Heightened Anticipation

          Some people shun it, regarding it as a sinister spying device, but I like the Google Timeline app – the one that tracks and records where you go – because it’s a useful aide memoire for journal-writing. And I like that it sends me nostalgia-inducing illustrated resumés in the form of photo albums of the cities and countries I have visited (although that particular function has been redundant of late). However, the app has developed a diverting new feature: it now records me apparently walking on water. Yes, I live on the shoreline and yes, I walk every day along or near it, but Timeline too often erroneously records me crossing it – on foot. I guess it needs recalibrating – although it maintains near faultless accuracy when it comes to the shops I enter.

          Like yesterday, when I went to the city centre mall to replenish my stock of 100 per cent chocolate from Hotel Chocolat, only to find it closed on account of not being classified as “essential” retail. Adding insult to injury was the fact that, to get there, I had to pass the Krispy Kreme donut kiosk, which was doing a thriving trade in essentially unessential sugary, deep-fried doughballs. I know, I could have consulted Google as to opening-info before I went there, but I happened to be passing the mall anyway and wanted to get a fix before it disappears, along with most of our cities’ retail infrastructure. Nobody knows what will become of it, but I have heard various ideas for repurposing soon-to-be-redundant retail buildings, the most imaginative of which is Stockton-on-Tees’ proposal to demolish its high street shopping centre and replace it with a riverside park, a library and a space for outdoor events. Were it to happen, it would certainly be more beneficial to the population’s health than the retail-therapy-and-donuts prescription has proven over the past few decades.

          If there have been beneficial side effects of the pandemic, one has been the lesson that the front-line defence against becoming ill is rude health, which is aided by the adoption of more walking and cycling into daily routines. But routines can get boring and, fortunately for me, just as it was becoming a little tiresome tramping around the same neighbourhood for the sake of exercise, I acquired two new companions between whom I now alternate to pep up the plodding. We all share similar demographics, social values and general interests, so our walks are comforting and constitutional rather than confrontational and competitive. For me, there is the bonus that both my companions know the area better than I do, so I can learn stuff – factual or legendary – about the social history and built environment. For example, there is a stretch of coastal path in the city that is terminated abruptly and for no obvious reason by a high fence. My companion, Pete, enlightened me thus: the path was blocked off in the 70s at a time when the IRA was active and, because it runs close to the Royal Marines’ Barracks, was considered to be a risk to their security. Nobody has thought to reinstate public access until it was mooted earlier this year, which is another lesson for us: be vigilant and protect our civil liberties from gradual erosion.

          But other factors have brightened up the daily walks: daffodils and crocuses have made their appearance and, as if it were planned, their colourful, floral fanfare, coincides with the announcement by the government of the proposed pathway out of lockdown. Get ready: the glories of spring are about to be super-charged by the sweet taste of freedoms regained. I expect Google’s servers will have their work cut out tracking my movements then – especially as I’ll be floating on air.