Lockdown

Lockdown

article & photographs by Geraldine Woods-Humphrey

April 1, the air was still under one of the strongest high pressures we’ve ever seen. A gentle dawn chorus had begun, the avian choir pianissimo before the great crescendo to come in June. Two male woodpeckers supplied a staccato rhythm as they hammered out their territorial claims from favoured trees. Their declarations of ownership resonated in the natural auditorium that is made by the Hills here; two actors in an ancient Greek theatre. And what a Fools’ Day it was, much of the world in lockdown fighting an enemy only visible under a microscope; the stuff of science fiction, not Ealing Comedy.

As those rival woodpeckers demonstrated, humans may be in lockdown, but the natural world goes on. Now in May, the Hills are awash in a sea of bluebells, the nesting season is in full swing and soon the fledglings will start to arrive at my bird feeders. During this time of isolation feeding the birds in your garden can be a welcome distraction, providing something to keep the family both occupied and entertained.

In the light of the Covid-19 pandemic, growing your own vegetables has taken on a new significance. Garden centres and seed companies announced unprecedented sales as people dug to provide their own vegetables. First time growers may be disappointed by the results … crops fail, pests invade and the weather is not always on your side. But at least most of you gardeners won’t have to fight off a whippet that has taken a liking to your kale. You will though, I hope, come to see gardening as an opening to understanding how the natural world works and how it can benefit both your physical and mental well-being.

53 In an idle moment, and there haven’t been many in this period of isolation, I sorted through my collection of old cookery books written during the early part of the 20th century. I love these books not only for their recipes, but for the social history lying within their pages. One, written by Josephine Terry, cookery writer for the Mirror during the war, was full of strange and wonderful substitutes for items we all take for granted today. Flaky pastry made with cheese instead of fat might seem a step too far for the modern cook.

Potatoes made important substitutes for rice and cornflour. An apple pie recipe using mashed potato as the base instead of pastry might have been useful in March when flour was rarer than hen’s teeth. The potatoes were salted and sweetened and the apples, cooked, placed on top. Desperate times called for desperate measures and during WWII, Britain really was short of food.