The back door led straight out of the kitchen into the garden and I unlocked it and looked out. The garden was the best thing about the house… it was my pride and joy. Secluded and tranquil, it was a haven after the never-ending demands of work. The garden behind was overgrown with evergreens, brambles, and a large ash tree. The house was owned by an elderly couple who I had seen perhaps three times in the five years I had lived there. Their neglect had turned their garden into a jungle, but the huge tree in the northern corner shielded my garden from the surrounding houses, without casting shade over the plants.
My house was on a corner so the left side of the garden was bounded by the road. I would occasionally hear pedestrians walking by, but felt secure, as the wooden fence had been replaced by a tall brick wall by a previous owner. It was two meters high with thick piers every two meters along to strengthen it. That wall blocked out the noise from the road and soaked up the sun.
I did a quick circuit of the garden, checking the roses that grew up the piers and then ran across the top of the brickwork. Every autumn they were severely pruned to keep them from taking over but the new growth was already reaching up on wavy stems. I had grown the fan trained and espalier miniature fruit trees between the piers to take advantage of the warmth retained by the bricks but the heat wave was drying out the soil rapidly. I turned on the hose and lay it at the foot of the trees then went over to check the grape vine. It was a white seedless grape called Lakemont and grew on a post and wire trellis against the wooden fence that bordered my lovely elderly neighbour on my right. That vine was the bane of my gardening life as it grew at an astonishing rate and required pruning every couple of weeks in the summer. The new leaves were already growing larger and I made a note to sharpen the secateurs.
Back inside, I resisted eating any of the chocolate, and made boring pasta with a jar of sauce for dinner. I surfed the internet, passing time and before I knew it, hours had gone by. It was dark outside when I dragged my eyes from the screen, disturbed by the sound of rising voices. There were flashing blue lights on the walls of the kitchen. I hadn’t noticed before, but they were obvious once I looked up. I could hear crying, and a voice, raised in denial. The cries intensified until the person was almost screaming. I stood hastily and moved to the window to see several police cars and an ambulance parked askew in the side road.
I stood at my kitchen window with the lights off, watching the bits of road I could see and trying to work out what was going on. Ambulances were not an unusual sight, in a road full of bungalows. When I moved in, the estate agent called the place ‘the waiting room to heaven’, full of older, retired people. It suited me just fine. It was normally peaceful and quiet, with a friendly horticultural society and a community book sale every month. This screaming was something new and very disturbing. I watched for a long while but eventually turned away, shut down my computer, and went to bed, drifting off into a restless sleep as the cries diminished to an intermittent sobbing.
The next morning was Saturday. No work, but I woke up at seven anyway. The emergency vehicles had disappeared and all was quiet. Online the BBC was running a ‘breaking news’ and a ‘live update’ page on the virus. Still not many facts, but accounts of people collapsing, accidents, and even a cancelled football match. There were the usual stories of the NHS struggling, unable to cope, along with advice on staying in, taking paracetamol, and drinking lots of fluid if you were ill. It all looked very bad and I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to go to the garden centre.
Chapter 2: Outbreak
At first glance it might have seemed an odd decision, but the garden centre was a two-minute drive away, had a wide range of products, and I wanted a sweet potato plant. It was early, and therefore almost empty. I meandered through; looking at the expensive exotic plants and tables of pretty alpines and ferns. Then I moved on to the vegetable plants. Tomatoes… more tomatoes… peppers… pumpkins… sweet potato! I picked up the plant, and then looked back along the row. I could get more, just in case. Perhaps some courgettes? I had only grown them once before, because as it turned out, I didn’t particularly like courgettes. The plants had produced non-stop all summer. I harvested so much, I had difficulty finding people to give them away to. And if I didn’t pick the courgettes, they turned into giant marrows which were even more difficult to get rid of. I looked at the pots; they might not be my favourite vegetable, but they were filling and healthy. I made a face and picked up a strip of three plants.
I looked over at the potatoes. I had some ‘first early’ potatoes in small pots at home, every year I harvested them as new potatoes in June. Watering the plants in summer was a time consuming job, so I never bothered with main crop potatoes. However it wouldn’t hurt to do a little extra prepping… have some growing in the ground as insurance in case the virus turned out to be more than an especially virulent strain of the flu. Scientist had been warning about a new pandemic for years, they kept talking about Spanish flu and bird flu and the inevitability of an outbreak.
I looked around at the many different varieties; I wanted something that was blight resistant but tasted good. The seed potatoes were in baskets, with labels and a short description above. I read them all, geek that I was. I vacillated… Carolus or Maris Peer. I had grown both before; Maris Peer grew big and tasty, but I picked the Carolus. Blight resistance was the winning characteristic.
I browsed the barbeque area; would this be the year I finally got a barbeque? I scanned the products displayed and my eye was caught by a cute little camping stove, I added it to my basket, along with a couple of tins of gas. I would use them on the camping trips I ran at school, for the Duke of Edinburgh Award. I hated camping; the cold, the rain, the hours pacing around the campsite telling the kids to go to sleep… but it was worth it to see the kids have fun for once. I took a group out every year and the next trip would be after the exams. This year’s group were a bit accident-prone but I was looking forward to it anyway.
The area for seeds was undergoing reorganisation and as I wandered past a sign caught my eye; ‘Seeds Packets: 50p’. Wow! That was good value. Of course, there were plenty of unopened packets at home, piled up in the shed, waiting to be sown. I pictured the seedlings growing in the greenhouse, but then shrugged. 50p! I could always give some to mum, or the horticultural group. I searched through the trays; flower seeds, wild flowers, lots of sweet peas, ah here were the veg. I scooped them up and sorted them out; broad beans, runner beans, French beans, haricot beans and dwarf beans. I picked a couple of each. Multipacks of sweetcorn seeds and herb seeds. Those went into my basket too. Then I saw that they had packets of peas and carrot seeds. I went crazy; I got at least twenty pounds worth.
I carried on through the pretty solar lighting area, but I had plenty of solar lights and couldn’t justify the cost. Then as I approached the tills, I saw a wonderful sight; boxes and boxes of Cornish fudge. No one would seriously expect me to resist, and they would make lovely presents for the teaching assistants when the current situation was over, and we went back to school.
At home, I planted the sweet potato in an old cracked water butt that I had filled with compost and then potted up the courgettes. I filled the watering can from the new water butts which were connected to the greenhouse guttering and gave everything a good drink. I kept meaning to attach the irrigation system to one of them, and install an automatic valve, but I hadn’t had time. Maybe now I would. I checked the news again; there was an abundance of stories highlighting the chaos in the hospitals, and everywhere I clicked there were alarmist reports of food shortages with pictures of supermarkets with empty shelves. It wasn’t helpful news, just clickbait.