. . . . that I would back away when our next-door neighbour reaches across the fence to hand me two brick-red eggs? It is the Greek Orthodox Easter and Bobby has been giving us two identical brick-red eggs for almost forty years.
And what about the other day when, taking it for granted that the sound of the bell heralded yet another unattended package, I opened the door to find someone standing there, hand-outstretched. He must have seen the alarm on my face and, stepping backwards, put down the arum lily he had been about to hand me. I don’t know which of us was more mortified by this encounter.
It is bad enough being frightened of packages but to be frightened of kindly neighbours or of the young medics, come to collect blood for some research project – the first and last people who have crossed our threshold for almost two months – is sadder still.
I don’t feel good either about how impatient I get on finding yet another week’s supply of free food on my doorstep. Can we get nothing right? The Scottish government lets those registered as high risk know they are entitled to this life-saving service, but only sends to those who request it. Here, these precious boxes are delivered willy-nilly, and I have spent more time trying to stop them than finding ways to get them to people who need them.
Conversely, who would have thought a time would come when I would have welcomed those erstwhile doorsteppers with their trays of seemingly useless bits and pieces? How glad I would be now of more cleaning cloths and odd containers and rubber bands. And how glad I am, too, of the small park at the end of our road: little more than waste-ground forty years ago, when our then neighbour Tessa Jowell, who spent her weekends in the Cotswolds, referred to it, airily, as ‘a lung for the neighbourhood’.
Tended lovingly by Camden Council, this long-neglected open space – once made brilliant use of by Ed Berman* and his merry troupe – now finds room not only for cheerful rows of daffodils, two football pitches and a playground but also a wild-flower garden and thriving orchard, planted despite the damage done to a previous stand of young trees, and showing serene (and let us hope not misplaced) faith in the essential goodness of man.
Perhaps, after all, we are ‘under the shadow of God’s hand’: this haunting phrase used by a reckless American Evangelical who flatly refuses to limit the size of her congregation. More haunting still (where would I be, without BBC Radio 4?) the notion, picked up from a lady astronomer, that we are all made of nuclear waste or, more poetically, if you prefer, from the residue of burnt-out stars . . . .
*Founder of Interaction, the City Farm in Kentish Town, and much else.