Covid Diaries: March 16th to 1st May Starting Lockdown
Introduction > Stories #31 to 61
Monday 16 March 2020 - Story #31
Covid 19 BEFORE – Mally Harvey
I see a future so changed as I socially isolate
I hear the cries of thousands of lost souls
I smell my fear as I face my disappearing life
I taste my terror as I contemplate the possibility of loss
I touch my phone, my connection with my abandoned family
I feel afraid as I look into the unknown
Covid 19 AFTER – Mally Harvey
I see a future where generosity replaces greed
I hear whispers that health care will be a human right
I smell the sweetness of regrowth and regeneration
I taste anticipation as I contribute to our recovery
I touch my family and revel in their embrace
I feel that we have been given a second chance
Helen Thompson
New advice from the government, to keep distance from people and wash hands. Decided to go for a walk in the countryside. It was quiet and we saw our first lambs of the season, gorgeous. Needing milk, we thought we’d pop into Aldi, as we were passing on the way home. Not having shopped for a week, we were amazed at the effects of panic buying. Empty shelves, what a strange sight. We left empty handed.
Friday 20 March 2020 - Story #32
Mike Thompson
Life living with the threat of COVID 19. My morning exercises don’t change, nor does my breakfast. But the world has changed, my personal world has changed. I am cut off from so many people. It has been said that no man is an island but we must now act as one. We mustn’t invade other people’s space if/when we go out. Is it a yard’s distance or two yards? So much information changing – and changing every day. I can’t keep up. Now no pubs are open, or clubs, restaurants, beer festivals, churches – or anywhere that constitutes a gathering. It’s quiet out there, less traffic, more bird noise.
Sunday 22 March 2020 - Story #33
Marcia Wright
Online celebration for my sister’s sixtieth birthday. We drank fizz and ate mini battenburgs.
Helen Thompson
Feeling bright. Sheets and towel wash in. Pilates and exercises. Prime Minister’s statement at 8pm. Lockdown. Stringent measures announced. Stay home, social distancing, essential travel only in the UK. Cancelled our week’s holiday to the Lake District and a London trip for the end of May. Mm, not feeling quite so bright now. Chatted to the next door neighbour, whose son is a police officer. He was in Pontefract on Friday night. It was horrendous. The first night of the pubs being closed, and they were having to break up fights. I hope this is not a sign of how people are going to react to the restrictions.
Monday 23 March 2020 – Story #34
Pete Clarke
I notice there are groups of people out on the streets going about their daily life without a care in the world. Didn’t they get the message? I pass a group of six guys drinking outside the off licence. It’s like a bank holiday in Harehills. I stay in isolation on the allotment. I sow cabbage, tomatoes coriander, and courgette. This passes the morning nicely.
Colin Trenholme
I began my new fitness regime yesterday, because I can’t go circuit training at the moment. I’ve got a 15 – 20 minute routine, that I’ll be doing each day. I’ve ordered a training mat and will make videos available – but only for a very large fee.
Mike Thompson
Where were you when John Lennon was shot? Filling up my milk float, ready for the day’s deliveries. Where were you on 23rd March 2020? I was listening to Prime Minister Boris Johnson telling us WAR was declared on Covid 19. That will be a question asked, for generations to come.
Wednesday 25 March 2020 – Story #35
Margaret Bending
Until the outbreak of the Corona Virus, I’d never really used Facebook. Now, I am much more aware of how useful it is for keeping in touch. It is when you are alone with your thoughts that they start to run away with themselves, and in stressful times like these, it is likely to be to the darker side, not the light. So it is good to share the funny – the good – things.
Thursday 26 March 2020 – Story #36
Marcia Wright
I see the clock is nearly at eight. I hear the sound of people clapping and cheering for the carers as I step outside my front door. I smell the air which seems fresher and cleaner tonight. I taste the remnants of the wine I was drinking. I touch your shoulder. I feel tears unexpectedly running down my face.
Friday 27 March 2020 – Story #37
Margaret Bending
Haiku
sunlight on water
flashing brightly through the trees
no one to see it
Sunday 29 March 2020 – Story #38
Marcia Wright
Speaking to a recently bereaved friend on Whats App Video, she says she no longer feels so alone with her grieving. It’s as if the whole world is grieving with her.
