Little victories

 In these pared down times it can be hard to find the joy. As I pound the streets I hear people talking.

“There’s just nothing to look forward to. I just don’t want to hope too much.”

“When the pubs open...watch out world.......If the pubs open.”

“I had to cancel three holidays last year.”

It can feel as though life is one long trudge towards nothingness. It can feel particularly difficult at the moment, with the possible end in sight. It’s that moment when the prisoner is waiting to hear from the parole board. The door is open, the sun is shining,  Spring is in the air but that pesky board could still come up with a valid reason to keep you locked up. 

The prison metaphor and my knowledge of it from sitcoms has been very useful for me. When Clement and Le Frenais were writing Porridge they spoke to an ex-prisoner called Jonathan Marshall about his book, “How to survive in the nick,” and based the whole show around one phrase he used. Little victories. Ronnie Barker then delivered a wonderful performance that, if we were watching carefully, should have given us all the tools required to survive being locked up, or even locked down. 

It has been about taking delight in small things. Being pleased when you have finally sorted your screws into properly labelled jars, or alphabetised the books on your shelf are nice things but there is nothing more pleasing than when the victory is over another person. You can’t gloat at your books or screws. You might have won the victory over their desire for chaos but they don’t care. 

Yesterday, I had a small victory over the Long Suffering Husband. He took a break from sorting his screws and we watched Saturday Morning Kitchen together. He decided that Nadia’s cheese and ham crown looked nice (I think it was the ketchup in it) and suggested we have that instead of our planned takeaway. 

“What could we have with it though?” he asked, genuinely stumped. 

Nadia had made it for breakfast, so needed nothing else.

I told him that it would be nice with salad, which he agreed to in preference to vegetables. A couple of wilted leaves on the side of the plate that he could push around for a bit before leaving is his idea of a perfect vegetable. When we first met he didn’t eat a single vegetable and was particularly against tomatoes. I found this odd, as all of his food was flavoured with copious amounts of brown sauce or tomato ketchup. When one of my friends, who was vegetarian suggested that he was peculiar for not liking vegetables he took a tomato and did some, “Help! I’m being murdered!” voices as he cut it. She never challenged him again and I’m not sure if she ever ate another tomato.

The salad I planned was a selection of Ottolenhgi’s. I made a potato salad, bean lemon and hazel nut and a tomato and pomegranate salad. I wasn’t expecting him to even try them.

He looked at the table and decided it looked nice. He took a picture for the family WhatsApp.

“This isn’t what I was expecting when you said salad,” he said, warily.

I said nothing and piled food onto my plate. He did the same.

“Oh, that’s disappointing,” he said, “but that’s really tasty.”

He was talking about the tomato dish being tasty. The ham and cheese crown was boring but the Ottolenghi salads were a winner.

Honestly, I can’t tell you how good that felt. He ate tomatoes and liked them. A thirty year battle, won!

Thank you lockdown 3.

The crocus of hope and the snowdrop of fear

 There is a little patch in my garden, under the beech hedge that we often neglect. For some reason it’s a place where the Long Suffering Husband will leave a random wooden structure, built for some long forgotten purpose. It’s the area of the garden that the dog likes to have a poo, if we haven’t taken him out soon enough. In preference, he would much rather go right next to the dog poo bin but sometimes his servants don’t take him out soon enough. It’s an area that doesn’t get much light and the grass underneath always looked a bit sorry for itself. I had tried planting things around the base of the hedge. Bluebells, snowdrops, Lily of the Valley, cyclamen had all been pretty unsuccessful but I wanted to make the area look a bit nicer.

Last year, Monty suggested that everyone could have a small patch of flower meadow, which seemed like it would be worth a try in my useless area. I sowed some yellow rattle seed (to make the grass less invasive) chucked in some wild meadow flowers and pushed in some naturalising crocus bulbs. I have instructed the LSH not to mow that section.

Yesterday. I noticed that the crocuses have started to appear. Boris was right, there is a crocus of hope. I started to get excited and began to imagine a beautiful (but small) meadowland buzzing with life and pretty flowers in the area formally known as dog shit corridor.  A pair of blue tits also moved into the nest box and I, again, got overly excited about my new neighbours, the company I would have and the time I would be able to waste watching their children grow. 

I’ve done the thing that we all did with Boris’ crocus of hope. I imagined too far ahead. After the announcement of the roadmap out of lockdown a lot of people relaxed and imagined a brighter future. Teenagers went back to planning their lives “after Corona,” Old folks threw caution to the half vaccinated wind and threw a dinner party and the food factories of the Midlands continued to spread the virus in uncontrolled ways because no one had thought to look outside London. 

In the dog shit corridor, not only is there a crocus of hope but there’s also a snowdrop of fear. I noticed that a single snowdrop (of the hundreds I had planted) has grown. There was supposed to be a carpet of white under the hedge but nature had other ideas. What if the crocus of hope ends up like that? One single snowdrop to remind you of your failure!

It’s been a difficult week to be phoning homeschooling parents. The crocus of hope and snowdrop of fear have been equally present and I am quite full of other people’s emotions.

Last night, JVT and Hat Mancock gave a briefing. They appeared terrified. In some areas (even though we are still in lockdown) cases are rising again. Obviously, they couldn’t possibly say that they’ve gone too early. They couldn’t confess to getting too excited about the crocus of hope. So, it’s our fault. We’ve taken our foot off the brake. We’ve scored 3 goals but if we relax in the last 5 minutes then the other team still have time to score 4. The snowdrop of fear is very much alive. Maybe the conditions just weren’t right, after all.

Beware of the quiet ones.

 “Is it just me, or does the government website sometimes repeat itself?” my son messaged the family WhatsApp group. He added a screenshot of the roadmap document for clarity.

“They’re just really excited about outdoor cinemas opening,” my daughter replied. 

The part of the document that he’d sent was from step three and said, “Outdoor performances such as outdoor cinemas, outdoor theatres and outdoor cinemas can reopen.”

My son had gone back to his University accommodation just before the New Year Stay at Home order was announced and is, luckily, living with people he really likes, so his final year University experience hasn’t been as bad as it could have been. However, the actual learning experience has been dire and definitely not worth the £9000 he has paid for it. The problem with turning students into consumers is that they have a right to expect value for money. 

It’s true that at the end of this year he will still be awarded a degree. It might not be quite the grade he had hoped for because it has been terribly hard to motivate himself but you could argue that it doesn’t matter if he gets that certificate, which, after all, is what he’s paid for. It isn’t though, is it? University is about access to a specialist library, meeting people that think the way you do, building relationships with people who can help you in the future, the buzz of knowing that there are other people who can understand what you are writing about. 

Now, my son is one of the quiet ones. He’s laid back, easy going and doesn’t often say much. He’d never complain. 

