Journal of the plague years

For a long time now, long before this epidemic transfixed us and changed everything, I had been aware of a deep change in myself.   Actually, on a daily physical basis I feel brilliant - flexible, strong, energetic, positive, lucky, well, healthy in every way. I take no medicines, feel supplied with just about everything anyone could want, and surrounded by beautiful and beloved things and people.   And yet, something has been changing…   I have been aware of getting older.   It’s easier to relate this to things, possessions, than to people.   Things I have loved, owned, kept, maintained, saved up for, cherished for years, decades, have begun to look different to me.   This has been not only a logical process of thought, but a more inchoate one.. to do with feeling, response, emotion.     I can see that when I die, my management of all these things will suddenly cease. They will no longer be mine, but someone else’s.   That person or peo...

The high-pitch levels of anxiety are definitely starting to calm down, as people suck up the restrictions and start to praise the PM for his leadership.  A couple of days ago he announced he had CV19 (just before the news came out about the total incompetence and lying of the govt about acquiring test kits and ventilators).  Today it seems he has the all clear.   Incredible. The good news (and here I am aware of how bad this is, that I should not wish ill on anyone, at all....)  ... The good news is that Dominic Cummings has the virus.  I am delighted. I hope he is therefore able to reflect on what his actions have brought us to... I doubt he will.  But at least he won't be 'at work' running things.      It has struck me how very very odd his face is. There is not one photo of him which isn't worrying. Even if you screen of parts of his face - eyes, left side, right side, mouth... there is still something weird about his face.  ...

Things move on every day, with changes in mood, resolution, emotional temperature.   All week the wind has been blowing really strongly. The weather was originally brilliantly sunny, then we had a day or two of darkness when the cold was more insistent, and the great organ-pipe chimneys in this house roared (and are still roaring), and then today it started dark and chill, with a dash of sleet for reminder that winter is barely past,… and now we have bright sun again. But that wind - dashing the blossom-laden trees to-and-fro.   The birds are frantic to find food on the feeders in the garden. I note that the ditty I wrote on 19th, logging the blatant feeling of hostility between the uber-rich and the rest of us, is already out of date.      Oh you can’t take it with you when you go    When you drop in your hole and go below    There are worms and rot and mildew    You can think about what killed you    But...

The new ways of doing things have been established with truly remarkable speed. People are themselves policing it, with a sort of camaraderie and sense of righteousness. Very few are remarking on the loss of liberty, and demolition of rights, the new powers given to the police. Very few are talking about the personal costs of this confinement - the difficulties of being alone, for hours or days or weeks, the mental health issues arising (though one farmer in the north was kicked and punched by a walker, while he was disinfecting his gates after hundreds had walked through...  and when he said to this walker - please go away, do NOT walk here, he was savagely attacked.  The walker was - I assume - someone with mental difficulties. Violence so close to the surface. Maybe these walks are his  only resource, but still the anxiety and fear and isolation are very expensive). Very few are talking about the effect on children being cloistered at home - for who knows how l...

Wild garlic in the garden We are pretty much staying in.  Maybe a walk to get milk or potatoes, not much more.  Things are settling down, in many ways. The shock of isolating has died down, though the implications are only just dawning on a lot of people. Glib reassurances or instructions from No 10 are pretty thin: stay home - but supermarkets are not accepting more online shopping requests and even those won’t happen till mid April; some deliveries are being cancelled by email at 30 mins notice, despite being lists for gluten-free or other dietary necessities, etc. etc.     Freelances and self-employed still have no reassurance about their pay.   Barclays is the first bank to announce it will delay charging higher rates for overdrafts… they will suspend charges till the end of April.   The Prince of Wales has corona virus - mildly. Our Tesco has painted yellow lines in the queueing area, and you can only go in when someone comes out. (That was ...

Vicarage End, Kitchen, 1985 We are urged, by strangers who have reason to know, to get in touch with our nearest and dearest, and say - what? That we love them. That we're sorry about that argument. That we wish them well.  We should be dusting out our Wills, documents for Power of Attorney, listing our bank account and online account passwords. Seriously.  People (on FB or Twitter or something) say they took their dad or mum into hospital, very ill, expecting to be able to visit in a day or so, but that is either forbidden now, or it's all too late. That deposition is in fact the final farewell.  People are starting to die. They say, be prepared. Maybe giving the patient a mobile phone is a good idea.... that might be the only means of connection. The last hours and days may be purely in the hands of careworn and exhausted ward staff. These same staff, or their colleagues, are appearing in videos urging people to stay inside. They really are on the front line...

We are about one week into the huge tsunami of change coming to us all.  Coronavirus.  Already profound changes have been made... in thought, word and deed. Today after lunch I drew these grapes, partly as a means of calming myself down. At least we have grapes. In a week or so, such things may be totally unobtainable, as pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes, fresh ginger, flour, pasta, etc are at the moment. We are being locked in.  As we are over 70 we are in a high risk group, so we must voluntarily submit to house-arrest. It is for our own good. We understand why. But how fast, how incredibly shockingly fast the authorities have achieved this.  Empty shelves in the shops.  Truly incredible statements from the office of the prime minister ('We have consulted with the supermarkets and they can handle everything; there will be no shortage of foods or other supplies....'     Supermarkets: 'We have not had any contact with the government..... That...