It’s strange old times here at the marina as there are close to 40 of us locked up here during the Chy-na virus pandemic. It seemed a good idea to start a WhatsApp thingy for keeping everyone at the marina in contact with each other in case of emergencies or such. Thing is, like most of social media at the moment it soon became a platform for people to moan and act as the self appointed police, whinging about people on the towpath opposite and basically making everyone a bit over suspicious and jumpy.
I decided I wanted to do something about that and give people here a virus free, whinge free platform to have a bit of fun on and to escape the constant barrage of fake news on the TV and throughout all social media platforms. A new Facebook private group was born called Gayton Moorers and I can gladly say that it’s been a nice place to hang out. Any moaning gets stamped out immediately and everyone is being nice!
So, big deal I hear you say. Well it’s not as boring as it seems and it’s not just a place to share pictures of our dinner or post the same old tired memes we see every day. On our group we have a photography challenge every single day where the nominated person chooses 3 words, phrases or subjects and then it’s up to everyone to interpret those as they wish and post their photos. You may wonder why the title picture features Paul (me) wearing makeup. No I am not a tranny or anything like that, it was done for one of the subjects given for the challenge which was of course ‘beauty’. I could have just posted up a picture of a flower or something else obvious but that has been the beauty of this so far. People have not always been posting the obvious, they have been creative, they have been getting off their boats and taking some snapshots with their phones and doing something they never really did before. We have learnt quite a lot about each other during this time and many of us had never even spoken to each other at the marina before we set this up.
Other challenges and activities on the group have been spot the differences, word searches, what am I and so much more. The girls now have a little arty session on a Saturday afternoon where they do stuff like painting stones and drawing etc. Lee and Jane have Pilates and exercise sessions on the green most mornings too. It’s kept us all busy, given a bit of structure to our days and perhaps more importantly it has fostered some wonderful memories and friendships.
