LONDON LOCKDOWN WEEK 5

Week 5 of London Lockdown, or Day 30 to be precise.

What can you see out of your window, wherever you are in the world?  How is lockdown for you? How are you coping? Lot’s of places now attempting to come out of it and I’m delighted for Spain that the children are finally going to be allowed out – that must have been an absolute nightmare not being able to take them out at all.

Here in the UK we still haven’t been told about our exit strategy and we are all beginning to get a bit twitchy. I have decided I’ve got enough time on my hands to have an existential crisis. Have written about this seperately.

If there is no plan to get us all out of our homes soon, then the economy will not only be battle scarred it will be needing a life support machine. It’s already plunged 35% and the instability in not knowing how the government are aiming to take us back up the ladder (or is it down the ladder), rung by rung, will cause even more pain if they don’t do something very soon. That said, I appreciate that no one actually has the answer here. Not one single person on the planet knows how to get us out of this mess successfully. Only time will tell as to which countries did better than others and why and we won’t be able to review that (or judge) for at least a year.

The government has extended the furloughing option for another month, so many of us are jobless until the end of June at least. The vaccine is going to take a while and therefore our new normal is currently looking increasingly unattractive. Especially for the over 70’s who have been warned they may have to be locked up for a year away from their children, grandchildren and friends. A year!  Sweden haven’t done that.  Maybe I should move there? Although my mother will want to come too.

The solidarity we’ve all witnessed and the mass outpouring of love and support for our NHS remains exceptional and my daughter has coloured in a picture and stuck it on my bedroom window thanking the NHS (she’s that bored). Boris continues to recover at Chequers and his key nurse; “Jenny from New Zealand” is our new favourite celebrity.

The Nightingale hospital is still thankfully still almost empty and many hospitals are not at full capacity as we slowly start levelling off. The government are now talking about getting the cancer patients back into hospitals for their treatments, which I hope they do very soon or we will have another crisis on our hands. The cancer wards are empty, which means there will be too many late presenting cancers for the doctor’s to have to deal with. There is a stark warning in The Times today that 60,000 cancer patients could die through lack of treatment or diagnosis. SIXTY THOUSAND??? That wasn’t factored into the lockdown plan was it.

Captain Tom has now raised over £27 million to benefit the NHS with his 100th Birthday Walk and there are now lots of videos of him being spotted dancing in Ibiza.

Meanwhile, at the Stay Inn, we are all fine as we embark on our 30th meal together.  Diary entries are taken from a few days, but frankly every day is the same at the moment, so it makes no difference.

DIARY

7.30am Still sleeping fitfully. The new ventilators being made are possibly not fit for purpose and do they even work for Coronavirus patients? The lack of protective clothing and how are all the staff doing?  The mental health and future of our youngsters. Is it a lack of Vitamin D that makes you more susceptible or your blood type? Should we all start smoking as in France they think smokers are less at risk – is it the nicotine or simply smoking out the virus? What to do about my hair colour (or lack of it) and the amount of hair in general on my body. Other friends are also worrying about these last two insignificant-in-the-great-scheme-of-things-things which makes me feel a bit less alone in my shallowness, but I had a rather scary dream about turning into the missing link:-

I also appear to have become marginally obsessed with McDonald’s. I really don’t know why, but I’m very disappointed with them.  They are one of the highest profile brands in the world and have been around for years, with great adverts generally AND WHERE ARE THEY IN OUR HOUR OF NEED??? Shut for business. Just when we all need access to takeaways.  Perhaps I’m wrong and they have plans that I haven’t heard of yet?  But really they should be providing food for the NHS staff and doing adverts about how they are supporting them. Their advert should say “We’re Lovin’ Them” (rather than “I’m Lovin’ It,”  in case I need to spell it out) and then the ad would cut to lots of Big Mac’s and chocolate milkshakes being handed out to all the NHS staff.  Really not sure why I am giving this so much thought, but I feel they haven’t stepped up and are showing a lack of community spirit.

