Eerie

"Eerie" is how I'd describe walking through town this evening.

I've swapped my early exercise for one near dusk. There are fewer in town this evening than is usual in the morning, plus this evening a few dog walkers on the periphery. Lights glow from uncurtained windows from the residencies that, like misplaced apostrophes across a page, punctuate the town centre. The luminescence adds a sense of mystery among the general emptiness. And very few cars.

What I notice above all is the noise coming from homes and flats above shops. This from a combination of a noiseless streetscape and in some cases open windows. This sort of buzz & burble is something you simply don't hear with traffic. And then there's the cold slap on the road of a gull doing what they do best.

It's also eerie in the Co-op during the day. A new one-way system, fewer patrons and a few with facemasks contribute to the sinister tension.

The number of rainbows in and around town steadily grows. Some now in addition show three letters, namely H, S and N. This, of course, is great that we are thinking of the health & care system and those within it at this very critical time. But let's not forgot other key workers. We hear that 10 bus drivers are now dead as a result of coronavirus. They are in close proximity to passengers. In London, passengers henceforward will board at the centre but that's a luxury we simply don't have in this part of the world. And then there's the refuse lorry drivers and their loaders, handling plastic bin after bin after bin (today, it's bin day in much of Rhuthun/Ruthin). None of these are any less deserving of our support.

This week, HSBC has tried to formalise the way its customers observe physical distances. New notices alongside old on the stonework at the entrance that managers must surely not expect to last in any serious rain. And, ingeniously, the branch has chalked markers on the pavement to assist its customers to maintain the preferred 6′ 6″.