Day 66: Keeping onself busy

It's becoming increasingly difficult to write about people, their actions, reactions and distractions and I’m finding that each day is a matter of finding things to do that didn’t need doing. I have rearranged the kitchen cupboards, and taken all the clothes out of wardrobes to ‘check for moths’. There were no moths. There have never been any moths in 40 years of living here. The moths are a lie. The husband is continually oiling some garden shears he hasn’t used in 15 years and ‘checking’ the garden hose. He’s bled a radiator which was working fine, soaked a load of brand new mugs in bleach and done a detailed inspection of all the bath towels then put them all back again. However in my defence I do think that it was absolutely necessary to remove and check all the light bulbs. There’s nothing more dangerous than a loose light bulb.

Anyway I started thinking about efforts made by people over the lockdown and obviously the first that came to mind was Captain Tom who has been awarded a knighthood for his wonderful efforts which raised over £33 million prior to his hundredth birthday.

I gather that the NHS workers are going to be recognised for their extraordinary efforts during this crisis too. We have all been clapping each week and proclaiming our appreciation so I think that at the least they should be awarded is a BEM or rather a well-deserved pay increase. But no, the Government have decided that they will be given a badge with CARE written on it. All you NHS and Care Workers thanks for all the hard work – here’s a Blue Peter badge! They might as well dig out all those old Blue Peter presenters and get them to do the presentation ceremony. They’ve had loads of practice after all. Why not go the whole hog and also give them a T-shirt emblazoned with the words – ‘I risked my life for the NHS and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.’ If Sir Tom can raise £33 million walking 100 laps of his garden then I personally think Rishi Sunak should approach him and ask for his help. If he can raise that much money in a couple of weeks just think what he could do for the economy in a few months. Then we could give the NHS workers a real thank you gift.

Those of you who have been following this blog since the beginning might remember my tale of the lost Mother’s Day card sent to me by my son. Well surprise, surprise it arrived on Friday exactly as he said, wrapped in brown paper due to the lack of envelope which he forgot to pick up when he bought it. Just where has it been for the last 8 weeks?