense that what doesn't happen today can be dealt with tomorrow, another day .... But today, I began thinking about the end of the week, when, God willing, we're going away overnight to see the family who haven't been able to come and see us for various reasons, and suddenly I realised that getting ready to do this simple thing seems huge. Will I cope? And what about our holiday in June? 

And then I got up, and life reasserted itself in ordinariness. I spent some time preparing a ragu with beef cheeks - they cook for hours and hours and then you tear them apart with forks, into the winey, tomatoey, garlicky sauce ... So yes, I did that. I washed a load of clothes and managed to get them in, dry, before an annoying shower. I worked on Intercessions for Sunday because of Going Away. And then it was lunchtime.

Later, because of the way the week will work out, we walked up to church to make our weekly recordings for the online service on Sunday. We've done over a year of these now, and the number of audio files has to be seen - well over a hundred recordings. And that's why you're getting yet another photo of Holy Trinity interior, because I was too busy to find something else in our immediate area. I like the way the afternoon light comes in from an unexpected angle, showing the hassocks piled up at the back (I wish we could have them back - kneeling without them is possible for only a few minutes). You'll have to imagine the birdsong coming in from outside, with a blackbird majoring against a background of less gifted songsters.

How can such an uneventful day be so tiring?