Lessons From Lockdown

Lockdown has stymied my habitual wake up sequence:

I'm breathing?      check

Cat's breathing?    check

Legs move...?        check

Arms move...?       check

Brain functions...? check

What day is it...?    ummmmm milk was delivered yesterday so it's either Tuesday or Saturday.   Haven't heard the weekend paper drop on the mat so it must be Tuesday.  Hold on that can't be right, Caroline helps me with the cleaning every Monday and she wasn't here yesterday so it can't be Tuesday.  Unless... OH NOOOOO i've lost Caroline, or have i lost the plot?  Perhaps the universe shuffled the cosmic pack during the night, maybe the universe has lost the plot!!! Don't panic you silly billy, it's nothing  preternatural, we are in lockdown, all the familiar parameters have changed and it will be necessary to find another way of figuring out where you are in the week, nothing that a strong pot of coffee won't fix. 

When my bizniz closed and early retirement was unceremoniously thrust upon me it quickly became clear that there needed to be Rules of Engagement if i weren't to become the isolated Crazy Cat Lady or at best  a total recluse peering out from a mountain of fur and books totally unaware of the month let alone the day.  Those rules  became a way of life that have finally become relevant for many of the inhabitants of this little island especially those who live alone. Would you indulge me if i share them with you and with those who find themselves shielded at home?

The dramatist in me utilised the  shop floor as a stage, a place to project personality alongside product, the customers an audience to be entertained, their emotional needs met alongside providing a service. Dressing for the occasion, while still retaining personal style, was the prelude to the first act.  It doesn't matter if the only contact you have with the world is via technology if you start the day by putting on clean clothes, brushing the hair, establishing your style then you are making a statement about your place in the grand opera of life. Whether it's a skirt, shirt, T Shirt or suit it's your armour, a carapace that makes a statement about who you are and how you want the universe to respond to you. And please don't kid yourself that if you are dressed from the waist up but wearing pyjama bottoms nobody will know on video chat, they might not but you will and it will affect your whole attitude and that will be picked up. 

The world may be on lockdown, your brain doesn't have to be. Emerging from a busy book shop where there were daily dealings with reps,  challenges from a quarrel of questioning teen volunteers, discerning what tomorrow's must buy would be, my brain was appreciative of a break from it's labours but soon lack of stimulus found me waking in the early hours planning world domination... my children became scared. Steps were taken. Crosswords in the kitchen, Scrabble in the work room, books in the bedroom with a dictionary to hand and of course the World Wide Web.  The internet is a tool, it wasn't created to be a games hub. We have the world's greatest minds a mere click away, any lack of knowledge can be sated, all angles covered in an instant, there is no excuse not to know...about ANYTHING.  Keep the neurons firing by being inquisitive, foster an enquiring mind, if you don't know the meaning of a word... look it up. Hear a new concept... learn more about it.  Feel bored... read something meaty.  If you aren't working from home this is an ideal opportunity to learn something new, for once you have all the time in the world use it wisely. 

Employment tends to impose a routine no matter how freelance you may be, remove that regime and, unless you are a very self motivated soul, sloth sidles in to fill the gap with aimless nothings.   After a week of sleeping till lunch time and watching movies till midnight i decided holidays were over and invested in an alarm clock which still rings at 8 every morning, though a cat is the next best thing.  At some point those of you unable to work from home will have to return, you really don't want to discover your body clock rebelling at the demands of forgotten early mornings and then spending the rest of the day in a fug like a stunned slug.  Us non workers can still benefit from a structure, it's too easy to let the moments drift into hours, the hours into days until time becomes meaningless.  Life is precious, we tend to not realise that until the days ahead of us are considerably less than those behind. 

Finally, but definitely not the least important, a dear friend encouraged me to embrace the importance of self nurturing in the absence of affirmation from colleagues.  Not self indulgence, not wallowing in the unfairness of being cocooned while others can venture out into the big outdoors but caring for yourself, nourishing your spirit, being gentle with yourself.  Sprinkle some humour and concern for others in there and you will find you are more resilient than you realised.  This is definitely the time to dig out Blackadder or any boxed set that makes you weep with laughter, if you have a pet spend time playing daft games and pampering her, if you are a praying/meditating type what a wonderful opportunity to deepen your walk.  Connect with friends, you might not be in the same air space as the people you care for but you can use the phone and chat about anything and everything EXCEPT the virus.

