ISOLATED DIALOGUES

ISOLATED DIALOGUES

Voices from Ashurst and Colbury Recreation Ground, a park which I ran around daily during the coronavirus lockdown April-August 2020

  

 Swung

What do you call me,

tied up in prevention?

Let’s say I’m rechristened a ‘swung’.

Am I still me?

‘The King of the Swungers’?

It sounds so wrong.

30 March

 

Leaf

‘Regret’ goes too far. I was born to descend,

the timing is subsidiary. And yet…

to fall in late March,

to feel myself mushed with the mulch of the old,

expected to come on all brown when I’m green!

Perhaps I would call it ‘regret’.

31 March

Path

I’m not a rule. Just guidance.

Go where you like.

But I’ve always stuck to it.

What point would there be

in laying me down
if everyone chose their own route? 

2 April

 

Blackbird

It’s female subtlety gets me off.

Once you’ve seen one coat-beak contrast –

even allowing for the golden eye-ring –

there’s nothing more the rest can say.

But look at the modulation in her duns!

I’d call us ‘brownbirds’, given my way.

5 April

Grass

Considering how soft I am,

he ought to spend more time on me –

easing over nature’s course,

savouring the cushioned instep.

I won’t tell the path,

I promise!

9 April

Squirrel

I get teased

for being slow. ‘Static’,

says my cousin, ‘as a lichen’.

‘Thick as a plank’

according to my sister.

But have they ever found so large an acorn?

12 April

 

Goals

Wave to each other every day.

Devise a worthwhile project…

host sponsored penalties to raise funds for a ventilator?

Remind the locked-down joggers

that the future will come.

Get fitted with nets, once this is all done.

15 April

 

Air

I fill the park

and nobody notices, most of the time.

Not that I crave prominence:

knowing how much I matter is enough.

Yet I wouldn’t be human were there not times

when I feel a certain pressure to show off.

20 April

View

Am I an entity? Discuss…

Visibility is my all,

but therein lies a problem:

I look like the air, which is invisible.

Not so much an entity

as a conundrum.

22 April

Twig

It's the asymmetry gets me: 

that in the synecdochical game

that makes me a branch,

the branch a tree,

and the tree a copse

I cannot see the leaf standing in for me.

23 April

Slide

I know there are those with a downer on me –

as if it’s my fault

when trends are adverse.

But I’ve been out of bounds

for a month now,

and the world’s still getting worse.

25 April

Gate

I love my job:

the letting in, the keeping out,

the people wondering which they’ll get.

I long to be closed

so I can be opened again

and then closed – don’t forget!

27 April

Fence

I cannot claim utility.

I make no contribution

to stopping the unseen spread.

Worse than that, am I wasting my time

cordoning off the property

of an owner who’ll soon be dead?

29 April

 

Shadow

I am no metaphor,

just a simple consequence of ‘tree blocks light’.

So I object to any viral context,

such as this one threatens to become.

Darkness is far from my essence.

Remember: I am caused by the sun.

1 May

Daisies

Our humility is purely

a matter of prevalence and scale.

Blow a few of us up

to the height of an oak

and our fans would be queuing

right around the block.

4 May

Cloud

Six weeks, it feels like,

I haven’t been here to raise the fundamental query

Am I in the park?

Even today – wherever I am –

I’m alone,

keeping a sensible distance in the sky. 

5 May

Memorial

Fresh poppies for 75…

At least they could see the threat.

Now the globe’s in the grip

of the invisible.

Show yourselves and fight fair,

you cowardly microbes!

8 May

Chestnut

Some things cannot be furloughed.

My leaves must sprout,

my candelabras flare!

But it takes me back 
to the yet darker times 
of having to cope with the blackout. 

9 May

 

Hybrid                              

As a horsetail-bluebell

I speak with one horsetail-bluebell voice:

don’t get yourself trapped

in zones of convention

that limit the scope of your options

by claiming that you have to make a choice.

