In A World Gone Mad: Saturday 9 May 2020

Saturday 9 May 2020

We have been in lockdown since February, we stated earlier than most with getting the virus early. It looks as though the powers that be, are looking at releasing the restrictions—or at least loosening them.  It worries me.

A couple of weeks ago we were hitting 1000 deaths a day in England, last week we had two days where the numbers dropped into the two hundreds.

People are stupid, they heard noises that the worst is over and started flouting the rules.  The traffic on the road today is horrendous. We combine our own shopping with shopping for Max’s mother and running the dog. The sun has brought people out in their hundreds.

We did our bit, as Britons, we are all pulled out of the womb by our stiff upper lip. We’ve been nice to people for the first time since the sixties, we’ve clapped the NHS and looked after the elderly and put money into a PayPal account for some old codger on a Zimmer frame walking around his garden.  We’ve watched telly and baked, we’ve put on weight and drunk beer sitting in our gardens and we’ve been so stoic and supportive of everybody.

And we’re all getting bored of it now.

Yesterday, when we took Teagan for her run, we saw two streets up were having a street party for VE day—yay it’s seventy-five years yesterday since the war ended. They were drinking and listening to war tunes and mingling, touching, and chatting in non-household groups. Every house had a table of goodies, but people were helping themselves to what the entire street had baked. What fantastic community spirit. I’m all for it, I’m well up for the sausage rolls and cakes, all home baked and delicious. But don’t they get that we’re fighting our own war. So, the Government says we’re beating it, great –but we haven’t won yet. They announce that the figures are down for the first time—people stop taking it seriously and yesterday, a week later, the first cases have incubated since then and 662 people died.  What happened to under two hundred?

I worry about the second wave. We know it’s coming as soon as restrictions are lifted people will be out in droves.  The restrictions weren’t to save people’s lives as such—they were put in to slow the peak so that hospitals could cope with the influx of patients. They pulled it off, but only just. This isn’t the end, it’s only the slow down of Stage One. We have stage two to come.

My worry is that people won’t wear it twice. We’ve done it, we’ve been good and queued for our shopping in ways we’ve never had to before. People have been very community minded and looked out for others. But already we’re seeing that slipping. In B&M on Wednesday, people were ignoring the directional arrows. They were moving barriers to save having to walk the course.  They were two’s up in the freezers. Have they forgotten already that people in their town have died this month and next week it could be them?

I suspect if we’re put into a second lockdown in a few months’ time it will be a very different story. I think there could be riots, looting, public demonstrations and the very polite British public may well revert to type and be revolting.

I can’t praise our government enough, they had days’ notice to prepare for this. So, we had a PPE crisis—why should the taxpayer be paying for the PPE in private care facilities when beds are costing between nine hundred and 1,500 pound per week? The government have done their best to look after the economy and can’t do right for doing wrong. I’m not on furlough, but that’s my company’s decision not the powers. The government have tried to bring the country to a stop—so that everything goes to sleep ready to wake up as though it’s been a blink of the eye. They’ve tried to make it so that businesses don’t go into decline and that people can pick up from their last sale and go onto their next one. There have been zero percent business loans, pay outs for people with no income. I think they’ve done the absolute best that they could in the situation. The mint must be printing money like the world has never seen, and it’s going to take decades for the economy to recover from this—but people aren’t starving. There is help for every citizen in this country if they need it—including the homeless.  I believe other countries, Denmark being one, have done nothing to maintain an income for their citizen’s. We have been very fortunate.

If people hang in there and listen, this will all be over, and we can all get back to work—if they don’t, we’re looking at eighteen months to two years to hit the five percent safety buffer.

People don’t listen.

Annie is holding court every day and has barbeques and parties at her house, inside and out. Carrie, Bell and Ocean are going there to cope with the boredom.  Ocean has her little friends round for playdates. Belle screamed her head off about going into thirteen weeks of isolation because she’s in the high-risk bracket with all of her illnesses—she lasted three days before she had a lad round to her flat for the night.  In the early days of lockdown, Andy was going to his girlfriend’s house daily for his booty call. I was furious with him and told him if he was going to his girlfriends to stay there—they split up a couple of weeks ago when the pressure got to them.  Since then, Andy’s been perfect and apart from coming out with us for a run on my birthday, he hasn’t left the house.

Max and Andy treat life as though they have a golden ticket—we’re safe, we’ve had the virus, we can’t get it again. I’m not so sure and am taking no chances.

My priority is Teagan, as long as she gets her run, I’m not bothered about leaving the house. I’ve only been in a shop twice sine lockdown began, once in the early days and I soon tired of that novelty, and once on my Birthday when I went plant and essentials shopping. Max is our designated shopper and the pressure on him is immense—he is always running around for other people.

Max, for his part is having withdrawal symptoms for TK Max. He longs for the day he can go back in and gab himself a designer bargain. This is another area in which we differ greatly. He makes ‘nipping to TK’s,’ a day out. Max is a very well-dressed man. He’s vain and cares about his appearance. He considers himself a man of quality and will only buy quality clothing. He might buy one piece—but will pay upwards of fifty pounds for it. I go to the sale rail at Asda, am in there for ten minutes tops, and come home with an armful of tat for twenty quid. I never try anything on, not in a million years.

