April Fool

It’s April the first, which means you can think about or talk about anything other than the thing.
What will happen is every time you are about to say something about cats another word will appear in its place. Oh, see what happened there? I wonder if it’s ok to stroke cats? I mean, how long can a vegetable live on a cat’s fur?

Vegetables are great. I’ve started my courgette plants off on the windowsill. I’m going to give up my allotment because my daily walk helps me to not lose the plot and so I have found a corner of the garden for veggies. It might be necessary because since lichen you can’t buy a courgette in the supermarket. I can’t think what everyone is doing with them.

Have you seen the lichen? As a kid I had a book called The Trouble with Lichen. I have no idea what it was about, except I mispronounced it without the hard k sound in the middle. Anyway, as an adult, what I know about lichen is that it thrives in clean air. The lichen is taking over and we all need to watch out because if the thing that Michael Gove can’t pronounce won’t goat you then lichen probably will.

Front page of today’s Guardian (not an April Fool)

Goats are running amok in Llandudno. Even last year, this would have been an April Fool’s story in the paper but this year it’s real. I can’t tell you why. No really, I can’t tell you but you know it’s because we are bird from going outside.

Oh, the birds. The birds are so happy. It’s spring and they are doing their thing. A goldfinch flew into me yesterday when I was out for my walk. I haven’t seen a goldfinch since 1974, when my mum suggested we go out and count the traffic. We were going to make a pie chart of the different car colours that drove past but it was the daytime and all the dads had taken the cars to work. We did see four green busses and a milk float but we got into an argument about what colour the float was and so gave up. The goldfinches were more interesting anyway. Oh look, I did it. A whole paragraph without mentioning Coventry.

Have you been to Coventry? It where you get sent if you use too many cliches. Currently, newspaper reporters, bloggers and BBC correspondents are roaming the streets trying to learn the synonyms for unprecedented. Soon, they will be joined by the people suggesting that the brightest rainbows happen in the worst storms (they don’t. The best rainbows happen on really sunny days with very fine rain) and the people who sign off their emails “Stay sane.” Oh dear, I can’t even write about the box you keep your money in anymore.

Happy April Fools day. Good luck with trying to think or talk about anything else.

Drunk, Chunk or Hunk?

They say that in any isolation situation you become one of three things: drunk, chunk or hunk.
Now that we’ve had day 4 of the lockdown (Yes, that’s right it is only four days since the scary Monday night announcement) people might be beginning to settle into their pattern. The frantic activity of the first days can’t and won’t last. Nobody does everything.

I think most of my friends are going to fall into the drunk category. There’s rarely a day when I don’t pick up my phone to messages about the lack of wine in the shops, whether it is too early for a G&T or the exciting news that the local brewery does home deliveries. I’ll be honest, they are making me feel a bit left out, so much so that I decided to go and sit in the garden with a gin and tonic. I didn’t drink it but just having it with me made me made me feel calmer.

The next type of person is the chunk. This is who I would probably have been a few years ago. I would have spent my time moving between the sofa and the fridge. I would have baked comfort cakes, biscuits and scones and put on several pounds. I have seen people put things on social media like, “I swear the fridge just sighed and said, ‘what now?’”

The government is hoping that most of us go for the hunk version. It’s why they have suggested we go outside for one exercise a day. It’s very clever, really. Alcoholism and obesity will put a large strain on the already stretched health service, so if they can just convince us that the only way to get out is to don the Lycra and run a marathon then we might just get fit rather than fat. They will deal with the knee and hip replacements later.

However, I think they’ve missed a few. As ever, they’ve forgotten about the introverts.  Introverts don’t really need to replace the social aspects of their life with much. Not being able to go to the pub doesn’t cause huge waves of grief (oh by the way, this thing you are feeling is grief) but their lives have changed too. They are also scared and sad for the loss of the world they have learnt to negotiate. There might be people in their space that they can’t get away from.

Monk, funk & skunk are the other three categories that you need to consider.

The monks retreat into a silent world of books and music. They turn off all of the scary media and sit in their room, praying for it to end. This type of person is well placed for this moment as their ‘to be read pile’ has been growing exponentially since long before the world really knew the word exponential. They are listening to their back catalogue of Gregorian chants or Bach Motets. I’m not making these people sound very attractive but that’s ok because I might be one of them and they won’t read this because it’s on social media.