10 May

Bench

A notice announces I’m not disinfected.

And I am myself unseated

by a thrill-surge:

from a history of staid normality

to the danger and caution in play

for those who dare to sit on me.

11 May

 

Log

After an erratic start

he settled on eight visits daily,

most of them around about noon.

None involved a dog.

He never said ‘hello’,

but did take my picture on Day 29.

12 May

Mycelium

Never mind my mushrooms have gone:

high five the hyphae

of the largest creature hereabouts!

If only the authorities,

had a network like mine 
to test and trace!

14 May

Vehicle

The law has disappointed:

two months and not one officer

has asked if my journey is really essential.

‘I’m a fire engine’,

I want the chance to reply,
‘every trip is critical’.


16 May

Cuckoo Pint

Everybody gets that wrong:

I’m more a midge hotel than a mausoleum.

And people always make those jokes:

I concede that Willy Lily

has a certain assonantal wit,

but I would opt for Arum maculatum. 

18 May

 

Stag

Stuck

like a beetle on its back,

ha ha, touché, yes yes…

Or, as we’d have it,

like humans who can’t tell the truth

because of all their previous lies.

19 May

Shade

I think he likes me.
Such is his relief
at getting out of heat and glare,
he doesn’t even notice
the ghostly light my naming shines
on death.

21 May

Cable Casings

We represent

the park’s rather minimal

nod to abstraction.

He loves us, of course –

he writes about art –
but it’s rather a rare reaction.

22 May

Temperature

They claim I’m unreliable. Not so.

No matter how conditions vary,

or whether that’s down  

to nature, man or god,

my tracking is as constant

and as faithful as a dog's.

23 May

Dog

I can tell that he doesn’t believe in us.

Nor, I surmise, in cats.

My guess: he’s never had a pet,

he's against all taming of the wild.

Get out of my park,

you hypocrite! 


24 May

Concrete

I may look unsophisticated

but I’m actually post-modern.

Art has historically dealt through form,

but form itself is now under suspicion –

so we need a form for formlessness,

and that’s where I come in.

25 May

Notice

I’m telling you the Spotted Laurel

and the Great Spotted Woodpecker

can be found in this garden.

Personally, I’ve only spotted

Speckled Woods  

and the odd Dalmatian.

26 May

Night

I don’t discriminate
based on colour.
I like to think
I wouldn’t if I could.
He does, though!
How often does he 

run around in me?

27 May

Feather

How did I get here?

You might have had the chance

to knock me down with myself –

I like to take my logic

with a very light touch –

had I not been grounded in advance.

29 May

Time

At two minutes per lap,

even counting eight laps and shower,

he’s hardly ripping into me.

There’s plenty left to write

a lastingly epic account.

Why doesn’t he?

30 May

Irises

I trust we’re no snobs,

but we feel out of place.

It could be worse -

we do have each other -

but a formal garden with fellow flowers

would suit so much better.

31 May

Bin

Sorry about the rubbishy blur

and lack of focus.

I blame his brother,

who pointed out

that he didn’t seem to be running very fast,

judging by the photos. 

1 June

Wrapper

There’s no need to say it:

you don’t think I’m fab,

not here, not now, maybe never.

But am I not evidence

of the economic activity
essential for us to recover?

2 June 

Gap

Will he, won’t he?

Now and again

he runs through me.

I think it’s love,

but he feels the need

to dress it as ‘variety’.

3 June

Bee

Set aside the damage

to my image

and it wouldn’t be too tough  

to be stuck in the hive.

Just being

might be busyness enough.

5 June

Shorts

I wouldn’t call it scary:

He’s not exactly Usain Bolt.

All the same, I’m happy

when he peters

to a

halt.

6 June

Corvid

Not Covid, no, but
‘corvid’ as in carrion crow.
Our numbers
are increasing, true,
but we pose no danger
unless that grub is you.

7 June

Blue

Red or not, the swings are tied up.

Cloudy greys have had their chance

and fluffed it.