Monday 30 March 2020 – Story #39
Helen Thompson
Toothache whilst eating breakfast.
Think it’s two teeth I had root filled and crowned last November. I thought they had settled down.
Mike put some LPs on really loud whilst vacuuming. The amp was lit up like a Christmas tree. Rock music – Uriah Heep and Free’s ‘Alright Now’. Good job we live in a detached house.
Colin Trenholme
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I find that I’m becoming obsessed by it all: I can be watching a drama on television and find myself thinking, “Oh, they shouldn’t be standing as close to each other as that”… And not just modern programmes, but those from other periods as well. “I hope he’s going to wash his hands after doing that.”
Tuesday 31 March 2020 – Story #40
Helen Thompson
Tooth pain again, feels like abscess pain. Hope not. Also spotted an ulcer. Not feeling bright today. Feeling flat and deflated. Went a bit mad cleaning the bathroom – the Venetian blind, and all the upstairs window frames. It’s my automatic defence mechanism when my mood is low and life feels beyond my control. I only realise that when reflecting afterwards. It’s my way of compensating – but it’s not rational.
Marcia Wright
Strange to contemplate the different approaches that different countries are taking towards the crisis. I see images of people in Sweden still using cafes, and I hear a governor in Texas declaring that it would be worth letting older people die in order to save businesses going under. He says he wouldn’t mind sacrificing himself. I feel a bit unhinged mentally by all this. Time for a bit of weeding I think. Focussing on small achievable goals helps to retain my mental well being.
Pete Clarke
It’s tough at the moment. I’m thinking a lot about my family. Mainly my ex-wife, my sister Jan, my daughter Nicola, and the grandchildren that I have no contact with. You don’t stop loving people because they don’t want to be in your life. It’s hard. You kid yourself it’s for the best, but it tears you up inside. Could this virus get me? Could I die? Would they care? Old fears and feelings creep up on me and I have to get out. I walk to the allotment, and spend a couple of hours hoeing over several beds. It’s hard manual work, and it’s so satisfying. I really do start to feel better. The allotment effect is astonishing.
Friday 3 April 2020 – Story #41
Pat White
The intoxicating smell of bleach. Bleach has become my kitchen perfume. Scullery, dish-clout, back-kitchen… These words come rushing back, along with Aunt Mary-Ellen’s wrap-around apron and brown slippers decorated with pom poms. And the curtain underneath the deep white sink, gathered on a piece of plastic-covered wire with a hook at either end, stretched across the space. It’s a feminine smell of cleanliness, order and old-fashioned values. But most comforting of all, the smell of bleach brings back precious images of my mother – cooking, scrubbing, bleaching, and always caring.
Saturday 4 April 2020 – Story #42
Helen Thompson
Teeth still feel weird when I bring them together. It feels spongy.
Mike Thompson
I wasn’t in an “at risk” group before, but now I am. They’ve decided that if you are over 65, and have been having a flu jab before that age, then you must be classed as at risk. Slightly worrying, but worrying doesn’t help at all, does it? Helen doesn’t want me to help her in the supermarket or shops any more, now that I’m “more at risk”. I can stay in the car, she says.
Monday 6 April 2020 – Story #43
Colin Trenholme
Two of our friends sent us a video of some unexpected trespassers on their property – a pair of delightful deer. Others told us that they have been invaded by groups of very noisy peacocks and somewhat dim pheasants. We just get defecating cats.
Tuesday 7 April 2020 – Story #44
Margaret Bending
Written after the death of a friend’s relative from Covid 19. I sit in the dark. The moon is so bright tonight. Venus too. It is a beautiful night. I go out for a walk in the lane. With the moon so bright, there is no need for a torch. The wind rustles through the forest, and there is an occasional owl call. The world turns. It is not only my own mortality I am feeling tonight, but also the transience of humanity. Modern humans have existed for about 200,000 years. That is nothing to a planet that was born four and a half billion years ago. So many species have had a fleeting existence upon its surface. Dinosaurs lasted for about 165 million years. How will mankind fare?
Wednesday 8 April 2020 – Story #45
Pete Clarke
As usual I cycled to the allotment and spent the day repairing a retaining fence on my wildflower corridor, digging out at the back of the fence and straightening it up.I sowed new wildflower seeds, all the time surrounded by butterflies, bees looking for somewhere to settle, birds, and the allotment cats passing by. I spent my lunch break watching two crows flying to and fro with nest material, to the top of a big sycamore. Spring has definitely arrived.
