Five -year locking reflections on

It came. Like the steps in darkness in a horror film, he had come closer while Cavid-19 was making his way around the world, from China in December 2019, which takes place until January 2020 when the hospitals in Lombardy in Italy melted under the sudden weight of admissions, then approaching when Total Aclowing was announced in the York.

It must have been what people felt in the dark days preceding the First World War: you could see the lamps coming out throughout Europe while the country after the country has locked itself.

The day before Boris Johnsons announced, it was maternal Sunday. My 82-year-old mother was in her own unique bubble in Hurworth, so we bought a tea in the afternoon in a box and took her to her. Her grandchildren cleverly organized the sandwiches, scones and cakes on a table in the middle of her cold garden, then back to the south.

Grandmother, from an era to fear grasping something fatal from her own family, moved from the North, selected her specialties and then withdrawn so that we can approach and make our choices.

While we eat, shivering, we shouted jokes through the void on the way it would be over and life would be back to normal.

It was not. Many people have unfortunately lost their lives while other members of the health system have worked surprisingly that these Thursday evenings were surreal where we broke the locking silence by slamming pots and pots, whistling and cutting a cacophony that resounded in the empty streets while we apply the health care while the victims of the fans have echoed their last.

E was weird, weird. In the newspaper, to support local businesses, we kept the eatiCrowds have proven to be at Darlington Memorial hospital to applaud for health workers and caregivers on the front line of the fight against coronavirus. Image: Sarah CaldecottNg out column taking place while pubs were desperately trying to keep themselves alive by diversifying in take -out dishes. One of the first to which I went was the bee to East Cowton, and it seemed as shabby as they are requesting or marking di ordered online and had been awarded a specific moment to which I had to be parked at a specific time.

In the tracks around the ad, there was a constant flow of cars, maneuvering in position, waiting for their moment. Some may have made Lou Reed play on the radio, singing to wait for the man.

Lou sang about his arrival in Lexington with 26 dollars in hand, but the money suddenly became if yesterday, so pre-countryic. After centuries of hand exchange, physical money has become one of the oldest victims of the pandemic, because all payments have become digital, a scan of a fingerprint or the entrance to an access code, then a Blip while the money has disappeared as if by magic of your phone.

In my time allocated, I overturned myself next to Bollard B and waited.

Standing Bollard B food outside the Beewing Inn, East Cowton, during lockingSuddenly, the rear door of the car opened. There, you are sir, says a voice, and before I could turn around, my meal was placed on the rear seat and the door closed, the liberator disappearing in a blur of blue plastic gloves, it was as if he was afraid of catching an environmental contamination inside my Qashqai.

That was it. I had marked.

Food collection of The Beeswing Inn, East CowtonI rushed through the countryside, I exceeded other dark pubs, with my illicit cargo two parmos and a pizza.

And it was good. When each meal came out of your own oven from a supermarket, just get something else.

Lockdown has changed life in so many unexpected ways. The teams, with his particular piece of call Zoop-Zoop-Ping, took over from the face-to-face business meetings, and I broke a dependence of almost 60 years to go to a hairdresser every six weeks. In the locking, my bald pâté became unbearably vaporous and tufty, so I invested 25 in a electric cut, delivered to the door and I sat in the rear garden while my wife who had an earlier experience with a horse ran it above my head.

The birds in our neighborhood all had nests bordered by the softest toes and due in the spring.

In fact, this spring gave these people who had the chance to escape the virus the possibility of reconnecting with birds and their families.

Theo, our son who had learning difficulties, was at the school house and I worked in the attic. We were both seated in front of the screens, so the second day of locking, I took him by bike. It was cold and, a few kilometers from us, we liked it. He was not happy.

But we went out the next day and stayed dry. Then the spring of 2020 flourished in a good warm and sunny weather.

The roads were empty and they were all ours. The sky was blue and, with a minimal circulation buzz for walnut, full of bird singing. I remember that we have traveled a rail bridge near Sedgefield, and a huge buzz, tense wings was below us; Near Scotch Corner, we watched Teesside and a herd of hundreds of large towers of black birds, Packdaws fell loudly through the sunlight just for pleasure.

And the waves in the hedges were the colored lightning of Goldfinches, reds and yellows and turquoise. Everywhere turquoise. Turquoise face masks were omnipresent. In seven months, the number of rejected facial masks exploding in our streets increased by 9,000%.

The locking was colored by lightning of turquoise face masks thrown almost everywhereTheo and I were almost every day for a year, always carrying a table in ophthalmology in our saddle bag in case we needed an excuse to explain why we were so long in Teesdale. Theo crossed a bike, two bells and 3,278 miles.

Theo Lloyd in March 2021 at the end of a year by bicycle through lockingOur days in the locking were punctuated by our prescribed one hour exercise period if we feared that we are longer during the teesdale pedal, we have always worn a test board for the eyes of the ophthalmologist in our saddle bag in the hope that it would provide an excuse and the briefing coronavirus at 17 hours directly from Downing Street.

A Prime Minister of the Government would darkly announce the days of death and the scientists would reveal graphics on which the lines still seemed to go in the wrong direction. Then journalists would harangue politicians so as not to do enough.

The Northern Echo of Chris Lloyd participates in the Downing Street Daily press conference on the coronavirus crisisI was able to appear twice on the briefing, linked to Zoom from my attic to the periphery of Darlington directly in Downing Street. During my first appearance, it was difficult to ask the question properly, because it could not be too casual because he came immediately after the Secretary of Health, Matt Hancock, had announced 584 deaths in the previous 24 hours, and that could not be too repetitive because it would be to follow the great canons of the BBC, ITN and heaven that would ask for care and PPE.

A little tufty on the top?So, instead, looked at by millions, I looked for information on the calendar of pandemics progress. The locking had been timed for the benefit of Londons, the northeast is lagging around fifteen late. Once the tsunami of cases in the capital has passed, the national media have evolved, with a few calls for London to be distant early, even if deaths in the northeast more and more alarming, how long before the curve culminates here too?

Scientists hummed and HAAD as if they had never asked a question about northern before, but have given thoughtful answers, and Mr. Hancock concluded that the level of upgrade would save us once the locking is finished.

Zoom's call was disconnected and I ended up with a black screen. But I went out with him, I was radiated on millions of high -size digital television screens and nobody seemed to have noticed that 24 hours ago, my wife had put her experience by offering my hand a cup in the garden. These days of locking were a truly surreal moment in several respects for those of us quite lucky to have eluded the virus.