April 7

7th Apr 202013th May 2020 ~ coronet22 ~ Leave a comment

HOW DO YOU MAKE GOD LAUGH?

TELL HIM YOUR PLANS

Just by the London Eye, seen here from our apartment window, stands St. Thomas’s, one of the city’s best- known teaching hospitals, whose specialists are at the forefront of fighting this hideous disease. In its revered Intensive Care Unit, our ebullient, dishevelled Prime Minister, known, like Adele or Madonna, Sting or Bono, simply by his first name, ‘Boris’, lies, for the moment, felled.

Boris is “a character” and the British love “A character”. As Mayor of London, he introduced cheap, plentiful bikes for hire and filled the streets with their docking stations. No matter that the scheme was funded by Santander Bank, “Boris Bikes” they became and “Boris Bikes” they stayed. After Boris hung ridiculously suspended from a zip -wire during an Olympic event, he laughed and the crowd laughed with him. Unlike President Trump, whose every instinct is to build a wall, Boris would rather build a bridge. He has been called, brilliant, lazy, unprepared, and uninterested in detail. He has been called far worse by those who wanted to remain in the EU. He has been spotted backstage, mussing up his straw hair before rushing onto podiums as though out of breath and startled to have arrived at all. And he has been called ‘nonchalant’ for not getting to grips with COVID – 19 soon enough.

But two nights ago, just after the Queen had made only the fifth major speech of her reign, telling the Nation not to worry and assuring us all,”We will meet again”, came the news that our Prime Minister had been taken to hospital as his symptoms from a bout of COVID-19 had failed to improve. (We all knew he wasn’t getting better as we looked at his pasty, swollen face shining with feverish sweat as he stood on his doorstep valiantly applauding the NHS staff last Thursday). Today, having ‘deteriorated’, he is in Intensive Care, not, we are assured, on a respirator but, nevertheless, being given oxygen.

Of course, Londoners, as everyone else in the country and abroad, will have their own attitudes to this news. I can only say that, for my part, I found it surprisingly shocking. Nothing to do with political affiliation – or with politics at all – just to do with the fact that the man who, as a child boasted of his ambition to be “World King”, having finally got as close to that position as is possible, has had it swept away so soon – albeit temporarily. It’s as though the Gods are admonishing him, reminding him who is really in charge. And the unstable world in which we are already living, has become less stable still.

APRIL 5

6th Apr 202022nd Jul 2020 ~ coronet22 ~ 1 Comment

These two deliveries arrived on the same day. The wine turned up anonymously and the weights were brought by David Jarvis, our super-patient trainer, borrowed from his gym for us to use until it re-opens. Is this picture trying to tell us something? Captions, please!

We’ve never used weights but have a stringy, super-fit friend of over 80 who boasts about his capacity to lift unimaginable loads. Not only that, but the lucky bugger has now come safely though Covid-19 without even having to go to hospital. I find myself irrationally envious of friends who have had it mildly and are now free to lead a normal life – not that there is much of a normal life out there to lead. Irrational because, if that’s what I really want, why have I locked myself away up here, sanitising every carrot and leaving delivery boxes outside for days until they’re bug-free?

Our first Face -Time fitness session using the weights is nerve-wracking, me worrying about my dodgy back and “The Writer” making nervous jokes about how, as a boy, he and his friends had all bought Charles Atlas chest expanders in order to turn themselves from 7-stone weaklings into men who would not tolerate having sand kicked in their faces . And, just think, I hadn’t even realised sand had been a major problem in the land-locked city of his youth.

I had imagined ourselves, dressed fetchingly in animal skins, grunting and staggering as we flourished massive barbells over our heads, aided only by the support offered by our tightly-fastened gym belts.

The reality turned out to be somewhat different. No animal was even approached, let alone harmed, in preparation for the session and there was not a grunt or a stagger in any direction during it. As instructed by the lovely David, we sat, gingerly, on our dining- room chairs holding the lightest of the weights in our hands and curling them ever so gently upwards, as far as our shoulders. A few repeats – and that was it!

Fine by us. And , amazingly, the exercises seem to have built up enough strength for us to open the wine.

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Much consternation in London about the closing of some parks and the policing of others. Apparently, too many people are ignoring the social-distancing rules and the Secretary of State for Health and Social care has threatened complete closure of all parks if we don’t behave. What a disaster that would be for so many Londoners marooned in high-rise blocks with children. The parks are a precious resource to so many city dwellers at all times. We so hope it doesn’t happen.