Mike Thompson
Time is greater than it was, because now we have more of it. Time to plan, time to sit, time to read, time to meditate, time to notice, and time to do. Tomorrow I will start the garage clean out or the painting of the kitchen etc. But of course, tomorrow never comes, because we laze about doing nothing, thinking it can be done tomorrow!
Thursday 9 April 2020 – Story # 46
Marcia Wright
I have good news. The garden centre has managed to organise deliveries and I get several bags of compost and some tomato and flower seeds. I am happy.
Colin Trenholme
I wouldn’t like to be a teenager at the moment. It must be especially difficult in the current climate, because kids need time with their mates; time to mess around; time to do daft stuff; time to make mistakes. I don’t know how well I’d have coped with lockdown at that age. I’d have obeyed it because I was conscientious and my parents would have made sure that I stayed in, but I would have been sulky, ill-tempered and pretty miserable.
Saturday 11 April 2020 – Story #47
Helen Thompson
Nearly 1,000 people died of Covid-19 yesterday.
Dreadful.
How long is this going to go on for?
Sunday 5 April 2020 – Story #48
Mike Thompson
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been admitted to hospital.
Helen Thompson
We have managed a daily walk for exercise purposes on most days. Spotting the colourful array of rainbows of hope created by children, and proudly shared in house windows. Loving the amazing display nature has given us this spring. Clouds of pink and white cherry blossom, exotic magnolia, dazzling yellow tulips and daffodils. Vibrant green hawthorn bursting into leaf. What a beautiful sight. Mum always loved springtime.
Sunday 12 April 2020 – Story #49
Helen Thompson
No Easter eggs for us today.
Already eaten them.
Mike Thompson
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has returned home
from hospital.
Tuesday 14 April 2020 – Story #50
Colin Trenholme
It is Tuesday, I think.
Although I thought yesterday was Sunday for most of the day.
It’s all a blur.
Wednesday 15 April 2020 – Story #51
Helen Thompson
Delicious roast duck breast today. Meals are definitely one of the highlights of the day.
Tragic news of the death of a nurse from Harrogate on Mothering Sunday.
Her daughter blames the lack of Personal Protective Equipment.
Thursday 16 April 2020 – Story #52
Colin Trenholme
Have you heard about the Belper Moo? At 6.30 pm each evening, the residents of that fine town join together, throw back their heads and moo loudly to relieve boredom – for about two minutes, I believe. And, as I’m sure you know, this is the same location that has a seven feet high Mr Potato Head statue.
Friday 17 April 2020 – Story #53
Man Chiu Leung
For tea I braised a pair of goose wings with yam and pasta twists. The wings were left over from last Friday’s roast. We roasted a 3.5 kg goose on Good Friday. I am practising my singing in the evenings.
Marcia Wright
I am feeling the pain in my hip today, coupled with bad guts, and a bit of the shivers. I get up and out into the garden, eventually, where I hear interesting snippets of disembodied conversations floating over the hedge which borders the road. Two female voices, happily chatting. “I’m getting used to this now. I’m enjoying the pottering about.” Later, a man and a little girl’s voices. “You see”, says the male voice, “men’s muscles are made for working like a horse. Girls’ muscles are weaker.”
Tonight the clapping for the NHS shows a large crowd, including police officers, on Westminster Bridge, with no observation of social distancing – whilst we are all cowering in our homes. This situation feels quite confusing at times.
Margaret Bending
Have all these people died because of carelessness in a lab?
Saturday 18 April 2020 – Story #54
Marcia Wright
A leaflet through the door from Bal at the Post Office, and he is offering to help anyone who is short of money or food, due to the virus. “Don’t be afraid or embarrassed to send me a private message. I will be more than happy to share what I have.” I’m finding such wonderful acts of kindness overwhelming in a way I haven’t experienced before, but also sustaining, in the face of grim reality.
Sunday 19 April 2020 – Story #55
Margaret Bending
If God exists, he has no heart.