In the governments roadmap for unlocking the economy there are sections that have been forgotten. University students were the first and most obvious of these. As soon as the embargoed roadmap was given to journalists I asked my daughter what was happening with Unis and she confirmed that there didn’t appear to be anything said. A little more detail appeared later but it’s still basically a no to having the education they are paying for and no actual proper plans for when. 

Other sectors that feel forgotten include the arts and museums. I wonder what governments think happens in a museum or a specialist library that increases the risk of transmission? Have they watched too many teen movies where there is snogging behind the exhibits?

My mind keeps repeating the phrase, “empty vessels make most noise,” and I think that the reason Whetherspoons will be able to open before the Museum of English Rural Life is because Mr Spoons will make a lot of noise. Ms Merl actually has a brain inside her head and can see the point of not opening up everything straight away, so she says nothing and the government thinks she can be left until last without any financial compensation.

The government would do well to remember this anonymous quote because there is still a long way to go and it doesn’t bode well to annoy society’s quiet thinkers.

The Hunger Games

 It was a big news day yesterday. Certain sections of the press couldn’t contain themselves, despite the official roadmap document they had been given being embargoed until after the Prime Minister had finished his speech in the commons. Since the document was published last night little bits dripped out on Twitter and people knew everything before he’d even opened his mouth. By the time Boris was due to address the Nation in person at 7pm (a late Boris is always more important than a 5pm Boris) every paper, tv, radio and other news platform had the whole document analysed and twisted to their own agenda. The Mail insisted that the public were clamouring for everything to be opened even sooner (polling data shows  that most people think they’ve got the balance about right). Even news sites that usually know better kept forgetting the words ‘not before’ or ‘at the earliest’ . My little Anxious Annie brain found this quite difficult because I worried about how people and the government will react if the conditions aren’t right on those dates. 

By the time of the late Boris there was no option left for him to throw in a few phrases that would have us sniggering again. He had to get our attention somehow. He described the road map as a crocus of hope peeking through the frost. When you have to use a metaphor to describe a metaphor things might have gone too far. 

This current approach is going to be a hard sell to lots of people. It’s true, we do all want to get our normal lives back but we’ve spent a whole year being told that the coronavirus is a big scary monster that’s going to eat us. That description isn’t going to stop because they want us all to get vaccinated (possibly with twice yearly boosters). We have seen that some Countries have managed to successfully adopt the zero tolerance approach but we are now being told that we have to live with it, like any other respiratory illness.

This isn’t an approach I’m against, providing the NHS can now cope with the number of people who go into hospital, as we learn to live with it. The official document is probably the most balanced well thought out plan the government has hard so far. However, it’s a risky thing politically, after you’ve been showing people the daily deaths.  None of us wanted a second or third lockdown. Even less of us will cope with another one. If we are to learn to live with it we also have to forget about it, like we do other risks and that is going to take some work.

It was no coincidence that Boris started his speech with a line from the Hunger Games. “May the odds be forever in our favour,” he said optimistically. You just have to hope that you are not the tribute chosen from your district because everyone is still watching. 

The anxiety of change and uncertainty

Today is the day.

Data not dates.

But today is the day Boris Johnson promised to announce schools will go back on the 8th of March and so that’s what he will announce.

Every major, minor and whacky politician has been in the press over the weekend stressing that all schoolchildren must go back on the 8th of March, so it is clear that one isn’t up for debate. 

Data (18,462 people still in hospital) not dates (8th March).

This will be the last lockdown. All over by Christmas. Normality by Easter. These are fabulous promises.

The roadmap has been written. The press have seen it and it’s out there for your perusal. It still has to be ratified by cabinet, presented to the House before we get a Boris to officially confirm it but no one is going to disagree, so the roadmap is that you can meet one other socially outdoors and schools back on the 8th of March, rule of 6 outside in gardens and outdoor sports March 29th and other things sometime in April.

This has made me feel incredibly anxious.

I’m not worried about catching the disease but I am worried that it’s never going to get to a manageable level where we can act like normal human beings again. For the past few months it has actually been illegal to sit down outside. Stopping to talk to someone you meet on a walk (even with a 2 metre gap between you) could have got you a fine. This is not how humans are supposed to behave. Our whole purpose is to connect.

I could cope with this lockdown. It hasn’t been fun but I knew it was working. I had my routine and it was alright.

It makes complete sense to allow the outdoor activities. The scientists are fairly certain that being outdoors in small numbers is relatively risk free for transmission. People were meeting one person (or sometimes more) socially outdoors anyway. Wearing trainers didn’t make it exercise. 

Schools going back is a different matter. I understand the principle. Children are being harmed because they’re not in school and because children don’t get very sick then they shouldn’t be harmed more than they would if they caught the disease. Ah yes but what about teachers? Collateral damage. Small price to pay. They could be vaccinated and will be if they are vulnerable to getting very sick. However, this is a red herring. The problem is that children can not be in school, in a building, learning effectively in a socially distanced way and therefore they become asymptomatic super spreaders. 

Data (9834 new cases detected every day) not dates (8th March is the time to pack over 30 people together in a room and hundreds in a corridor)

There hasn’t been any information on how schools should operate when they go back. Is this a test? Do they ask for normality and see what happens or is it back to bubbles, every classroom smelling like a hospital , no talking or singing and teachers in senior schools wearing masks? That’s Gavin Williams job, so expect some really clear, well thought out guidance soon. 

Data (1397 people admitted to hospital yesterday) not dates (8th of March - it’ll be fine!)

Maybe I’m being less than fair. Scientists have looked at the data, right? They know what they are doing? The vaccine rollout is going well. All adults will have been offered a vaccine by the summer and it will be fine. Of course it will. Don’t mention that a case of the South African, vaccine resistant variety has been found in Brentwood. It’s FINE!

Data (121,000 deaths and rising) Dates (schools back on the 8th March)

Today is the day when I feel most anxious. Once we are all back at school it will feel ok (sort of) and provided the numbers continue to fall I will be happy. It will be like lockdown 2, which was my favourite, with work (golf for the LSH) and no expectation of socialising. 

Another anniversary

 Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of my Dad’s death. It’s not a date I want to remember but weirdly the dates of both parent’s deaths are etched into my memory. It’s like my mind has carved a tombstone and popped it in a diarising filing cabinet. Whether I want to remember these dates or not they are there. This year I was determined not to be silly about it. Dad was one of those people that lots of people miss and not just on anniversaries. Why should I let the date ruin the day? I miss him every day and can still enjoy my life. Why should I let missing him every say spoil all the wonderful memories and great things he taught me?

I had decided that it was going to be a good day. 

The Long Suffering Husband and I walked the dog and watched Saturday Kitchen. It was joyous. Naga Munchetti and Charlie Stayt were being funny relaxed and cheeky and Yottam Ottolenghi was the guest chef, making vegetables look delicious.

