Two years since lockdown and the quiet places are quiet again

RIVERSIDE: My first walk by the water in May 2020.

THERE'S a path by the river I found during the first lockdown where I still go for a walk most days.

The first time I visited in May 2020 it was the furthest I'd been from home - a mile or thereabouts - for about eight weeks. 

The skies were blue, the hedges were frothy with blossom and after weeks indoors the paths seemed almost dizzy with dog-walkers, joggers and cyclists.

It may have been partly perception. After a lengthy period in which even exchanges with the postman took place through a pane of glass, outdoors was always going to feel especially wide open.

But the phenomenon of local people crowding into locals parks and green spaces was also very real.

It was the obvious paradox of behaviour changes which had shuttered pubs and shops, emptied roads and left city centres like ghost towns. 

I have to admit that I was one of those who in the spirit of "staying local" found myself exploring places I've previously avoided.

The Cole Valley - a thin ribbon of green through east Birmingham - is a case in point. 

Yes my Dad had brought me as a kid to dredge for frog spawn and I'd been down by the river a couple of times while at school.

But in later years the ominous growl of off-road bikes, the glistening crisp packets - and sometimes worse than crisp packets - in the hedgerow and the sense it wasn't always safe to stay at strolling speed put me off visiting. 

Then the pandemic came and suddenly a mile from home felt like a distant horizon.

The hope that the drug dealers would still be on furlough and a stubborn willingness to stick with the rules - rather than make a Dominic Cummings-style break for somewhere more rural - also helped persuaded me to explore routes closer to home.

I'm so glad I did. During the ups and downs of Covid, the afternoon amble by the water was hugely important. On weekdays it was a break from the steady ache of my laptop screen, during the particular grim months of numbers and sharp inclines it was an escape from the world at large.

The visits brought reassuring signs that the seasons were still in working order at a time when days and weeks and months became interchangeable.

If I was lucky there'd be an unexpected encounter (not one of which - touch wood - has thus far involved a flick knife).

I watched fish thrashing in the water and listened out for the raucous squawk of the parakeets which now roost here. I've picked celadines in spring, blackberries in the autumn and had to turn back on more than one December day when the footpath was submerged by water.

One day during the dismal winter last year I spotted what I thought was a rust-coloured blanket on the opposite bank only to stop and... Fox! He didn't run, he had no need to, not with the river between him and me. In the end it was me who broke off his stare and left him to his bed in the brackens.

Is it completely idyllic down there? Well, no. I wish the only litter was leaf litter and that the one house I pass on the left didn't smell quite so strongly of dope. And don't get me started on the bloody e-scooters...

But for all that, the past two years has proven to me just how precious these green corridors in urban areas are.

For the animals and birds which live there they are among a shrinking number of habitats which connect together areas which would otherwise risk being cut off. 

And for local people they can offer a valuable place to escape, whether that's to exercise the dog, stretch their legs or walk off a bad day.

In the initial months of the pandemic there was a lot of talk about a renewed recognition of the importance of the great outdoors to people's mental health. Policy-makers promised a new approach to urban design and campaigners warned of fierce resistance against any future plans to build on precious sites.

One councillor had told me rather movingly at the time that empty roads had reminded many city dwellers what birdsong sounded like and spoke hopefully about a "new normal" - which would bring people closer to nature and add to the urgency of tackling the climate emergency.

Yet when I went for my river walk yesterday - the glorious sunshine eeriely similar to the fine weather during the first lockdown - I noticed how quiet it was again.

As the world has reopened and we've gradually "got back to normal" there is a slight danger in thinking that every lesson we learned from the Covid crisis was hard and painful. 

As the first wave subsided people talked for a while about how to build on a strengthened sense of community, to recognise the jobs that really mattered and keep hold of our appreciation of the small pleasures. It would feel a shame if we totally lost sight of those things.