Pat White
Strangely, this pandemic has turned my thoughts away from the global picture, and I find myself concentrating more on the minutiae of life, stripping away the obvious, and examining tiny details. In the garden this has led to a new obsession with shoots. My hostas have produced fat purple globes, slender points, or dark green twirls of tightly packed leaves, arguably more beautiful, and certainly more mysterious than the mature plants.
In a similar way, this forced isolation has changed my way of reading. Once again, I have opened Jean Rhys’s ‘Wild Sargasso Sea’, but I no longer speedily chase the narrative. Now, I am savouring and re-reading passages, thinking beyond, and taking a new delight in the words and the ideas.
I am not wasting time, I am appreciating time.
Monday 20 April 2020 Story #56
Man Chiu Leung
My weekly routine is similar, day by day. Get up around 7.30 a.m. Use the cafetiere to make coffee. I grind my own coffee beans. Then breakfast – a mixture of English and Chinese. Then tend my garden. Lunch around noon. After 1pm I go out for a walk. Around 4pm I start to prepare dinner. Cook around 5pm. Eat around 6pm. I don’t find the routine boring.
The only mishap is the heated discussions with my wife from time to time. During our 49 years together, we have never spent all day together. Now we have to be together every day. Conflict is bound to occur. The blessing is, we tend to forget the differences and get on with it. I am afraid we don’t live in a perfect world and we have to accept unpleasant situations.
Helen Thompson
Plum sponge pudding. Definitely making more of these than usual.
Marcia Wright
I wake up exhausted. I never usually dream, and now my early morning mind is flooded with images of encounters with dead parents, unfulfilled longings, memories of a beloved deceased sister, who stays tantalisingly out of sight, and a difficult person from the past – lounging, relaxed and smiling on my settee. I feel relieved to haul myself back to reality, until I read the news on my phone, which, unsurprisingly, is still dire – with predictions of grave economic downturn, due to the crisis.
Friday 24 April 2020 - Story #57
Marcia Wright
Hurray for a much better night’s sleep. I go into the back bedroom, and see that on our little pond outside, there is a Mother Duck and her ten little ducklings, having their first swim. She must have hatched them somewhere unseen, close by. They look so sweet, and suddenly the world seems a much brighter place.
Pat White
Haiku
bold magpies squabble
until they choose to fly off
I am forced to stay
Saturday 25 April 2020 – Story #58
Margaret Bending
But I ask myself: what is happening? Are we settling into a new routine? Is this becoming the new norm? Has my world, that was opening up into new vistas, new experiences, new friends, shrunk into a bubble of isolated safety? Will it ever expand again?
Tuesday 28 April 2020 - Story #59
Marcia Wright
Today I followed the nation’s PE teacher, Joe Wicks, who has kindly devised a few exercise routines for seniors. The best thing is, they are only ten minutes long, so with a bit of that, and a bit of Chi Kung, I feel I’m really cooking with gas!
We observed the minute’s silence for all the front line workers who have died of the virus at 11 a.m. this morning. All my emotions seem heightened right now.
A Panorama programme has revealed that the government failed to stockpile PPE, or prepare adequately for the pandemic, and that they ignored the advice of scientists. It’s all very shocking.
Thursday 30th April 2020 - Story #60
Helen Thompson
Another home made blackcurrant sponge pudding.
Mike’s getting good at this.
Friday 1st May 2020 - Story #61
Mike Thompson
We are still in lockdown. But sport is talking of a comeback – nothing yet written in stone. Some shops, eg. DIY stores, are opening, providing they adhere to social distancing rules. Some refuse sites may be given the OK to open. In other words, we are being fed information to ready us for a relaxing of the full lockdown.
I am looking forward to us being able to get back to more normality, but fear that the relaxing of the rules may be too early – that the pandemic may burst back into life, and kill thousands more. I want my former life back, but not at the expense of more lives lost.
Marcia Wright
I woke early again. At 4 a.m. But I took the opportunity to have my own personal celebration of May Day and the Dawn Chorus. I grabbed a cuppa and threw open my bedroom windows. Wrapped in a warm blanket I listened to all the sounds of the birds in full song, as dawn slowly broke. It was fantastic. And I remembered the words of a Padstow song from fifty years ago:
“Unite and unite and let us all unite
For summer is acome unto day
And whither we are going we will all unite,
In the merry, merry morning of May.”
Nie and informative post, your every post worth atleast something.