Isolation Blog – Notes from the new shed

At my advanced age I am so far down the queue of medical priorities that I will be lucky to be given an aspirin if I contract this Corona virus. Whilst youngsters in their sixties may be unlocked in a few weeks I think that I’ll be asked to hand over my front door keys and wait for the vaccine.

I will miss feeling part of the herd but several years of retirement have allowed me to develop a daily schedule of doing things, reading things and staring at things.

Just before lockdown day I had been forced to downsize my shed - not a happy experience. Some important buckets had to go and then there was all that wood accumulated over the years– parts of bunk beds, fence posts and shelving. Maybe I could use some of it to build a wood store? Nothing fancy just a frame, maybe side walls and a roof. It should only take a couple of hours. A week later I was painting my rather larger than planned structure in shining shed green. Now where was all that spare wood?

I miss my monthly visits to the Isle of Raasay but I’m not planning to stowaway on the ferry. I never sense that Raasay is isolated although a telecom call centre recently told a neighbour that the reason it was difficult to get broadband installed in his postcode area was because he lived in such a “desolate place”.

Maybe he meant ‘isolated’ but islanders are used to looking out for each other. The community shop delivers and the people smile and wave at everyone they meet; well maybe not unwelcome visitors just at the moment.

But I’m lucky to have a garden and tomorrow I will start to lay some stepping stones, though I don’t know where they will lead – maybe to the empty wood store. Then there’s a grassy bank to be built for the bottles that aren’t being collected. And that will stop me worrying about what they mean by the latest health strategy of “Segmentation”.

Nick Fairweather