I had an absolutely mingling day yesterday.
This is going to be my new phrase for when every small thing seems to go wrong. You know the days? The ones where you find the keys in the fridge, open the cupboard for the sugar to fall out and the dog lick it up faster than you can sweep, leave the house in your slippers, slam your finger in the car door, realise you’ve left something behind that you need but have no time to get it, call your colleague that you’ve known for ten years Elsie when their name is Elizabeth, come home to find dog sick in your shoes. Those days from hereon in will be known as absolutely mingling days.
The day hadn’t started well. I was feeling poorly. Nothing serious. Just a cold but I was being an attention seeking wuss about it. I hadn’t slept. I tried to do yoga but putting your head below your knees when you are full of snot isn’t wise and I was a bit wobbly. My whole spatial awareness had gone to pieces and I managed to whack my elbow into my knee. I sat down to have my breakfast and Priti Patel was on the radio. I have nicknamed her Absolutely Priti for a while because it seems to be her favourite word. At school, I had a Geography teacher that I called Basically Vine and had a tally on the back page of my exercise book for every time she said ‘basically’. I expect we all have a word but some people’s are more visible than others.
Absolutely Priti was on the radio being absolutely vile. Luckily, it was the radio, so you couldn’t see the smirk that accompanied her justifying her evilness with a few absolutelys. She was encouraging the nation to report on people in groups of more than six if they didn’t have guns to shoot grouse. She ‘absolutely would’ report her neighbours. The reporter was trying to drill down into what the word ‘mingling’, which we are now banned from doing, actually means. I did wonder about this myself. I’m not really a very sociable person and don’t like to get too close to people and had always thought that mingling was the kind of socialising you do when forced. Where you keep your distance from everyone, skirt the edges of the room, refuse to be drawn into any conversation by saying, “I’ve got to go, I’m just mingling.” In my mind these kind of social interactions would be ok. They are preferably 2m apart and definitely last less than 15 minutes.
While I was listening I sat on the sofa nursing my lemon and ginger tea and watching the birds mingling at the bird table. Apart from the stallings who squabble and peck each other on the head most birds watch from a distance and swoop in and out quickly for their daily fix of suet cake or sunflower seeds.
The reporter asked her if two families of four, meeting on the way to the park would be mingling. Obviously, the answer is that if they are more than 2meters apart and interact for less than 15 minutes and are outside then there is little opportunity for the virus to spread, so people should be careful to keep to these conditions. However, if they arrange to meet at the park, spend all afternoon in very close contact with the other family and share a picnic then that is the kind of behaviour that will encourage transmission of the virus and should be avoided. She didn’t say any of this. The government’s messaging approach is to keep it simple. They don’t trust us to understand nuance and I expect government ministers are briefed to stick to the words in the message. So, she thought about it for a while and smirked (I was wrong, you can hear a smirk on the radio) and said, “Yes, I would say it is absolutely mingling.”
I found this phrase so funny that I snorted hot lemon and ginger tea all down my front.
I tried to listen to more but the bird table was heaving. A goldfinch was sitting on the sunflower patiently waiting for his chance, two robins balance on the washing line singing, “Good suet cake here! Fresh sunflower seeds!” A magpie clicked from the top of the neighbour’s roof. Blue tits flitted in and out believing that they were small enough and quick enough not to wait their turn. Then a lesser spotted woodpecker landed on the fence. I rushed forward with my camera to try to get proof and banged my head on the patio door. “This really is one of those days,” I thought to myself, “It’s an absolutely mingling day,” which made me laugh and inhale the throat sweet I was sucking.
It was a beautiful day, so after a weary walk with the dog (in a space I knew I’d see no one) and scratching my arm on a blackthorn bush I thought I’d sit in the sunshine with a book. I’d just settled down when a drunk wasp flew in a wobbly line towards me. I don’t panic about wasps and so just watched it, wondering how many fermenting apples it had munched on that morning. It landed on my bare leg exhausted and confused. I sat still, thinking it would get it’s bearings soon and take off but no, it was an absolutely mingling day and it had to be one of those (if you read the Sun) drunk aggressive German wasps that have invaded our shores and sting people for no reason.
I’m hoping today will be less absolutely mingling, as I start on my fourth toilet roll and stay inside, having a proper sick day (important when you work across bubbles) and watching murder documentaries.
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