Golf

Golf is over rated. Honestly, if you are getting cross because you can’t hug your mum and other people can play golf then stop, you wouldn’t want to play golf anyway. Trust me, it’s not even a nice walk: you can’t take the dog and you have to keep stopping.

Nice countryside - shame about the sand and holes

Don’t tell the Long Suffering Husband, as he’s rather fond of a game of golf and has been missing it in the same way I’m missing the swimming pool.

In a gradual easing of lockdown restrictions it can seem unfair when not everything happens at the same time.
“It’s not fair! Why can he play golf and I can’t swim?”
Actually, it isn’t fair. This has never been about fairness.

In a world where we are trying to get back to normal, the country has to prioritise who they can afford to lose first  so it seems entirely reasonable to sacrifice golfers. I mean, what contribution to society do they actually make?

Obviously, I’m joking.

I shouldn’t have needed to write that but these are strange times.

The LSH’s golf club is not letting their members play with one other person from outside their household. They are maintaining a strict Womble policy. (I know - one ball - but the LSH mumbles).
I thought that once the course opened, the Long Suffering, would be clicking to get a tee time like someone desperate for Glastonbury tickets but instead he seems happy to just keep in touch via the WhatsApp group. I say WhatsApp group but as he is a member of the Vets (they let him in because he retired and yes he is technically much too young) I think it’s all done by email.

They have been having their weekly competitions and every Wednesday his phone pings a million times a second as the random number generator alerts him to every score on every hole. I have to say that it is much quicker. A round would normally take all morning but these seem to be over by about 10. Last week, he won a £10 gardening voucher that he is overly pleased with now we can go and get plants.

The Veterans group are lobbying the golf course owner hard to relax the rules. They are keen to get back to playing normally as soon as possible. The LSH struggles to understand.
“They’re all in their Seventies and Eighties,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “They are in the vulnerable group and should stay at home.”
“So maybe they’ve assessed the risk and decided that they are probably going to die soon anyway and they’d rather spend their last few years actually living.” I suggested.
The LSH has decided that as he probably isn’t going to die in the next few years he can afford to take a break from living for a while.

I’m quite glad because it has been very useful having a house fairy around, while I flit around in my usual creative but not entirely productive fashion.

Home

What does home mean to you?

Home is the only place I watch TV. I used to also watch at my parents house and my daughter’s flat but I suppose they are both home in an abstract way.

Thanks to a misunderstanding from yesterday’s blog, where a friend thought that Nigel was my dog, rather than the dog on Gardener’s World I have discovered the delight that is Grayson’s Art Club on Channel 4 and more especially a new TV animal to get overly attached to. Kevin the cat is quite special.

I’ve watched the first two: portraits and animals and they are, quite simply, the best thing on television. It’s a programme that would work whenever it was on but is absolutely perfect for right now. I don’t know why I was surprised because Grayson Perry is a genius, as is his wife (whose books are a must read if you are at all interested in psychology). There is a beautiful, calm chemistry between them. He calls her Philbert and she subtly psychoanalyses every thought he has. The cat wanders through and Grayson says, “I think a cat makes a home.”

Since then, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about ‘home’ as a concept.

Home is more than the building you live in. It’s the people you have in it, the pets, the things, the thoughts you have that bring you back to yourself. Some people don’t feel that the place they live is home.

For the last six weeks we have been asked to stay home to protect the NHS and save lives. For many of us that has been a good thing. We have reconnected to what home means. People have spent time with their family, cared for their pets, cooked, gardened, exercised, watched TV, read books and generally spent time on the things that make them feel happy. The people who have found it hardest are those who are not living where their heart believes it is home; people whose home is scattered over more than one residence.

Now that home doesn’t feature in our instructions we are sad. If we have to be alert then the instruction is to leave our home. However, if home is not the building then maybe we could all take ‘home’ with us.

