Document Type

News Article

Publication/Presentation Date

3-2021

Reflection

I am writing this one year on from the start of the first UK Lockdown on March 23, 2020. Now, we are coming to the end of our third Lockdown with restrictions gradually being lifted from next week and our children back at school. But as the UK is starting to recover with fewer deaths and fewer cases being reported, in no small part thanks to our very successful vaccine programme, Continental Europe is suffering with cases rising, deaths increasing and new lockdowns, curfews and restrictions imposed. It’s like a see-saw – this ‘up and down’ of Covid.


This third lockdown has been the most wearisome of the three – the very cold and wet UK weather hasn’t helped! But on the positive side, spring is coming and outside, birds are nesting, trees are in bud, snowdrops have come (and gone), bright yellow daffodils are everywhere, and we are predicted a mini heatwave. Not hot compared to the lovely Florida sun, but pretty warm for the UK in March. Next week, we will be able to meet a limited number of friends and family in an outdoor space – finally the start, we hope, of a return to normality.


Flypaper, July 16, 1942, includes a letter from the mother of an RAF cadet then safely back in Britain. She is writing on behalf of the women in Britain to thank the people of the USA for looking after their sons and saying that they can never repay them. “Our hearts are very full of gratitude for all you have done”. And she quotes a verse that she sang in school:


“Little Deeds of Kindness
Little Words of Love
Make this Earth an Eden
Like the Heaven above”


There have been so many small deeds of kindness reported over the last year to make life a little more bearable for those bereaved or isolated by Covid – shopping, chatting over the telephone, friendly waves through windows, etc, and long may this spirit of Kindness last when the pandemic is all over and Covid becomes a chapter in a history book.


I hope those of you reading this are safe and, if vulnerable or have signs and symptoms of Covid-19, are well cared for. If you have lost someone close to Covid, please accept my condolences and sympathy. With love, prayers and best wishes to you all.


‘Their efforts to preserve the freedom of the world were not in vain and will never be forgotten’

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