Tag: London

March 30

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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

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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

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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 24

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Much of the latest talk has been about construction sites (Didn’t they used to be called “building sites”)? Builders are massing on the few remaining underground trains , pressing their fingertips to nifty modern biometric clocking-in machines, eating in packed canteens and phoning radio stations to complain that their bosses will not let them stop working. We can see a site out of our bedroom window and this morning we observe five or six men smoking and talking in a huddle, no more than a couple of inches apart, and then purposefully pushing inside a tiny hut, where we assume they are going to have a break and maybe even suggest a game of ‘Sardines’. We notice that they are not entirely without consideration of virus hygiene as, one after the other, they pause to wipe their feet meticulously and vigorously on the grubby mat outside the door.

MARCH 20

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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.

(The T’ai Chi fan is the large, red paper one at the back, the white feathery one was my Grandmother’s and the black and white lace one was bought for me by “The Writer” to waft about at a Royal Garden Party. Unfortunately, the day of the garden party was one of the wettest July days on record, during which, The Queen made the unprecedented kindly gesture of inviting some of the dripping, bedraggled guests into her private retiring room. We heard afterwards that all the cups and saucers bearing the Royal Crest were stolen by souvenir hunters and I still wake in the night wondering how I can reassure Her Majesty that it wasn’t us.)

March 19

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Suddenly, I’m gripped by the certainty that we should no longer have anyone else in the house. ” The Writer” and I made a promise to each other a few days ago that, if one of us feels strongly about any course of action, the other will go along with it. He’s as good as his word and we say a sad goodbye to our lovely cleaner for the ‘time being’ – whatever that is. She’s relieved and says she had been thinking of saying it to us. “The Writer’s” assistant is also delighted to scoot off to the country. Alone, we stare at each other. That’s it. Maybe for 18months. Or maybe more. There’s no logic, is there, in totally isolating ourselves then coming out before there is a cure or a vaccine? But we are still going to keep up our precious walks in the park and Government advice says it’s OK. (I wish they’d stop “advising” and just tell us, clearly, what to do)

March 13

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“The Writer”, wakes up dizzy and with a sore throat. The trouble with people with vivid imaginations is that they tend to imagine whatever’s uppermost in their mind at the time. Friends who have been staying at their son’s new house in Scotland to help with house painting, are trying to decide whether to stay up there or come home to London . The house is in the middle of nowhere so they’d be mad to come home, though I’ll ‘miss’ them, illogical when I won’t be able to see them either way. We’re still walking daily in the park, feeling every time we close the front door behind us that going out is a transgressive and, therefore, thrilling act. Today, the Pelicans who live on a tiny island in the middle of the lake, have put on a show for the tourists, who seem to be reluctant to return to wherever they came from. The huge, lumbering birds land on one of the park benches, chosen for its position facing the sun, and look benignly at the tourists still gathering in large tight-knit groups, ooh-ing and ah-ing and taking selfies with the uncomplaining creatures.

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MARCH 12

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I saw this lock, below, attached to a tree in St. James’s Park, near Buckingham Palace. I don’t know who put it there-or why- but it was the last thing I saw in the open air before self-isolating in our apartment.

That was on March 23 but I’m going to go back a bit further than that before bringing you up to date.

Both of us are frightened to death by Prime ‘Minister, Boris Johnson’s speech at his briefing today predicting that “More people will lose loved ones before their time”. We are those loved ones – or at least, we’re the aged he’s talking about. My husband, “The Writer” and I have the same conversation we’ve been having since all this began. Me : ” The only way to be 100% certain we don’t get it, is not to leave the house until there is a vaccine in 18months time.” ‘The Writer’: Well then, that’s what we should do”. Me: But I don’t think I could stand not walking in the open air for so long” Him: Well, then, let’s keep going as we are” Me: “Oh God” “

I’ve noticed that God, in whom I definitely didn’t believe last month, seems to have crept into my thoughts quite a bit lately. I remember a school hym “God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year”. Surely this is God working his purpose out? We have plundered the planet so now we can’t fly or cruise or litter the beaches with plastic. He allocated us three-score years and ten and we got cocky, lifting weights and jogging and bo-toxing and living to 80/90/100 so, now He’s targeted the elderly with his hideous virus and is clearing us out of the way. When I’m feeling more my normal self, I tend to the theory that it’s a Global conspiracy of Governments to rid themselves of the costly elderly, not have to pay out fortunes for Social Care and start over with a young, vigorous (and much less high-maintenance) population.