The picture of the triangulation pillar was taken at the southern end of Stanage Edge looking west towards The Hope Valley and the snowy hills beyond. This location is almost in my back yard - just a short drive from our house in Sheffield's southwestern suburbs. I have been up there many times in varying weather conditions. It is a good place to put everything into proper perspective.
See this blogpost's title: "Before". It occurred to me that the image was captured before COVID-19 seeped into the world, before many thousands died, before the masks and the social distancing, before the vaccination programme and the travel restrictions.
Though it was not taken in a time of innocence at all, looking back it kind of seems that way. If someone had come up to me on Stanage Edge on that wintry January day just two years ago and told me that the world would soon be experiencing a deadly pandemic that would touch every country on the planet, I might have openly scoffed. It would have seemed like the stuff of fantasy or wanton scaremongering.
A year after snapping that photograph, in late January 2020, I was listening to an item on BBC Radio 4 about the worsening epidemic in China. One of the contributors to that discussion suggested that things were going to get worse, much worse before they got better. It could so easily turn into a pandemic. He further suggested that one day we might remember the world in this way: pre-coronavirus and post-coronavirus. It sent a chill along my spine. Not pre-war and post-war any more but pre-COVID and post-COVID. It seemed incredible.
I told my chums in the local pub that night but they looked at me as though I was bloody Harry Potter. Of course, this was before, before the wild eyes and the microscopic agents of death arrived - those minuscule fur balls - like little spiky mines riding Atlantic waves and The North Sea during World War Two. Yes, this remains our war - stranger than any that have gone before.
Who would have thought. It was about this time or a little earlier that we a great fear of the unknown that went on to become the very well known. By knowing it better, there was less fear and panic, but caution remained.
ReplyDeleteThe photo is great.
Yes. We know more now. In war, it is good to understand your enemy.
DeleteCongratulations on another "Picture of the Day". That is an excellent picture and it looks like a wonderful place to sit and appreciate the beauty of nature. I sometimes still feel the disbelief of this past year. The thought that a serious virus could spread around the entire world so quickly makes me wonder about our future.
ReplyDeleteA lot of it boils down to the fact that there are too many of us on this planet.
DeleteLike you, I could have never imagined our world turning to this. If anyone had told me I'd see curfews in place in my country, I would not have believed it. Shops and restaurants shut? Schools closed? Everyone who can, working from home? Wearing masks in public? Our beloved Christmas Market and all other festivities cancelled? No hugging among friends and family anymore? No way! And yet - here we are, more than a year later, and still not much closer (at least in this country) to what we were used to.
ReplyDeleteIn years to come people will share tales of their lives in The Time of Covid and in the days of innocence before it arrived. Why has it taken so long for us to wake up?
DeleteAt first glance I thought your atmospheric photo was of somewhere much more remote - the Himalayas, or perhaps somewhere your father had passed by on his epic walk. Who would have thought it was so close to your home!
ReplyDeleteSadly this pandemic will live in memory for more than one lifetime. If you read some reports, it's predicted that it will become a way of life, very much like influenza. It will be recalled in future history, after all we still remember ancient plagues, and the Black Death. This virus will be much better documented and future generations will learn the devastating effect it, and all pandemics, have on everyone's lives.
When we finally rid ourselves of Covid - we will ever be able to accept normal again?
I doubt it CG> I think we will all be nervously waiting for the next terror to come along. Living the free and easy way we did before might become just a distant memory.
DeleteGeomorphology in action.
ReplyDeleteWas that by Daphne du Maurier too?
DeleteWell as someone who has read enough Green blurb over the years, I would say we have been lolling around in a complacent haze thinking such things as Climate Change and viruses only happened elsewhere. Waking up to reality is not nice, it has changed our lives maybe forever.
ReplyDeleteMaybe forever - yes. I am glad I had those sixty five years before it arrived. Sadly not so for our grandchildren.
DeleteIt has been a strange year indeed. Already the memory of the first lockdown and it's eerie strangness is fading. It's now normal to see people with masks and line ups are normal too. I guess we'll see what the future holds.