The funks are my favourite type. These are the creatives. The people who think outside the box and let themselves get sucked down a rabbit hole they weren’t expecting. These people get funky; creating memes and doing research that we all wish we had done. They are a really important part of our current society because we need people to create everything that the drunks and chunks are sharing to give their stomachs a break.
This is the best piece from a funk, so far:
exhaustive-analysis-of-all-the-winning-dishes-on-come-dine-with-me

Lastly, we have the skunks. These are the people who have forgotten what day it is already. They haven’t showered or got dressed. They are beginning to smell and their pyjamas are starting to weld themselves to their body. You are reading this, pretending it’s not you but we all have it in us. I mean, what’s the point in wearing a fresh outfit if nobody is going to see it? Pyjama bottoms are just more comfortable and as for bras, there’s hardly a woman left in the country wearing one.

I’m going to try to aim for balance but if I have dreadlocks or have invented the ultimate penguin knee washing machine when you next see me, don’t be too surprised

I’d rather have a doughnut than the clap

Something rather remarkable and uniquely British happened this evening.

People opened their windows or stood outside to applaud the carers of the country, who are working so hard during this Corona virus outbreak. Then we all went to the pub for a quiz.

The pub quiz was online because pubs are closed. This was perfect for me. I love a quiz but this was accompanied by lemon tart and peppermint tea with no noise of lots of people. I hope it happens every week, even once we are out of this self isolating phase.

I was initially cynical about it. Not the quiz but the show of appreciation. This might have been because of how it was named and the fact that my mind is that of a slightly dirty 12 year old. They called it NHS clap for carers.
“As if they’ve not got enough problems,” I said, giggling childishly, “I can think of better things to give them than the clap.”
My daughter, typing fast enough to make me think something was on fire agreed and we discussed the fact that we couldn’t really see the point. It’s not that we aren’t grateful. It’s not a job I could do and I’m so glad that others can, especially at the moment. We also talked about our favourite cafe in Pembrokeshire, where we learnt the skills required to survive with very little to do, that is allowing you to buy welsh cakes to send to the local hospital. We talked about sending doughnuts instead.
“I’d rather have a doughnut than the clap,” she said

I was wrong. It was a very emotional moment and I love how it appreciated everyone. Not just the doctors, or nurses but the care workers, the cleaners, the social workers and the nursing auxiliaries. I might still send doughnuts.

Marathon not a Sprint

The good news:
There were less Covid-19 deaths than there were the day before.
More people than live in Coventry have volunteered to help.
Most people are social distancing.
Covid-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) because mortality rates (overall) are low.
We live in a good country where most people are compliant, even if we do need to be scared witless to get the message.

I like good news. Bob273 on Twitter hates it. He thinks they aren’t telling us about all the people that have died. He thinks this is a Chinese plot in cahoots with the Russians to wipe the West out. He thinks that if your children get this virus they will be carted off in a van, die and you will never see them again. Bob273 on Twitter is hoping for a military lock down, where no one is allowed to leave the house and he can report his neighbours for breathing.

However much I like good news and hate Bob we still need him. We still need to be a bit scared because this is a marathon. If we flatten the curve and cause less people to die then it will go on for longer and if we relax measures too quickly then we will go right back to the spike we had before.
Whatever we do the death toll will continue and soon someone you know will die. It might be great Aunt Maud, who is 93, living in a care home, wearing nappies and carrying round a baby doll that she thinks is your cousin, Pete. It could be your grandad, who seems fine but has had a heart problem since birth and has been taking the stairs more slowly recently. It could also be your friend, who seemed to be perfectly healthy. It could be you. None of us know when we are going to die or what will cause it. What we hope is that if we follow the rules then no one will die because they couldn’t get the treatment that would have helped them.

This, for most people, is day 5 of working from home and day 4 of trying to educate your own children. Are you shocked by that? Day Four! It feels like longer, surely? Brace yourselves: it could last another 12 weeks!

The nation has thrown themselves into it and are treating the whole thing like an interesting experiment. Most people are loving it at the moment.

My friends are sending messages about the cupboards they’ve cleaned and the gin they’ve drunk. Pupil’s parents are telling me about the recorder pieces they’ve learnt and the virtual bands they’ve joined. Colleagues who like exercise have run marathon distances and joined Joe Wicks every day. Teacher parents have taught their five year olds every maths concept invented, planned, evaluated and peer reviewed their work.

This has made me feel more than a little inadequate because I’ve just been overwhelmed. There just seems to be so much and I don’t know where to start. Yesterday, I managed to turn my laptop on. Obviously, anxiety, being a very physical sensation, has left me exhausted and confused but I suspect I’m not the only one who is feeling a failure when comparing themselves to everyone else’s life right now.

