Day 44: It takes all sorts The weather has finally caught up with the mood of the nation and turned grey, damp and cold. For the home schoolers among you, google “pathetic fallacy”. Being a contrary lot, while we Brits would ordinarily delight in huddling inside and letting the elements rage outside, we now rage against the elements that are clearly joining forces with the government, police, and curtain-twitching neighbours to keep us closeted indoors. I read in the paper the other day that we all fall into one of three categories during this incarceration: Sufferers, Accepters and Resisters. As far as I can gather, the Sufferers are those who aren’t coping very well and are those most likely to be taking homeopathic medicines and listening to Trump’s advice about injecting yourself with disinfectant. Or they’re drinking moonshine or industrial alcohol as more than 700 Iranians have done, believing it would kill off the corona. Which it arguably did but also killed them all
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Day 42: Confessions of a shopaholic I had never until now attempted to order online as I find watching people much more interesting than trying to navigate a supermarket’s website. For someone famed for her lists, I also tend to keep a mental 'shadow' list that is known only to me and triggered by browsing the aisles and being inspired by a particular ingredient. Virtual browsing just isn't the same. However, as an oldie and having been advised to try and avoid shops, people and certainly anything that breathes I decided to break my 'click and collect' duck. I was told to contact the shop on their app to warn them of my impending arrival - I assume so they could lay out the red carpet and organise a welcoming committee. But that just kept crashing. The alternative was to go on their website on my arrival - triggering I assume a Secret Service style 'eagle has landed' type response. But their site was down. I therefore had to take the manual ap
Day 38: Ready to respond Apologies for the slight hiatus – turns out being a social commentator while literally nothing is happening is harder work than one first thought. And my editor also went AWOL claiming she had actual work to do. I find it odd that this absence happened during the burst of sunny weather but she assures me it was a total coincidence. In the olden days BC – not Before Christ but Before Corona – I used to spend a great deal of my time volunteering both in the community and in my local hospital so when the NHS put out their call for volunteers I naturally threw my name into the ring along with another 800,000 people much to my neighbour’s horror as she despairs about the things I volunteer for (but I have subsequently discovered that she has also added her name to the list). Sadly, unlike her, I am designated old and vulnerable – goodness I’m fed up with that word it should be removed from the dictionary. Anyway, I have been ass
Day 34: The Beautiful Game For many people, the reality of what lockdown entails was embodied by the steady cancellation of sporting events . There was initial (doubtless financially-driven) resistance. But then, with the inevitability of a domino rally, the colossuses all started to fall. The end of the Six Nations. The Premier League. The Champions League. Euro 2020. Nine Grand Prix races. The Boat Race. The Grand National. The Tokyo Olympics. The Masters. Wimbledon. Now, there are quite a few things in the list above I would ordinarily have thought I'd be delighted to see the back of. But I'm belatedly realising my shortsightedness. In the time Before Corona I would have had every other Saturday afternoon to myself as the husband poodled off to watch his local football team. Then his Sundays were spent watching football, rugby or golf on TV. During the week there was generally football on TV most evenings and of course in the summer we have cricket and yet more gol
Day 32: Strike a pose Corona or no corona I have decided that in these peculiar days it is far too easy to let standards drop. Never mind dancing like no-one's watching, we're now dressing like it too. Just one look at my hair is enough to scare me witless so as spring bursts into bloom and lockdown rolls on I have decided to embrace the positive side of Corona-driven fashion norms. This blog is predominantly for women so apologies to any gentlemen who feel that their fashionista style has been ignored. I have however suggested a couple of things and if in doubt you could always just keep growing the beard and fashion it into a nice belt when it's long enough. Buying swimwear Last year’s swimwear was awful, so you must buy new, except three weeks of binge-drinking, eating and watching TV has taken its toll. Not even tummy-control bikini bottoms will save us this year. Lightweight two-season dressing gown Wave goodbye to frumpy, outdated towellin
Day 30: Lessons learned In the days Before Corona, Easter holidays were eagerly looked forward to by children and parents alike as a timely respite from the rigors of normal life. Copious chocolate for breakfast? Cheeky ski-ing holiday? Liberally granted leave 'because the kids are off'? Don't mind if I do. How we took those days for granted. This year, chocolate is officially one of the core food groups, leaving the house let alone the country feels like embarking on Frodo's trip to Mordor, and parents are now tearing themselves into pieces trying to manage childminding and teaching while holding down a full time job. In practice, the Easter holidays are not a holiday at all, rather they have just added an additional pressure of juggling all the above while 'being fun'. Creative ideas were exhausted by the end of March. Not to mention the key ingredients (egg boxes, loo rolls, fairy up liquid bottles) are all now scarcer commodities than gold,
