Today I felt very irritable early morning and I think it is important to try and analyse feelings and mental states in order to learn how to overcome outside influences and of course the outside influences at the moment are COVID, COVID and COVID.
My irritability was due to the fact that COVID has turned something pleasant into something unpleasant.
A year ago, going into Norwich on the bus would have been a delight. Walking round the streets, a touch of shopping, a morning coffee and some lunch before coming home mid afternoon unless Norwich City were at home and then it would be a trip to Carrow Road, followed possibly by a visit to Cinema City.
Today going into Norwich was a concern. How many people would there be? Could we keep our distance? Would any coffee shops be open for takeaway? Would there be any toilets open? How could we spend the minimum amount of time shopping for essential food items in Marks and Spencers and, above all, would we be safe? All things we wouldn't have to consider in the past, but things we have to consider at length at the moment.
We mustn't lose sight that mental well being is as important as staying safe. There has to be a real balance between the two. I saw a headline in one newspaper yesterday which said "Time to think not only about well being but also about being well." That I think is the crux of the matter. Both have to go hand in hand - well being and being well. One depends on being strong both mentally and physically through exercise and the other depends on observing the rules on distancing, wearing masks and staying at home whenever possible.
Mind you if I hear Boris Johnson trot out that, now hackneyed, buzz phrase "stay home, protect the NHS, save lives" one more time I think I will throw something at the TV. Catch phrases are fine until they are overdone when they just become cliches.
We balanced one thing against the other and decided to drive onto Norwich. The first sign that things are very different came from the fact that there was hardly any traffic. The second was on the illuminated board in Unthank Road which showed that there were over 1,000 car parking spaces available in the main car parks of the City centre.
Calling something a ghost town is rather overdone but it did seem a strangely apt way of describing the city centre. Shops were shut apart from a very limited number of essential ones and there was virtually nobody around at 10.30 am as my photographs illustrate. On an ordinary Saturday morning (whatever that is) there would have been hustle and bustle and a vibrancy with people enjoying the shops, the cafes and restaurants.
It all felt sad and dispiriting - like a Sunday from those days when there was no trading on the Sabbath. Even then you could wander around the streets without trying to keep your distance or wear face masks. I'm sure the Norwich experience yesterday was replicated in cities throughout the UK.
I did have one aim (apart from going to M and S) and that was to take some photographs of the old warehouses from across the Wensum. Lots has been done to improve the area around the waterfront, but there's still plenty more to do. I couldn't help wonder if the Waterfront music venue will survive. There were mutterings about its future before lockdown. Now I suspect it must be very much in the lap of the Gods as to whether it will open again.
On the way there we called in at the tiny St Julian's Church just off Rouen Road. Surprisingly it was open and empty. This was the home of Mother Julian Of Norwich. Her book Revelations of Divine Love was the first book written in English by a woman. In 1373 at the age of 30 she became seriously ill and thought she was dying. It was at this point that she claimed to receive a series of visions. She recovered and wrote them down for future generations.
For much of her life she lived in seclusion in a cell in the church, giving counsel to many. There are stark parallels between her times and ours. We are isolating due to a global pandemic whilst she was around at the time the country was ravaged by the plague.
One of the few amusing incidents of the day came when we saw a line of pigeons on top of one of the waterside roofs. One of them looked much larger than the others. It was either a very large and fat pigeon or something else. Using my camera lens I was able to see that it appeared to be a duck (you will see this from the photo). I guess pigeons and ducks have become friends during lockdown, putting their differences behind them. Mind you there seemed a distinct lack of social distancing!
We walked along the side of the river and up into Carrow Road, wondering just when we will be allowed back to watch professional football. Then it was a climb up to Ber Street and a takeaway coffee from the Ber Street Kitchen. In normal times we would probably have had lunch there. Now we have to drink coffee and eat cake as we walk along.
We had a slight detour to go through Argyle Street and my mind raced back to the late 1970s and early 1980s when the street became a squat before being demolished in 1986. I remember the day the squatters were removed in what became known locally as The Battle of Argyle Street. I was working at the nearby newspaper office at the time and remember the coverage in the Eastern Daily Press. The squatters designated the area a Nuclear Free Zone which always made me smile. I think it was the Russians who were thought to be the biggest threat to world peace at the time. I'm sure if they pressed the trigger on a nuclear bomb aimed at wiping out Norwich, they would ensure that Argyle Street was spared.
It was February 1985, that the squatters were evicted. Forty squatters had moved into 14 empty houses in December 1978, followed by a further 80 who inhabited the other 15 empty houses. The houses were empty because the University of East Anglia had planned to buy them for student homes. Quite obviously this never happened.
The squatters called the street the Argyle Street Alternative Republic! It was all a very colourful few years in the history of Norwich.
Couldn't help thinking when we returned home of how we had experienced two very contrasting pieces of Norwich history - one from the 14th century and one from the 20th.