Game of Thrones
Tuesday 7th April stayed bright and sunny. I also felt brighter after a full 8 hours sleep, but Phil seemed subdued. On asking what was wrong, he initially said “nothing”, then re-thought and said “everything”. He sneezed, indicating hay-fever had kicked in. I forced a tissue and antihistamines on him.
Although less fatigued, my mind kept going blank and I had to stop and think what I was doing in the middle of writing. The internet moved at glacial speed, making me quite irate. Phil eventually managed to sort it out so I could at last post an entry on ‘Cool Places’. ii
Late afternoon, we had a brief spell in the garden. He planted Christmas tree seeds while I pruned shrubs and put the prettiest cuttings in vases, ready to be adorned with Easter egg ornaments. A young neighbour I’d not seen for a few months appeared, back home from university. She was just finishing her first year at Cambridge when all exams got cancelled due to for lockdown. She, was devasted of course! Phil popped to the shop, bought all the groceries on the list, and washed them. As previously mentioned, he’d become an expert at this type of shopping. It suited him to buy a few items at a time “like the old days.”
In the evening, we peered out the window at the very bright ‘pink supermoon’ (not pink at all) and made the first of several meals utilising the wild garlic (barley risotto) The garlic-themed dinners continued throughout the week, including fishcakes with garlic sauce, tortilla and chips with garlic mayo, weekend roast with garlic pesto potatoes, and spaghetti pesto.
Bumbling Boris had been put in ICU but not on a ventilator. A call for an evening ‘clap for Boris’ was apparently not a piss-take. Talk about toadying! Rabid Raab took charge during his absence. Elsewhere, reports emerged of Nerola village, Italy being totally isolated with all residents tested and contact-traced. Valuable research or hideous experiment? Tigers in NY zoo had tested positive for Covid-19. Pet owners inevitably fretted. Clarity on guidance for cats followed: they could go out as long as nobody in the house had symptoms.
Wednesday morning, Gormless Gove began self-isolation as someone in his household allegedly had symptoms. More likely he was biding his time, waiting for The Boris and The Rabid One to fall so he could take over, like Unpretty Patel. It was all getting a bit Game of Thrones. A sculptor from Cornwall made a bust of Chris Witless as ‘he has an interesting face and is very sensible’. Already hilarious, ‘stay home’ written in crayon on a scrap of paper beneath it had me in stitches!
Confined Walk
Phil cast about for a reason to leave the house: “what excuse do I have to go out today?” With no urgent grocery needs, he randomly decided “I need cornflour and a mars bar”
I agreed to a walk in the warm, sunny afternoon. Down on the main road, an impatient driver beeped us at the zebra, even though the road was clear.
Walking along the canal and through the almost-empty park, waiting and weaving was required to avoid dawdlers and cyclists. Towards the station, dandelion clocks dominated the verge. Men loitered by roadworks on the access road and clambered noisily upon the roof as refurbishment continued. More lingering ensued trying to get onto the Sustrans path, while a man dithered with his phone for several minutes. But the hindrances did not mar delight in colourful spring flora. On our return, the towpath looked clear when a pair of joggers almost ran into us under the bridge, causing great annoyance. I noted that in Paris, jogging had been banned between 10-7. Dog-walking and one-hour strolls were puzzlingly allowed ‘within half a mile of home’. Safer back in the park, we walked across the pitch to avoid weed smokers, running past yet more loiterers at the lock gates.ii
The evening news told us almost 1.000 people had died in the last 24 hours. Rabid Raab was very vague about the lockdown review due next Monday, while experts declared it too early to lift restrictions. Rishi Rich dished out £750m to charities: Hopefully, it wouldn’t be as hard to access as the emergency loans for small businesses.
First thing Thursday I felt confused and woozy with tummy cramp. Morning chores left me exhausted and achy. The Ocado delivery I’d booked 2 weeks ago arrived bang on time. To overcome the logistical problem of washing everything, I left the items not needed for a few days in bags. An earlier text suggested there would be a high number of missing items. However, most had been substituted by alternatives. Tinned cherry tomatoes are a thing, it turned out (normal plum tomatoes obviously not good enough for Waitrose customers!)
In the afternoon, I sourced crucial new ipad leads from the evil Amazon. Buying the toiletries I needed proved impossible. On ringing Mum, she actually answered, said “I can’t talk now” and promptly put the phone down. Exacerbated, I sent her an Easter card instead. Over the weekend, brother 1 took cupcakes to the care home and spoke to mum through the window. Good to hear she was fine, if frail
Confusion continued following the pointless daily briefing. Ministers wittered about a Cobra meeting which was in fact a meeting about a meeting due next week to ‘decide how the review will be conducted’. An extension to the lockdown seemed inevitable. Some idiot suggested lifting restrictions for young people, seen as at less risk – forgetting they were the ones spreading germs about with no concept of ‘social distancing’! Police took characteristic glee at the prospect of clamping down over the Easter weekend. In Northants, they planned to set up roadblocks and search shopping trolleys. Visions of them confiscating Easter eggs came to mind: “’ello, ‘ello. ‘ello. Is that non-essential items you have purchased?” The Cambs force patrolled shopping aisles and caravaners were turned around on the A38 going to Cornwall. Daleks were seen patrolling the streets of North Yorks – at least that suggested a sense of humour. The government continued to trust they used ‘discretion’; Was that consistent discretion? (sic).