Day 28: The great outdoors Camping, whatever anyone tells you, is not fun and can only be classed as a holiday or mini break if your house is worse than a tent. What I was hoping for on my mini break was a yurt that has a proper loo, a power shower and a free-standing bath. I didn’t need an aga, foot spa or cleaner as I was only going to be there for the weekend but what I most definitely required was somewhere warm and comfortable. The tent left over from the daughter’s guiding camp jaunts when she was young was all I had, and it had clearly seen better days. Still as I am an over 70 resolute and indefatigable, I was not about to be fazed by insignificant problems and I started to erect the tent. It only had a small hole in the roof but as there was no rain forecast, I couldn’t see it being a problem. After all, I wanted to merely experience the ‘simple things in life’ it could have been a little adventure amidst all this gloom and despondency. However when I started to cook
Day 25: Happy Easter As it’s Easter this weekend I was considering taking a mini break but have nowhere to go and no means of getting there so it has been suggested to me that to get away from it all it may be an idea to quarter my garden, develop a different theme for each area and then roll a dice to select the 'mini break quadrant' Ordinarily I’d think this was completely mad, but you know what, I’ve already started planning it. In fact even though I can say hand on heart that I have never and will never go camping this is the one time when nobody will see me and I won’t see anybody so nobody is going to care what I look like least of all me!! I am therefore going to join in with a national campaign to ‘camp out’ at home – well in the garden. Campers up and down the country will be supposedly keeping their spirits up (mine will be wine of course) – and raising money for the NHS we’ll see how it goes. It’s also my birthday on Sunday, not the first on Easter Day bu
Day 24: Supermarket sweeping My daily exercise and shopping were combined today as it now takes at least a good half hour walking around the supermarket carpark. Even though I have been going for the ‘oldies’ hour I have decided I am not doing this anymore. People are getting older and older and more infirm and frankly it’s quite depressing. I prefer yelling at families shopping en masse. The average age on oldies mornings is about 86 I estimate – that or they have been walking round the car park for years in a trance. One gentleman I spoke to said that he usually got all his shopping online but that it was now impossible so he had had to venture out for the first time in years. This is appalling and not what good old Mike from Sainsbury has been telling me at all. In fact I have come to the conclusion that it is all a ploy and the governments way of just obliterating the OAPs of this country. Why is everybody in the queue old and predominantly male? Even on the non oldies day it’s
Day 23: Desperate measures For those still counting (or fearing dementia on either my or your part) I took Day 22 off as another rest day. But am numbering blog days chronologically lest we forget how long this godforsaken purgatory is dragging on. For the first time in forever, there has been some non-Corona news. I imagine the journalists were tripping over themselves to be assigned to the Labour leadership results rather than coming up with another ‘ten things we didn’t know about our neighbours’ piece. Jeremy Corbyn timed his departure perfectly I think, and congratulations to Keir Starmer for becoming the new Labour leader. Although he must be ruing the day that he threw his hat into the ring, or at least on the platform that he opposed the government’s inept handling of Brexit, thought Boris was an idiot (or worse) and demanded more money for public services. Now we have the Corona nobody cares about Brexit (anyone else missing it?), public services have b
Day 21: The great and the good* Funny day yesterday. I had been up all night trying to book a slot for a home delivery which was as usual impossible. Just who are these people who manage to get slots? Do they live on their computer? Is there an alarm you can put on to let you know when a slot pops up? Answers by carrier pigeon please to save the postman's bowling arm as he tries to hit our letterbox from 22 yards. My patience is running very thin especially as Mike (Sainsbury's CEO), whose virtues I previously extolled, has now locked me out of my account and to get access to it – yes you guessed it - I have to ring the number that is permanently engaged. Well done Mike!! Send me just one more email telling me how you’re so keen to help all we oldies and I may just be forced to break curfew to come and find you to explain a few home truths. All I know is that I may be over 70, I may be classed as vulnerable (although still not silver), but as sure as eggs is eggs I