For me, home is a sense of peace. It’s a feeling that I am where I’m meant to be. I agree with Grayson and think that a home without a pet wouldn’t feel much like a home and even if the dog does fart constantly and walks out the room whenever I walk in we would be lost without him. The garden, with its squabbling starlings and roses whose scent take me right back to making perfume from petals in my garden as a child are an important part of home for me. Home is a place where my family are. Even the family that are not with me reside in my home, in albums as photographs, in notebooks of stories I’ve written, on the walls in the art of my mum, in the garden as my grandma’s lily of the valley start to push their heads through or the rose bush that we planted Dad’s ashes on comes into bud. It’s the place where we nourish ourselves; where we eat cake and, now, every meal. It’s a place where we can make things.

I was inspired to sew cat buttons onto the latest baby cardigan
from my comfortable knitting nest

The next episode I’m going to watch has ‘abstract’ as a theme. I think I’m there already. Home is an abstract concept that has shielded us from the coronavirus. I have a picture in my mind of myself surrounded by my ideas of home, batting away green virus balls and keeping me safe.  That works, right?

The Fear

I have the fear again.

You have probably read this and agreed. You are still afraid of catching the virus. There is a lot of fear out there created by the government, who wanted us to stay indoors, so that our fragile health system didn’t collapse. Now that they want us to start going out and about again they’ve forgotten to reassure us that the risk is slight, or down, or never as bad as they made out in the first place. They could have started to publish recovery rates, or details of how the R rate was under 0.5 (unfortunately, I don’t think it is). They want to get the economy going again, which is a good thing. We have to get back to normal at some point and doing it gradually makes sense.

For me, it’s not the idea of trying to get back to normal that is frightening.

It’s the idea that it’s just common sense.

Again, lots of you are agreeing. You are thinking that you have common sense but your neighbour doesn’t.

This is what frightens me.

There is no such thing as common sense. We all have our own interpretation of what is sensible in any given situation. I have friends who think it is sensible to sleep in a tent for a holiday and I can’t think of anything less restful.

This matters now though because there are consequences to not following the rules. Police have powers to stop and even fine you for doing the wrong thing. Laws need to be very clearly defined for the protection of everyone. Police shouldn’t be asked to use common sense when applying them.

Even the cabinet aren’t clear on the interpretation of the new rules and if the people who have made them don’t understand them then saying we need to apply common sense is just ridiculous.

Even worse than the legal aspect, is the fact that we are all so keen on policing each other. We live in a world where we are constantly exposed to public shaming. If you take a selfie on the beach and post it on your Instagram page some people will think it wasn’t common sense to be on that particular beach and there will be anger and fear thrown at you.

I was thinking about the rule on meeting people and realised that depending on how it is interpreted it would be too easy to break. The government are confused about this. First they said you could meet your mum and dad outside, providing you stayed socially distant then they said you couldn’t meet both.

At the weekend, I dropped a piece of cake to my sister. I put it in a Tupperware box, left it on the doorstep, rang the bell and walked away (a walk-by-cake-ing). It was on my daily walk, which I was taking with my daughter and the Long Suffering Husband. My sister wasn’t in but as we walked away from her house she was on her way home. So we stopped and chatted for a little while in a socially distanced way (except her dog, who launched herself at me. Dogs feel they’ve been abandoned by people they love but don’t live with). This was before the new rules and common sense told us that there was nothing wrong with this. However, now the government has clarified the situation it turns out that my sister was breaking the rules. Obviously, I did nothing wrong. I was with my family and I met one person but she met three! How irresponsible! You see how ridiculous common sense is?

So, I have the fear that we are about to enter a phase where confused, frightened, angry people are all shouting at each other.

It’s not surprising that all of this is happening in the Japanese micro season of mimizu izuru (worms surface.)

Yesterday, was a sad day for me anyway and Nigel died too.

Nigel and Nellie in the Gardener’s World Garden.

Alert!

Here are some things I’ve become alert to:

• If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.

• Boris Johnson is a terrible Prime Minister, however history might paint him

• Confused, metaphor heavy messages create great memes.

• The government did leak everything to the press in advance of the statement.

• They never wanted construction and manufacture to stop in the first place.

• They only said one exercise outside at first because everyone got angry.

