Day 60: Take one dose of common sense

Everybody seems to be running the country at the moment and they all have their own solutions to the problems raised by the current pandemic. Conservatives, Labour, Scientists, Medical experts and Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Well quite honestly they need me – yes I can sort out one problem that has been highlighted this week and very simply too. We over 70s are a resilient bunch of people despite the fact that we are reportedly dropping dead all over the place. A local resident sent round an email asking people in his street if they could be of help in case some of the older neighbours may be too nervous to go to the shops. Within an hour he had 25 volunteers...all over 70. A case in point.

Sadly however according to Age UK, stress and anxiety are fuelling cases of malnutrition in elderly people who have restricted access to shopping. Not through lack of money but those who are terrified to go out. They are confused by guidance (aren’t we all?) and their regular support networks have collapsed because of the pandemic. They are not on anyone’s ‘list’ and normally they manage but as we are told repeatedly these are not ‘normal times’. 

I am presuming that Age UK know who these people are if they think they are suffering from malnutrition - well I would certainly hope so. The RVS have 800,000 volunteers standing by just for these sort of scenarios – as I well know having clocked up over 800 ‘volunteer hours’ in vain. The latest missive from them last week was to suggest that even though we were still being advised to stay at home we should download and print a poster they had made and then stick it up in every supermarket we visited to advertise that there was help available. This is of course a Catch 22 as the people who need the help are NOT wandering round a supermarket.

My solution which is a great deal simpler is this. If Age UK know who needs the help and the RVS have 800,000 volunteers doing absolutely nothing would it be so difficult to ask the two parties to come together and sort it out!!

Problems with food supplies don’t stop with the frail and elderly though. In France people aren’t buying enough cheese so they are being told they must eat more in order to save the country’s dairy industry from collapse.Belgian people are being told to eat more chips to help struggling potato growers, in the UK we are being asked to have a ‘steaknight’ to try and reduce the glut of beef and as there is a glut of lemons on the Amalfi coast due to the lack of fruit pickers from eastern Europe (which begs the question - just who are these superior fruit pickers – everyone wants them apparently and they appear to be the most sought after employees in the world)

Now I’m generally not one to indulge in national stereotypes. But I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if governments demanded that Americans should double their hamburger ration, Australians ought to down twice as much Vegemite and here in England we would be told to eat more Cumberland sausages and ‘throw a mackerel on the BBQ’. It is after all our patriotic duty.

No thought of food mountains in Iceland though. Their forestry service has recommended Icelanders to hug a tree once a day to boost their sense of wellbeing. Rangers say that a daily, five-minute hug should do the trick. We all know that spending time in nature is good for us and although we are now allowed out for longer we still can’t hug our fellow human beings so this does seem like a tempting alternative. Of course there is the risk of cross contamination from others who may have hugged the same tree so you could always swerve the actual physical contact and just give your local trees an appreciative gaze. If you don’t have any trees within ogling distance you could always flirt with your houseplants instead.