Lockdown 2020 has been a challenge for us all in many ways. However I want to share with you some positive things that I will always remember and some hope for the future. Here are some things that touched my heart, things that I connected with through the time I had to stop, here, in an eerily quiet St Davids and reflect, relax and reconnect.
We reconnected with ourselves taking time to exercise daily and with those we live with we shared meals and quality time. We cooked and baked and experimented in the kitchen. We connected with nature and the wonderful environment on our doorsteps, growing vegetables and flowers in the garden. Verges were left uncut and buzzed with bees and wildflowers, which also sprang up from cracks in pavements free from constant footfall.
We cycled freely around empty lanes on our daily exercise, each day a kind of ‘Groundhog Day’.
We were only aware of the passage of time by the emergence of each new hedgebank wonder, as it felt like time stood still! The advent of colour, a welcome gift after a grey winter, saw daffodils smile their sunny faces up at dainty willow catkins dancing in the breeze. Their splendor passed and gave way to the confetti celebration of the blackthorn blossom as bluebells sheltered under their lacey canopy, indigo blue in their cool, lush, dappled emerald sanctuary.
We had socially distant chats with neighbours over the fence or in the street.
With time on our hands it was a joy to connect with another soul whilst out on a daily walk on the deserted streets.
We picked up prescriptions and shopped for those shielding. We decorated our houses, decluttered and rearranged rooms and did a lot of those fixing and mending jobs that we never usually have time for. We were inspired to paint, take up handicrafts, read books, write poetry! We stopped and looked and listened and we breathed. We are lucky to live here, I know, and we felt grateful every day for the small and simple pleasures which are the treasure of this place.
In a world full of uncertainties nature was reassuringly constant and present and close.
There are images that will stay with me like photographs etched into my soul. If I close my eyes I can recall them and be taken back to that calm place where it felt like time stood still.
A flock of whimbrels calling in a strange tongue, mapping the sky in harmony, swooping up and down and left and right, silhouetted by the setting sun. I heard them before I glimpsed them and as I peered over the hedge across an empty golf course I froze still and transfixed, like a statue mesmerised by the spiralling beauty of their dance.
A lone heron, standing statue-like, waiting for a trout in the river Alun by an empty, cordoned off Merrivale car park, as I cycled past one Spring day. I turned and went back to take a photograph but he was gone. A tiny window glimpse, reminding me of other such sightings of lonesome birds, spotted from train journeys over the years.
Swallows flitting across the old stone bridge on the road to Whitesands on another cycle ride, darting inches from my head as I stopped – a mini film-clip to play again in my mind’s i-cloud.
Gannets, gleaming white and powerful like zeus-like bolts of lightning diving for fish, plummeting vertically into the pristine aegean-like-blue surf, coming in so close to reclaim their shores. Or maybe more apt they are the ‘Adar Rhiannon’, the birds of Rhiannon the horse goddess from the ancient tales of the Mabinogion.
As I stood alone on the remote deserted shore of Whitesands that lockdown day, it truly felt as though the boundaries between our world and a hidden other-world were blurred and had cleared like a summer’s sea mist.
The song of the birds of Rhiannon’s was reputed to wake the dead and lull the living to sleep. They were also said to have a non-rational effect on space as they could be remote but seem very near.
It’s busy again now with the hustle and bustle of a normal summer season and the smiles of happy returning visitors. Those surreal, tangible dream-like moments that I feel privileged to have encountered can still be found however, but they won’t be found on a busy street or a crowded beach.
They are waiting dormant and can be glimpsed in the embers of the setting sun or the wind-blown ripples of the tide.
Businesses are open and people have their jobs back and with one breath we breathe a sigh of relief but with another we try to remind ourselves to breathe that familiar breath, the new found one that reminds us to look and to take that time to really look and to feel.
The message is to ‘Visit Wales Safely’ and plan before you come. Avoid hotspots and search out the quiet places where you are more likely to be able to experience some of the things I describe.
If you spent lockdown in a busy or crowded city like my daughter did, without the freedom to roam, why not explore and seek out our hidden gems and try coming out of season? Our community teeters on the knife-edge of a tourism industry that is incredibly seasonal. Sadly some businesses will not survive this pandemic and will not reopen their doors to welcome visitors for another season.
You can help us to sustain our community by following some great advice from Visit Wales as Sustainable Tourism is as we speak re-inventing itself.
Our community and environment are key to our survival. Come and tread lightly and make your own memories. We are passionate about the people and products of this place. Please support and buy local when you come whenever you can.
‘Addo.(to promise – ‘dd’ pronounced ‘th’, as in this)
Lockdown has given us the chance to slow down. To pause. To appreciate this corner of the world that we call home. It’s reminded us of the things we hold dear… Ein bro a’n byd — our community, and our world.
And now we pledge to look after those things: To protect the beauty that’s around us. To tell the stories that shape us. To care for those who live and visit here.
As we dip our toes in the sea, dust off our walking boots, or set out on an epic adventure, let’s make a promise together — to do the little things that will make a big difference.
Addo. Make your promise to Wales.
We are a close knit and resilient little community and the amount of goodwill, kindness and community spirit that was shown here during lockdown was amazing, as people volunteered to support those shielding and with food parcel relief as they did in your community too.
As St David Wales’s patron Saint, who was born here said ‘Do the little things in life’. Here our Welsh Wildlife trust compiled a list to mark St David’s birthday on March 1st, of top tips to encourage nature. You can use them to encourage nature in your hometown too.
This article was written Becky Lloyd and originally published by St Davids Vacation Club Ltd.
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