Green’s a worthwhile adversary,

but tell me what’s bigger:

the ground or the sky?

8 June

Slope

Must I be a hill
to be taken seriously?
Do we prefer Wagner to Bach,
Trollope to Austen,
Damien Hirst to Agnes Martin?
Must I be a mountain?

9 June





Concrete Corner Shortcut

Dismiss his dismissing me
as hardly worthwhile,
allied to the claim that he likes to mix things up
by running through a gap:
I’ve often misled him
into slicing off the South-East tip.

10 June

Gardenia

If I could move

he’d smell me coming

but it’s only my waft

that reaches in over the fence.

Is that enough

to get me an appearance? 

11 June

Branches

Have you read Chariots of the Gods?

Erich von Däniken’s

book about the traces left

by aliens on earth.

Oh well, it’s pretty dated now.

But we’re still massive fans. 

12 June

Rustle

Am I caused by a squirrel? A thrush?

Or by Jack,

No. 15’s rather cute new pup?

That would be something:

so far as I know,
I just made him up.

13 June

Sun

I’m not surprised
the park revolves around my star.
In fact I’m blasé.
Yet when my influence
covers such a distance
how can two metres seem so far?

14 June

Stone

My inner life is not, 
to be honest, the richest...

and I’ve been lonely:

two months without paper or scissors

and not the sharpest recollection

of the games we used to play.

15 June

Fir

Who’ll rid me of the multi-coloured
snarl-up in my branches
that’s lasted for months now
with no rain to go with its tattering bow?
Of course I support the NHS,
but how long is there to go?

16 June

Rain

Has he missed me?
Not when running,
only in the evening
with watering can in hand.
All the more reason to relish
the drenching I have planned!

18 June

Hole 

People say I’m nothing,
as if that were a valuation.
But consider my role
as nature’s host:
there’s not much you can put
in a stone or a post... 

19 June

Central Path Shortcut

Surely I tempt him…
half way round and then up me
yields an R factor of 25%.
But maybe that’s more
a short shrift than a cut:
he doesn’t believe a lap with me can count.

20 June

Cat's Ear

My claim to fame -

or maybe its opposite -

is that I’m terribly common

but nobody knows my name.

I won’t be surprised

if the title gets it wrong.

21 June

Trunk

I keep things as simple as ‘stay at home’.
You won’t find me
confusing the issue
with intricate rules about how many leaves
can perch on a branch,
depending on whether they’re from the same tree.

23 June

30°C

Compared with my tepid comrades
I reckon I can slow him down
by up to a mile an hour.
Not only that: can fir or fence,
can squirrel or gap, can grass or swing
pretend to anything like my power?

24 June

Down

We wish it was us kept the pigeon aloft,

if when we came down

that mucked the flying up. 

Sadly, we’re just insulation:

losing us in this heat

gets no bird in a flap.

25 June

Guard

What’s this young tree done

to deserve a cosseting

no other life form gets round here?

No doubt it’s worthy –

but shouldn’t I be told

why my charge is so dear?

26 June





Materials 

‘Would you wood pigeons fly were you made of wood?’ 
he asked me, as I rose up high. 
‘No more, I suspect’, was my reply, 
'than a wood would fly 
were it covered in feathers 
and dropped from the sky’.

26 June

Alligator

Of course I have questions.

Why am I up here

instead of in the boggy dip?

Why close to where the children play?

Don’t worry, I’m perfectly harmless.

But should you believe what I say?

27 June

Roundabout

Funny how he’s never got

around to me – nor to my good friend Seesaw.

Are the metaphors too obvious?

That didn’t seem to put him off

the path, the goal, the cloud,

the shadow, the night, the slide…

28 June

Lesser Hawkbit

My claim to fame –

or maybe its opposite -

is that I’m terribly common

but nobody knows my name.

I won’t be surprised

if the title gets it wrong.

29 June

Cones

We have defeated him.

Ten weeks now

we’ve been strewn on his route

without him picking up on what we think.