“Let’s cook something new,” I suggested, “I like the look of that cheese thing or how about that celeriac dish?”

Like most people in lockdown 3, we do talk almost exclusively about what we are going to eat next. The LSH turned up his nose at the idea of a vegetable but liked the idea of cooking.

“I’ve got loads of cookbooks. There must be something new that we both like.”

Eventually we were firmly stuck into the Greek cookbooks. The long cooked meats, garlic soaked dips, olives, tart cheese, flatbreads and vegetables that taste of Summer was the way we decided to go. As we looked through the books our tastebud memories kicked in and we thought about Greek Island holidays.

The LSH went glassy eyed. I thought he was longing for the next trip away, where we’d find something else to talk about. I checked that he was OK.

“Yes, I mean no. Sorry. I was just thinking about your Dad.”

“It’s a good day for it,” I told him.

He hadn’t remembered the date. It was just that he had thought, “When this is all over we’ll go back to Greece all together.” Then he realised that there would never be another opportunity to jet ski, get into a sandcastle building competition, find the best restaurants, practise saying, ‘efharisto’ or drink several Metaxas with Norm ever again and it made his eyes leak. Missing loved people happens all the time. Maybe we shouldn’t limit ourselves to anniversary dates.

I’m constantly surprised for our human need to not only remember but to cling to hope that our loved ones are still somehow around in a more tangible way than by just living in our memories. People look for signs. 

The other day, I was walking the dog when I met a woman with a puppy. She asked my advice on dog training and as we were chatting a robin sat on a branch next to us, listening intently.

“Oh, hello Dad,” she said, “I knew you’d visit today.”

I didn’t intrude on her grief but wondered how many people that robin had been a sign for that day.

It’s impossible to resist looking for signs, even if, like me, your rational brain tells you the idea is stupid.

On the first anniversary of Dad’s death I saw a heart shaped cloud and decided it was a sign. When it happened on the second and third anniversaries I was convinced. Who am I kidding? I wasn’t convinced that Dad was there sending a spiritual message but I was convinced that I had looked for a sign.

This year, I was determined to resist this silliness. On my walk I looked for birds. There were lots of LBJs (as Dad called them). Lots of unidentifiable little brown jobs but no robins. There were birds I could hear but not see and I spent a long time looking up into trees. It was the wrong kind of day for clouds that make shapes. They were all too whispy. 

“Ha! There you go, Dad, there’s no way I’m going to find a sign today. It’s just another day.”

As I walked up the hill past where Mum and Dad lived I heard a bird trilling a descending chromatic scale. I looked up to see if I could find out what it was and I noticed the sky.

 

No. That’s definitely not a heart. Surely not. Resist the silliness.

The Hand-washing Loop

 There are times when I’m about to write a blog and then decide against it at the last minute. Yesterday was one of those days when I was going to write a jokey piece about sending the coronavirus to Mars . Then I looked on Twitter and noticed that some of my sarcastic lines had already been said, as though it were real by certain celebrity-Brexit-loving, COVID-denying commentators. Especially those with whom I share a first name. Suddenly, the idea didn’t seem as appealing. 

Over the last (nearly) three years I have thought about writing about the hand-washing loop several times but not done so at the last minute because I’m aware that it marks my insanity.

It’s nearly three years now (where does time go when you are having fun?) since my brain broke, I turned into Lady Fucking Macbeth (it is her actual middle name) and started washing my hands too much. I was aware that it was too much because of the hand-washing loop and although it felt like a funny thing I didn’t want to mark myself out as the kind of insane that wasn’t in control, so I didn’t write about it.

Now, thanks to Chris Whitty and poor national handling of a viral pandemic, you are all washing your hands too much and so I can finally write about the hand-washing loop.

What happens is you come in from being outside and wash your hands. Well done,you. This is what you should do. Then the running water reminds you that you need a wee, so you go and then wash your hands. Well done. Everyone should wash their hands after going to the toilet. The postman pushes letters through the letterbox and without thinking you pick them up. Oh no. Better wash your hands again. Running water. No, you can’t need another wee already can you? It’s time for some food. Now would be good. You’ve just washed your hands but you touch the kitchen door handle and worry about the germs that could be on it. Better go back and wash your hands again. That’s right. You should always wash your hands before food preparation. Running water. Yes, you really do need another wee. Better wash those hands again, you filthy animal. And so it goes on.

When I was at school, one of my best friends  washed her hands too much. Everyone used to laugh at her, which was cruel but maybe she was just ahead of her time and not crippled by OCD and anxiety. Before lunch we would all rush to the girls toilets. Most of us desperate for a wee, some girls needed a gossip, or had to reapply their make up but my friend had to spend a full minute washing her hands. When she had finished she would put a spare sandwich bag over her hand so that she could open the door and we could go and eat our sandwiches without getting stuck in the hand-washing loop. 

Hand-washing is a distraction. It’s never going to completely protect you from your unseen fears and it is important to try to strike a balance. We don’t live in a pathogen free world. Actually, if you have found yourself in the loop then don’t think about that. 

My fear is that by putting the burden of protection from this novel virus (more of a series than a novel now) on the public, rather, oh I don’t know, maybe stopping it coming here in the first place and then stopping it spreading by having an effective test and trace system,  the government have caused so many more of you to join me in the hand-washing loop.

On the news last night, a scientist was trying to explain that the virus is airborne. She questioned whether placing so much emphasis on droplet spread had been the right thing to do. 

“People are all washing their hands and even washing their shopping but people forget that it’s airborne and so they are just breathing it in.”

Oh no! Does that mean we have to stop breathing?

Got the jab, got the jab, got the jab, jab, jab

 The NHS has decided that if it can't rely on the government to sort this mess out then they are bloody well going to do it themselves and do it quickly and efficiently.  Luckily, the ordering and supply of vaccine is something that has been over, rather than under done.  The government have ordered 367 million doses of vaccine from the various companies.  For a population of 67 million, where about 20% of those are children and therefore not eligible for this vaccine, this does feel a bit like overkill but we are a nation that loves and approves of vaccination and so no one minds.  It would be a different story in France, where the population is a little more sceptical.  

Somehow the NHS managed to persuade the government that they were perfectly capable of organising a vaccine rollout programme.  This is what GP practices are for and have been very poorly used in this pandemic, so far.  Rather than farm the business out to a mate who will charge a huge consultancy fee and do quite a bad job the government have finally seen the point of using the local infrastructure that is already there.  If only they'd given all the money that Dido Harding had in June to GP practices then they could have employed a gaggle of Maureens to sit in a room and telephone contacts of every one of their patients who has tested positive.  People answer the telephone to their doctor's surgery and there's no messing with a Maureen.