Here are some things I’m trying to remind myself.
1. This is a crisis. You just have to get through it. (Recite the Bear Hunt: it helps)
2. You don’t have to do anything.
3. People die. Nobody lives forever.
4. Viruses are sneaky. People do their best but viruses are sneaky.
5. Whatever happens it’s not your fault
6. Joe Wicks and Gareth Malone are optional.
7. You don’t have to be anything you weren’t before.
8. It’s a marathon not a sprint. Sometimes people who start slowly do better because they don’t fall away, exhausted.

If you are feeling overwhelmed too then it is fine to just laugh at memes, be excited that Gardener’s World is to continue (We love you Monty 💓) and watch the videos of penguins at the zoo.

https://twitter.com/kurtearl14/status/1239762454772662273?s=21

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

They have announced the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics by a year. Tokyo 2020 is now going to be held in 2021 but still called Tokyo2020. This represents the kind of of confusion that we are all feeling. I know that everyone is blaming the Corona virus pandemic but I think it might be my fault. Until yesterday they were still going ahead and then I wrote a blog suggesting alternative games that we are all in training for. The IOC must have got wind of it and decided it would be best to cancel.

It is a shame because I had been training for ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place.’

Being socially distant is my preferred way of living. When they closed social spaces like pubs and restaurants people inevitably flocked to my places. All of a sudden canal banks and sea walls thronged with people. Those people suddenly wanted to talk. Frankly, it was a nightmare. The message of staying away from people hadn’t been given clearly enough and people thought spreading the illness was less likely if you were outside, so they rushed to the seaside and queued to climb Snowdon. Bob273 on Twitter got really cross and so the government made the announcement that scared most people.

We were caught between a rock and a hard place. My son was due to return from University on Friday because his holiday job in a supermarket were desperate for him to come back. My daughter, due to start a new job in Essex in three weeks was sitting in an empty flat in Leicestershire waiting to have the last bits of furniture that she had sold collected and her landlord visit to inspect and collect the keys. What should we do? There was no one to ask. The message was clear: No travel; stay in your own home; only go out once a day for exercise (the dog crossed his legs and farted). Bob273 on Twitter was furious at parents who had asked, “No travel? I want my children.”
He told them in no uncertain terms that they should stay where they were; that if they didn’t they would have personally killed millions of innocent people and that they should be shot by the army who should get put onto the street in tanks. We decided against the hard place and went for the rock. Keeping our family unit together and sane was the most important thing. Luckily, since then journalists have asked the questions for us and fact checked them. It turns out that Bob273 on Twitter was wrong.

As a claustrophobic, the suggestion of one walk a day is very difficult for me and I’m also not totally in control of when I leave the house. It’s only been one day but I’m exhausted and snappy from trying to negotiate this rock. Also, my house is full of people which is a pretty hard place.

At the weekend I was walking a canal path in Leicestershire before the message of keeping a distance and staying at home had been made really clear. It was 8am on a Sunday morning; a time when you rarely see anyone in a place like that but the path was heaving. I was not enjoying it. Eventually, I got far enough away from civilisation to start to feel calm and after a while thought I should head back. There were a family of four on the path ahead of me: a proper middle class Market Harborough family in Joules wellies and striped T-shirts, with blond tousle-haired kids holding a nature trail worksheet. I moved to the edge of the path by the water and they moved onto the bank. We should have been able to keep walking and just about keep far enough apart but they stopped and huddled together on the bank. I looked up, smiled and the mother pushed her children into the hedge.
“Gio! Angus! We’ve talked about this! Keep away! You don’t know who has the virus!”
I laughed at the time, thinking that those children are going to need a lot of therapy when this is all over. Now, I understand that they felt they were caught between a rock and a hard place.

Yesterday, I let the Long Suffering Husband come with me to walk the dog.  We walked to the sea wall and I suggested turning right, which normally takes you to a place with no people but the path was full, so we turned left.  Every time we saw someone come towards us we leaped up onto the bank.
"Are they the rock or the hard place?" he asked me. 

We managed the whole walk without being any nearer that 2 meters to any strangers.  Training was going really well.  It's a shame that the IOC have decided to cancel because I think we would have been medalists.

Skating on Thin Ice

The Olympics seems to be the only thing that isn’t cancelled. It is going to be a strange one, though because the athletes haven’t been able to train.

I wonder if I should write to the IOC with some suggestions of Olympic Sports that would be useful at this time.