We don't know if our lives will ever go back to the way they were so make a conscious choice to create a new way of living and embrace it, it wont be the same but it can still be good if you focus on the positives.  Maybe now is the time to offer to foster for an animal rescue, start an online study course, pick up the hobby you put aside because of busyness, become a pen pal, learn to crochet, paint the bathroom, whatever makes your toes twitch with pleasure.   And when you are tempted to become despondent about all you have lost rejoice that you had those experiences because many have lived this lockdown life for a long time, some from a very young age.  allow yourself to dip into the memory bank and relive some of your adventures then create new ways for a new reality.

A Very Cultured Pandemic

As a consumer of dystopian fiction i imagined it would be more apocalyptic than this.   Where are the bodies littering the waste land, the domestic pets turned feral feasting on their owners in the night? Why aren't planes spiralling from the skies as pilots succumb to the pathogen mid flight?  I thought there  would be trucks of armed troops protecting us from the pustullated masses storming the city gates. Motorways would be festooned with crashed and abandoned cars, smoke curling from under the bonnet, their drivers staggering into the overgrown hard shoulder to escape the ravages of the plague.   

All the best disaster movies and books show a total breakdown of civilised society with entire cities evacuating on foot to the countryside where only the most venal thrive and the amoral amass what scant resources are still available. The weak are quickly subsumed and devoured by infected zombie hordes.  WHERE ARE THE ZOMBIES FOLKS....? you can't have a plague without zombies.

This is a very cultured pandemic with Italian arias serenaded from balconies, church choirs coming together to practice via video conference, descant recorders played in unison from windows and applause for health workers at eight o'clock sharp every Thursday. Rainbows of varying artistic quality brighten windows festooned with teddy bears. Now supermarkets are taking distancing seriously most people queue patiently in taped off six foot human parking bays and resist the urge to hide the last pack of lentils up a surgical glove encased sleeve.  The Guardian "blind date" segment has continued by substituting taverna and tactility with takeaway and tech, the potential lovers sweet talking via Skype while munching sushi at home.  Very Continental, very enlightened, very disciplined.

Even the stockpiling was spearheaded by the middle classes according to Tesco's data with 10% of customers accounting for a third of bulk buying and "these buyers tended to be the more affluent customers... the biggest uplifts were in the south of England" according to their Chief Exec.   Understandable as it's not easy to hoard when living on minimum wage and Universal Credit hardly covers the cost of a week's food let alone a couple of months.   

And that's where duplicity comes into all this sentimentality isn't it? The fault lines between the socio economic classes have been screaming out of our televisions and newspapers for a long time and yet we failed to act on an unspoken inequality that has inexorably crept up on us over the past ten years. Our service workers, those vital people who are keeping us afloat at this time, don't need applause they need a decent wage, adequate staffing levels, affordable housing, sustainable working hours, respect and support from employers and appreciation from us, the general public,  who rely on their good will.

Before the virus the same people who are now clapping from their front doors were in malcontent mode, grumbling about long waiting times for NHS appointments.  Writing letters of complaint if overworked and stressed shop workers were less than angelic in response to their bellyaching.  Couriers were on the receiving end of social media vilification from those with no understanding of the conditions they work under.  We have become a society that wants immediate delivery of unnecessary goods to fulfill a momentary whim, wanting shops open 24/7 365 days a year no matter the strain it puts on families who are deprived of time together at weekends and holidays.  We have devolved to demand servants rather than service.   

I wonder how quickly our modern heroes will be abandoned once our invisible enemy is defeated.  Will adulation continue or will we revert to type, berating those who serve us without considering the unreasonable  workload they have to bear.  Will we still be banging pans on Thursdays when the masks are taken off and the gloves discarded?   Will we be sending rainbows when the care homes open their doors to families again?