Now, GP surgeries are getting as many people vaccinated as quickly as they can.  They are following the JVCI guidelines but there's no hanging about.  

In our house we have been laughing at one of Darren Dutton's Twitter videos of Matt Hancock, where he adds ABBA to make a brilliant song.  https://twitter.com/Darren_Dutton/status/1361423938249760774?s=20  

GP surgeries have been doing such a brilliant and fast job that occasionally mistakes are made.  Sometimes people are invited for an appointment when they aren't in any risk group at all but something has been entered to their notes in error. There was a particularly funny one that hit the press yesterday.  A journalist at the Liverpool Echo was invited for a vaccine.  He was surprised, as he was young (32), fit and healthy. It turned out that his height had been entered into the computer as 6.2cm rather than 6'2" and that made him grossly obese.  He writes about the experience so well that you should read his own words https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/invited-covid-vaccine-because-nhs-19857990  I particularly liked the clever line about slithering around Liverpool.

We had just laughed about this article when we missed a call from the GP surgery.  They left a message saying that the Long Suffering Husband was being invited for his vaccine and could he call the surgery.  We were confused.  The LSH is in his 50s and again, fit and healthy.  Hypochondria isn't on the list of recognised conditions.  

"Maybe they've put your height in wrong," I suggested.

He decided to ring them and check.  He didn't want to take a vaccine for someone who was more at risk.  

When he finally got through the woman on the other end seemed as confused as he was. She could see that he'd been called but didn't really know why.  She put him on hold and went to talk to someone.

"Do you think it might be because you are a bit chunky?" I asked him.

"I don't know.  What would the criteria be?"

We sat and listened to the hold music.  

"She's gone hasn't she?" he wondered.

"I hope she's not having the, "How do I tell him it's because he's a fatty?" conversation," I said, imagining the poor woman's embarrassment as the practice nurse explains that it's the LSH's wobbly belly that has put him in the new 'at risk' category.

Eventually, she came back on the phone.

"Errrm.  I've spoken to the practice nurses and they think it might be.....um....well....what's your BMI?"

The LSH confessed that he didn't actually know but did agree that he could do with losing a bit.  The woman assured him that absolutely no mistake had been made and that he was definitely on the list of chubsters that needed to get the jab immediately.  

So, this morning at 8.30 he obliged and here is the obligatory social media photo to prove it.  

He said that it was all very fast and efficient, which is just what we would expect from the NHS.  There's no way they are leaving something as important as this to chance.  

Fat Tuesday Hysteria

 It’s Mardi Gras, pancake day, Shrove Tuesday, whatever you want to call it. The day when you gorge on everything nice you have left in the house and think about your sins. This is important because tomorrow you atone for those sins and eat nothing nice for 40 days. It probably shouldn’t be a shock that this period of fasting comes at a lean time for veg growers; even the purple sprouting is looking a bit sorry for itself.

In the spirit of the day I am considering my sins and I’ve decided that it could be sinful that someone of my age gets so much pleasure out of constantly mocking authority. Maybe I should have grown out of it by now?

I was going to write about a phrase that had stuck in my head from a radio interview with Kevan Collins, Education Recovery Minister, that I’d heard the other day. It was a good interview and he seems like a very nice and sensible man, despite the fact that his parents couldn’t spell Kevin. He said, “We shouldn’t under estimate the resilience of children.”

He’s right, isn’t he? It’s not children that are going to struggle to bounce back from this, it’s us old folks. Those of us who have used up our resilience. After the last few years, despite considering myself a very resilient person, I honestly feel like a rubber ball that’s been used too much. There’s only a tiny bit of bounce left. I have no desire to make exciting music videos that no one will watch because I just can’t be bothered. I don’t want to adapt. I liked things as they were.

Luckily, unlike the Long Suffering Husband, I haven’t worn out my sense of humour by using it too much. Quite often, we can be watching a comedian and he will look at me, stoney faced and say, “Do you find this funny?”  Sometimes I can see the humour in it but it doesn’t resonate, however, usually I have to tell him that I do.  He looks at me, with a disappointed expression that suggests I should have grown up by now.

When my son was about 8 he collected bouncy balls. He bought them with his pocket money from the toy shop in town and had every colour combination you could think of. They were all roughly the same size, because he had a preference for the 10p balls. Although they all got less bouncy with age, we were both fascinated to notice that some had more bounce than others. Some bounced higher on the kitchen floor, others were better outside and the odd few seemed to prefer his bedroom carpet. People are like that. We all have different things that make us bounce.

Thinking about these rubber balls I’ve decided not to bother atoning for my sins this year. I think I need to keep all the bounce I’ve got. I will not be giving up chocolate or crisps and I will keep laughing at authority figures. 

If you didn’t watch last night’s Boris then you really need to see this clip that I recorded off the telly and tell me that it’s wrong to laugh at authority figures.

Watching Boris trying to say to tocilizumab, ending up with something that sounded like Toxic Lizzie Mad , while Chris Whitty rolled his eyes and the reporter tried not to laugh was just what I needed to help my bounce recover. I just hope that Darren  Dutton does something funny with it on Twitter.  Check him out if you haven’t already.

https://twitter.com/darren_dutton/status/1332760909085876226?s=21

Some Numbers

 It's been a weekend of wild press speculation. No one actually leaked anything to the Sunday Times and there wasn't very much national news.  Locally, we had the weather and the people that had been fined for taking a trip to the seaside but Nationally there was nothing.  Even the government seem to have settled nicely into their bored but content appreciation of Lockdown 3.  

They had little choice but to run what they had already been told as if it was new and interesting fact.  We know that the government would like to open schools on the 8th of March.  We know they would like to open all schools.  We know that they have to look at the data first.  We know they are under a lot of pressure to get everything going again.  We know that they made mistakes last time (even if they keep insisting that this isn't the time to look at their mistakes).  We know that they won't know the effectiveness of the vaccine for another week and that they have promised to give schools two weeks notice. So anything that the Sunday Times printed as fact was a reworking of what we already know and wild speculations.  They probably talked to ministers who said how much they wanted things to go back to normal and let's face it, who doesn't.

The problem is that the hospitals still aren't going to be able to cope if everyone gets sick at the same time.  It's not just old people that need hospital help and not enough people have already been infected to mean that this risk is over.  Hopefully, the vaccination will help.  Hopefully, the virus won't mutate enough for the vaccine to be ineffective.

I thought for a while that the only numbers that are reliable to look at are number of people in hospital.  It's the only data set that hasn't changed in the way it has been measured and therefore can be compared accurately.  

So, I'm just going to leave some numbers here and let you hope as much as I am.

A week into the first lockdown  (30th of March) there were 11,093 people in hospital with Coronavirus (as we were calling it then)

On the 12th of April there were 21,687, this figure gradually fell and on the 23rd of June the government decided that restrictions could be gradually eased.