• The government have a plan to ease the economy back without killing too many people. 

• Their plan is clear in their own minds but isn’t communicated effectively.

•  Giving people a week to decide what they wanted to hear means they won’t have heard the message, so it seems confused.

• People will still be angry

• Nicola Sturgeon has taken as long to read The Mirror & the Light as I have (I know she’s been busy).

• They didn’t travel out of their own town when there was the Plague in Tudor times, if they didn’t have to.

• The King didn’t have to, so he survived.

• Medicine hasn’t moved on as much as we’d like to think since Henry the Eighth.

• Staggering schools reopening will be a nightmare for already stressed headteachers (who have worked through all their holidays)

• Coming out of lockdown was always going to be harder than going in. Any nuanced approach is going to be impossible to police. It’s going to take personal responsibility.

• If you give someone a confused map and they get lost then you have to question whether that is their fault.

• Living through history is blooming exhausting. Pass the caffeine, I’m trying to stay alert.

Be a Lert

I’ve caught myself actually holding my breath thinking about the announcement the Prime Minister plans to make at 7pm this evening. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

It is tempting to criticise a government and think that you would do it so much better if you were in charge. Mostly, I would caution against that because we don’t know, do we? There’s so much we don’t know but I think the announcement of an announcement has been a terrible idea.

For a start, it’s just really undemocratic. These are difficult times that will affect each section of the population differently. A local MP will be able to argue the case for their area; that’s what we elect them for.

It is also dangerous for big decisions to be made by small closed groups because of a psychological phenomenon called Groupthink. This is where the group thinks as one and therefore stops noticing any flaws in their plan. This is how they failed to intercept the attack on Pearl Harbour or let the Challenger Disaster happen.

It puts the press in an unenviable position too. Johnson and Gove know how journalists work; they know who to leak to and what to let them have. They know that we, the public, will be desperate for details and be lapping up any snippet of information they let them have. Even if it’s wrong, it’s a way that they can test public opinion on their ideas, whilst simultaneously destroying our trust in the press.

We are being treated like children. The government says, “We’ve got something that we need you to do. We aren’t going to tell you what it is yet because we can’t trust you. We’ll let you know in a week when you’ve had time to get used to the idea.” It’s like when you warn your toddlers that it will be bedtime in two hours. I keep seeing comparisons with the New Zealand and Scottish ministers, where they speak to their country as if they are talking to adults. Well, maybe not adults because you probably wouldn’t have to explain the tooth fairy to proper grown ups but at least intelligent children.

One of the problems of this approach is that if they don’t trust us then it makes us far less likely to trust them.

Anyway, it has been a week since it was announced that there’d be an announcement. It’s Sunday and the papers have their snippets of leaked information, from various sources (some accurate, some lucky guesses and some just wrong). I’ve looked at some of the headlines and decided that as I can’t hold my breath any longer I would just write Boris’ speech for him now.

“Never in the field of human alpine tunnels have we encountered anything quite so difficult. What we, as a government, have asked you to do has been a challenge. We have asked you to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives and you, my friends, have risen to these labyrinthine demands in spectacular fashion. You have been prodigious in your efforts to stay at home but we, as the Conservative Party, have become cognisant that you are a bunch of otiose pheasant pluckers who are languishing like pigs in ...
The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has been extremely generous in putting together a package of measures but it is time to bring that to a close, which is why we are changing the message. 
We set out our five tests that had to be met before we eased lockdown to fire up the engines of our vast economy. The powerhouse demands fuel: coal, nuclear, sunlight. So, today, I am going to set out the roadmap for coming days and months ahead. 
Of the five tests, reproduction, is my chief concern. Willy Johnson is doing very well, thank you. The R rate needs to be as low as possible but like Hercules, cleaning the stables, this is an Augean task. 
We have to be certain that any relaxation we make to the restrictions doesn’t risk a second rise, as any up-stir could impact on reproduction. 
Therefore, from Monday, we are changing the message. We have changed the warning lightbulb from red to green and now our country needs lerts.
Perfectly clear: go to the Isle of White, download the app and be a Lert!”