ReplyDeleteThe photo is lovely and stark.
We had a dump of snow two days ago and it lingers. The south of the province is expected to get 10-15 cm of snow today. One last kick at the cat it seems.
You are right to suggest that this pandemic now has history. It is easy to forget some of the early details. It has woven itself into our consciousness.
DeleteI often think about that. Little did we know back then what was about to hit us and how it would drastically change how we went about doing things. Who would have thought we would all go into a bank wearing a mask and ask for money? Or be unable to visit or hug loved ones? Or have to test just to be allowed to do what we have always considered our freedom? Or to have to speak to a GP over a telephone? Life has changed in so many ways. Little did we know.
ReplyDeleteI used to wear a mask and ask for money before the pandemic. I got the idea from old cowboy films.
DeleteCongratulations on having your photo chosen. It is definitely a beauty.
ReplyDeleteJust as we had no idea how Covid would eventually take over our world, I think that now we have barely scratched the surface of realizing how profoundly it has changed us.
Your last sentence is a wise one and well put too.
DeleteI had all your same thoughts in the early days and the pre-covid days. Even after it was here and everywhere, I kept thinking that by summer, it would all disappear with the heat like the flu.
ReplyDeleteI hope I don't like long enough for the next pandemic but if I do, I imagine the younger generation is going to look at me hording food, toilet paper and hand sanitizer and think I've gone off my rocker.
Remember to hoard some deodorant and shampoo too Ed plus a few cases of your favourite beer.
DeleteIt IS very strange to think back to a time pre-Covid. I remember firmly believing, when the pandemic first arose, that this was all going to go away fairly quickly. Ha!
ReplyDeleteGreat picture, BTW.
It's almost like that was a different life.
DeleteGreat comparison of Covid-19 with the huge marker and WW II . Covid will be definitely a major date in history. I wonder how much will be written about covid? What percentage of blog posts cover covid?
ReplyDeleteI do not know the answers to your questions Red but I guess they were rhetorical.
DeleteIn the U.S. the pandemic started in my state and we were wary of it, but when I traveled back east in early March 2020, no one was concerned, it would go away quickly/be handled, and even my own daughters told me it was "just the flu" when I expressed my worries and fears. They don't like to be reminded of that.
ReplyDeleteYou were like the harbinger of doom Margaret! Mind you, the way that your last president responded to the pandemic it is no wonder that many ordinary Americans were unconcerned at first.
DeleteAnd too many still are. Hence the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers who think it's "no big deal." I am sad to number my sister-in-law among them.
DeleteI'm on top of the world looking down on creation... Super trig point and snowscape.
ReplyDeleteYour love put me at the top of the world!...Thank you Dave.
DeleteThat's a wonderful photo. There's nothing even remotely like that view anywhere in my neck of the woods.
ReplyDeleteI know I'm getting old in that I've lived through quite a few defining moments which have "forever changed the world". Sadly, I'm sure there will be more.
I guess that one of them was the assassination of John Kennedy.
DeleteIt is at times like these that by visiting wild places we remind ourselves of the elemental forces, of our ultimate insignificance, and of nature's unknowability. You will have felt that I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteYes. It is one of the attractions of country walking... as opposed to country dancing. Not to be confused.
DeleteThat IS a spectacular photo, YP. The rocks, the triangulation pillar itself, the snow, and the wonderful shades of blue in the sky - a winning combination indeed.
ReplyDeleteI remember keeping an eye on the news reports about Covid in China in December 2019 and January 2020. I didn't see how it could do anything but land at our doorstep eventually. But for me, life is divided into pre- and post-Christmas 2019. We had all our family here for the first time in several years, we were unaware of the severity of my husband's health problem, Covid had not yet arrived. We were happy. And it was the last time it would be that way. First, March lockdown came, but right on its heels came my husband's illness. In many ways I ignored the pandemic and it did not cause me nearly as much anxiety and grief as the other thing that was happening. But for many people you are correct; pre-Covid and post-Covid will always be the seismic shift they remember.
How bittersweet to recall that happy Christmas at the end of 2019 when all was well with the world and your family too.
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