April 4

4th Apr 202013th May 2020 ~ coronet22 ~ 2 Comments

Today we’re celebrating the birthday of one of our closest friends – let’s call him Tod. Tod and Trisha, his wife, Londoners their whole lives, will enjoy his big day isolated in the Highlands of Scotland, completely by accident. Having gone up there several weeks ago to stay in their daughter and son-in-law’s house for a weekend break, they were on the point of returning to London when Lockdown began and their son-in-law went down with Covid-19. How crazy it seemed for them to come home to crowded, dangerous, dying London. Rather stay in the glorious Scottish countryside and hike through the bracken with no chance of bumping into packs of heavy-breathing joggers or gangs of cyclists who refuse to keep their distance.

So they stayed.

And three weeks later, they are still there – with enough clothes for a weekend.

And I am envious.

They bombard us with pictures of the scenery outside their window, each landscape more achingly beautiful than the one before.They brag about the one-person queue outside the supermarket, 3 miles away down a bumpy track and of the bakery where they shop for Butteries. Tod is an early riser and photographs of deer crossing the river in this bucolic paradise drop into my inbox before I’m awake. It’s as though they are taunting us. Why are we here, doing our 10,000 steps up and down our terrace while they are free to roam where they like with no need even to think about social distancing, as there is no-one for miles from whom to distance themselves?

And yet, and yet – am I really envious? Here we are in our own home with our own history around us. There are photographs of our wedding, treasured books, drawers reproaching me for still not clearing them out, the mess in my study in which I claim to be able to find any document. This is where we belong and I fancy I can feel the buzz of the city around me, the city about which we’re still learning, even though we are so confined. Yesterday, for instance, as we walked on our terrace, we heard the loud, aggressive sound of seagulls shrieking and wheeling in a clear sky at the other end of it. As we rushed to look over the railing, my husband shouted that he could see a man on the roof of the apartment block across the road carrying a hawk. Could this be? Is he hallucinating? He’s already dreaming about viruses seeping under the doors.But it was real – a man extending his arm on which sat a huge bird craning its snaking neck to the sky. The screeching seagulls looked down, then faded quietly from the vicinity. Who knew that companies like Rentokil (Other Pest Control services are available!) send out hawks accompanied by men in high-vis jackets to scare seagulls from apartment blocks all over the city?

London is our home and I’m (sentimentally?) pleased to be part of it while it’s suffering. I wonder what Prince Harry is feeling, far away from the city he grew up in, as his grandmother takes the rare decision to speak about the gravity of this crisis. Does he wish he were here?. Does he feel like a deserter? Does he miss the beauty of the city?

April 2

3rd Apr 202013th May 2020 ~ coronet22 ~ Leave a comment

Now I realise this may not look much to you but, to me and other locked down Londoners, this is like coming upon the first snowdrops of Spring. Lavatory paper has been absent from the shops and on-line grocery sites since the frantic panic -buying that preceded this lockdown. Our attempts at using less have not fared well and we didn’t stock up, so I confess to having been worried when my on- line searches yielded only “Parchment Baking Paper”, for which I don’t have much call. I did get as far as wondering what using that might be like and remembered the horrible, shiny stuff we had to use in the 50s because there was no other – Was it called Izal? It came in flat packets dispensing minute squares, looked and felt like greaseproof and was the butt of jokes about children tracing through it and using it to play comb and paper. I remember it felt unkind and slippery and didn’t do the job. As absorption was out of the question, all it did was spread matter about. Anyway,” A Big Welcome Back” ,as they say, to “Luxury Soft’, though I think I could do without the coconut oil.

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I’m astonished at how this lockdown is teaching me things about my husband I didn’t know, after so many years of marriage. Today I came upon him peering into his sock drawer (See below) holding a pair of socks in each hand, and apparently frozen in helpless indecision.

Me: What’s the matter?”

Him: ” I don’t know which socks to put on”

Me: “Does it matter?”

Him: “Of course”

Me: “Why?”

Him: “Because I have ‘writing’ socks and ‘non-writing’ socks”

Me: “Good Heavens! So what’s the problem, you’re going to be writing today aren’t you?”