Sooner or later, mark our words,

he will try to cheat. 

30 June

Physconia pulverulena

Call me lichen if you like me,
and I will explain: I form rosettes
from silvery grey to greenish brown,
dusted with pruina, fixed in place with rhizines.
And, as I expect you spotted,
my apothecia have prominent margins.

1 July 

Runner 

What’s surprised me is how talkative
the park has proved,
the reticent cones apart.
Is it always like this?
Or has the lockdown
given the world new heart? 

2 July

Draft

I’m only worth

a scrap of paper.

Not for me the sleekness

of the screen or printed sheet.

The good news is:

you cannot judge me yet.

3 July

Seven

I’m the tough lap –

short of the surge of ‘nearly there’

yet far enough in to challenge the breath.

He ought to switch to ten:

then I’d be easy
up against that vicious Mr Nine.

4 July

Movement

Not fast, perhaps,
but too fast for him -
whether a wood pigeon
would or would not
outrun him were it
flying at his feet.

5 July

Announcement

Run on a while yet!
And no backsliding.
No sliding, indeed, of any disposition.
It isn’t down to me
that he defined the end of lockdown
as when the swings swing free.


6 July

Caltrop 

It’s not my fault if I trip him up: 
I was happy 
left to the side, 
plotting no evils - 
until I was moved. 
At least he hasn’t got wheels. 

6 July

 

Cuttings

Not only is it a lingering departure,

dying in the

drying in the sun,

but I’m suffering over juicy greenness

to rub in just how far

I’ve almost gone.

7 July

Puff

I can’t make much sense

of how he responds

to my efforts to help him round the seventh.

If he’s so out of me,

how come he carries  

right on with my sounds?

9 July

Bridge

This is the phony period:
easement has been announced,
but the park remains short of full order.
Relax: transitions are what I do,
smoothing one passing state
into another.

10 July

Fork 

I hardly come into it:
only clockwise or anti
are possible here.
All I can offer
in this circular context
is a choice of false steer.

11 July

Postbox

I know - you sticklers! -

I’m not even close.

So much so that he can count

posting a letter as three laps run.

Which is why, for present purposes,

the park is my location.

12 July




Co-op

I’m where he ran
instead of the park
on account of a milk-out.
Frankly, though,
this is getting ridiculous.
I’ll put him straight.


13 July

Bark

This is the moment I wish I could hold:
when the fissured tessellations of my template
find an answer in the overlay
of my own branches’ shadows
and I am at one
with my self and with the world.

14 July

Map

Today is for following me:

he can find old friends to talk to,

try a new route

with no fear of getting lost,

see the scale of his challenge

laid out just as clearly as the view.

16 July







Backside

might be his term:
front bottom's more like it
for those who live
in Whartons Lane.
But hardly anyone does:
arse it shall remain. 

18 July




Sunday 18.30

They call me ‘Dog Central’.
Two is frequent.
Five between three
path-blocking owners
isn’t unknown.
Surely he should have run earlier on.


19 July

Curve

Ironic, eh?
I stand for growth,
then end up where I cannot grow.
I still long to sweep further -
however little,
however slow.

20 July

Runner

My wife points out that ‘jogger’
would have been a more accurate title,
and that settling into eight laps daily
limits the benefit.
Her being right
doesn’t mean I like it.

21 July

Phone

I am the end
of any illusion
that closer is better:
the struggle to focus
squeezes the content
right out of my picture.

22 July

Cover

If you need to ask

the subterranean questions -

What was too tardy?

What wasn’t enough?
What hasn’t been counted correctly? –
I may know the place for that stuff.

23 July





Post

I’m unconcerned
by fixity. I have no issue
with standing alone,
sufficiently chilled
in demarcation
that sometimes I like to lie down.

24 July

Empyreal Path Shortcut

Good news: I’m perfect.
My R Factor – 7.5% –
makes me worth taking 
with scarcely a twist
of guilt. One negative only:
I do not exist.

