By Ilse Pedler
Like Yesterday and Yesterday
All That April
2020 Counting
Ilse Pedler is the winner of the 2015 Mslexia Pamphlet Competition. Her pamphlet, The Dogs That Chase Bicycle Wheels was published by Seren in March 2016. Her first collection Auscultation was published in June 2021 by Seren. www.ilsepedler.com
My experience of Covid, living in Cumbria, was like many I’m sure, the absence of people and activity and so the wildlife and in particular birds, became more noticeable. It was as though they became bolder and more daring during the early months of lockdown and I became almost obsessed with monitoring what they were doing every day! There was also the contrast with sheep farmers who were in the middle of lambing when lockdown started and for them, life carried on pretty much as normal. Another aspect for me was the preoccupation with with numbers that started at that time, the daily monitoring of new cases and deaths, it felt almost voyeuristic at times. Also the debate about what a safe distance is, 2m or 1m and people became so much more aware of space.