I was thinking that we could have Skating on Thin Ice, Opening a Can of Worms, Hanging By a Thread, Flogging a Dead Horse, Going Between a Rock and a Hard Place, A Wild Goose Chase, The Blind Leading the Blind and Juggling Frogs.

I’ve been to Tokyo and highly recommend it as a destination, so I think I will put myself forward for some of them.

I can hear the commentary now. A nasal man with a moustache (actually it’s not a moustache is it? - it’s the edge of the microphone that looks like facial hair) comes on the screen.

”Now we have Julia stepping up to the plate...fresh from her win in Hanging by a Thread.....her skates are on....yes, she seems calm....she’s got this....it’s going so well....that’s a coping strategy right there....it’s her hundredth lap of the garden.....impressive skills....picking up a garden fork....maybe she’s going to plant some potatoes.....oh dear....she’s just remembered that people panic bought all the seed potatoes......now, that’s not nice to see.....the poor snail....beaten to death by a garden fork.....the ice is cracking.”

Anyone fancy joining me?

No words. Lots of language

Something very strange is happening. The Prime Minister made an announcement. I’m not entirely sure what he said because an ocean rushed into my ears and I need to get out.

This is not a good day for us claustrophobes. Especially those whose claustrophobia was triggered by the realisation that the world is an unfairly, unpredictable shit place.
I have no more words.

Except:

Shit
Bugger
Fuck
Bollocks.

This is bigger than, “Oh my eyeball.”

Altruism vs Egotism

I think it was Martin Luther King that said something like, “You get the measure of a man by how he responds to a crisis.” (I don’t think I should have put that in speech marks because it’s not an accurate quote and could be someone else entirely.)

We are now officially in a crisis and we are beginning to get the measure of people.

I have never been prouder of the place where I work and the people who work there.

For the last three weeks it has been hard to teach terrified children and it was the last day before the government has decided that schools must close. When they made the announcement they still hadn’t thought through the details of what that would mean, although they did know that they wanted schools to provide some continuation of learning and to continue to stay open to care for the children of key workers. It wasn’t until this morning that schools knew what that should mean. Still, no one knows how long this arrangement is to continue. However, schools started to plan for what they could do.

I woke up on Friday morning feeling incredibly anxious. I’m sure I’m not alone. Weirdly, my anxiety wasn’t about the virus or how my school would cope but was more about other people. Something  like this inevitably puts people into two camps: those that care and will pull together for the greater good and those that think only of themselves.  It’s the altruists vs the egotists and I always get anxious that the egotists win and the altruists burn out.  I remember studying altruism at university and being completely surprised that I was the only altruist in the group. The lecturer pointed out that the world needs people to have this value and that in the long run it is altruism that will save the world. My class were incensed.
“How could not putting yourself first be good for you?” they wondered.
I sat quietly, wondering how being so selfish could be good for anyone.

The main thing that worried me was that people were being asked to use their judgement to not be selfish. When the key worker list came out it said that if you could keep your children at home then you should. Within five minutes I saw people bragging on social media that they wouldn’t have to look after their own children. I thought then that schools could have people trying to claim their children should be in when their job wasn’t really in the definition of a key worker or was and they were actually working from home.

Then I worried that different schools would respond in different ways. Those with high levels of altruistic personnel  would be able to provide the right level of care but those with more egotistic workers would find it difficult to staff the situation. Egotistic heads would not even ask their teachers because they would be putting themselves first. As soon as the announcement was made, social media also filled with teaching staff complaining about not getting their Easter holiday or furious that they were still having to work.

Then, different schools and work groups started to brief against the others. One self congratulatory post from teachers that was copied and pasted before it was properly read was bookended with a media bashing.

Looking at the government document I became further concerned for schools with high levels of altruistic staff. It says that if you are a key worker and your school can’t accommodate your child you should contact the local education authority who would find a place in another school. This worries me because the worst thing you can do if you want to contain a virus is to start mixing in new communities and children do not understand social distancing.

I started out by saying how proud I was and it looks like I’ve veered off track but bear with me because I’m coming to the point.

I am lucky to work in a school with mostly altruistic staff. The senior management team now look like frazzled owls (except the swan - who always looks like a swan) but they have stayed calm, clear and have a plan. Parents have been contacted and all genuine key workers have been offered a place. Staff were asked about their personal circumstances and a list was made, the list turned into a rota, still giving everyone their two week break and having reserves. This has all been done with so much compassion. A learning pack that the children were excited about has gone out and online learning has been set up with iPads being loaned to the children that don’t have access. The team drove round to the house of every child who wasn’t in school to take them their learning pack.