Him: “Yes, but the writing socks aren’t as nice as the non-writing socks. I save the non-writing ones for going out in and, since we’re not likely to be going out any time soon, I’m wondering whether to stop saving the nice ones and wear them to write in.”

At this point, I decide I’m incapable of making any useful contribution to the conversation and leave him to it.

I notice later he’s wearing socks that say “Tuesday” on them but, since today’s Thursday, I have no idea what message he might be trying to convey about his day’s activities. I also have to admit I can’t distinguish whether these are the going out socks or the staying in ones but I do notice he’s writing – so I draw my own conclusions.

*********************

A Propôs ‘Lockdown Chic’. I receive an email this morning telling me I definitely need “a capsule wardrobe, at this difficult time”. I refrain from writing back to reassure them I already have a capsule wardrobe – two rather worn track suits, washed on alternate days and disinfected around the zips. Apparently zips harbour viruses….

April 1

2nd Apr 202013th May 2020 ~ coronet22 ~ 1 Comment

It’s two weeks, yesterday, since we were in the same space as another person. A jolly dinner party at which there was much embarassment about not shaking hands or hugging. Everyone stood around flapping their wrists and feeling they had to explain themselves. “Well, I favour the Namaste praying movement”, “I think I’ll adopt the”one- hand- on- heart- accompanied-by-a-bow”, ” I think I’m just going to wave”. How long ago that seems and how quickly are new norms established. Already, when I see on TV two strangers meet in the street and peck each other on the cheek, I feel like shouting “Noooo. Step back. Are you mad?”

We are SO lucky. Here we are in clean, comfortable surroundings, with outside space to sit or walk in. We can afford what we need and are enjoying this time together without pressure. Day after day we hear on the radio heartbreaking stories of fear of eviction, lack of work and, therefore, of income, men and women worrying day and night about how to cope until the government pay packages kick in, if they kick in, lack of tests, lack of ventilators, masks, gowns, children needing to be entertained, children needing to be schooled, children needing to be fed. For so many, the virus is only the tragic beginning.

The one thing that make me feel as though I have any control over our own easy circumstances is planning: planning how to get food, planning when to eat it, planning what kind of exercise to do, planning which cupboards to clear out and, today, planning our deaths. That might be just a tad melodramatic but, however Pollyanna’ish one tries to be, there is a chance of dying. We decide to add the codicils to our Wills we discussed some time ago but, as is often the way of these things, never got round to writing.

Our lawyer is working from home. He sends the paperwork. It arrives quickly – and immediately we hit Snag -19, (Think Catch 22, only in this case, there are any number of catches). This particular Snag -19 is the fact that the codicils have to be signed by us, then by two witnesses to our signatures – so far, so possible – BUT – and here’s the catch – we’ve all got to be in the same place at the same time when this occurs. Working out how to achieve it is not unlike that old conundrum about getting a goat, a cabbage and a fox across a river without any of them being eaten.

First, we email two likely neighbours in our block. One has had Covid-19 badly but, of course, can’t prove it because of lack of tests. The other hasn’t but is young and still shopping in the local supermarkets so they are a bit wary of each other. However, they agree to sign and the curtain rises on the following pantomime : We stand in our sitting room, behind the glass door of our terrace, paperwork in hand. One witness comes onto our terrace, followed, at a safe distance, by the other. A clumsy dance ensues as each adjusts his position in order to be able to see us sign, at the same time keeping the prescribed distance from his fellow signatory.

When they are in position, they give the thumbs up and “The writer” and I each sign in turn, holding the paper uncomfortably in mid-air so they can see it.

Ridiculous, yes, but we feel better when we’ve done it. And, no, this isn’t an April fool.

We shall celebrate having completed the task with soup. Pea and mint this time. Never have I made so much soup in the attempt to maintain our vegetable intake. Unfortunately, we are so pleased with ourselves for eating the mass of vegetables, we tend to reward ourselves with chocolate. A friend emailed today saying she anticipates a baby boom and an obesity crisis when this is over. The former we don’t need to worry about, the latter, we most most certainly do…………..maybe tomorrow.

