Day Forty-eight

Feest Isolation Days – 1 May

Pinch punch first of the month! Saying ‘pinch punch for the first of the month’ is apparently a way of welcoming in a new month and protecting yourself from bad luck. Well we could use a little of that these days so pinch punch to you all. According to ancient playground rules, saying ‘pinch, punch’ must be followed by ‘white rabbits, no return’, which means you can’t be pinched and punched back.  This is something that hadn’t crossed the Atlantic when I was a child, or at least not that I remember. 

Another month has passed in Lockdown, and it is hard not to wonder how many more there may be.  As yesterday was Wednesday, it was cleaning day at our house.  The two of us set about it and several hours later, we were both knackered and in need of a sit down and a cuppa.  Besides taking a great deal of time, cleaning the house is a destroyer of nails.  I always wear nail polish not just for effect, but because I have very easily broken nails.  One thing I haven’t managed to find on our electronic super market shelves is nail polish remover.  Just my luck I was on the last teeny weeny bit when this lockdown happened. Nothing else gets nail varnish off your nails but polish remover and possibly house cleaning.  Maybe I might put some back on next week and see how I fare.

Meantime, in America the death rate from coronavirus has surpassed the death rate from the Vietnam war.  What a tragedy.  Of course the White House takes no responsibility for any of this.  My head is shaking as I type.

When we travelled to Vietnam a few years ago, we were struck by how gentle, kind and helpful the Vietnamese were.  We had a conversation with a cab driver in Hanoi and asked him how people viewed the Americans since the war. For the first time, I heard the war called the American War.  Our cab driver said that people didn’t hold a grudge, it wasn’t within the inherent nature of his countries people, and anyway they won!

When I was in High School, we marched in the streets against the war, male friends tried to think of ways to keep out of the army, and we watched the television news nightly showing the shocking bombing and the escalation of deaths in a place that not many of us had heard about before. I’m pleased to say, I also made it to Washington once and marched against the war there, too. 

To think that Covid-19 has claimed more lives than the Vietnam – or American -War if you’re from there – is truly heartbreaking.  So much more could have been done in America and sooner. 

Here, in Britain, we listen to the Daily Briefing and see the death figures begin to drop. Lockdown is tough, but when I remember that we are all doing our best to help save lives, it isn’t so difficult.  When we marched through the streets all those years ago we held lit candles and sang “all we are saying is give peace a chance” trying to save lives.  Perhaps our song now needs to become “all we are saying is listen to the science”.

When this is all over there will be plenty of time to consider what was done well and what could have been done better. The UK hasn’t got it all right that’s for sure. The Americans on the other hand at the moment look like they are losing another “war”.  Will they never learn?

Captain (now Colonel Tom) and Michael Ball….Number one at one hundred.  There IS hope for us all!

With love

Kathy x

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