A lot of this was done before Friday and part of my anxiety in the morning was a fear of our wonderful staff burning out. I was beginning to recognise the signs from when I did that before and it scared me. I knew that some of my boundary setting was slipping and my desire to be helpful was starting to overtake any thoughts of self care.

I have hope, though. When there are so many people working towards the same goal then breaks are possible.

It was a very strange and emotional day. The year 6 children didn’t know if they’d ever be back in school, the reception children couldn’t believe they were finished so soon after they’d started. I had spent the day reminding children of the rules of recorder playing (no squeaks, not at 3am, not behind your parents who are on a conference call, not on a long car journey, you can teach blackbirds to sing if you play in the garden).
 We had a final assembly.
It felt like end of term but without the joy.
We sang.
“When you’re feeling lonely and you don’t know where to turn. Hopes and dreams are fading and you bridges start to burn. Just remember when you look a friend is always near. So let your voice sing out again so everyone can hear....there’s a power in the music”

And boy, did those voices ring out.
I, and all the people I work with, will miss those children and will continue to blub every time we open an email with a child’s work in it.

I’m having my Easter holiday now, so in my usual fashion I will be eating chocolate, walking the dog, reading books and blogging random thoughts that pop into my head.

Corona Eileen

They found the magic money tree.
Corona Eileen.

Have I lost the plot? Probably.

“I feel a bit depressed about all of this,” I told the Long Suffering Husband.
“I know,” he said, “What can we do to cheer ourselves up?” he asked.
“I’ll write a blog,” I said.
I don’t know why but he’s now rocking in the corner muttering something about badminton and a preferred death.

The government has told us to self isolate but is holding microphone sharing parties for journalists.
Corona Eileen.

There’s a lot going on at the moment that I don’t understand and I hate not understanding.
We are not allowed to go to restaurants but they remain open. Government asks us to work from home but they are having more meetings than ever. We are not meant to allow non essential workmen in the house but no one has defined essential. We are currently renovating our bedroom and bathroom. There have been many unnecessary workmen in our house. Unfortunately, when you’ve already paid the unnecessary becomes necessary.

Corona Eileen.

We popped into the carpet shop to check that their unnecessary workmen would still be coming.
“We’ve had a lot of cancellations,” the man told us. “We ask our fitters to confirm that they haven’t been abroad in the last month, don’t have any symptoms and haven’t been in contact with anyone with symptoms. I told this old man that and he said that if he answered the door and they were clean then he would let them in.”
The LSH and I shared a private smirk about clean workmen.
“The problem is, you can’t tell,” I said.
“You could check their temperature,” he suggested.
“That’s what they did in China but we don’t have a thermal imaging camera.”
“It would be funny if we took their temperature before we let them in.”
I thought for a moment and then realised that I have a rectal thermometer.

That would sort out those unnecessary workmen.

Corona Eileen.

Growing up in the Eighties

Yesterday, Boris Johnson gave, by all accounts, (I haven’t watched because I’m virus distancing myself) a bumbling press conference that said we are not allowed to have fun. Being happy is the root cause of this virus. He heard that in countries where people are miserable no one has died from the Coronavirus, which we are now calling COVID-19 to make it sound much more serious. 

The country responded quickly. University students were banned from going to lectures, old ladies can’t go to Tai Chi anymore, schools stopped after school clubs, the Scouts cancelled all plans to stand on top of mountains and breathe in fresh clean air for the foreseeable future. How long fun is banned for seems to be unclear but some reports are going for 18-24 months. 

I grew up in the seventies and eighties and am in a good place to endure this. We know how to not have fun. This moment is what we’ve been trained for.

We grew up in times of fear. Doom and gloom were our middle names. The power randomly stopped working and we had to huddle with our family in one of those blankets with tiny square holes in it that everyone said kept you warm but didn’t. Those of us who got through it played cards and scrabble by candlelight and those that didn’t came to school with a black eye and random bruises that no one mentioned and learned to wedge a chair under the door handle for next time. I was one of the lucky ones and have grown up to be quite the card shark. 

During the day we went to school, where teachers were still allowed to whack you if you tried to have fun and when we got home it would often be to an empty house, as our mothers had just realised that working and having financial independence was preferable to being owned by a man. Even if our parents were at home they didn’t entertain us. We were left to our own devices and so wandered railway tracks, built dens in woods stuffed with flashers, or counted the traffic.