March 30

31st Mar 202013th May 2020 ~ coronet22 ~ 1 Comment

I start today as I do every day, by opening my eyes and, still half-asleep, stumble to my computer to try and bag an on line food delivery slot. My heart actually thumps against my chest as I discover there are fruit and vegetables and cheese and milk. It settles again as I realise I’m being offered these delicacies at the beginning of May. I spend two hours a day trying to order food. Kind (young) neighbours have offered to help but I’m reluctant to call on them till we’re desperate.

Last essential chore last night was to clean our white kitchen floor. Whoever is mad enough to have a white kitchen floor? Years ago I bought a small robot mop to do the job I hate. Sadly, it doesn’t have human form and looks more like a square, white crab as it shuffles backwards and sideways, spitting out a feeble jet of water in front of it, completely inadequate to the task. But why would I want to anthropomorphise it anyway?

The kitchen table and chairs baffle it and , as I get ready for bed, I hear it banging into the steel chair legs over and over until I rescue it, turning its back on the chairs and starting it off in another direction, as you would a child or a dog running towards a lake. Unfortunately, this tactic leaves the space under the kitchen table unspeakable and I will have to mop it anyway in the morning. I finish my bedtime routine, longer and longer with the advancing years, then, before getting into bed, feel oddly compelled to sneak back into the kitchen to check on the robot. There it is, still sidling along. As I leave, I turn on the kitchen light. Suppose it’s afraid of the dark?

“The writer” seems to be doing more exercise than he did BC (Before Covid) when he had every glorious London park at his disposal. Now, he tramps up and down the terrace every day clocking up his 10,000 steps and seeming to enjoy the monotony.

That’s him on lap 33 of the terrace, reflected on the wall opposite:

Yesterday, he spotted a traffic warden down below in the street. No cars, not one – just a traffic warden.

With perfect ironic timing, a Shalwar Kameez I bought on a recent trip to India to wear at a very grand party, turned up in the post today. I could hardly bear to go through my long cardboard disinfection routine, so excited was I to see it.

Yes, yes, I know all about cultural appropriation and I tell you that if I could culturally appropriate the grace and beauty of the women I saw wearing such garments, I would do so in a heartbeat.

Of course, I had tried my best to ascertain that the conditions under which it was being made were as good as possible, but there’s no way I could be certain and I was hit, as I opened the package, by the fact that this exquisitely delicate garment must have left the country just before the chaotic and devastating lockdown that has caused so much misery to so many.

The party was cancelled long ago and the dress will remain unworn, so maybe that’s my punishment for not resisting it, but it’s so beautiful, I can’t bear to put it away and it hangs in my study , an unlikely and inappropriate reminder of the distraught, packed crowds of migrant workers jostling and fighting to get back to their villages.

MARCH 28

30th Mar 202013th May 2020 ~ coronet22 ~ Leave a comment

The city soundscape has changed. The seagulls that cried outside our window every morning have gone back to sea – closed fish restaurants and tidy dustbins don’t yield rich pickings. The sky is empty of planes and we no longer have to strain our ears to hear the yellow tit who lives on our terrace. His song replaces the clank of cranes and accompanies the sound of the pot plants outside tapping on the glass behind the blinds.

This morning there is news from the Outside World!! And, even more extraordinarily, news that is not about Covid-19!!

A text arrives showing a newspaper front page, featuring the photograph of a man whom I met only recently and only once – and under the strangest of circumstances. A friend who lives in a block of apartments not far from ours, was being woken every Friday, Saturday and Sunday by frantic ringing on her front door bell at three or four o’clock in the morning. Certain that no-one she knew would be calling on her at that time, she, nevertheless, felt obliged to look at the camera showing the street outside. It was no-one she knew and she told the indistinct men they must be ringing the wrong bell. They told her the number they wanted and she told them it wasn’t hers. Months into this torture and at the end of her tether, she begged me to come up and confront her neighbour to tell him that whoever was calling at these ridiculous hours must be warned off.