 He will only buy his clothing at TK’s. He looks at every item on every rail. He will try on several of his favourites—but he won’t pick anything to buy, no, that would be too easy. We go back to the beginning and look at the same three pink shirts again. I have to tell him which I prefer. I really couldn’t care less. I think we’re about to score, but he puts all three of them back and looks at all fifty rails again. I tried putting a thirty-minute limit on him once—it didn’t work and, as I lose the will to live after fifteen minutes, I just don’t go with him anymore. I can’t do more than one circuit because the boredom slays me, and I sit on one of their fluffy pink faux fur chairs, pulling faces at him until he’s done. I’ve learned to stay at home.

I am a bad friend. Ten months ago, I was given a book to edit by one of Max’s old scout mates. Jim’s a good friend, he and Max grew up together and he’s a good friend to me. He did all the driving when we went to France and we stayed a night either side of France in his caravan with him. We had an amazing road trip to and from the Chateaux, and I spent a lot of time with him, sunbathing and reading while Max was go karting and mountain biking and generally trying to kill himself by being down with the kids. Jim is something very big in football.

The book he has written is amazing, it is an encyclopaedia of every player, in every club, in every league—ever. It must have taken years to write. There are hundred of thousands of entries. I took his book to edit for him when we moved into this house ten months ago. I told him I’d have it back to him in two weeks.  I am currently on ‘W’ the book is fantastic, it’s an almanac for people with an interest in football to dip in and out of when they want to know a player’s form and history—but it’s so dry. I can only do half an hour at a time and my eyes go squiffy. I’ve told him the storyline is weak, the characters lack intrigue and interaction and the description is lacking. I said it had better have a good ending.

Jim is such a sweetie that when the guilt gets to me and I send an update message saying, I’m so sorry for the delay blah blah blah, my cat died and the big dog ate my homework, he shrugs it off and says it’s no problem. This is a typical entry, post edit of all waffle.

Wyatt, Ben

Date

Defender who joined St Albans City in 2018 from Braintree Town. The left-footed full-back helped the Iron clinch promotion to the National League. He started his career at Norwich City and was a key player for his home-town club – starring for the under-18s during their victorious FA Youth Cup campaign of 2012/13. A switch to East Anglian rivals Ipswich Town followed in 2014 where he signed professional terms. He found opportunities limited during his time at Portman Road and signed for Maldon & Tiptree United a year later. His form for the Jammers earned him a path into the professional game as Colchester United called with a one-year deal. In October 2016 he joined Concord Rangers.

The guy’s knowledge and dedication are unparalleled, he has put so much effort into this book, but there are a million entries and I’m only on W. Can you imagine how long Smith and Jones took? Jim is a real gentleman and if it was my Character, Katie Bell from the book I’m working on, writing this, she’d say that he had pure class, like. All that aside, I must get the damned thing finished and back to him before the next edition is ready for edit.

Max is a football buff and loves the game. I enjoy winding him up by saying, ‘I’ve forgotten more about football than you’ll ever learn.’ It’s true, I know everything there is to know about football, but it goes from the eyes, to the brain, and out again. I edit it and forget it. I’ve just copied and pasted one of the listings not two minutes ago—I couldn’t tell you the player’s name.

We’ve had a couple of very bad days with Arthur. We were getting used to the last phase which was the delusional and hallucinating stage—at least that was interesting, and you never knew what he was going to say or see next. And bang, we’ve shifted again—the aggression has jumped up a level. He just wants to fight the world.

Yesterday we had the spitting issue again, but he ranked that to a whole new level too. He leaned over my kitchen sink and did the covering one nostril and blowing thing so that a string of thick mucus jet propels itself onto the back of my sink and slowly slides down. And then he picked up my clean tea towel to wipe his face on. How many times has he used my towel and dish cloth to do this that I’m not aware of? Every time I need to use them, I have to get fresh ones out of the drawer. Every time it came back into my mind, and it was often because I do tend to obsess, I was gagging.

No.

I’m sorry but I am not having that.

I won’t relay the conversation because it’s all repetition of previous arguments, but we went head to head and I’m sure the neighbours five streets down heard him yelling and threatening me.  I didn’t shout, but I did call him a dirty, disgusting old man. Max intervened and I’m thankful to say he backed me and took my side. To be clear, this behaviour is not the Alzheimer’s, it’s something Arthur tells me in every argument, that he’s done all his life and why should he have to stop now?

Because it’s my sink, in my house, that’s why.  And if he’s going to live here, he’s going to have to be trained in a couple of areas. Everything he does annoys me, but I treat it all with patience and smile through it all—until poor Max has to suffer me ranting about it. But there are two things that I can not and will not tolerate, the spitting all over my house and in my mugs and glasses, and his nastiness with my animals.

And so, we come to yesterday—the morning he thought we’d slept together, and he tried to snog me—and the morning he punched Teagan in the face.