More lockdowns, more restrictions … more VACCINES!
Nearly a year since BC [before covid], keeping up the family streak of doing one’s own thing, and to celebrate brother Peter’s birthday I lived it up yesterday. Entirely antisocial and not at all following the ‘we are all in this together’ I lunched out with friend Julie. I decided my mental health came first.
Doesn’t sound like anything unusual? Bear in mind the context. We are locked down, only allowed to form a bubble with one other person from another household, and not allowed to change our bubble – we can’t be promiscuous bubblers. In addition I am classified as clinically highly vulnerable and I think am really only allowed out briefly once a day for exercise. But I have to have an eye injection every four weeks. And a few weeks ago it suddenly dawned on me that there was one place one could meet a friend indoors out of the cold, have a coffee and even a meal and this was a hospital because they have restaurants because their staff have to be able to eat. So yesterday Julie [staying with me] and I decided enough was enough, our mental health was what mattered and we were going to have a treat, out to lunch in [of all places] a hospital.
So first of all, on to TWO buses [a rare treat] socially distanced from others because numbers are limited on buses, and whilst I had my injection she had the treat of a walk along the south bank on a lovely sunny day.
And we met outside the restaurant, social distance queuing along with staff, and chose from the not very extensive menu – tuscan chicken for me, salmon bake for her, and a little icecream tub each.
Alternate chairs marked with a big X DO NOT SIT HERE, and I mistakenly sat opposite her on one of these. Oh dear. A friend said we should photograph and rate the meal as people do nowadays when out to a good restaurant. I think we decided 6 or 7. The food a bit bland, and why? because there was virtually none or little salt in it – so really healthy!
An espresso from a machine and then a bus ride home – me and ‘my carer.’ Visitors not allowed in the hospital, but after my eye injection my sight is not good, so that was obviously why she was there. So home, exhausted after all the excitement, and a nap for me. What a day!!! Treats are after all relative aren’t they?
By the way notice that I got dressed up for the occasion. I wore my best mask – my London Transport underground map. And the shaggy dog, or Boris Johnson look – oh to have a hair cut. Possibly scheduled for late April I think at the earliest. But as the schools have just gone back there will be a spike which will inevitably delay the dates – that is if THEY [the politicians] really stick ‘to the science’ as they say they do and will, and ignore their 3 or 4 principles or measures or whatever they call them. Aren’t we all tired of deadlines, dates, red lines, ‘following the science’ and then ignoring it and on and on. It is a year now. I no longer know what ‘normality’ was and wouldn’t want anyway to return to a lot of what was there BC [before covid]
Yesterday I had a very nice [legal] lunch out with a friend sitting out at a restaurant near the river in Battersea. The sun shone and there was hardly any of our usual cold wind. It was a real treat.
In a month or so we may be allowed to go to a restaurant or coffee shop inside, and of course social distance! And I’m applying for tickets for a socially distanced chamber music concert or two in May or June. The shops are all open now apparently but I get things delivered online, or walk to nearby small supermarkets.
I have been completely hooked by watching the Floyd trial on Al Jazeera [sp?]. I have never seen a trial in detail before, and now understand how trials can last weeks. Always interested in interviewing techniques, I was fascinated about the way, through endless boring detail, the prosecution was trying to drum facts into the jury’s memory. And it worked in spite of the defence trying to show so much doubt in so many ways. Much to my surprise they found Chauvin guilty on all 3 counts. Endless appeals now of course. But it would be good if the result were some demilitarisation of US police training and so lessen their use of guns. But that would be a huge change.