On the 23rd of June there were 4,134 people in hospital with Covid-19.  Many of us thought that that was still too many and that there was too much virus around to keep track of it but the numbers continued to fall until it settled at just under 1,000 a day throughout the whole of August and beginning of September.

Once all school children were back the number of people in hospital started to rise again and by the end of October there were 12,302 people in hospital with the illness, which prompted the Prime Minister to announce a 4 week closure of everything but schools.  

These restrictions brought hospital cases down to 16,304 by the 1st of December (not really a fall you say but it had got up to 17,454 - there's always a 2 week lag) and fell for another few days before rising sharply to a peak of 39,241 on the 18th of January.  By this time the children hadn't gone back to school after Christmas and a third, stricter lockdown has been in place since the 5th of Jan (when there were 30,761 people in hospital with Covid-19.

Yesterday, there were 23.341 people in hospital with the disease and the rate of fall hasn't yet started to increase (as you might expect with an effective vaccination programme) but even if it doesn't then the graph predicts that by the 8th of March the hospital cases could have fallen to about 6,000, so that'll be fine, we hope.  

Welcome to the pandemic of hope.

In love

 Today is 1751 years since the beheading of a Roman Priest called Valentine, who married people in secret  after Claudius the Cruel (the clue is in the name) banned marriages because he suspected that it made young men less likely to want to go to war to die. Coincidentally, his death also coincided with the festival of Lupercalia, where naked Roman men killed a goat and a dog, naked Roman women lined up to be whipped with the still-warm bloody hide to improve their fertility, and the men drew a name of the woman he would have long raucous sex with from a jar. Now, if all that doesn’t make you want to buy extra whipped cream, I don’t know what will.

Generally, we have better ways to find a partner now and superstitious rituals aren’t needed to improve fertility but Valentine’s Day persists. 

I’m not against it. I think you should take every opportunity you can to tell the people you love what they mean to you. 

This year has been a good one for those who commercially benefit. The M&S love sausage has flown off the shelves, the usual increase in cream in a can sales has gone through the roof (yes, this really is a thing), date night boxes, cake treats and cook at home gourmet meals have sold out. Even Melton Mowbray have struggled to keep up with demand for their “Pie Love You,” personalised pork pies. 

People want to celebrate love. And it’s not just the phwaor-sexy-can’t-wait-to-get-into-your-knickers kind. People are sending gifts to friends too. Valentines has extended to Galentines and Palentines. 

We have just finished watching the Crown and on a day like today I think about when Charles and Diana got engaged and he said, “Whatever love is.” He had a point. Love is many things and our current slower pace of life allows us to notice them all.

The Long Suffering Husband knows how I feel about him and as a nod to the day we might sit in the same room and share a box of Maltesers. However, I’d like to introduce you to the new love of my life.

This is Joey. He sits on my garden table all day, guarding the bowl of bird food that’s there. He has seen off several magpies, a raven, three seagulls, various doves and any small bird that thinks a little snack might be nice. As you can see, he’s too full to actually eat any more himself but Joey doesn’t share food and for that I love him. 

Different boat, same sea?

 In the first lockdown, people kept saying that we were all in this together, until people pointed out that we might all be in the same sea but some of us had considerably better boats than others. It was hard for many people to understand. I mean, why would you try to cross the Atlantic in a leaky canoe? Surely, it would be more sensible to take the ocean liner. But some people didn’t have access to an ocean liner. 

Now, in lockdown 3, I’m not sure we are all in the same sea anymore. Some people are stuck in the Panama Canal, while others are floating happily in the Dead Sea. The differences are huge and growing. There are people who are going to work, making lots of money, moving house  and living with people they like.  These people have good broadband, lots of devices, kids who just get on with the work and enough money to pay the bills even if they couldn’t work for a year. Then there are people who are alone, who haven’t worked for a year, who might not be entitled to government help because they weren’t working for long enough, who are watching their business slowly dying. Their children might be talking to crack dealers via Fortnite, while they are working 12 hour shifts in a care home for violent teenage boys, who know nothing about social distancing but are very good at administering an ‘accidental’ bruise or two., if the internet signal is strong enough. They probably didn’t have enough money before all this started and are choosing to feed the kids, rather than themselves. They are stuck at home, in winter and can’t put the heating on.

If you are in a different sea then it might be very difficult to understand what other people are going through.

In our house, we appear to be in the Royal yacht on the park boating lake, which also brings its own challenges. You would think that as we were in the same water and the same boat we would feel the same but I realised that I have a much better deal than the Long Suffering Husband. I get to talk to small people on the telephone every day . 

I try to share some of the funny things that happen, mainly so we have something to talk about, other than what we are going to eat next.  

I’ve been teaching the flute over Zoom, which is terrible for the ears but can be quite funny. Suddenly, a pupil might disappear for a while, coming back with music, or announcing they have just been to the toilet. The sound can appear to cut out and you are never sure if they are just pretending to play to you and some just love having fun with backgrounds and the chat facility. The other day, one of my pupils spent the lesson changing her screen name. It started out as her dad’s name and went through a variety of changes during the lesson. At one point it said, “I blow best,” and I kept thinking that I hope her dad noticed it before his next meeting.

When the cat video appeared yesterday I was reminded of this. I showed it to the LSH and told him about my pupil. We laughed. My friends all sent me the cat video and I told them about my pupil. 

We might all be in a different sea but the internet is being very helpful. The shared experience of Jackie Weaver, I am live, I’m not a cat and baked beans on Weetabix is keeping us all sane. 

I do worry that the internet might have lost the plot. It has been working extra hard lately. Let’s hope it gets a good long rest soon.

Turdus Pilaris

 If you were to ask me why I've not made a snowman in my garden, my answer might be, "Turdus Pilaris," which I would have thought would be Latin for the perils of owning a dog.  You never know what might be under that crisp white snow.  However, Turdus Pilaris is actually the Latin name of a bird I saw yesterday.

I had been out for an early morning walk, enjoying the snow and taking photos at dawn.  I've been spending far too much time in my head and I thought a walk would help.  I'm still imagining the life of Emily the Murderer and as I was walking I was thinking about the town as it would have been in 1882. I walked up Fambridge Road and tried to imagine Fair Field, that held the twice annual fairs, selling livestock and being a place for petty crime and frivolity. I would have been huge, stretching all the way from the back of the White Hart to Warwick Drive, across to Princes Road and up to the back of America Square.  As I walked down Wantz Road I started to wonder where Emily and William had met.  They would have moved in different social circles and so I've been trying to get the story right.  Walking always helps when the words don't flow onto the page the way you hope they will.