We ate food from tins and packets and were enthusiastic to do so because it was quite a new thing. My neighbour was a rep for a canned food processor and used to give my mum unlabelled tins, which she would use to make a pie. Not knowing if it would be stewing steak, cherry or something that looked and smelt like cat food was the most exciting eating we did. 

Our school milk was taken away because drinking congealed milk from those tiny bottles, especially if the blue tits had pecked a hole in the top and siphoned off all the cream, was the most fun we had. 

We had a giant squirrel come into school to frighten us about crossing the road. Sometimes the squirrel would veer off track and tell us we were all going to die if we didn’t sneeze into our handkerchief and wash our hands. We learnt a catchy little song, “Coughs and sneezes spread diseases, catch them in your handkerchief.” I think I’ve still got my Tufty Club handkerchief somewhere.

By 1985 we were teenagers and we were certain that we were going to die. We all read dystopian fiction and knew the Russians were going to kill us. Sting wrote pop songs in minor keys with a ticking clock accompaniment. Some people built bunkers and even children’s picture books were about nuclear war. 

We watched Zombie films and knew this day was coming. The Long Suffering Husband has been waiting for the Zombie Apocalypse his whole life. Wherever we go, he looks for the best place to hole up. So far, the library at Harvard is the best he’s seen.

We’ve got this. People my age, who just happen to be running the world, find that not having fun reminds us of our youth. It’s what we trained for. Who’s going to join me for a verse of Corona Eileen?

I heard.....

Overhearing is usually one of my favourite hobbies but not at the moment. Gone are the snippets about Uncle Tony and his preference for marmalade and sardine sandwiches or Aunty Mary who fell down the stairs. (I’m never surprised by this one because Aunty Mary had a canary up the leg of her drawers). Now, every conversation starts with, “I heard...” This can be in loud or hushed tones, it can be said with pride or fear but it is always related to the Coronavirus.

I heard a boy ate a bat.
I heard they eat bats in China.
I heard a pangolin ate a bat.
I heard you can get it from Chinese restaurants.
I heard the Chinese use boiled up pangolins to treat psoriasis.
I heard Ireland is on total lockdown.
I heard that’s only Italy.
I heard it’s spread by noodle shaped foods.
I heard Tesco has run out of Spaghetti.
I heard that a thousand people have died in Italy.
I heard we are all going to die.
I heard you’ll die if you don’t have a balcony to sing on.
I heard schools are closing.
I heard Universities have already closed.
I heard over seventies won’t be allowed out (no one can prove I’m not seventy yet -said to hilarious laughter)
I heard you won’t even be allowed to walk the dog.
I heard there’s enough chlorine in this pool to kill any virus.
I heard they make toilet paper in China and that’s why we need to get it now.
I heard all flights are cancelled.
I heard there will be a thousand pound fine if you leave the house.
I heard the virus was made in a lab.
I heard it was the Russians.
I heard there aren’t any cases in Russia.
I heard there aren’t any cases in Antarctica.
I heard Penguins stop the transmission.
I heard penguins can give it to dogs, though.
I heard the government privately briefed Robert Peston because they want us to panic.
I heard it’s an elaborate rouse to stop climate change.
I heard we’re all going to die.

Everyone is on edge. Not just from fear of an unknown virus but from fear of isolation.

Since I started writing this, the world has actually gone mad. Who knows what history will make of it but I’m going on record to say that I think the whole thing is bonkers.

Coronavirus Update

Warning: This update is being given my someone who is pretending not to have an anxiety/panic disorder. However, in the light of the recent announcements I’m going to be like the BBC and try to answer some questions.

Am I going to die?
Yes. We all are, one day.

I was going to end the blog there but I realised you have more questions.