25 July

Root 

It’s not so much losing my better half
when we were chopped in two,
as that now,
in my readymade grave,
I feel there’s nothing
left for me to do.

26 July

Sprog

is what the big trees call me
As if they were never my kind of size.
I don’t mind that
so much as how –
in all weathers, so far as I can see them –
they block off my skies.

27 July 

Sex

I guess you wondered
when I’d rear my greedy head.
I’m what he thinks of as he runs.
Well, must have thought of
at least the once -
as proven by these lines.

28 July 




Forecast

I didn’t say it would be like this –
for ‘rain’ read ‘wind’, for ‘now’ read ‘then’ -
but ‘wrong’ is not a helpful word.
Look at it thus: I’m doing my best
to counter the boredom
of an over-predictable world.

29 July

Epiphany

We have our sceptics.
The light and the place
must be so particular
that nothing may happen.
Even I was a non-believer
until I discovered I was one.


30 July

17.00

Five o’clock exactly,
no 'about' about it
goes round in his head
as he goes round the park
with nothing else to think about
but witnessing me being that.

31 July




Accident

I’ve been waiting. Now I’ve happened.
And that’s his house appearing by mistake.
But is anything ever really truly
if you dig for long enough
behind the scenes of consciousness
actually down to me?

1 August





Foundation

Eight years may seem nothing,
but I’m here for the long term.
Give me a thousand,
and ‘2012’ will impress -
if there are people left to impress,
come that millennium.

2 August

Canopy

I’m not so remote:
everything’s up in the air just now
and nobody knows the new normal.
But surely this can be agreed:
if up’s the new down
I’m very low indeed…

3 August

New Orange Shorts

Well, it is summer,
and the one thing this park lacks
is floral display -
to which I’m superior,
for what blooms moves their colour round
in such a satisfying way? 

4 August




Activity

In the gap between 

'clearly allowed'
and 

'patently banned'
there lies the casual kick-about.
Who but Boris himself
can fully resolve my status of doubt?

5 August

Planch

So cool is my noun
I propose to adopt it as my name
and nickname, too.
No more calls of ‘Woody!’
or – worse still – ‘Planky!’ –
it’s ‘Planch’ or even ‘Mr Planch’ hereon.

6 August

Book

I must have been left here to make a point,
but which one? ‘Pain is inevitable?’
‘Running is both exercise
and metaphor’ and ‘helps you to live with clear goals’?
Or that ‘I’m no great runner’ –
though, really, which book is?

7 August




Ultra

I define myself
as anything over a marathon,
but 50 miles in actual likelihood.
He probably needs a month to reach me:
don’t buy his claim
that increments are just as good.

8 August




Conker

Yes, I’m here.
The greening and blossom
and the solstice have gone.
That’s how long
this carry-on’s been
carrying on.

9 August

Intersect

My wood keeps the park
from the houses enjoying
their locational perk.
My iron keeps the park
from the hubbub of cars:
several per hour at evening peak.

10 August




Angle

I would say jaunty,
with just a lipped curve
of curved lip,
hinting at a smile on the way.
Surely the playground reopening party
can’t be far away…

11 August






Gleam

The numbers go up,
the numbers come down,
the false dawns 
come and go.
Am I what you’ve been waiting for?
I don’t know when you’ll know.

13 August

Construction

When nature turns to artifice, I clap;
when instinct yields to calculus, rejoice.
The world should be governed
by rationale’s exactitudes
not the romantic illusions
of choice.

14 August




Smile

I have maintained myself
through four long months
without the reinforcement
of children’s faces matching me –
even though I’ve lost an eye.
Don’t you dare say it’s been easy!

15 August

Long Grass 

You’ll notice that I,
no respecter of covid,
haven’t stopped growing –
but that the Parish,
heedless of my natural length,
hasn’t stopped mowing. 

15 August

Bramble 

At shoulder height with prickles
I generate caution, deviation,
sudden swerves if seen late.
And stand in for nothing,
as natural as seeking health or wealth
or balancing them off in debate.

