IT IS a year since this column made its first appearance. At the start of last March there was mounting anxiety about an advancing pandemic, but it would be another three weeks before the shutters came down, and the first lockdown – a phrase unheard of before – sealed us off from one another.

A few days earlier, I had been in London. Daffodils were blooming in Kensington Park, but with the exception of pelotons of commuters heading to work on bicycles, there was little traffic. Cafes were empty or closed, and the almost deserted tube carriages were as stark a warning of what was heading our way as any public health warning.

In some respects, the past 12 months might come to be seen as the longest in Hoolet’s history. Time has not flown. Every day has passed with one ear on the radio, or watching television headlines, or reading newspapers cover to cover.

At times, each waking hour has made its presence felt, arriving and exiting at an arthritic pace. To judge by conversations, insomnia, the pandemic’s invisible shadow, has reached us, like everywhere else. The National Grid will doubtless have a record of kettles boiling in the wee small hours.

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And yet, as a second covid Easter approaches, fundamentally the village is no different from the way it was before. The historian Peter Laslett wrote about ‘the world we have lost’ but for us it’s more a case of the world we have held onto as best we could.

Even in the giddy days of unfettered freedom, Hoolet could look as if nothing much was going on. It’s a misconception no-one cared to correct.

Oddly, however, as the virus gathered pace, it gave off an air of greater busyness. A steady parade of walkers and cyclists took advantage of their right to exercise. With nowhere else to go, we made well-trodden circuits, by the river and back lanes, through the woods or over the hills.

On these clockwork outings, villagers have kept in touch, passing on news, bemoaning the crisis, staying determinedly upbeat. You’d find impromptu gatherings – sensibly spaced – on the village green, as strollers accidentally converged, or leaf gatherers and chestnut hunters worked their patches, in companionable silence.

Since many in Hoolet are long retired, the resilience committee set up a rota of volunteers to shop or collect prescriptions for those advised not to venture into public. More people offered assistance than were required. One woman elected effectively to self-isolate, so that she could take a neighbour for regular chemotherapy treatment. On a few occasions she make dashes to the nearby hospital in the middle of the night.

I did some civic grocery shopping, but it was noticeable how keen people were to fend for themselves, not just – I hope – because I failed to bag the last packets of yeast or could not distinguish between hot smoked and smoked salmon.

Thinking back, perhaps it’s no surprise that two households regained control of their supermarket trolleys as soon as they could get online deliveries, or felt it was safe to head out themselves.

In normal times, I’d have been writing about a summer of parties and gatherings, of the annual cricket match or the church fete and flower shows, of autumn hoolies and Christmas jamborees. Instead, I wondered what a Hoolet calendar without ceaseless sociability would feel like. This is a village that sets it clock by when the sun reaches the yardarm and corks can be popped.

When in due course it arrived, and with the merciful loosening of lockdown, get-togethers resumed outdoors, albeit on a miniature scale.

Yet although diminished in size, there was no dimming of spirit. From a four-year-old’s party to a communal rendering around the village green of Happy Birthday, accompanied by a mobile keyboard, to celebrate a friend turning 80, Hoolet was determined to have fun.

As a result, Alan and I have sat in broiling late afternoon sunshine, heedless of our lobster complexions in our delight at raising a glass in company; and we’ve been to an autumn barbecue – the last chance the year offered – in temperatures so low it would previously have been considered a health risk.

Thanks to the collective daily walks, I now recognise more faces. Some are office workers previously unseen during working hours, others on furlough, enjoying time outdoors.

Prominent among the most steadfast exercisers are those who would be called elderly if they were not so fit. They pass our door like greyhounds, heads down in the rain or wind. Even during the snow they were out as soon as the road was cleared, where they tramped as if patrolling the marches.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a sombre gathering one afternoon on the village green, people clustering by household. This, I was told, was the third such ritual since last March, when folk have congregated to mark the passing of a funeral cortege, on its way to the church and its mossy old graveyard.

The funeral director, in black mask and long black coat, walked past the green and up the street, followed by the hearse and mourners’ cars. It was a moving sight, in tribute to an elderly man who had been well known and respected. There was something timeless in the dignity of the procession, and the company who had congregated to see their friend on his way.

There have been many such adjustments to the restrictions under which we have been living. The sense of the village rising to the challenge of fending for itself has been tested and found firm. Friendships have blossomed, and new acquaintances been made.

The arrival of babies, and the sight of young ones making the place their own, have been among the brightest moments. Watching children sledging, snowboarding and snowballing on the top field, without an adult to be seen, cheered the long winter days.

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These youngsters, like much of the village, have been taking the best they can from the dragging months of confinement. Now, with spring almost upon us there will be fewer signs of activity on the street.

If you were to approach from the fields, however, you would find back gardens thrumming. As the year’s wheel turns towards summer, Hoolet is out of doors, pruning, planting and planning for whatever lies ahead.