Category: Diary of a Pandemic

A totally free day, what to do, how to spend it to ease the tensions of the world?

I had pre-arranged elevenses with two neighbours who live alone. We each brought a mug of tea or coffee, and stood 3m apart like a triumvirate or as a passing friend said, a druid's meeting. We practised extra distancing but still had half an eye on the police showing up. There is to be no meeting up with people outside your household – so we did break the rules. And yet, this was safer than a supermarket visit, or being buzzed by joggers and cyclists on pavements and footpaths, or dropping off shopping that has been touched by numerous people. Plus, we were further apart than if we were in our tiny, close back gardens.

There is confusion over some of the messaging. most of which says 'stay at home' but also practise 'social distancing'.

I'm writing about this so I obviously do feel bad about breaking the guidelines. The reason is not that we were unsafe but that if it is seen to be ok to meet (even while rule-following) then others may meet up and not be safe. Between us we wondered if what we were doing was actually illegal or did it just become illegal if we refused to move on. Or because we had pre-arranged it rather than happen to meet on our daily walk around the block.

Either way I don't think I'd do it again. Even without taking risks, it's not worth the stress or the possibility that it might be encouraging others to do the same (which I think is more an argument for beaches and scenic public spaces than a street in Stirchley). But if I'm doing it then others surely are, and that's why it has to stop. 

Coronavirus has changed the way we move in our public spaces and how we feel about them. Guilt and oppression is not something I would ever have imagined feeling just by being outside in my local neighbourhood.

The rest of the day was spent at home. Our rabbit is going into the vet tomorrow morning and we want to spend as much time with him as possible, just in case. Tonight I gave him the run of the whole garden and his choice of flowers – it felt a little bit like offering a last meal to someone on death row. But he is still being very rabbity so we'll see.

We finally got around to some clearing and cleaning. But now I'm wondering where does this box of stuff for charity go now the shops are all closed?

So… there was no relaxation but there was a lot of distraction and activity. I'm not sure I know how to relax anymore. That's what holidays are for. And holidays are a long, long way off.

Today I am thankful for a friend's phone call out of the blue.

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There's a lot going on today. A sibling birthday. Messages from New Zealand family. Allotment digging, spuds planted and seed beds prepared. A problem with one of our rabbits that is not healing up. The UK death toll passing 10,000 and a view that we may become the worst affected country in Europe due to density of population. And it's Easter.

I thought I'd focus on some of the good stuff.

Nice thing 1: My sister

My sister got a very digital birthday this year. At an online Zoom meetup we sang Happy Birthday with a discordant time lag, all talked at the same time and got to see six separate family and friend units from around the Midlands. I gave her digital gifts of funny internet videos and have promised to do her garden for her while she is away in lockdown. Gifts/celebrations in person are postponed. This was the first lockdown birthday in our family but I'm fairly sure it won't be the last. I'm very lucky that I get on well with my sibs. Not only are they pretty decent people but sometimes they are even quite funny.

Nice thing 2: Chocolate

Eating Easter Egg chocolate. Normally we don't bother but after yesterday's unexpected supply run to the supermarket, I'd picked up a couple of discounted eggs. This is the first chocolate I've had in two weeks and it tasted very, very, very good.

Nice thing 3: The Human League

Somewhere a neighbour was playing loud music. Personally I find that quite selfish behaviour when everyone else is stuck at home; garden music wars may be triggered. But, as Pete says, it could have been a lot worse as the soundtrack was mostly generic 70s/80s fayre. There was a lovely moment, though, when I heard 'Being Boiled' by The Human League – it somehow felt like the right song for the moment.

Nice thing 4: Bun Morrison

Speaking of music, I decided to hang out in the bunny run (a 6×12 foot caged aviary) and play the dudes some low-key tunes on the phone. Me and Bunminster had a moment to Van Morrison's Into The Mystic as I stroked his head and he puddled onto the floor next to me and ground his teeth (a sign of pleasure in rabbits). I felt similarly content. Chatterrrrrr.

Nice thing 5: Harry Baker

About four-five years ago I planted a small tree in the garden. I can't remember who recommended a 'Harry Baker' crab apple tree but it was because of its extra value in giving a double whammy of fuchsia pink blossoms in spring and cherry-like crab apples in autumn. Harry Baker was a head gardener at RHS Wisley or somewhere. Today it fully popped into full colour and really cheered up the garden.

Nice thing 6: Soda bread

Today I baked some Irish soda bread and thought of Mum. If she were here and in lockdown I'm pretty sure she would be baking wheaten bread and apple tarts for distribution to the needy. Also, although my loaves looked good, they are pretty doughy in the middle. Good for some hot buttered toast though.

