Day Eighty

Feest Isolation Days –2 June

These numbers of lockdown days keep climbing! Let’s all hope that the R number doesn’t.  The weather has been so perfectly wonderful that some people have eased up just when we are at the most dangerous phase of this disease.

Socially distanced visits with friends is a plus that has meant we are taking tiny baby steps toward unlocking.  We still don’t go into shops, we won’t walk where there are lots of other people and continue to clean our own home.  Easing is not totally lifting, and we are not confident to do too much more yet.  More book groups, dinner parties, Pilates, Singing and drinks on Zoom then!

The local news last night shows hundreds of people out and about and not socially distancing.  It is as though they think the pandemic is all over!  Not only did they stray into each other but they left their mess behind as well.  This is not a pretty sight.

An airplane or two have crossed by us high up in the sky, but not an Easyjet flight from Bristol in sight, the flight trails we’ve seen are going somewhere much further away. Spain is opening up its tourism to some countries, but not the UK.  They are correct. Our rate of daily infection at eight or nine thousand means they don’t want us to visit and spike their reasonable rates.  Why is this?  I can’t understand who is getting the infection now. How come so many more people here are testing positive than elsewhere in Europe?  Have there already been too many people not following the rules?

I have avoided talking about the current American situation as it is so painful to watch. Rioting in over seventy-five cities, brutal confrontation by some of the police.  This is not history repeating itself, it is a continuation of what has gone on for decades, if not centuries.  America is at breaking point and still the Baby in Chief tweets aggressive and racist messages. A very good article in yesterday’s Guardian sums up what I think about the man and the current situation.  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/01/george-floyd-donald-trump-black-lives-matter?CMP=share_btn_link

Back in Britain it seems time to think about sewing up a face mask or two. Yet this is not a skill I have. Sewing and I were never happy companions.  Running up a dress for a party is not a skill I ever possessed and even sewing a button on a shirt is problematic to me.  I blame Naomi Bieler. Miss Bieler was a small dark haired woman who wore her hair back in a bun.   She was my home economics teacher when I was in school.  We had several strands of home economics throughout the year and I excelled at the cooking and general home maintenance.  But sewing?  Nope!  It took me ages to figure out how to thread the sewing machine properly, but that was nothing to the time it took me to unpick an entire zipper that ran the length of the dress I was making.  Thankfully, we wore reasonably short skirts in the 1960’s with our little cotton puffy sleeves and A line simple dresses.  The fabric was a lovely heavy cotton and the material was a pretty shade of lemon yellow with a blue print.  To this day I remember that dress!  Miss Bieler told me I had put the zipper in and it wasn’t straight so I had to unpick it by hand and do it again.  It took forever.  Then I carefully pinned it up again and sewed the length of my dress once more.  Nope!  She said it was still not straight. Out it came along with my irritation and resolve to never, ever make anything out of material again. I eventually got the zipper in to her satisfaction and wore the dress once or twice.  Never did I make another garment. 

Any face masks that we wear will come from someone else’s machine.  Naomi Bieler, after all these years, I still recall your dour expression and unhelpful comments.  We could all learn a little something from that couldn’t we? 

With love,

Kathy x