16 August

Horsetail / Mare’s Tail

Is it some kind of a feminist issue,
whether to call us
by horse or by mare?
Not at all: we’re asexual.
There’s no need to say
that there’s no need to go there… 

16 August

Impatience

I guess you might blame me
for the half-dis-entanglement,
for tempting the testing of swings –
but not so!
Two have been tied up

to maintain social distancing. 

17 August




Allure

Not the crazing of paint over centuries
but how I tempt the weeds into each crack.
Imagine the attraction
of cheap eats Monday to Wednesday
as a way of disguising dubious judgement
and you’ll be on the right track.

18 August

Autumn

I may be my own favourite season –
much as I sometimes regret missing spring –
but isn’t it just wonderful
how ruddily, how russetly,
how goldenly
I orchestrate my patent shades of everything!

19 August

Ideas

He thinks he’s running out of me,

but some of us are small enough

to make this park seem massive.

He should assume our population

is vast, and not discount

a second wave.

20 August




Swing

Freedom!
After months of being
tied up by my self
with nothing to do,
even the fact that the freedom is chained
hardly seems to matter as it used to.

21 August

Notes

30 March - 'Swung': on 16 March 2020 Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that all unnecessary social contact must cease. On 23 March Boris Johnson ordered everyone to 'stay at home'. I ran around the park for the first time the following week, finding the swings tied up.

5 May - 'Cloud': the first two months of lockdown were unusually dry and hot - April had the most hours of sunshine ever recorded in the month in England, 54% above the average at 239 hours, followed by the most hours of sunshine ever recorded in any single month: 266 hours in May. Only in June was there significant rain.

8 May - ‘Memorial’: 8 May 2020 marked 75 years since Victory in Europe (VE) Day, when Britain and its Allies formally accepted Germany's unconditional surrender.

18 May - ‘Cuckoo Pint’: The cuckoo pint (‘pint’ is an abbreviation of the archaic ‘pintle’ - penis) has many folk names reflecting the sheathed flower’s resemblance to genitalia in the act, e.g. lords-and-ladies, Adam and Eve, Jack in the pulpit and sonsie-give-us-your-hand. The phallic element is a poker-shaped spadix, partially enclosed in a pale green spathe. The flowers are hidden from sight, beneath a ring of hairs which forms a trap. Insects, especially midges are attracted to the spadix by its faecal odour and a temperature above the ambient one. They are trapped beneath the ring of hairs and are dusted with pollen by the male flowers before escaping when the hairs wither overnight. They then go on to pollinate other lilies: Arum maculatum is not carnivorous in the way of most insect-trapping plants. 

19 May - 'Stag': This beetle had become stuck in a bowl left out to hold water for dogs.

14 May - 'Sun': The need to keep two metres apart was built into the Government's social distancing requirements from 23 March - 3 July.

26 May - ‘Notice’: on Sunday 24 May it emerged that the Prime Minister’s adviser, Dominic Cummings, who had helped to draft the Government’s ‘stay at home’ regulations during the strictest period of lockdown (which ran 23 March – 10 May), had not himself followed them.

27 May - ‘Night’: following the murder of George Floyd on 25 May, 29m people posted on Instagram’s #blackouttuesday hashtag, most with all-black screens, in support of 'Black Lives Matter'.

7 June - 'Corvid': blackbirds and wood pigeons were near-permanent presences in the park, but I saw a crow only twice. 

12 June - 'Branches': this arrangement mysteriously appeared in the park in mid May and lay undisturbed for over a month. One of Von Däniken most famous - if unsupported - theses was that the Nazca Lines in Peru were built on instructions from extraterrestrial beings as airfields for their spaceships.