Nice thing 7: Gorgeous George

It was lovely to see eight-week-old great nephew baby George awake via the Zoom call. We were all really looking forward to the new baby so it has been pretty gutting that we are only able to see him at a distance.

Nice thing 8: Queen of Stirchley

I got to see Kerry 'Queen of Stirchley' Leslie at the allotment, winding her twine into pea supports. I wonder if we will get any of our allotment sunsets this year. Another plus, all the spuds are now in.

Nice thing 9: Elevenses

I've arranged elevenses – lovely word and concept – with some neighbours tomorrow. Finally, us terrace house inhabitants are working out what our tiny front gardens are for.

Nice thing 10: Giri/Haji dance sequence

Tonight we watched the finale of 'Giri/Haji' – a Japanese/English crime thriller series about yakuza, family ties, and parallel worlds in London and Tokyo. I'd read that it ended in a ballet but I imagined this was a metaphorical description of bullets flying, not an actual contemporary dance sequence on a rooftop. The scene was beautiful and transcendent and an immediate all-encompassing way to illustrate the push-pull emotional dramas of all the characters simultaneously. It reminded me a bit of Wong Kar-Wei's earlier films which transport you into the realm of the senses but in a supercool stylistic way which almost leaves you wanting to be an assassin for hire. Instead, in our parallel world, we didn't kill anyone and we watched the show while enjoying egg, beans 'n' chips for dinner,

Thanks

Today I am thankful for all the spring blooms and for receiving a surprise rabbit-related poem via email post.

Four years ago today this happened:

Disaster means many things. Until today I didn't realise it is also a beanbag busting open on a windy day and sending thousands of tiny static-charged white balls around your garden where rabbits roam and eat so you have to catch them all. Enjoy the schadenfreude my friends.

Facebook update

The changing meaning of disaster, eh? The downside of looking back to a past when the worst thing was a polystyrene snowstorm in the backyard. So many social media updates are going to come back to bite me in the arse over this.

And yet…

I started this diary to document things that were changing too fast to keep up with, but also as a letter to the future. I wonder how it will read in a year. And there have been some morbid times when I've wondered: will these be the last words I write? Best make them good, eh?

I write also because I wonder if we won't forget what it was like to shake hands, hug and hang out together in pubs and cafés. Maybe those fundamental things from 'before' will slide into the past for a long time to come – long after lockdown ends. Will we be too traumatised by this virus to return to our pasts and, if so, what will we do instead for our social contact?

Yesterday, a person who shall be nameless (Paul) posted a few 2019 reactions to 2020 things, eg:

1) Can someone go to the supermarket for me and buy all my shopping?

– Fuck off!!!!

I asked for the 2020 reactions to 2019 things, such as Moselele's long-running uke sessions in the pub:

Join me and 40 others in a tight stuffy bothy every two weeks…

– Fuck Off!!!!!!

It was a chill moment when someone said:

It’s never going to happen ever again, is it?

The future is being rewritten. Which reminds me of some amazing manager-speak that came across my desk this week, advising that we need to do some "horizon scanning using hindsight lenses placed on decisions taken now".

That's past, present and future all in one shark-jumping phrase, baby.

Today I am thankful for… my mum's camellia, flowering late this year, but now in vigorous bloom.

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Facebook is annoying in so many ways but it's got enough witty/smutty banter with friends and a few useful groups to ensure that I stick with it. And I have to use it for work – so there is no escape.

Fake news is rife on the platform, so always check sources. This video was shared by a friend and seemed useful info on how to help improve your chances with some breathing techniques. But is it correct?

Instructions

1. SIT UPRIGHT

• Deep breath + hold for 5 sec– do this five times.
• Deep breath + cough into cloth – once
• Repeat above steps a second time.

2. LIE ON STOMACH

• Breathe slightly deeper than normal for 10 minutes.

3. REPEAT REGULARLY.

As a sub-editor, I've spent a career fact-checking supplied information. This doctor does exist but the YouTube channel isn't official so it's probably not official info. The technique was publicly recommended by author JK Rowling as helping her (unconfirmed Covid-19) symptoms, so that's why it has gone viral.

Fact check

But is the info correct? Answer: it can help but it's certainly not for everyone – it needs context and individual assessment.

There are some key instructions missing, like breathing in through the nose not the mouth. And, according to the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Respiratory Care (ACPRC), you should only do 3-4 in-breaths/holds to avoid dizziness.

Full Fact has done the full sub-editor's copy check – read it here.