I was nearly home and slowed my walking to look at the sparrows in the hedge, who would suddenly fly like little missiles and land in pairs in the snow for a spot of chilly bird sex.  I was surprised at how many birds were around; the cold grey skies and regular falls of snow didn't seem to bother them at all.

Then I saw a bird I didn't recognise sitting in a tree looking at me.  

"Hello," I said.

I think its always prudent to be polite to birds just in case they are psychopomps.  

He looked at me and said nothing.

"Who are you?" I asked.

Still, he said nothing.

He was quite a big bird but I didn't know what he was.  I took a photo and walked on and he flew straight up in the air and landed in the laurel bush that I had reached.  I took some more photos, while he posed.

When I got home I tried to look him up.  The trouble with bird identification books is that if you don't know what the bird is then you don't know where to look and somehow all birds look the same in drawings.  I tried the RSPB app, which told me it was a juvenile blackbird.  I knew that wasn't right because it was too big and I'd seen those before.  So I resorted to Twitter.  I've never had so much interest in a tweet and although I shouldn't be surprised that something named after the sound a bird makes should be full of people who know about birds, I was.

It wasn't long before the answer appeared.  It was a Fieldfare, which is a winter visitor from Sweden and likes apples.  Apparently, they are quite rare birds to see as they don't sit still very often.  I can only think that I was meant to see him.

Emily and William met at Fair Field.  A bird told me.

Nightwalkers

 “That’s all we need!” I spat at the Long Suffering Husband, during the evening news.

He was confused. It was just a filler story about how people, who have nothing else to do, are walking. I do feel sorry for news people. It has been a very full-on year, without much variation. When there is only one story, you have to find different ways to tell it. 

He might have thought that I was upset that they were encouraging people to walk; taking up my empty spaces. This would have been a perfectly reasonable assumption, as they were talking about people who had discovered the joys of walking at night. This is a secret that I don’t particularly want to share. I want you to think that walking around town at night is cold, dark and scary. I’m greedy. I don’t want to share my space. I don’t want you to know that it’s calm, still and peaceful and one of my favourite walks of the day.

Very peaceful but terrible for photography

No. It wasn’t that. It was the title of the piece. They called it ‘Nightwalkers.’

I’ve seen enough Zombie Apocalypse films to know that having Nightwalkers isn’t a good thing. As if life  isn’t apocalyptical enough, we are encouraging more people to join the living dead and wander around outside in the wee small hours when they can’t sleep.

As I said: That’s all we need! 

It's snow day for laziness

 When this pandemic started and people proved that they could work from home and then schools proved that they could ask children to work from home I joked that this was the end of the snow day.  Now that we have finally had some snow in Essex my theory is being put to the test.

Obviously, most children aren't going into school but are learning from home; logging onto teams, watching videos, battling their parents not to put pen to paper, battling each other on TimesTablesRockStars (I don't know if that is one word I'm just writing it the way children say it).  Will snow  disrupt this home learning?

Of course it will.  Parents are finding it difficult to make their kids do the  work as it is.  Teachers know that at the first flake of snow they have lost their students' attention.  Every single child has their nose pressed, either actually or metaphorically, against the window. It's the week before half term, everyone is sick to death of the Mayans and their odd shaped pyramids (or whatever topic is currently the hook for learning), kids are tired, parents have hit the Covid-wall and there's no distinguishing between levels of pain anymore.

"Her grandma died alone and they couldn't go and see her and now they've got to go to a funeral where they can't sing, hug each other or drink sherry and tell stories about how wonderful she was.  She's having a really tough time."

"We are all having a tough time.  I just want to go to the pub."

It all just feels awful.  People want a snow day.  They want a cheeky, unexpected day off to be lazy, get cold and wet and have an excuse to sit in front of the fire all day drinking hot chocolate.  They feel that after the trauma this year has caused, they deserve it.  

We get snow so rarely that it would be wrong if parents didn't prioritise some outside time but schools have a legal obligation to keep expecting home learning to continue.  

The snow day has always been a nightmare for headteachers. Whatever they do, it's wrong. If they stay open then they are putting their pupils and staff at risk and any injuries could be blamed on them but if they close then they are lazy snowflakes who just use any excuse.

This time, it's even more of a difficult decision.  The only children who should be in school are those who can't stay at home.  These could be the children of key workers who have to go out to work, whatever the weather or viral situation or those who are vulnerable if they are at home.  Snow doesn't change this situation.  Doctors, nurses, policemen, firefighters, supermarket workers and food producers can't stay at home because there's a bit of snow, so surely the schools should stay open for them.  

It will be an interesting day, watching to see which headteachers agree with me.

Uncertainty of a dog (blog takeover)

 The last time I borrowed her blog was just before the boy left home and they took me to Scotland.......I had to write then because of all the beasties and the fridge of sighs......I was right to be worried then....the boy didn’t leave that year but he did go the next......I know the signs.....

This morning She did yoga for Uncertainty....I like yoga....I’ll stay in the room with her while she does it....but what do these humans know about uncertainty?....they should try being a dog....some of your pack leaves....you stay in the house...and you never know if they’re coming back again.....that’s uncertainty.

This year I had them all back for a while.....my whole pack.....all day long.....The signs were reversed....suitcases, furniture and washing filled the hall for a few days.....gradually all of those things found homes in the house.....and everyone settled down....I was exhausted.....there were flies and pigeons, unexpected noises and all sorts of dangers to be alert to.......so many things to protect them from......

We hardly saw anyone else.....the little farty people who make flute noises disappeared....there were no ear rubs from their parents....no nice music to listen to.....no chromatic scales......phew!....A few came back last summer......not all of them....but enough......no ear rubs from parents though because they weren’t allowed in.....I soon worked it out though....and went out to them......then it all stopped again.....sometimes I hear them....the Emilys and their gavottes........I come running down the stairs  but she’s just talking to her screen......

The hall filled up with cases and washing and furniture.....someone was going again.....I cried.....no one listened to me.....I cried a bit more.....then the boy was gone.....I sat in his empty room for days.....but the big girl stayed....and I thought she had gone forever....except Christmases and birthdays....

Things started to settle down...the big girl looked at screens all day....the LSH and I slept and watched TV together....and She went back to work....I don’t love her as much as I did....She smells funny....so it was good to have her out of the house....

The trees went up inside the house and I knew the boy would be home....it was so good to see him....but as soon as the turkey farts had faded, he had gone again....

She didn’t go back to work though....she talks all day on the phone or to her little screen....Yes....I know....it’s hard....if you could just....oh....I see.....can I help with that?....Then her voice brightens....heloooo....what have you been doing?......ohhhh exciting.....what are you having for lunch?......Egg sandwiches?......my favourite........she lies a lot....

The LSH and I stayed upstairs....

I was missing the boy but things seemed to have settled into some kind of routine......us dogs like routine.....