Am I going to die of the Coronavirus?
Maybe. No one knows what will kill them. It seems to be killing about 0.001% of populations across the world in this outbreak, so you could be unlucky.
Boris Johnson says, “We are all going to lose loved ones in this crisis before their time.” Will I ?
No. None of us know when our time is. We die when we die. We aren’t given an expiry date and anything at any time could kill us.
Is a pandemic worse than an epidemic?
No. They are two words. The first means a bug that affects lots of people at once in several countries and the second is used in just one country.
What about when it gets to be endemic, surely it can’t be stopped then?
Endemic is another word. It means common in a population, like the common cold is endemic in Britain and cystitis is endemic in married women.
Can this virus be stopped?
No.
Why am I washing my hands then?
You should always wash your hands, you dirty beast. Soap breaks down viruses. There are lots more viruses to worry about. You’ll get less colds if you wash your hands.
Can our health services cope with Coronavirus?
No. They weren’t coping before. Staff are on their knees. The service is underfunded and under-resourced and under -respected. It won’t cope with a few more people than expected going to hospital.
If I’m not going to die, why should I change my behaviour?
When governments look at the data and weigh up the evidence they make decisions about what people should do in the best interests of the whole population. Would it really hurt you to just follow their advice for the sake of the population?
Should schools close?
Luckily for me, that’s not my decision. If governments decide to close schools it will be because they have decided, on balance, it’s the best thing for the whole population. I don’t know enough about it and nor do you (probably)
Should I ring up the local paper to report my neighbour who has just come back from Italy?
No. Don’t be a dick. Remember Nazi Germany.
Is it alright to terrify myself and my children by only watching news about Coronavirus or only clicking on the links that tell me how bad it is going to be?
No. Stop scaring your children. They are terrified. Stop watching only the news. Click on links about people who have done nice things (papers write what you want to read).
Do I have to stop touching my face?
It’s impossible. Try it? A child at school tried it yesterday. She had an itchy eye and tried, desperately not to rub it. Eventually, in frustration she shouted, “Oh, my eyeball!”

I have decided to make this my new Coronavirus related expletive.
“The world is going to end.”
“Oh, my eyeball!”

Book Day

In my world, every day is book day.

This, apparently, isn’t true for everyone and most people need a day to encourage reading. I’m not entirely sure it has been working. It first started in 1995, when children were encouraged to dress up as a book character. This gradually progressed to dressing up as someone from film or TV. Since then, reading, as a pastime for children has gone into free fall. The Guardian published an article with the headline, ‘Children are reading less than ever before, research reveals.’ (You can’t beat a snappy headline). It went on to say that only 26% of under 18s read each day and just about half the children surveyed said they enjoyed reading. I wasn’t surprised and suspect that the figure is even lower for adults.

When I was on a train the other day, I was surprised to see that I was the only person with a book. You used to be able to guarantee that a train was stuffed full of readers, all desperate to avoid eye contact. A little girl near me was surprised too. She asked her mum what I was doing. She sounded out the title.
“The piss-choll-gee of time travel,” she said.
Her mum laughed, “psychology!”
“What’s that?”
“It’s about brains.”
“Does that lady travel in time?” the girl whispered looking at me sideways with extra large eyes.
“Oh, no. It’s a story book. Time travel isn’t real.”
“Grown ups read stories?”

I got myself in a bit of a tizz this morning thinking what to wear. As a book lover, I had to dress up if it was going to encourage the children I teach to read. I have an issue with dressing up because all my favourite characters look like me but I put on a long black dress, cape, stripped socks and went as the Worst Witch. According to several children I didn’t look like Mildred Hubble at all. I agreed. I was far too old. I was more like Mrs McHingy. You probably don’t know her but she was in one of my favourite poems, from a book I brought when I was on holiday in Guernsey in 1977, when it rained for the whole two weeks.
It went something like this:
“Mrs McHingy, so crabby and cringy,
Dressed all in black from her head to her toes.”

There are several things you hear yourself saying on world book day, if you teach, that you can’t imagine ever saying in real life. Things like, “Please don’t pick your nose with your sword,” and “Yes James of course you can go to the toilet but leave your peach here because it might get soggy.”

It is hard to teach at the best of times but teaching kids who are dressed up, who can’t go outside because it is pouring with rain, when you are crabby and cringy, doesn’t make world book day the pleasure it should be.

Luckily, I had book club to go to. The new bookshop has finally found a space for me in their book club. I was a bit worried because I don’t like people and people could spoil my love of books but book people seem to be my people. This is another new thing I’ve added to my life since the Long Suffering Husband took early retirement. I can fit an extra book a month into my free time. I read and walk!

It was a great evening. There was Prosecco (or water with bubbles in) and crisps, served in an old box. We talked about all the brilliant books, passed them around and I watched people sniff and stroke them. We opened children’s pop up books and ahhhed over their beauty. I told them I was particularly fond of books about death and nobody seemed surprised. I added more books to my ‘to be read’ pile.