For me, doing this technique is more to do with mental strength and having something to do that makes you feel you are helping. I've often got through turbulence-driven panics on planes, for example, by doing a 10-count Buddhist breathing meditation I learnt years ago. Having a coping mechanism is important for anyone prone to anxiety or panic attacks.

In summary, this video may not be factually correct but I still think it will help a lot of people.

Today I am thankful for… warm sunshine and an Easter holiday (albeit without chocolate).

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Everyone's lockdown experience will be different. This is mine. Welcome to a curtain-twitching, TMI rundown of the weird and mundane minutiae of Wednesday 8 April.

Morning 8.30am: Woke up before the alarm, which I have been doing since the sun started shining in through the curtains just before the equinox. Kettle on. Toast in. Steep Earl Grey tea leaves. Grab Metacam and go give Bunminster his daily pain meds and both buns their breakfast. Each knows exactly where to go to get their pellets. It runs like clockwork as we are all creatures of habit and I'm back as the toast pops up. Breakfast while watching 20 mins of Mad Men: everyone is sleeping with someone else and extra sweaty because it is August in New York.

Work 9.30am: check Facebook as it's no longer on my phone, check emails, log into content management platform, fix some things, tickle the optimisation algorithm to improve my score, research and write 1000-word feature on Covid-19 impacts on independent schools. Get two work requests for next week and accept both even though it's my week off because that's freelance life. At some point the C-19 location app sends a push notification for me to register whether I've had a COVID-19 test yet and how I'm feeling today.

Lunch 1.45pm: Everything stops for 'Doctors', the BBC soap set in a fictional place called Letherbridge, which is really Birmingham, so there is an extra bonus of spotting the locations. I really can't recommend it enough – it's quite funny once you're hooked. Eat toast and a salted boiled egg. Pete kindly sets up wifi and parasol so we can work in the garden. Make him a cuppa and sit for five minutes in the garden watching the rabbits and enjoying the sunshine.

Work 2.3opm: Get into giant acid green beanbag with laptop and do a bit of SEO legwork on article. Edit/proofread three or four more coronavirus-related articles. Deal with neighbour's five-year-old who keeps trying to talk to us out of boredom: where you going, what you doing, why is that hula hoop in the tree, where is the other rabbit, why is that grass there, etc. 'Quiet time!' announces Pete like a proper parent and our young stalker shouts bye and runs off. Another neighbour starts up with the hedge trimmer. Ask for some black market advice on Facebook Messenger about a lump we found in Bunminster's ear, arrange immediate vet visit, Pete returns with a traumatised bun who has had an abscess lanced. He runs home and stress-flops. We are given instructions to squeeze the pus out frequently in the next 48 hours then revisit the vet. A Facebook contact drops off some seeds she has to spare so I can grow things at the allotment this year after all.

Evening: Finish work 6.20pm and clear away work tech. Leave Pete, who has been furloughed and is now looking for projects, building a large 2m square wood frame which is going to be a portable sun screen for working in the garden. Go for my state-sanctioned local walk, cross paths with Stirchley pal P-Bantz on his way home from his 'one exercise a day', check on a vulnerable friend, walk through Muntz Park to Selly Park Rec for sunset. Discover a fulsome cherry tree in bloom, take photos. Avoid others by veering off the path or crossing the road. Follow a blackbird hopping, foraging, under a quince tree. Listen to music all the way around my 45-minute circuit and wonder if I can learn 'Lady With the Braid' by Dory Previn on the guitar. It's got a great narrative about a woman who asks a man to stay the night but proceeds to scare him off the more she talks and asks him questions.

Dinner and TV: Pete peels the spuds for mash and I get on board with Linda McCartney veg sausages, gravy and peas. We split a large bottle of Tiger beer and I flash back to Asia and miss it vividly but briefly. When all this over maybe… We watch an episode of Giri/Haji, a "soulful thriller set in Tokyo and London" according to BBC iPlayer. At 9.30pm we go squeeze Bunminster's abscess together. I look up at the stars. Every day ends with a bath and a book – currently Cheryl Strayed's 'Tiny Beautiful Things', which is only slightly more upbeat than Tig Notaro's cancer memoir "I'm Just A Person' which I finished yesterday. I hear the squawk of a goose or duck or something – it's the third night running and shouldn't birds be asleep?

Bedtime: I go to wish Pete goodnight and spot through the front door that the street is extra dark. I'm wrapped in a towel but I pop out to check if the world still has power. Yes, it's only one streetlight that is out. Pete comes to look and then shuts the door on me like we're in the plot of a Hollywood comedy. I say bedtime but really it's blogtime – I'm now more than two weeks into daily blogging this daily diary. It's now 00.27. Goodnight. I must go play my game of Threes so I can sleep.