Anyway….

8.00am Get up. CBA to make bed anymore. It’s not helping morale AT ALL. Head downstairs to wash floor and clean kitchen before daughter starts work. This is not fun. I am not finding it soothing or cathartic. Just boring. I don’t even feel any sense of satisfaction when it’s finished. I just feel exhausted and think about going back to bed.

9.00am Do my Pilates in manner of someone who really can’t be bother to do Pilates. In that I mainly lie on the floor on my mat eating a banana and thinking about how exhausted I am and frankly washing the floor was quite enough exercise for one day.

9.20am Read the paper. Potter. Annoy daughter who is working.  Watch the squirrels in the garden.  They have babies.  Admire the budding figs.  The tulips.  Think about getting into gardening.  Come back inside.

10.00am Zoom call with some friends. Keep checking to see if my microphone is on as no one is listening to me. Feel very depressed. Try not to look depressed on video call as this makes me look even older and more miserable than I actually am in real life.  One of my friends has a “circular light” which means she looks radiant and glowing.  Need to work harder on lighting and makeup. Or maybe just phone them instead. Or text.

Noon Hooray! Lunchtime.

1.00pm Unbelievably I am actually embroidering right now. Finally finishing off the last few names on the Christmas tablecloth my mother bestowed to me.  It has the name of every guest who has joined us for a Christmas meal since around 1800 when she first introduced it and even then we thought it was a terrible idea. Now that I have had to sew the names of 14 people onto the tablecloth I think it’s an even more terrible idea. I can’t sew and that’s why it’s been rolled up like a burrito and buried somewhere since Christmas day, becoming smellier by the day. This is because you can’t wash it until you’ve sewn over the names written in pencil. Why she doesn’t get everyone to sign it in indelible ink I don’t know – then I can wash it before embroidering it – which would of course mean I wouldn’t get round to it at all. Anyway. Long overdue job done. One major advantage of being stuck inside with absolutely nothing to do.

3.00pm Go to the supermarket. My son was going to go but he has a cough, so he’s managed to get out of it. Amazed at the amount of loo rolls there are to buy.  Still no flour. Many more people wearing masks and gloves and lots of the staff now in visors too. So weird.

5.00pm Make more chocolate chip cookies. These are filling a void. My daughter makes a Victoria Sponge cake. This also fills a void.

6pm Gin and Tonic time!! WOOHOO. Think about having a cigarette as this sounds like the best new cure so far.  Sit with my son who say’s “mum, WTF is going on with your hair?” OMG if my 19 year old son has noticed, I am really in trouble.

6.30pm Another Zoom catch up, this time with my mother and brothers. My mother has actually managed to get on Zoom. This makes me feel very hopeless. It’s taken me weeks of hassling my daughter to sort out my Zoom. Never mind that we were mainly looking at her left breast whilst she chatted.  I angled the computer screen very high so they could only see up my nostrils rather than the top of my head which is beginning to look like a badger is sitting on it. Was lovely to catch up all together and it made her happy to see us all on the screen together and feel a lot less alone. We now have one planned every Saturday night for the foreseeable future.

7.00pm Friday night cocktails with two of my children started well, with my daughter making Bee’s Knee’s (basically gin with a bit of lemon and honey), but it went quite quickly downhill. We ordered a Japanese takeaway. An hour later we had a text to tell us they had cancelled our order, but taken our money. So we ended up having a late pizza and playing the Name Game. This lasted for two rounds only – around 10 minutes and then they went to bed.

This is how excited they are to be staying in with me:-

This is how excited I am to be staying in with them:-

9.30pm Contemplated going to bed, but it’s Friday night, so I can’t. Instead I drink copious amounts of wine on my own and wonder what my purpose in life is. Whilst contemplating whether I’m having an existential crisis I check out a meme I was sent whereby if you hold a wine glass in each hand, it means you don’t touch your face.

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