As we started to leave people were mingling and chatting about how they knew each other. Suddenly, the group was talking about art groups.
“Were you part of the 96 group, Pat?” the lady with the job that she could tell us about but she’d have to kill us asked.
She wasn’t but knew of it and named some of the members. Then they started talking about prints from a catalogue I’m very familiar with.
“I’ve got Red Shoes in my living room,” someone said.
“I bought Anniversary Waltz for my husband for our anniversary. He loves it.”
“She died so quickly,” another said, sadly.
My mum loved books as much as I do. I’m glad she found a way to come to book club with me.
If I read When the Coffee Gets Cold with her then we can go to the next one together too.

The Beast

On Valentine’s Day, the Long Suffering Husband and I went out for lunch. Not because we were being romantic in any way but because I had a day off. We like to walk to town, do some errands and visit one of the many cafes, restaurants or bars our High Street is blessed with. We have a relatively new restaurant and so I was able to say to him, “As it is Valentine’s Day, do you fancy a Brazilian?”

At the end of the meal I went to pay and the man was horrified. He looked very uncomfortable for a moment or two, stepping from one foot to the other. I wondered if he had a bladder infection but he recovered his composure quickly, so I thought he was probably fine. I went back to the table and started to put my hat on. The LSH had already stood up and was heading for the door. The man scuttled over with a red rose.
“For the lady,” he said, bowing slightly.
He had been hoping to say that to the LSH when he paid the bill but we had clearly spoilt his plan, as Friday lunch doesn’t usually demand grand gestures.

As we walked home the LSH asked me what I was going to do with it.
“Put it in water until it dies,” I told him matter of factly.
“Are you sure you want to carry it home?” he asked, looking round shiftily.
“It’s not heavy.... unless you wanted to?”
He looked horrified. That wasn’t what he had been thinking at all.
“You could put it in that hedge,” he suggested.
I didn’t and the rose has been in a vase on my kitchen table ever since.

That was nearly three weeks ago and it looks exactly the same.

I knocked it over twice and noticed it was out of water once. The leaves have curled but the bloom hasn’t aged at all.
I’ve checked. It’s real. It doesn’t have much scent but it is a genuine cut flower.

I’m beginning to worry that it has a magic curse associated with it and if a petal falls now a beast somewhere will start to die. Maybe the LSH was right and I should have put it in a hedge. I can’t take the responsibility.

Faction

I’m a master of faction, where you take an element of truth and expand on it , make it more colourful and exciting. This blog is a work of pure faction. Yes, there’s a lot of truth in it but there’s a lot of made up stuff in the gaps. This might make me unsuitable for my latest hobby/project.

I’ll be honest, I’m a bit worried about it. The Long Suffering Husband took early  retirement last year and since then I’ve filled my life with extra things to do. I’ve taken on things that retired people should do but I’m still working.

This year The Moot Hall is 600 years old and they have started a project to get the court records onto a database. I thought this sounded like an interesting thing to do with my spare time (“What spare time?” asked the LSH) . Yesterday we took a trip to the records office to get familiar with the project. After a tour and meeting the book wizard in the basement we started to look at some of the records.
I ordered the Court Minutes from 1882 and started to struggle with the handwriting.

I was expecting a couple of cases of petty theft but the first one I looked at could only have been found by me.

4th July 1898
Incident arising from a (something indecipherable)
How disappointing. I couldn’t even read what the charge was but I ploughed on.
Harriet L?? of Hazeleigh. Widow. On her oath hath said, “I was in Fambridge Road at about 8.15pm when I saw him, a dredger of Maldon coming close to Starlass(?) Farm. I heard someone calling out ‘behind you’. I looked around I saw a man in the arch. He was coming towards me. He undid his trousers and he felt of himself. I saw his penis. His penis was fully erect. I went into the Farms yard and he went onto Maldon afterward.”
Another witness testified that he was “under the influence of drink. I know what he was doing.”

Only I could pick a first case to look at that was an indecent exposure.

He was found guilty and got seven days hard labour.

The trouble is I now want to know more about this man and if I can’t know then I’m prepared to make it up. Teddy Smith and his terrible behaviour has taken up a space in my mind. I have no sympathy for him but can still see him breaking rocks for seven days before going back to work, clearing mud from the river so that the barges could come upstream until next payday when he drinks his wages in the Dolphin before staggering up the High Street and down Fambridge road to expose himself to another unsuspecting Harriet.

And what of Harriet and her son George? George was actually a terrible witness, saying that he didn’t see anything. Did she become too frightened to go out, or was this the last man’s payday penis she was prepared to look at before reporting him?

This faction has to stop. This is a great project that shouldn’t be spoilt by the easily distracted, loose with the truth work avoiders, like me.