Feest Isolation Days – 25 March 2020
Phew! The Pandemic is nearly over. Just a few short weeks to Easter and then according to the Americans, everyone will be able to go back to how it all was before. That’s what the President of the United States says. The Liar-in-Chief has spoken. Apparently schools in America plan to return mid-April, so my sister in Pennsylvania tells me.
It’s chilling listening to this. People want to believe the President, they need his leadership. The fantasy he spews is far easier than the social distancing, being off work, having kids at home, and unable to visit your favourite restaurant of choice. Mr. Trump must have missed the reports we watched on the five o’clock news yesterday!
The images of the hospital beds in Spain and Italy, empty and waiting, lined up like something not seen in the Western World, since World War Two. The former Edexcel Centre in London, set up quickly by the army as a hospital with four thousand beds. The Nightingale Hospital. Ready. Waiting for the virus infected people to arrive.
We had a Waitrose delivery yesterday. Plastic bags were placed outside our front door filled with the order we’d made on line a few days ago. Marigolds on, we started unpacking. First though we began with what will become our new normal…Washing The Waitrose. Every item was cleaned with warm soapy water or sanitised with antiseptic wipes before being put away. The mountain of plastic we have created from just this one shop is frightening. Reassuringly normal items for this household at least– hummus, chicken pieces, pomegranate juice (!), bags of lettuce, goats cheese. All were scrubbed clean and hopefully became virus free. I got tetchy somewhere between the goats cheese and the lettuce. That vision of hospital beds swirled around the sink along with the soapy water. Time to do my exercises and get away from this new reality.
After dinner we headed, as we do these days, to the drawing room. There are no concert, ballet or theatre tickets in the box where we keep such things. The box like the seats, is empty.
Before Washing the Waitrose and the five o’clock news, the day felt so normal! Terry gardened, I worked on my book, we chatted on What’s App and by phone to the kids, I cycled away on my bike and did overtime on my mat work. Somehow Washing the Waitrose took the edge off normal. Brought it all home, and those images on the news reminded us of what’s about to hit.
Definitely time for a Christmas Cracker kind of joke. A warning.. I’ve also included the American President.
Christmas Cracker sort of joke
A Roman walks into a bar. He holds up two fingers and says, five beers please!
American President sort of joke…
With Love
Kathyx
Had a long comment and then list it… too frustrated to rewrite… damn this virus
Just now looking out of the window with the sun illuminating the tracery of the budding branches and listening to the birds without the background traffic noise the virus seems to belong a parallel reality.
I don’t know whether you listened to the BBC’s ‘More or Less’ programme on the pandemic; sobering but matter of factly entertaining. In a similarly grim but upbeat vein; the Washington Post’s Coronavirus `Pac- Man’ game`: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/