Day 52: The Penny Drops

Evidently, so I’ve heard, the healthy over 70s are set to be released back into the wild amidst rumours of ‘social unrest’ if we were made to endure a longer lockdown than the rest of the population. 

Finally, someone is listening. 

We “vulnerable” types are a generation born during rationing (some of us even caught some of one or both World Wars). We grew up alongside rock and roll in the 50s. We reached maturity during the 60s, with all that entailed. We mostly forget the 70s. We raised our children in the 80s. We packed them off to uni and retired in the 90s and now we’re whatsapping and zooming and googling and blogging with the best of the ‘woke’ generation in the – whatever the current decades are called.  Vulnerable, us?!  You show me one millennial who could have survived any of that let alone all of it.

So many of us – myself included – would prefer to face actual incarceration over being forced to endure a longer lockdown. Now there’s a thought: if that happened then I could write my blog from prison. I think Jeffrey Archer made quite a bit of money from doing just that. 

It seems to have finally dawned on our eminent MPs that it is impossible to have a permanent lockdown on the over 70s. Not least because, given the fact that we make up nearly 9 million of the population there simply aren’t enough supermarket delivery slots available to cater for us. Well thank you for stating the obvious, I could have told you that weeks ago. Perhaps they’ve only just started trying to get a slot.

Letting us out will mean wearing masks I presume. I don’t sew obviously so have tried following YouTube videos to make them from socks, T shirts and any other bits of material lying around. They DO NOT work. Besides looking like a complete idiot I nearly suffocated myself in a sock the other day.  Never content with mere practicality, a true over 70 could have a different facemask for every look. Industrial facemask with dungarees, paper mask with anime T-shirt, handcrafted mask from Etsy made from vintage She-Ra curtains. Of course none of them offer any real protection. But it’s the thought that counts and at least the passing nervous nellies will feel comforted that we’re not ostensibly breathing the same air.

Talking of masks, shopping the other day made me laugh. Not for the first time I hasten to add. People are just so very odd! 

Imagine the scene. Lady puts 2 children in trolley, eldest child about 7 or 8 I would imagine – perhaps he had a problem with his legs – who knows? In these days of people donning Hazmat suits and washing their trolleys before entering the supermarket I would have thought on health and safety grounds two children and their grubby shoes was more of a health hazard than the Corona but hey ho if she wants the family to get eColi good luck to her. One child was sporting a pair of rubber gloves that were too large for him and the other had a face mask clearly delivered from Chernobyl that virtually covered his face completely while the mother was wearing her mask on her head. Just why do they bother? It really begs the question why is everyone so concerned about the over 70s? I think the younger generation have a lot to answer for frankly.

So, ministers, when you are deciding over the next couple of days whether to let us out or not just have pause for a while please. You would never suggest extending the lockdown for obese people despite talk of their greater risk and neither would you extend the lockdown for  BAME groups who also are high risk. It just wouldn’t happen would it? So why are we the only ones with no human rights?

I must also share something that resonated with me. This appears to be a very sensible question from a lady in Swindon that was published in her local paper:

“As men are more susceptible to the corona, has anyone considered letting women and children out of lockdown first? They could run the country for a few weeks and see how things go while the men stay at home baking banana bread and clapping.”  

Now that really IS something for ministers to ponder.