Brandon Whatsit got tied up in knots when asked on Question Time why people could go for a walk in the park or on the beach but could not sit down or sunbathe for 10 minutes. Prof Openshaw (no relation) said as extra vitamins were essential and the virus didn’t like sun, it was a good thing to do.
Bumbling Boris was now ‘sitting up and chatting’. The next day, he left ICU. We joked that he would miraculously rise on Easter Sunday.
Easter Treats
Good Friday, I woke very early, unable to sleep due to anxiety and ferocious hunger. I tossed and turned until 7.30. I got the breakfast cereal and made an apple art. Berries in the granola suggested a woodland floor. Phil was the real apple artist; my phone photos of his creations had a small but enthusiastic bunch of followers on social media. Would anyone spot the difference? Answer: Yes!. Still, there was no need for him to laugh so raucously at my attempt.
It felt so warm, I donned a pair of summer jeans set off for the co-op, suddenly realising I had no jacket on. Early enough for no queue and not too busy, issues remained with people not understanding what 2 yards was, including staff. I had to bypass the fruit shelves as a member of staff stocked up the bananas and inevitably I found no hot cross buns.
In lieu of cancelled events, I posted pace egg photos from last year, receiving several likes via the town’s page. Phil baked bread while I made a chocolate cake. The mixture looked very sloppy, took ages to bake and didn’t rise much even though I whisked it for ages (I would never get the hang of that sponge cake lark).
The addition of buttercream frosting and drizzled Bournville improved the presentation somewhat – hand-finished!
The evening bulletin informed us there had been almost 1,000 deaths in the UK again. While less people in London were in ICU, there were more in Yorks. Scaling on the daft graphs changed as per usual, to make UK figures look less worse compared to the rest of the world. With 8,000 deaths in the USA, a mass grave had been dug on ‘Heart Island’ in the Bronx.
Reiterating the rules on going out, the announcer proclaimed there was ‘no time limit on outdoor exercise as long as it was close to home’. So why did I keep hearing it was an hour? And how many times did we have to be told not to go out over the Easter weekend?
After another crap sleep, I forced myself up on Saturday, to discover my ipad had de-charged to critical overnight even though I turned it off before going to bed – I hoped the Amazon delivery would arrive soon.
Not really inclined to venture out, I worked on the journal and watched telly, avoiding plague news. However, it would have been worth watching by all accounts. Taking advantage of the absence of The Bumbler and the Gormless One, UnPretty Patel emerged, insisting she’d been working ‘hard’. In classically heartless style, she said she was “sorry if people feel there have been failings” (totally side-stepping the issue of NHS staff dying due to a lack of PPE). Making a complete hash of the numbers, she claimed 300,000; 34; 974,000 tests had been carried out.iii Talk about thick! And evil with it – the worst combo of human traits, and typical of bullies.
I got some sun doing a spot of weeding in the garden,. A container had appeared near the back wall (possibly an evictee from the community garden), handy for sweeping the weeds into. I overheard The Decorator asking next-door-but-one for phone advice and added my twopenneth about uploading contacts to the cloud and the virtues of Huawei. This led to comments on the Chinese stealing our data “It’s the Americans you want to worry about”, I said. Phil emerged, off to stretch his legs. I asked: “if you pass a shop, get me a turnip or swede (no joke!)” When he returned, he went straight upstairs; I guessed to hide something. He then announced he had got a turnip; in fact it was a swede.
Easter Desert
Easter Sunday, Bumbling Boris had indeed risen – it’s a miracle! He went straight to his country pile while Gormless Gove was seen out jogging – more hypocrisy!
Phil presented me with a co-op chocolate slab, almost identical to one I gave him at Christmas, with the chocolate raisins replaced by small golden eggs. I got him nowt. I’d intended to make him an art but with all the writing, cooking and baking, didn’t get round to it. The hand-finished chocolate cake would have to suffice.
We had a fix of seasonal holiness from morning telly. The top archbishop spoke from his kitchen about the impossibility of society going back to normal after the crisis, saying we must continue to value ‘key workers’. The Pope’s traditional address took place in a weirdly empty basilica save for a few cardinals practicing extreme social distancing. He also emphasised the need to value people above money and prayed that the homeless and refugees would not be abandoned.
References:
i. My haigas: https://wordpress.com/posts/mondaymorninghaiga.wordpress.com
ii. My Cool Places blog: https://hepdenerose.wordpress.com/
iii. From The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-priti-patel-ppe-uk-nhs-update-cases-a9460886.html
The Corvus Diaries 