It's my hope that we will have discovered just who the essential workers are in the nation and will have taken on board that they are often the lowest paid and least appreciated who work the longest hours for minimal thanks, sometimes in the most responsible jobs and coming from a multitude of countries.  It's time to stand up for our teachers, carers, couriers, shop staff, nurses, cleaners, factory workers, utility workers, police, firefighters, ambulance drivers, bus and train drivers, refuse collectors, delivery drivers........the list could go on  so please add the many i will have missed out.   We have taken these men and women for granted for too long, treating them like soulless  machines, using and abusing them like punching bags when they fail to meet our  needs in as timely a fashion as we would like.   

The optimist in me hopes that as a nation we will  stand up for them and hold our government to account when/if life gets back to normal ....

....the pessimist in me says send in the zombies double quick so they can  finish us off before we lose the momentum of appreciation.  

The Fundament Of The Apocolypse

There's panic in Hexham !!!  Rioting on the cobbles, the locals are barricading themselves into the cathedral praying for succour.   The Philosophical Society is running courses on surviving the apocalypse, watch towers armed with M16s have been mounted on the bridge and passport control installed.  Parks and playing fields overnight sprouted veg for all and exhortations to dig for Covid 19 are blasting from van mounted loudspeakers.  Before the sun sets there will be running battles over barbed wire barricades to keep the infected barbarian hoards out of the town and reroute them to Corbridge. Police have received reports that Typhoid Mary has been spotted either squatting in Beales, building a shelter in the bandstand or selling black market goods in the market square. Rumour spreading on the local Facebook page is that government is offering a bounty of £1000  for any crusty found on the street who will be summarily stood against a wall and shot.  

Why such mayhem you ask??  Tesco has run out of toilet roll!!  Yep the social media-sphere is spouting dire predictions overtime about the end of civilisation as we know it.  Rationing will be imposed of one sheet per movement... and no, i'm not talking orchestral.   The foundation of British Values is under threat, The Fundament of our nation is in peril, the Seat Of Kings once flush with pomp could disappear down the pan of panic.

What i don't understand is why toilet roll?  Pet food i totally grasp since there would be no hesitation on the part of our furries to consume us in the night if yummies weren't provided on demand several times a day. Lemsip in abundance makes sense as does chocolate, nobody should be asked to face annihilation without the taste of cocoa bean on the lips.   I could even stretch to understanding pasta. When the lights go out and the water trickles brown and fetid from the tap, sucking on dried macaroni is exactly what will save the soul from despair and inspire a chorus of Che Gelida Manina from the balconies.  

Storming Waterstones armed with pitchforks and buckets of local llama poo to demand a dozen copies of the latest top ten would be totally justified.   But TOILET PAPER.   You can't eat it, you can't drink it, there's nothing on it to read, covid 19 doesn't involve the squits.   I guess it could be utilised to write your memoirs during the dark days of isolation or compose haikus to doom and destruction.

The Continentals as usual have been a step ahead of us for generations, viva la bidet !!!  In 1970 95% of French bathrooms had one and in Italy most still do.   Simples !!   Ebay even do a portable that you fill with warm water from the tap and sit on the loo, a steal at fifteen quid.  Much more hygienic, no ongoing costs and no need to stockpile .  

But.... in the spirit of full disclosure, i admit to a mini hoard for the duration.  What are Jeni's non-negotiables? What consumables constitute the dividing line between existing and flourishing?  What will she need  to stay sustained if the dreaded covid 19 comes calling?  Food for the cat and fish obviously, good coffee, artisan bread, books and CHOCOLATE COVERED TURKISH DELIGHT !!!!   Rest assured she always has all the above in copious quantities even when doomsday isn't threatening.

What dear readers are your essential items 

Great Expectations

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”  pip:  Great Expectations,  Dickens

So many things we take for granted... until they are no longer there for us.   Blue skies and sunshine, until the grey days of winter roll in.   The caress of a lover, gone when break up or bereavement separate us.   A fulfilling job snatched away by retirement or redundancy.   The fluid movement of bone, tendon, muscle that enables the lift of a leg, stolen by an accident or the slow corruption of time.   The freedom to enter an establishment to post a letter and purchase a necessity or frippery on a whim, until overnight it becomes inaccessible.