Then I was filled with uncertainty.....for weeks the hall filled with furniture...the pink cases came out of the loft...the LSH kept going missing....he came back in the evening smelling of paint and sawdust.....sometimes he took things from the hall with him.....was someone leaving?.....a holiday?.... or forever again?.....

They filled two cars.....they all went....I was on my own.....I paced around for a while....I sniffed all the bedrooms.....the big girl’s bedroom was empty......I could still smell the snack cupboard.....I had a good check through the bin......ate some crumbs.....but there was no denying it.....she had gone.....

The LSH and She came back and ate chips alone....I tried not to mention it.....

Yesterday, I heard the key in the door.....the LSH and She were both in....I rushed downstairs......it was the big girl......I was so excited that I did a little wee.... ‘I thought you’d left me,’ I squeaked at her ...she scratched my ears and rubbed my tummy.....she didn’t let me lick her face.....oh well....it was worth trying.....she stayed a while and then went again....

She tried to explain it to me..... “She’s in our bubble,” she said, “The big girl can pop back whenever she likes. She lives on her own now but is only down the road.”.......I like the sound of that.....I wonder if we could put the boy in a bubble?

Not a hugger

 I’ve had a worrying thought about life after the pandemic. What if this has changed people? What if the world is suddenly different? 

I’ve seem lots of social media posts recently saying, “I’m not a hugger but....”

It seems as though depriving some people of the excuse to touch strangers has made them want to do it even more. Boris was filmed at a vaccination centre yesterday, bouncing around like a lamb, touching elbows and leaning into the faces of vulnerable people who are just having their first dose of vaccine and so are nowhere near protected from someone who is spreading themselves around all sorts of people and places. The ten day, post vaccination spike in cases that they are seeing in Israel is going to be a lot sooner in the UK if Boris has his way.

I do get it. 

I think. 

No. Actually, I don’t. 

Human touch can be nice in the right place. Cuddling your children, a consensual snuggle with a partner, a goodbye hug when you leave home are all things I’m happy with but this need to touch strangers is just bizarre.  

If, like me, you are not keen on hugs it can be really tricky to refuse. It makes you look horrible, so you just grin and bear it. Take a deep breath, brace yourself and know that it will be over soon, all the while thinking, “We could have just waved!”

Now that people who don’t really hug but don’t actually hate it are saying they’ve missed it, I fear that life after lockdown is going to feel like the end of family parties as a kid, where every Aunt and Uncle had to give you a kiss goodbye and you spent what felt like an excruciating lifetime having your cactus spines pushed back in on yourself. 

And before you ask, there are no exceptions. I wouldn’t suddenly change my mind if Robert Downey Junior walked passed, looking for a hug. 

Frivolous Friday

 After yesterday's very miserable blog we all need a laugh and for anyone on Twitter who is missing attending council meetings Jackie Weaver and her authority will have obliged nicely.  People like the Long Suffering Husband, won't understand why it's funny and just look on, incredulously as they wonder why people are so rude to each other.  Twitter, being a place for journalists, writers and politicians just shrugs it's shoulders and laughs.  

"Dad, it's always like that.  Council meetings are shouty power struggles," my daughter tells the LSH.

"I don't understand why it's funny," he confesses, "They're just acting like children."

"That's what's funny," I tell him, "The father and son are particularly funny when he says something like, "Dad, she can't do that to you!" in his whiney playground voice."

My daughter and I crack up, remembering meetings we've been to, where fights erupt over a tie or the etiquette of whose turn it is to speak.  

"It's rare in Parish council meetings though," my daughter tells him, "Normally Parish Councils are just a group of friends or neighbours who want to talk about parking."

I wasn't so sure because I am fairly certain a parish council near to us has a professional agitator of the racist variety.

I went to bed and dreamt of councils and council meetings.  I had a long elaborate dream about a local council meeting where they discussed how they could make their money back from the parking charges they weren't collecting.  In the end, after several people being accidentally muted and some thrown off the zoom meeting they decided that they had to make money on the only things they could and so would be increasing burial and cremation costs by 400%.  In my dream a man called Isaac Briangorsky appeared on the news to explain.

"We've looked at it all very carefully and death is big business at the moment.  It would be wrong of the council not to benefit from this opportunity.  We need to do something to make up the lost income from the parking fines at the hospital, now that no one is allowed visitors."

In my dream Isaac, spent the news broadcast stroking his tie and referring to his authority.

In real life, our local council has made some social distancing posters that have made me laugh.  I noticed them when I was out walking the dog this morning.  I'm not sure how accurate they are but next time I'm out I'm going to try to get 9 squirrels to line up, so that I can measure them.

I also made myself laugh on my walk and no one else seemed to find it funny.  I saw my neighbour walking her dog.  He's a doodly dog, one of those that's very popular at the moment and looks like a huge teddy bear.  We chatted from each side of the road, as there weren't any grey seals to check our distance.  A couple were walking towards us on her side of the road with two dogs.  One spaniel (if only they had 4 and we could have checked our social distance) and another doodly dog.  This hound looked exactly like my neighbour's except it was white, to his brown.  All of a sudden there was crazy barking, pulling on the lead from the brown doodle.  He looked terrified but the spaniel and white doodle just walked past ignoring him.

"Oh I'm sorry, I don't know what 's wrong with him.  He's never like this," my neighbour apologised.

"He thinks he's seen a ghost!" I said and no one laughed.

I hope you all have a frivolous Friday because God knows we all need it right now.

Work from home

 I don’t want to be a doom merchant but I’ve been looking at the numbers and I’m slightly worried. The scientists and politicians still seem upbeat, so I hope I’m worrying for nothing. During the first lockdown the daily case numbers fell steadily and the rate of fall increased every day until daily case numbers were into double figures, when the rate slowed down. This time, the rate of fall is already slowing and we are still finding about 20,000 cases a day. We will know in about two weeks if the rate of fall in daily hospital admission starts to slow. It could just be that we are testing more people and that last time we weren’t testing the asymptomatic cases. 

It might not matter. When we have vaccinated the population that will die from Covid, who will care if 20,000 people or more a day are getting Covid? Especially as most of them won’t even know they’ve got it. However, the ONS estimates that only 1.87% of the population has had the virus, which means that there are still millions of people who could fill hospital, needing oxygen, steroids and IV antibiotics. Also, the more people this virus goes through the more chances it gets to mutate into something that is beyond the protection of the vaccine. Then we will be back to square one.

I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Clap. Clap harder. Find a hero. A statue? A state funeral? What can we do to make ourselves feel better?

It would be wrong to blame an individual if my observation proves to be right and we end up in Lockdown 3 for longer or overwhelm the NHS again in another 6 months. However, the guidance to work from home, if you can, seems to have been stretched to suit what people want to do.

