BOOM!!! CREEEESH! THPOCK-THPOCK-THPOCK! FWHEEUUU! WHEEEEE-URRR-eee! SHWIZZZzzzzzz!
Fireworks launched in defiance seared the night sky and exploded hope. I drifted into a doze-dream that the scatter-shot of bangs and whizzes over Hanwell were in celebration of the end of the pandemic. But they weren’t, of course. Not over yet, not by a long chalk. They were only heralding the New Year, while saying goodbye to the old one and for just about all of us, good riddance to it.
When the first Covid-19 lockdown started last March we rarely ventured outside Hanwell. Like many others, we were working from home (if at all). We were no longer commuting, we were making occasional darting forays to local shops instead. And our daily lockdown exercise soon took the form of the familiar 40-minute walk from home to allotment.
At first, this involved following our favourite local paths, but with everyone else out walking too it got harder to keep social distance, especially along the Grand Union Canal and the River Brent. Before long we found ourselves exploring previously unvisited corners of Hanwell, like Boles Meadow.
Boles Meadow
The neat sign at the entrance to the meadow tells us that livestock once grazed here and that it’s now a nature conversation area. There are also the remains of an old ice storage house, though we’ve yet to find it. The sign also mentions that the nearby footbridge is a good place for bat spotting on summer evenings.
Even on familiar paths there have been new discoveries. Stepping off the path on the edge of the Brent Valley golf course to maintain social distancing, we would stop briefly and look into clearings and tangles of undergrowth we’d never noticed before, despite having passed by them almost daily. On walks with no fixed destination, no rush to get anywhere in particular, we would sometimes Covid drift. That is, we would let the necessities and niceties of social distancing prompt us to drift off course, to explore new paths and corners.
In the past year this Capital Ring path junction in Hanwell has been transformed into a gyratory by a combination of greater use leading to wet/dry path erosion/compaction, and associated social distancing.
When encountering other walkers we would switch to a single file formation out of courtesy, or just stand around for a minute, out of the way. Not everyone does likewise, staying two or even three abreast, perhaps thoughtlessly, obliging us to step off the path.
We soon learned not to get annoyed, just to roll with it. What’s the point of making a fuss when you might get embroiled in a row? I’m sure there have been moments when we failed to notice other walkers because we were wrapped up in conversation, or had spotted an unfamiliar bird, or had met a cute puppy. Perspective and acceptance – a different kind of rambling.
Not only were new paths explored, they were also created; tracks formed naturally by walkers alongside existing paths to help maintain distance from others, such as on Brent Meadow and Churchfields recreation ground.
The new Covid tracks alongside the main path on Brent Meadow
I guess all the walking and exploring we’ve done, and seeing nature get a bit of respite from what we humans do to it with our busy lives, are silver linings on what for many has been a really miserable cloud. And lots of people have found their own positives, and their own ways of getting through lockdown and self-isolation. Some have coped with it by trying not to think of it as something bad – the artist Maggi Hambling gave it a friendly name: Locky Lockdown.
Allotment gates
Our walk has brought us to the allotment gates, the cold air misting our breath. It’s a lucky thing that the allotments were allowed to remain open; for a while it wasn’t certain they would be. Many plotholders petitioned their MPs, and the allotments were reprieved, subject to hygiene measures and a ban on bonfires. Early on there was even talk that the food grown might be needed by the community.
The sheds inside the allotment gates
Two plot neighbour chats and one hello to the robin later, I was standing on an old water tank, long pruner in hand. I was trying to reach the highest of the forest of water shoots atop the apple trees, up in what I like to call the canopy. As I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, the tank wobbled on the uneven ground. It was like being perched high up the mast of a gently swaying sailing ship. I put my free hand above my eyes, as though straining for sight of land from my crow’s nest. What I saw was grey sky over a sea of leafless branch tops, and the Hanwell Community Centre clock tower beyond. Pruning the apple trees is a December job that we didn’t quite get round to finishing in December. We never do. Which is a shame, since January is meant to be about enjoying that promise of a fresh start.
During the pandemic, new friendships have been made on the allotment and existing ones made deeper, despite social distancing. The time spent up here instead of on the Piccadilly line means our plot has never looked better, and makes a welcome break from the world of work by Zoom at home.
Here’s to a happier new year.
Around Hanwell and up the allotment 
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