Covid Chronicle

This was published in ‘Letters from Lockdown’ (Chatto and Windus, 2020), an anthology of selected ‘covid chronicles’ collected by BBC Radio Four and archived at the British Library as a record of personal experiences of the pandemic in the UK

Rathlin Lockdown    

14 May 2020                                                                                                          

Mostly the weather has been kind. God tempering the wind to the shorn lamb and all that. I have been locked down in a very heaven. A small off-shore island of total peace and tranquillity. Last evening there were eighteen hares, count ‘em, lolling in the field above; there were eider ducks courting at the shore, seals on the rocks soaking in the last of the sun, scarlet pimpernel still awake by the path, fat, furry mullein leaves thrusting, so many dog violets this year, tiny vibrant blue stars of gentian, early purple orchids about, but not on the Chapel Brae yet. A floral fanfare for the Spring. I am getting good at walking on the pebbles again, lift little white stones to make neat borders around my flower beds, pocket limpet shells to scatter in my own octopus’s garden. I feel guilty, shipwrecked in paradise while others suffer.

I am lonely for friends and family, but living here I often am. After years of visiting and seven year’s residence, I am still very much a ‘blow-in’. In a long life of wandering I never landed in a place before where I did not find my tribe and forge friendships for life. I do have a connection to the land itself, a deep affinity with basalt breaking through peaty soil, bogs, heather and bracken, salt-laden, wicked north-west winds. I never forgot my first visit, with my mother, more than fifty years ago. We came in a sea-tossed open boat, walked thigh-deep in lush wet grass to the East Lighthouse, had tea with her friend, tomato sandwiches cut into triangles and Marie biscuits. Sea voyages make you hungry.

Much later Rathlin called me back to find her small, lonely harbours, the wall-steads of abandoned clachans and a dark and eerie lough, as deep as the cliffs are high, with a standing stone nearby that lends you her magic. I lived another life here; every discovery is more a recognition than a novelty: The cairns, old mills, boat shelters built for curraghs, wrinkles on the hillside where barley and potatoes once grew. The past is everywhere and it murmurs to me all the time, tells me stories. I have been given time to listen.

An island reminds you control is an illusion. Wind and tide decide if a boat will travel and mere mortals must change their plans, more powerful forces are at play. So we are better equipped for these strange times, better at wait and see and better at turning to the next task at hand. Blessed indeed.