We stand outside his apartment in amazement. There are five security locks on the front door, a network of cameras attached to the ceiling, pointing both backwards at us and forwards at the doorway and what sounds like an Alsatian dog hurling itself at the closed door and, for all we know, about to chew its way through the wood. Somewhat gingerly, we press the button on a keypad that could have doubled as an aircraft cockpit – and wait. There is no answer. We wait. Still no answer. We wait. The door opens a crack and a man of six foot five or six, with the build of a shot-putter, stands blocking the snarling dog’s path to us with his foot, on which is a black leather, studded boot , extending up over the knee of his black jeans almost to his crotch. On his head is a black leather peaked cap, from his pocket dangles a jingling mass of silver chains and over his black, ripped, T-shirt he wears a black leather trench coat, grazing the floor – and I could swear – billowing out behind him. We step back slightly. He raises his hand above his head. We step back further. He leans his arm on the door jamb, revealing a tasteful full – sleeve tattoo of what appears to be knives and guns. “Would you mind asking the people who ring my bell instead of yours in the middle of the night, to stop?,” asks my friend in a voice slightly higher than usual. ” Oh, I’m SO, SO sorry, I must apologise, I receive lots of packages from The States, hence the poor timing. I’m really, really sorry. I wouldn’t have disturbed you for the world. Please accept my deepest apologies”. He bows low and closes the door, shoving the dog back into the apartment with his foot.

I admit it was something of an anti-climax.

His face, staring out from the paper today, is immediately recognisable. The “packages” arriving at odd hours of the night, turn out to have been punters booking in for “Extreme Bondage Chemsex” sessions, with Class A drugs as a side order to spice up the “meth-fuelled orgies”. As he is led away by several Police Officers, to begin his 6-year sentence, my friend and I almost feel sorry to see such a charmingly polite neighbour leave the building.

MARCH 25

29th Mar 202013th May 2020 ~ coronet22 ~ Leave a comment

We have more food in the apartment than ever before. Having given up on Ocado days ago when I was told I was number 8,761 in the queue to log on, I spent a day researching food delivery sites. Every one I visit that hasn’t crashed, cheerfully accepts my order, and only when it arrives, either two days before or after the chosen delivery date, do I discover what’s missing. My solution is to repeat the whole order on each functioning website, the result being that we have 6 punnets of raspberries, 6 punnets of blueberries, 4 pints of milk – and, of course, no toilet rolls

My routine for the taking-in and unpacking of groceries is as follows: Shout through the intercom at the entrance to the block for delivery driver to come up and leave box outside apartment door. Leave tip in envelope outside door for this heroic person to collect. Decide I haven’t left him/her enough so open the door to put more money in envelope – bump into delivery person putting down the box. Slam door and run to kitchen to put on rubber gloves, pick up alcohol wipe and scissors. Open front door with alcohol wipe held in gloved hand. Cut open cardboard box – on which virus can live for 72 hours – with scissors. Wipe cardboard box with alcohol wipe and take out food items, swiping each individual item with alcohol wipe. Put items on floor just inside front door. Worry about having put groceries on floor. Collect recycling bag from kitchen still wearing rubber gloves. Worry about having contaminated box containing re-cycling bags. Put cardboard boxes in re-cycling bag and remove rubber gloves. Add them to re-cycling bag. Worry about needing to tie up re-cycling bag without rubber gloves. Put groceries away. Worry whether virus can survive in fridge. Collapse onto bed.

I’m not complaining about any of this. It’s miraculous that we can get food at all.

MARCH 20

29th Mar 202013th May 2020 ~ coronet22 ~ Leave a comment

This morning “The writer” wakes certain that we shouldn’t, mustn’t, venture outside the door any more. He has dreamed about marauding gangs in the parks and since there are already reports of thefts of food and refrigerators, it appears not unlikely – though what they’d be after in the parks, I’m not sure. I’m committed to agreeing so I don’t try to dissuade him and, instead, work out how not to lose what remaining muscle I have without daily walks. Our “trainer”, whom “The Writer” more accurately dubs our “stretcher”, comes – came- twice a week to inflict mild torture and teach us T’ai Chi routines, one of which that involves opening and closing a fan while twirling and stamping and which “The Writer ” refuses to do on the grounds that it makes him feel silly. I feel sillier, having been trying and failing to learn a simple sequence of steps for over a year. I decide to do my 10,000 steps walking up and down the sitting room. This involves pulling back the heavy rug, moving the television and trying to avoid creaking floorboards as “The Writer” is working like a maniac. I realise, half- way through the second lap, that I won’t be able to keep this up for a week- let alone a year. I decide to do my 10,000 steps walking up and down the sitting room. This involves pulling back the heavy rug, moving the television and trying to avoid creaking floorboards as “The Writer” is working like a maniac. I realise, half- way through the second lap, that I won’t be able to keep this up for a week- let alone a year.

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