I have not heard how much the surge testing in Lambeth and Wandsworth has helped them contain the outbreak of the SA variant. The response was amazing. I gave myself one of the less reliable tests, and had a problem as it made me sneeze. Luckily I did manage to get a result – negative as I assumed. I think I will get one of the proper tests posted to me some time soon. An incredibly efficient system [after their earlier test and trace fiascos]. Day 1 you email, Day 2 it arrives, you administer and take it to a Priority Post Box which are everywhere, and from which collections are made sometimes up to 5 or later in the day even on Sundays. And Day 4 you have the result back, which has told them also what variant it is! At the moment they have started vaccinating over 40s slowly but are concentrating on everyone getting a 2nd test, and trying to reach reluctant people including vaccinating in mosques. Unfortunately all this efficiency raises Boris rating in the polls. Thank heavens we haven’t an election for years, as Labour are getting nowhere, not coming out with policies, or overall strategies or visions or anything much.
Spring is coming and so supposedly is our freedom. Covid rates right down vaccination rates are really up. We have had scares of variants – our own Kent one, South African, and now the Indian. Apparently 80% of the new infections in the country are of this variant. Just as all the restrictions start being lifted, there are new spikes around some cities and yesterday I see that in Clapham and Brixton new testing sites have been set up so presumably we have a little spike here also.
None of this except now at last the raising of the temperature a bit the lessening of the rain and the wind, so that I start believing in spring. And I find I have mixed feelings about our so-called current and possible future freedom. I have got used to staring into space, wasting time, and don’t want to start having a full diary, going out to places. I have started enjoying webinars, lectures and discussions which I would never have made the effort to go out to. So I hope those continue.
I have never fully complied with all the lockdown requirements. I have assessed the risks I take, and in this no doubt I’m like many other millions of people who decide that whatever they are doing is all right. I have had people in my house (not people but a person) who I have judged to be safe and careful. Similarly I have gone into their houses. And when organising the care for my friend Rosa I took real risks because I went into her flat where they were sometimes five different carers none of them vaccinated and so although supposedly having a weekly test I was not very happy about being near. But I did it and in December and January – I had my first and second vaccinations.
Before my vaccination … will I be any different after it?
… and I find that I am just the same!
Strangely I don’t think I felt much more relaxed about life than I did before I had them.
So now we can meet a small number of people inside and can even go into a restaurant. And possibly in 3 weeks there will be more freedom, I don’t know what it is, possibly larger gatherings inside (which I don’t fancy), and perhaps no need to social distance (which I also don’t fancy).
I loved going into concerts in the Wigmore Hall, social distanced and secure.
I’ve liked getting on buses with limited seating. I have not liked being on a bus when people stand near me, or even once when a woman sat right next to me.
I will miss having my neighbours around all the time as they start going back to work. My four young men next door working from home have been a pleasure apart from when they on occasions have been outside at 3 AM talking. In these five houses I am sometimes the only older person, who at various times has been looked after by my younger neighbours. I would never have got to know them at it not been for Covid. I would have seen coming back and going off to work and to their various gyms and social life.
Various local shops have opened, all have converted coffee shops into grocery and fruit and vegetable suppliers, with very delicious cheeses, pastries, bread, and interesting other groceries. I will miss queueing outside as they serve one from a table in the door. I also miss the extraordinary sight of young people queueing, social distanced, right down the pavement, in a way which I can only remember seeing pictures of in Russia and East Germany when there were shortages of food and the word went around that something special was in the shop which brought people out to queue for hours. But these young people were not queueing for anything more than a plastic cup of coffee and possibly a pastry. And queueing patiently. Now they can go inside and sit down so they can resume their old lives.
I wonder now what sort of life most people will go back to, how much they will change things, and how much they will even remember about this awful 14 months.
