August 24, 2022: Arnos Vale -

I’m isolating in the Knowle neighborhood of Bristol, just a couple of blocks from the old, partly overgrown Arnos Vale Cemetery. It’s wooded and beautiful and nearly empty, and now that I’m feeling better, I’ve gone on a couple of walks there.

What jumps out is the number of gravestones dating from the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic : Darling Teddie, age 10; beloved wife Maria, age 35; and the hard-hit Clarks: Albert, age 5; Thomas, age 75; Priscilla, age 7; and Rosina, age 8 months.  

I’m attributing these deaths to flu, although I know there were many ways to die in the early twentieth century. As for the young soldiers in military graves, I’m attributing their deaths to World War I, though there, too, some are noted as “killed in action,” and some simply list the regiment. Those may have been flu as well, as it tore through military hositals.

I know, walking through a cemetery is a gloomy thing to do when one is on the mend from our latest pandemic. But it’s also an opportunity to appreciate being alive. 

My other offline entertainment is watching the birds in the back garden, especially the magpies. I’m crazy about the magpies, which are big and bold and often endearingly clumsy. They glide in for a tree landing, and then there’s this loud scuffle and bouncing of branches, as if a fistfight is taking place just out of sight. And then things calm down, and a minute later, a magpie head pops out through the leaves, and they hang for a while. (I have no picture of a magpie, but here's the garden.)

That’s about it. Things are quiet. Could be worse.