Eat, Drink, Laugh and Wash your hands: a guide to dealing with a global pandemic at 70

Day 15: Silver linings And no, the title does not refer to my emerging roots. Yet. Rather, I fear I may have given the impression that in my opinion things aren’t necessarily all sunshine and roses, so I thought I’d try and find a few good things to say about our current situation. This item will for obvious reasons be a great deal shorter than recently but as I am running out of things to talk about it’s probably for the best.  Can you even recall the last time anyone mentioned Brexit? Despite the problems of the Corona it’s not all bad. If you’ve long despaired about people swanning in and out of public loos without washing their hands, then despair no more. We have had it rammed down our throats for so long now that we have to get our hands nice and clean or be thrown out of society like a modern day leper that finally Joe public has actually taken on board the fact that personal hygiene is a necessity! Eurovision has been cancelled. This programme is never as hilari...

Day 14: Essential measures E ssential according to the Collins Dictionary is something  extremely  important or absolutely necessary to a particular subject, situation , something basic or indispensable. The government’s idea of essential is going out for s hopping for the necessities, medical reasons and travelling to and from work but surely there are individual essentials in people’s lives and they are equally important. A domestic goddess I am not, which is self-evident when I look round my house. I am sure that I am more likely to catch something here than inhaling a stranger’s breath which is slightly worrying. My windows as you may have gathered, are an ongoing source of despair as I keep looking through them or rather I can’t look through them but as they are dreadful on the outside too I will just blame my window cleaner and say it’s clean from my side BUT he is in lockdown I imagine. I really don’t see why he can’t come here th...

Day 12: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow... Have you found that you’re losing track of days?  Back in the days of yore, before the corona, I spent a great deal of my time volunteering in a hospital and a variety of other activities that basically kept me off the streets and out of trouble. However, that has now all been curtailed for the moment. It gave me some shape to my week and helped me avoid housework - more of that next week - but now every morning I wake up and I have no idea where I am or what day it is. The former has always happened since I hit about 60 I think, but the latter is new and it’s all down to the corona. Do you remember the good old times when we had a quaint tradition of splitting time into seven different days rather than one long socially distanced, self-isolated, locked down unchanging present? The days of the week were individually named and distinct from one another and what happened to weekends? Expressions like ’thank God it’s Friday’ ...

Day 11: Schools of thought On my earlier strolls I realised how eerily quiet everything was and very pleasant indeed. It was still a bit like the first day of the summer holidays with parents together with their children all laughing and having fun. We are now at day five of there being no school for most children and I can see a change already. Today there was a preponderance of males only with children, not so much laughter and a sense of urgency about everything. Everybody is cross with each other and the parents which again is reminiscent of the school holidays end of week two – can’t wait for the holidays to end and their children to go back to school. In the past they have had a date – today they do not. Clearly the school learning is also starting to take its toll and mothers are trying to find a bolt-hole. Bit of advice ladies just shop on your own and leave everyone else at home. You can stay out as long as you like and blame it on the queues of over 70s. ...

Day 10: Computer says no - forced to venture out I know I said that Mike – CEO from Sainsbury - was listening to me but I take it back. Sorry Mike.  Although he is encouraging the over 70s to order online, every slot is taken with no priority for the elderly. There is supposed to be a system but you need to have a Master’s degree in Computer Science to make it work. It doesn’t have the facility to recognise your age although I know for a fact from all the supermarket emails I’m receiving (see previous blogs) they are well aware of my age and keep telling me – just in case I forget!! They offer a telephone number for any queries – this is permanently engaged or has messages saying ‘our operatives are on the shop floor’ – being trampled on by 70 year olds I would imagine. At this rate we will starve to death before the virus gets us. So having been unable to book an online shop I ventured out today to buy my essentials as I have been told I can - sunny day, no traffic, s...

Day 9: The world's a funny old place  In these strange times the world really has got smaller and as I am by necessity now glued to the internet I have been fascinated by various snippets about the ways in which others are coping. The Germans, predictably, have come up with a website that calculates the resilience of your loo roll stockpile, based on average visits per day and sheets per wipe. The site then tells you the optimal amount to buy in a given timeframe. Evidently a pack of 10 rolls should see the average person through 53 days. Meanwhile municipal authorities in Frankfurt have simply resorted to imposing a hefty (flat rate) fine (€25,000) for hoarding. Maybe they need to be sent the link to blitzrechner.de in order to properly define hoarding vs above average consumption. In the USA – naturally - marijuana has been classed as an essential requirement so all marijuana shops – really?! – are open for delivery or takeaway. The Americans also have a ...