So what I want to do with my new life? What I really want and have had a little bit of is just sitting with friends and talking relaxedly about the world, and of course because of our age about all our and our friends, ailments, and the awful effects on everyone of Covid and lockdowns. The consequences have gone so far beyond the obvious things of people being ill, dying, unemployed. The world has been divided even more into the haves and the have-nots. Some of us like me have more money now because we haven’t been out spending it as we usually do. Others are now in dire straits, so along with other charities I now give to food banks, local initiatives trying to survive with limited or no funding, as well as to South African and NGOs working worldwide in hard-hit countries. We in the UK were able to get vaccinations very early on because our government gambled and supported all sorts of pharmaceutical company initiatives. Other countries haven’t had that ability. In the UK also we have a Conservative government which has thrown unbelievable amounts of money at supporting people and businesses and the arts. Years of austerity made life for many people really hard. Suddenly the same government is throwing money as though debt does not matter. No wonder our labour party is in disarray. The Conservatives have taken over many of the measures they would have wanted to introduce had there been money and not an obsession with reducing government debt regardless of the effect on people’s lives. So the debts are now huge and we will no doubt all be paying for them in all sorts of ways probably for the rest of my life
so I look forward to some sunshine, seeing friends here, and travelling to visit others in the UK. I am not going to any other countries this year although I still have huge longings for Venice. I am not prepared to take the risk of being stuck in some other country, of being isolated in some hotel somewhere, although I would like to go see friends in Europe. I want to do train travel, if possible not fly, and so with limited energy may be living a much more restricted life. – One that suits my body much more. And so my contacts with people further away are probably going to be restricted to emails and telephone calls as now. I zoom only for meetings. I don’t want what SAP – I am dictating this and I like what my dragon has made of what SAP. – Or any other wonderful new means of communication. I have huge problems learning new things because of problems with retention so I like landlines and email and that’s it.
We now have “Freedom Day”. Along with everyone else I’m not quite sure what this means except that people are allowed to mix, and regardless of the numbers supposedly limited they are mixing. This whilst the number of new cases every day are in thousands but deaths and hospital admissions down.
The bus slows down towards Trafalgar Square and then crawls forward 1 foot at a time. This is because on Trafalgar Square there is a huge crowd with banners, posters, drums, and noise. We have ground to a halt because this demo is apparently crossing over our road presumably to go to Whitehall. I take my phone out and try and video but not very successfully. However, I do realise this is an anti-VAX demo.
Then I look to the right, and on the other side of the road is another demo. This one is about trans-rights, seems smaller less showy but with quite a lot of fun. And interestingly quite a few black people, some singing and dancing.
I look then to my left and
between us and Trafalgar Square we have another demo. Hundreds perhaps thousands of young men on cycles go past.
My first reaction is one of joy. Isn’t it wonderful to live in a country and a city which allows such demonstrations. There are only five of us on the bus and two young women complaining loudly and shouting at the driver about why he doesn’t move. They also remark, I think aimed at me that this is not entertainment. They are angry, they are frustrated and I wonder what their lives are like. At some stage I explained to them that our bus can’t move because the demo is crossing the road down which we will be going. Sometime later exasperated by their performance I suggest that if they are in a real hurry that they go and ask the driver if he could open the door and let them out so that they could walk to get away from the hold-up. The response is “you have no idea where I live so how can you possibly think I could do that”. They keep quiet after I say that if they walked a little way down they would probably be able to get another bus which was clear of the hold-up. Other passengers in the bus just sit passively and apparently disinterestedly. I wonder why.
Finally we move and make our way towards Brixton. As we near it we start slowing and eventually stop along with about another 30 or so buses. I’m very tired so I think I will just sit it out. I think oh dear another stabbing of a young man. A few days ago in mid-afternoon on Brixton High Street police cars and ribbons and mid-afternoon a young man has been killed. I ask the driver if he has any idea why the hold-up. He says it is a demo. By this stage my enthusiasm for freedom and enjoyment of people having rights has faded. I tried desperately to think how I’m earth I can get home but know I am trapped. So I asked the driver to open up let me out, I walk a little find a bench sit on it, glad of a little fresh air [hardly fresh as I have the fumes of about 30 or more buses around me]. So I walk on a bit and across the road I spot an ice cream parlour.
I decide I’m going to go and sit wherever I can and just wait until the traffic moves.
In I go to another world. I am ushered to a seat, given a menu and told to go to the desk to give my order. At every table is a large notice saying “anyone found damaging these seats will be prosecuted”. I know I’m in another world as I try and imagine who it is you would want to damage these plastic seats. The place has a lot of mothers and children, at what stage will they run riot? 