Now we know, we can breathe for the rest of the day but I will be there at 7, trying to work out what a Lert is.

I Was Wrong

Yesterday, I sounded grumpy about people celebrating the VE anniversary. I’m glad to be able to report that I was wrong.

To be fair to myself, I was never against bunting and cake, commemorating the end of a war, or making learning exciting to hook the interests of children. For me, it was more a dis-ease at forced camaraderie and accidentally promoting a ‘war is good’ message.

When I went for my walk, I found that I was cheered by the decorations, the feeling of hope and the idea that humans always find a way around their difficulties. The celebration probably wouldn’t have happened like this if we hadn’t been in lockdown.

Our local council had plans in place and I know that if things were different, my Youth Orchestra would have probably been at the park, playing Lambeth Walk, We’ll Meet Again and Let’s All Go Down the Strand (‘Av a banana). People would have been encouraged to commemorate with street parties but I doubt as many would have done. With children off school there was plenty of time to make bunting, chalk flags onto the pavement and make scones (another way of getting grubby fingernails clean), the whole town came to life more than would have normally happened.

As I walked I had small conversations with people. We talked about the weather and what they were drinking. Each street that participated had done so in different ways. My favourites were those where older couples were just sitting in their gardens with a pot of tea, saying, “Good Afternoon,” as you walked by. Some streets, had everyone out in force but it wasn’t a surprise.
“Normal for King Street,” I muttered to myself before consoling two small ginger girls by saying,
“Ooh jam tarts. Perfect. You have the most authentic VE Day tea I’ve seen,”
“Thank you for saying that,” their mother said, as their faces brightened and their red rimmed eyes paled. “They’ve been really upset that ours wasn’t as good as the neighbours.”
The most authentic street seemed to be Victoria Road complete with opportunistic bike theft.

One street had the speeches of Winston Churchill blaring out and another looked dangerously close to getting a bit snoggy and gropey (made up words) as the alcohol started to flow. I’m sure there will be backlash in the papers today as people are pictured not observing social distancing rules but I am unable to get cross about that because all I saw was hope.

When the Nazi forces in Germany surrendered 75 years ago, the world felt hope. Yesterday, the sun was shining, people talked to their neighbours and felt hopeful that we will soon be out of this lockdown situation, without the complete devastation of our country. There was also a feeling that even if Boris announces another 12 weeks of lockdown then we will cope.

FOMO (not)

It is the 75th anniversary of VE Day.

It’s not actually VE Day, as people keep calling it but 75 years since VE Day. Europe hasn’t won anything today, not even the race to have the least deaths from Covid-19. 

I don’t want to be a killjoy but I wonder when we will stop thinking that winning a war all that time ago was the best thing to happen to our country. I always approach the way we teach the Second World War in Primary school with a sense of discomfort. I’m sure I’m being unreasonable but we teach it as if it was fun. We celebrate it, rather than commemorate it. I know that things have to be enjoyable to hook a child’s interest and it is so easy to do with this topic. There are songs, dances food, games and stories that have every element in them you could hope for. However, I am often left with the feeling that the lesson  that it would have been better to never have had the war in the first place has been missed in all the fun. 

Right now, people are desperate for some good news and so are embracing the socially distant street party with a vengeance. It’s like the clapping on steroids. People are having invites, that sound like orders, shoved through their letterbox.

You will join us for tea on your front lawn at midday.

You will dress up in 1940s costume.

You will decorate your house in red white and blue bunting.

You will sing We’ll Meet Again.

You will listen to my Uncle Fred playing the Last Post on the cornet he found in the loft. 

This hasn’t happened in my street. Luckily, for Henning Wehn, German comedian, who could not believe his luck when he first came to England to discover a war film on the TV on a rainy Saturday afternoon, he has been invited.

I could be suffering from FOMO (fear of missing out) but as a slightly socially anxious person I couldn’t be more relieved. I don’t have to think of an excuse to not socialise and my over-thinking brain won’t be wondering why we need to celebrate a war as an excuse to put up bunting and eat cake.