*covid 19-lockdown*

back in the early 80's i was a youth member of CND and marched in london in 1983 in its largest ever march and spent quite a few years before the fall of the Berlin wall absolutely terrified of nuclear war.

now its a new form of terror and one that i thought i would never see in my lifetime

only a month ago, despite knowing of this virus, i was going about my daily life-my little part time job, undergoing the lengthy process of getting a second enhanced disclosure for a second job, doing my university work and enjoying weekends with my North Star.

now i have been in lock down for seven days, the first seven days of what i initially thought was 12 weeks social distancing because i have diabetes, m.e and fibromyalgia but now seeing the news i think this UK lock down will last longer. 

life has suddenly taken on a surreal hue

my North Star being a class 1 HGV driver is considered an key person as he will be driving medical supplies/ food and other essentials around the country and so yesterday found him taking a container of medical supplies into Devon and as i type he is driving back to southampton docks for his next container.

my sister brings me shopping when i need it-driving over from the village to where she and my mum lives five miles away, dropping it in my drive and having a chat at a safe distance.

my life, our lives are now full of fear and uncertainty...

~my small life or alone not lonely~

so here i sit

or rather recline

its 10pm and i am snuggled up in my big wooden 'princess and the pea' bed~so high that when i sit on the edge my feet can't reach the floor, Arthur is curled up beside me purring after spending most of the day in the garden or the grounds of the orchard that covers the hill to the front of the cottage.

today was my day off and i find myself embracing the luxury of not settling down to sleep as i am not back to work until next Wednesday~not turning on my 5am alarm feels good and i love having that extended 'weekend' feeling. 

this morning i woke at 5.30, not really realising it was that time, got up to open the little French windows so Arthur can make his early morning rounds, and then...went back to bed...to sleep some more...alone

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Henry David Thoreau

this encapsulates my small life

aloneness

my life isn't full of great things

but what is important about my small life is my aloneness and this is my great thing.

i love living alone

but i am not lonely

 what is important to me is living alone

my days and nights where i am only answerable to myself

i love spending my days moving to my own internal music, talking to myself or Arthur, making my own choices in everything.

i relish my mornings~especially on those days where i have nowhere to be~the greatest feeling is to wake up, make my way up to my kitchen and make a mug of tea and either sit in bed drinking it or take it into the garden and sit watching the birds and just...

be...

alone.

~turning~

here I am again

 sitting at my little kitchen table, watching the sun cross the old walls and roofs that scale the hill of the old town quay behind me.

this past year has seen my spiritual path wander and drift, my rituals and garden fires, my oracle and tarot readings, my pathworkings...all slowly died away.

I think mostly because I am becoming used to a new life, a new pace of living, the everyday things such as housework, paying bills, shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing, my studies, fitting in work, my weekends with Mark. 

however deep down things have not changed. I am still feeling the changes in the air, the shift as the great wheel of the year turns, the shift in how the air around me smells.

its subtle, very subtle but I still feel it.

it started back in june, just a hint, a feeling.

this hint slowly grew and I started feeling it distinctly in a change in the air in the early morning. one morning I walked round to my car to load up some things to take to Mark and given it was 6am on a Saturday...the cobbles does not come alive until well after 9am even in the summer...I wore my boxer shorts and a jumper for the two minute walk. the air held that slight chill that always tells me that autumn is around the corner.

now on the last day of august that chill is a tangible thing, I can almost see it, hear it. the chill becomes very obvious in the early hours and I find myself slipping on a jumper or poncho while I boil my kettle for my first tea of the day, the sun is shining but the blue sky isn't really holding the same kind of heat as it has been this summer and the evenings are bringing its own kind of chill.

even the cobbles feel different

its almost like a fading away as the tourists are slowly leaving and the little café two doors away, Drifters, where Mark and I buy our sunday morning latte, is only two months away from closing for the winter

by the end of October the cobbles will once again come under the sole ownership of the cobble dwellers, the seasonal cafes and seafood shacks will close and only locals will pass through this old cobbled lane, while the dwellers will wonder with each storm and high tide if the waters will reach out and cover the cobbles leaving us stranded as it has in the past...

~changes~

as I said before there is another story here.

I have finally moved out of the house I was sharing with my ex partner.

it happened very quickly, extremely quickly in fact, following a culmination of events that made me realise that if I remained in the house with him I would never really be able to move on with my life as I should be.

I had discussed it with M who honestly wasn't sure, but I was.

I had to do it, I had to be the one to move out of the home I loved, leave my precious pets behind and start a whole new life or find myself drowning in depression.

 a great deal of intent was put out into the world by myself and my friends and as if by magic the most perfect flat appeared to rent in Lymington.

I lived in Lymington, a beautiful Georgian town on the banks of a river at the mouth of the Solent, twenty years ago and fell in love. to now be faced with an available flat in an old building on the cobbled old town quay was too much to pass up and within five days of phoning to enquire about it I had moved in. 

three weeks later I have finally unpacked and have the place organised and I still cannot believe that the two upper floors of this old, old building and its little stone flagged courtyard is my home. 

what's more important to me is that M can come and stay at weekends. something that would not have been possible had I still been sharing a house with my ex. as a result our relationship has developed and become deeper and I am blissfully happy.

so yes my life has changed beyond measure.
I have started again with my university studies and now into the final three (maybe two) years of my classical studies degree.
I am responsible for my own life, for sorting my bills, paying my bills, paying my rent and I now have a little job. just two hours a day cleaning for a local company...and to be honest that is all my ever present fibromyalgia will allow right now and I find myself ready to collapse when I get home just after 6 in the evening.
but you know what? its a good feeling, I feel that I am being productive, useful.