Today I am thankful for getting this little gem via my Stirchley mafia/Eurovision WhatsApp group – a man playing the drum intro to Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight on his kitchen cupboard doors:

https://www.tiktok.com/@frankandtracy/video/6809735157789052166

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Lying?

Friend:
How’s things? X
Sorry wrong Fiona again but how are things?? 😘
Me:
Super, never better. You?
Friend:
Tickety Boo 😫

The emoticon really sells it, I think. Say what you mean – or don't and be facetious, sarcastic or antiphrastic (yes, that is a word!) I'm reminded in this exchange today of John Mostyn's 'lovely lovely' response to all things, good or bad. Or Jonathan Van Ness's catch-all catchphrase and defence mechanism: 'Gawjus!' I'm imagining JVN talking about how 'gawjus' this all is.

Language

Remember when we only knew this thing as coronavirus? Then COVID-19. Now it's called Covid-19. Let's review in a month, maybe a week.

I'm working on a lot of coronavirus copy at the moment so I'm cycling through various terms of reference: outbreak, pandemic, crisis, disruption, situation. I found myself wondering if Covid-19 has become the preferred media choice because it's shorter for headlines.

Update (via technical writer/editor Julia @Catnip):

At the start there was a lot of talk about a “novel” coronavirus (there are a few different types of coronavirus). COVID-19 is short for COrona VIrus Disease (first reported in 2019). There are other coronaviruses (e.g. SARS). So technically it’s more correct to specify which one. Although at the moment it should be obvious. I suspect the average person prefers the term coronavirus.

I’m following a few grime kids on Twitter and they’re calling it “the rona”.

Handwriting

Is there a word for a word that has no dangly or sticky-uppy letters? Like coronavirus? It's such a neat set of letters, far better than the ugly Covid-19.

Pronunciation

Covid-19 makes me wonder about Covid-18 and Covid-20. Inside my head I pronounce it Cough Fit 19.

Earworm

Current virus ear worm is 'You're A Germ' by Wolf Alice. I wish someone could make it stop. And the earworm.

Style guide

I was given a 10-page Powerpoint by a client this week on how to talk about Covid-19. I thought 'how ridiculous' but then read it and it made sense. Things are changing so fast it is very easy to get the tone wrong. Remember when we were so concerned about toilet paper and now people we know are dying. Facebook time-hop is going to be a bitch in a year.

Thanks

Today I am grateful for still having work. If you are reading this, thank you clients! I'll work harder, I promise.

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Why am I so disconcerted and suddenly anxious about PM Boris Johnson going into intensive care with coronavirus?

Is it because he is the PM?

Is it the sense of there really being no safety net for any of us if someone with such wealth and power has to go into the ICU?

I have no love for Boris but I wouldn't wish Covid-19 on anyone.

In totally contrasting news, today I am thankful for the fragment of joy I felt when I saw nine of the stars of Dance Academy all on a video call together to celebrate 10 years since DA. This series got me into ballet. It's very well acted and danced, and is on Netflix UK. I may have become an Insta-stalker fan. Gotta love an Australian teen dance drama.

"Do you know anyone with coronavirus?" I've been asked that question for the first time this week. Both times I was asked, it was because the person knew someone with Covid-19.

So the conversation has changed. The wave is coming closer. At some point most of us will get this thing. The whole point of the lockdown is to stop the spread but also to spread out the rate of infection over a longer term. Personally I'm happy to completely avoid it.

While I know people who are self-isolating with symptoms, they are not sure if those symptoms are 'it'. Some people can be asymptomatic. Some have a mild version. But for some, it's obvious I guess.

On the BBC News front page today every story is about this story. Except for one story: the election of a new Labour leader in Keir Starmer. What has happened to all the other news? It's like nothing else is happening in the world. As if all crime has ceased and this is now our only concern. Am I now petty to be thinking of all the single use plastic?

Today I am thankful for the music of Bill Withers, who died today from heart complications aged 81. Top 3 faves: Use Me, Lovely Day, Ain't No Sunshine. Apparently that long note in Lovely Daaaaaaaaay is 18 seconds long. Who hasn't tried to sing along with that?

Also, for young friend Baschti's amazing isolation videos. Baschti is 10 and made this with the help of his mum, dad and a few friends. (Sadly I missed the chance to join in due to pre-spud allotment prep today.) Got any ketchup?

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