There are jobs you can’t do at home. Jobs that are essential to the running of society that can’t be done at home must continue. You can’t vaccinate the elderly at home, or pack M&S sandwiches into a box. You can’t slaughter a pig or fit a CPAP mask to someone who can’t breathe. You can’t talk a suicidal person down from a bridge or fix the hospital boiler. You can’t put out a fire or keep the internet running. 

You can’t cut hair, or sell curtains, or teach, or act in a play, or run a restaurant or pub from home and these things are not essential. So, the government has asked us not to. Oh wait. Sorry. Teach. That’s a tricky one. Of course you can teach from home because it is essential but we know you can’t so you need to teach and not teach from home, oh and have some children in school because not everyone can learn at home.

It might be because of being asked to do the impossible that I’m beginning to get a bit twitchy about the people who are using the excuse of, ‘if you can,’ to go into the office. 

“Yes I’m in the office for three days a week because working from home is just horrible. I hate it.”

“We need our staff in the office because we don’t trust them to work from home.”

Honestly, if your work is all done on a computer that it can be done from home. It’s not easy or nice but it’s possible.  

Oh dear. I am grumpy today. Sorry. Stop. Think of heroes. Clap. Build a statue!

Goodnight Mister Tom

 When the news broke last night of the death of Sir Tom Moore, 100 year old garden lapping hero, I never thought I would write about it this morning.

 I’m an old cynic. The death of a 100 year old man, who I never knew would normally be unlikely to occupy my thoughts. I knew it would be news for most people but I didn’t expect to give it more than one second’s thought. 

First, I started to think about headline writers and wondered what they’d come up with. I thought of them all cursing whoever’s decision it was to make Captain Tom Moore an honorary Colonel rather than a Major. If they could have linked Bowie to the hero of the pandemic they could have sold loads of papers.

Then I worried about the mental health of the nation that had chosen a centenarian as their ‘beacon of hope’ for the pandemic. For a nation that struggles to accept death that was always going to end badly.

For a long time I had struggled to get my head round the idea that this nice little old man who had raised money for the NHS (which should have been properly funded by the government) by walking around his garden was actually a hero. To be honest, I struggle with the concept of heroes anyway because mostly it seems to be luck. There were lots of people raising money and there still are and no one will ever know why that one took off like it did. Life is all about luck and I think it can be really hard for the people who deserve to be heroes but are never recognised. Most people are heroes because it’s human nature to do the best with what you have.

However, this morning I have woken up thinking that Tom is a hero for another reason. He had a great death. If I could choose how I die (and sadly none of us can) that’s how I’d do it. I would live every moment. Nothing, not even a pandemic, or being one hundred years old with failing lungs would stop me enjoying every second of my life. I would embrace every opportunity. I might make a terrible record, write a great children’s book or even travel and get one final beach holiday in before I go. I would be a nice person. I would have a great family. I would know I was loved.I would accept that living forever wasn’t an option gracefully. My family would get to be with me at the end to say goodbye but medical care would control the pain, so they didn’t have to watch me suffer. It would also be quick and not drag on for weeks, months or years. 

I could feel sad for the families that didn’t get that but instead I’m going to hold onto that beacon of hope that if Tom Moore can have a good death then maybe it’s possible for all of us.

What have children lost?

 As most pupils continue to learn from home for the 5th week, the people that play with statistics on education are getting twitchy. They’ve done some calculations, using a magic algorithm and concluded that, even if children go back to school on the 8th of March and there are no further lockdowns then children will suffer 5-6 months of learning loss. This then, apparently, equates to a £40,000 loss in earnings over their lifetime. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like statistics and think forecasting is useful but aren’t they missing the bigger picture?

The statistics come from the studies that say that every year of schooling increases a person’s earnings by 8% and then concludes that 6 months of homeschool is the same as leaving school half a year early. It assumes that the hard work being done at home by parents, teachers and children is worthless. It assumes that any loss can’t be caught up, which anyone who had parents forced to leave school at 14 who went onto get degrees in their fifties  or any parent who is currently gaining a deeper understanding of maths than they ever thought possible, can tell you, is rubbish.

We learn throughout our whole lives and in many ways. School is just one of those ways. 

School based learning is incredibly effective and suits society. It helps to close gaps between the rich and the poor, it provides childcare for working parents and socialises children but children’s socialisation doesn’t just happen at school. The loss toddlers are experiencing through social distancing might be irreparable. One year olds might suddenly have their tiny minds blown when they realise that there are more than two tired, slightly panicked looking adults in the world and toddlers will never learn the etiquette of keeping your mate company in the toilet.

These kind of reports put pressure on the government to reopen schools before the case numbers are low enough to manage the pandemic. Boris is going to make an announcement today about how he plans to reopen schools and most of us will be watching with our head in our hands wondering why he never learns. Once you’ve promised something it’s very difficult to not do it and so it looks like further lockdowns in this country are inevitable. 

I fear that to open schools early we will all have to continue to sacrifice other things for longer to compensate. It will be longer before we can see our friends, longer before we can hug, longer before we can go to the theatre, longer before we can sing together in one room, longer before, children can learn important life skills from older children in the playground (don’t mix those bubbles), longer before we can travel, longer before team sports start again, longer before children learn about competition, longer before people can be in a room together to argue and debate, getting all the non verbal cues that are given and longer before I delete Zoom, Teams, Meet, Skype and Discord from all my devices. 

Children are missing so much more than maths and English. We all are. 

Great British Bird Hide

I hate the RSPB.

You might think that is too strong a sentiment but no, it's true, I do hate the RSPB.

Every year, without fail, at the end of January they make me feel like a failure.  

I spend all year filling the bird feeders with a variety of seeds, nuts and worms.  I even put a daily meal worm on the table, which a robin comes and gets every morning.  There are a large variety of fat pigeons and collard doves that are permanently in my garden, much to the annoyance of the dog.  Starlings come and squabble over the feeders. Small tits eat all the fat balls and goldfinches flit through the apple tree, collecting some nigella seeds from the cast iron poppy.  Magpies, seagulls and crow all chatter from the neighbour's roof.  Occasionally, an adventurous sparrow leaves it's pyracathntha hedge colony from the front of the house and explores the delights of the back garden.

Then, on the weekend of the RSPBs big garden birdwatch, they all go into hiding.  I sit at the window with my binoculars, spotter books and handy tick sheet.  The window is open and I think I hear a Great Tit pumping up his bicycle before I start my hour's watching but then the world goes silent.  The birds know the game.  They refuse to be counted in my garden.  I sit for an hour, watching nothing. Not one feather moves; not one tweet is tweeted; not one seed is sucked.  Even the blackbird that can whistle the opening bars of the Poulenc flute sonata doesn't make an appearance.

I check the hashtag on Twitter.  Everyone else has birds.  Loads of them.

I hate the RSPB.