The menu is made up entirely of very sugared things. I can’t even see coffee mentioned as a possible. So I succumb and order a mango miracle and a glass of tap water. I eat half of my huge confection which has a little mango ice cream along with a lot of cream, meringue and other ice cream. No sign of any people wanting to destroy the seats.
Eventually I see the traffic is moving and I cross the road and get a bus home – crawling onto my bed to have an exhausted sleep.
So much for London’s freedom. The Brixton demo also is an anti-VAX one. In the bus I pick up leaflets which have invited me to Trafalgar Square for Freedom Day – ‘all of us together round the world’ bringing the word of eminent scientists about the vaccine having spikes which will invade us. Very clever message. I try and find information on the Internet about these academics. They are mentioned but not what they say, not the articles that are quoted. They seem to be academics [perhaps disgruntled, falling out with their peers] who for whatever reason [perhaps because of this] have been shunned
This raises more questions in my mind about Google and its power to remove things it doesn’t approve of. Before this I would have said how good that’s falsehoods are not being spread. But then I start thinking about removing such things from the Internet only giving the conspiracy theory people more ammunition they can deal with. They can claim that the truth is being hidden from us. I give up. What is the answer?
Meanwhile the number of covid cases rises, sometime dramatically, but luckily the hospital can still, on the whole cope. I have young people living round me, and in each house there has been a case of covid.
RECORDED BY MY DRAGON, and then corrected when it really got muddled about what it was hearing
Covid and lockdowns have very strange effects, the obvious ones and then the unexpected. For me the unexpected is my attitude to masks.
March 2020 – we are encouraged to wear masks. The evidence as to their capabilities is mixed. Are we doing them for them or are we doing are we doing it for me.? I am very doubtful. I get somebody to buy me a mask reluctantly. I am given blue plastic ones by another friend. I find them hot, I feel I can’t breathe, but I start wearing them. I don’t wear them when out in the open, but they become mandatory in any closed space. I gradually adapt to the reality of them being in my life although I don’t think they help me, and I am not sure whether they help others
a few months later – we are allowed out again and limited pre-booked visitors are allowed in museums. In the Tate I spot a cloth Turner mask. I buy it and feel a little better about masks because it’s not plastic so I wash it, not very thoroughly, but I reuse it.
As time goes by an essential part of my getting ready to go out means I don a mask. When the London transport Museum advertises a mask with the London underground map on it I buy several and give them to friends. I noticed that some people are wearing matching masks depending on their outfit. My London transport mask is in a very strange way my way of showing I am a Londoner. I can no longer be a European because of Brexit but I can be a Londoner.
I get fond of my London transport mask. It becomes my favourite with the Turner one only second. On the few occasions that I am going out somewhere my dressing up consists of wearing my London transport mask. Very weird!
One day I drop it after getting off the bus and am really upset at losing it. I can almost not believe what I do the next morning, before 7 o’clock I would walk back past the prison to look for my mask. It is gone. I comfort myself that at least somebody else is appreciating it because there was not time for to be collected in the rubbish.
August 2021 – the use of masks becoming less and less frequent even on London transport we are we all supposed to be wearing them, and even inside now shops start advertising that the wearing of masks is voluntary although recommended. So what I do then? I go on the London transport Museum site and find they are now selling a pack of three London transport masks – one with a white background like I had before with the tube map on it; one with the black background which shows the night undergrounds; and a third one with a white background and the London transport logo all over it. I am delighted and order a set. So now, when I don’t have to wear masks in many places I have a set of four masks in order of popularity. So before going out I work out where I’m going in the next few days and which Mask will be worn for which occasion.
Covid and lockdown’s do strange things to people. How am I going to cope when masks are no longer required at all, and I have four favourite masks sitting forlornly in the cupboard to be thrown away by whoever is clearing my place when I die.
Shed a little tear for masks.
Turner mask from Tate Britain – Me in my LT daytime underground masks – London Transport masks
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