On a low pain, high energy day i spoil myself with a taxi into Hexham (wheelchair safely stowed in boot) in order to roll round the craft shops, drink coffee, find a book or garment in Oxfam and post comics to my beloved granddaughters. Simple pastimes that give inordinate pleasure.   In the centre of this pretty little market town is a pedestrianised area with an array of shops worthy of a city.  Amongst others we have Waterstones, Boots, W H Smiths, Holland and Barrett, Argos, Clarks, Costa.  Most of them have automatic doors and they are all wheelchair negotiable.  The cherry on top is Beales, a four story cornucopia of clothes, kitchenware, toys, with level access, lifts, plenty of disabled parking bays and.... ta da... a fully drivable aroundable, accessible Post Office. I say "is" but from the end of the month it will be "was" as our only department store has succumbed to the national epidemic of high street closures.

We will still have a Post Office, something not to be taken for granted in these days of privatisation, but it will move to an area on the outskirts, with no parking, a very busy main road to cross, no drop kerbs and a steep hill to negotiate.   Difficult for me, impossible for the elderly or those in electric wheelchairs.

There were great expectations in 1995 when the Disability Discrimination Act came into force.   It was hailed as a new dawn of accessibility for those of us with malfunctioning  hardware. We would at last take our place among the physiotypical in a land of opportunity for all.  Employment, education, retail, leisure would open it's doors and welcome us in with our purple pound spending power.  As is usually the case great expectations led to great disappointment and twenty five years later businesses have taken minimal steps to deal with their doorsteps.

It's not all doom and gloom though. Little, listed buildings have limited options in old market towns but the attitude of it's retailers can mitigate a lot of the hurdles.   We have a fab eco-shop who do the whole take an empty bottle and fill it with shampoo thing.  The step into the shop would be easy peasy for a toddler but as insurmountable as the Matterhorn to a chair user. Once aware of the problem the proprietor promptly invested in a portable ramp and posted the fact on their website and Facebook page.   Bless you Matthias Winter, those of us about to roll salute you.   https://www.matthiaswinter.co.uk

What I struggle with is finding the balance between unreasonable expectation and inevitable acceptance. The disability forums seethe with indignation over perceived, personal slights when in reality the problem is usually thoughtlessness or lack of resources.   A poorly dropped kerb is lambasted as a dastardly scheme by the local council to cull the weak by tipping them out of their conveyances into oncoming traffic.   I kid ye not, i have seen this, or similar paranoia, expressed in all seriousness on countless occasions !!   But at what point does a lack of "reasonable adjustment" become apathy on the part of a business that needs to be challenged?  When does my irritation at a lack of access need to be acknowledged with a shrug and resignation at an imperfect world? How do we know when it's appropriate to make demands from those around us for concessions in order to participate as fully as possible in society without becoming unreasonably entitled?  Much as i would love to access every spot in the universe the fact is those with wheels will always meet uncross-able barriers that through geography, architecture, resources cannot be breached.  

There are no easy answers.   My Post Office location will be far from ideal, but I have no insight into the peculiarities of franchising in a town centre, or the realities of rent and rates in the 2020's, it's many years since I was in bizniz. Perhaps it was the only affordable premises on offer.   It's easy to criticise when not carrying any of the responsibility and risk.
   
Our Expectant Pip, though "bent and broken," was able to see beyond his limitations and go on to live a full and productive life, though he was unable to stay with his beloved Estelle, (great insightful book, have a read).  He learned it would never be possible to have all his needs met and by accepting that fact he was free to move on and build a new life in an exotic country.  Us superwheelers can spend our lives chaffing at where we can't go when we could be making the most of where we can, and recognising the lengths some places will go to make their premises as accessible as possible.    I choose the latter, though will be pushing for drop kerbs at the Post Office.