10 & 20 June and 25 July - ‘Concrete Corner Shortcut’, ‘Central Path Shortcut’ and ‘Empyreal Angle Shortcut’: The ‘R factor’ (Reduction Factor) measures a shortcut as a proportion of the total unreduced route (The Concrete Corner Shortcut has an R factor of just 2%). It is not to be confused with the ‘R number’ (Reproduction Number), which is the number of individuals in a pandemic outbreak who, on average, will be infected by a single infected person.

11 June - ‘Gardenia’: somewhat speculative, but I liked the title. It was more likely the scent of honeysuckle drifting into the park from a neighbouring garden.

16 June - ‘Fir’: many rainbow balloons were released to celebrate the efforts of the NHS during the early weeks of the lockdown.

21 & 29 June - 'Cat's Ear' / 'Lesser Hawkbit': the flower depicted - and found in the park - is Nipplewort.

23 June - 'Trunk': From mid-June onwards the Government's simple 'Stay at Home' message was replaced by a succession of more complicated messages about 'bubbles' and 'staying alert' and shifting numbers with whom one could gather.

24 June - ‘30°C’: This temperature was consistently reached during the heatwave of 23-25 June.

27 June - 'Alligator': What I had assumed was an alligator actually proved, on more measured inspection, to be a giant sand lizard, so I guess it is fully harmless.

16 & 18 July - 'Map' / 'Backside': attentive readers might spot from the map that Whartons Lane is on the other side of the park from the runner's house, so he regards the gate from it as being the rear entrance. 

23 July - ‘Cover’: The Government did not take well to criticism of its strategy. Dissenting voices pointed to a delay in lockdown, problems sourcing PPE, failure to act regarding care homes, unclear messaging from May onwards, bungled handling of school re-openings, slow implementation of tracing, an incoherent approach to quarantine for international visitors, and unfavourable international comparisons of death rates. Perhaps the most persistent criticism was that the Government’s methods of measuring the number of tests carried out were flagrantly manipulated in order to maximise the chances of hitting its target levels.

2 & 21 July, 8 August - ‘Runner / Jogger / Ultra’: photographs by Steph Carey-Kent.

2 August - 'Foundation': The inscription, already getting a little hard to make out, says: 'Queen Elizabeth II Field - Diamond Jubilee 2012 - Fields in Trust'.

6 August - ‘Planch’: Merriam Webster definition – 'dialectal, England: a plank floor'.

7 August - 'Book': The quotes are from Murakami's 'What I Talk About When I Talk About Running', 2008. He is a sufficient running fanatic - at least an hour a day plus a marathon every year - that when he crosses the ultimate finish line he plans that his tombstone will read: 'Haruki Murakami / 1949-20xx / Writer (and Runner) / At Least He Never Walked'.  He would be unimpressed by my few circuits of the park...

16 August - 'Horsetail / Mare’s Tail' - the two commonest names for Equisetum arvense, also once known as 'scrubby-grass' for its rough ability to scour pans before arrival of steel wool, and more recently as 'Lego plant', after how it can be disassembled.

18 August - ‘Allure’: Implausibly, perhaps, the tarmac refers to ‘craquelure’ - the fine pattern of dense cracking formed on the surface of a painting. The Government's 'Eat Out to Help Out' scheme gave a 50% discount on food or non-alcoholic drinks (up to a maximum of £10 discount per diner) every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday between 3 and 31 August.

21 August and preceding weeks - 'Announcement' / 'Impatience' / 'Swing': Boris Johnson announced a significant easing in restrictions with effect from 4 July, including the reopening of pubs and cafés. On 6 July, however, the Parish Council posted a notice to the effect that the playground would remain closed (due to the onerous nature of the Government's sanitising rules were it to open). On 10 August the notices were removed, but the swings remained largely tied up. On 21 August the Parish Council clarified that the playground was now open for use, but with some swings still tied up to maintain social distancing. I took that to mark the end of the lockdown of Ashurst and Colbury Recreation Ground after some 150 days and 1,200 laps - and 115 poems.

As it turned out, October brought a fully fledged second wave of Covid-19...

Paul Carey-Kent, March-August 2020