Community

I've had an infection for the last few days. Felt weak, extremely tired, stiff as a board, in a lot of pain. Annika's in London and the f*****g au pair seems to have quit (more on that another time). So I'm home alone with the kids who have started back at school. Which means I have to get back into full childcare mode, whilst managing this infection. If we still lived in London, this would be a real problem. But because we live in a small community where we know many people (partly through having run the toyshop), because the children go to a small school, because we've learnt to call for support, things are very different here. I make the breakfasts and packed lunch. But someone else in the road takes them to school. Another friend picks them up and brings them home. A third comes round in the evening after the children have gone to bed to help clean. Our elderly neighbour - he's 84 - helps out in the garden. Yes,  I can do these things. But they take a long time (ever tried pushing a hoover around in a chair with wheels on? Sit in a shopping trolley and give it a go. You spend quite a bit of time going backwards). People are extraordinarily kind. And what's particularly lovely it's that these acts of kindness can be reciprocated. I know none of our friends want or even expect anything in return. Yet we do similar things for them - pick up children, go shopping, take hot meals round, run errands. Mutual support, you could call it. Or living in a real community. Is the community dead? Not here, not now.