Fearful Fifties

I’ve warned about the Sunday papers before. The Sunday Times, this weekend, printed a long piece that showed some of the speculative thinking that is going on in government at the moment. We would be furious if they weren’t thinking through every possibility and discussing the solutions but doing that doesn’t mean that whatever snippet has been tweeted is the final plan. They didn’t help by tweeting that Boris had held a ‘war game’ and planned for shielding of the over fifties. Well, they probably did help sales but not public anxiety.

I had to ask the Long Suffering Husband what a war game was. It sounded terrifying. However, it’s just a strategy or planning meeting. If you read the long article then they came up with lots of wild solutions to the the problems that would need to be solved if the virus got out of control and started to kill loads of people again. So far, there is no evidence that is happening. In fact, even where positive tests are rising, that is only in the pillar 2 data (tests in community). The pillar 1 tests (where people are sick enough to go to hospital) are continuing to fall. The wild suggestions included shutting pubs so that schools could open, which is almost as silly as suggesting banning water so that swimming pools can open. Oh wait, now was that in the article or not? I can’t remember. 

This announcement caused Sarah Vine (who should have known better because her husband was one of the boys playing the war game) to have a similar reaction to me. A ‘f-off Boris, I refuse to be scared’, reaction. Obviously, when she tweeted it came out as less than sympathetic and is now taking a lot of flack, which I can’t say she doesn’t deserve because empathy for other people is a thing she lacks. 

The thing about being over fifty is that the reality that you are going to die hits you quite hard. It’s just a fact. There’s nothing you can do about it. You are going to die. Exactly when or exactly how, no one knows but death is unavoidable. Your parents might have died recently, which will make the likelihood of your own demise an even stronger possibility. When you are the oldest one in your family it makes sense that you are next.  Most people my age are a bit anxious about death and it doesn’t help that we are not really allowed to talk about it. When Sarah Vine tweeted that she didn’t mind dying, that was her biggest crime for a lot of people. Don’t think about death, don’t talk about it and it won’t happen! 

The trouble is that many of us, over fifties, could live another quarter of a century and that’s a long time to be scared. 

I’ve decided that I don’t want to be scared for twenty five years so I’m off to wash my duvet cover and make my bed because doing the small things every day helps anxiety almost as much as a good old sing and dance. That poster, really is genius (wash cover make, is my new mantra).