Apologies for the pause, I didn’t mean to worry anybody. Truth be told it has got harder to laugh in the last few days. Firstly, it is because getting a fit of the giggles is one of my asthma triggers and with the dry cough that André and I have both had these last eleven days and somewhat suspect to be Covid-19, I have to stay in a really safe middle ground of laughing just enough to maintain my British stiff upper lip and not laughing so much that I trigger a massive asthma attack and die.
It’s a very fine and delicate balance. Especially living with André, our mischievous dog, Teddy Spaghetti, and both of their farts.
The last time (pre-apocalypse) I nearly died laughing was on my birthday a couple of years ago when André baked me THIS cake
…whilst playing me the sound effect from THIS video (watch all the way through).
Please be warned, once you see this video and hear this sound effect you will never be able to unsee or unhear it. For the last three years, nobody in our house has been able to let out any kind of gentle sigh or similar noise without the other one immediately launching into a full scale impersonation of a rutting tortoise.
If you really need to have your mind taken off the virus and all the impending doom it brings with it today, then tortoise porn is a delightfully good rabbit hole to fall down. Here is another particular favourite of mine, which really goes to show that in any sort of locked in situation it’s important to love the one you’re with.
This week, my asthma got most in trouble when I tried on Andre’s joke hat hair wig thing from Amazon and looked in the mirror at what can only be described as my ‘80s children’s TV presenter with a drug habit’ look. I spent the rest of the evening sucking on my Ventolin inhaler, feeling like I was breathing through a wad of cotton wool and regretting my penchant for silliness quite a lot.
Although laughing myself to death really wouldn’t be such a bad way to go, the second and most pressing reason it has got harder to laugh is because of the increasing seriousness and tragedy of the current situation unfolding in our world.
I started this diary of the events from my perspective not really to keep people in my current time entertained (although it has made me so happy to receive emails and messages from people around the world saying it is doing that), but as an honest record for the future from a more personal perspective. So I need to balance my dafter thoughts with some of the harsher reality I see around me. For those living this nightmare who wish to skip a few paragraphs, or even backwards into my other, sillier blog posts, I will not be offended. You can begin again by scrolling down to after the picture of the happy cartoon tortoise.
I have found it harder to write the last two nights because two of my dear friends have elderly fathers in hospital right now who they suspect to have the virus. They have been told to expect the worst. They aren’t even able to hold their fathers’ hands or hug their mothers.
Friends who are nurses, doctors, paramedics and other healthcare workers have been crying in public (online) and in private emails with the desperation and frustration they feel. The sense of abandonment they feel not having enough of anything – protective clothing, beds, staff, ventilators, food, support. Everyone I know is in awe of and utterly indebted to the point of grovelling to these amazing people who have been consistently so undervalued in our society. And I’m not afraid to bring politics into it when I say I remember very well in all-to-recent times the Tory Government voting down much needed pay increases for these health workers whilst voting to increase their own pay and perks.
Only now we are finding out that for years research has been conducted by our top universities spelling out how utterly unprepared we were for a pandemic, and every single year these research papers were ignored by the Government.
Even I, with my rudimentary understanding of biology and history have been telling people (profit of doom that I am with my over-anxious nature) that statistically we were well overdue for a plague that would ‘cull a sizeable percentage of humanity’. Bill Gates concurred. It is not nice to be proven right. And it serves no current purpose to be angry with the Government. I’m just extremely grateful they are finally getting their act together shutting non-essential things down, albeit way too late to save many thousands of people, and I’m also grateful for the financial support they are offering some people (although as it stands currently, self-employed people like myself are not included and feeling rather jittery to put it mildly).
But I do not have energy to waste on anger. I do not have energy to waste on blame or finger pointing. I want to think only good thoughts, grateful thoughts, kind thoughts.
We can kill and eat the Tories later when things get really rough. But for now, let’s focus on survival, helping the vulnerable, boosting morale and supporting those who need it. Put a pin in politically-motivated cannibalism for today.
Today I am grateful for every single blessing. And this virus gives us an opportunity to really think about what really matters. On fleek eyebrows (whatever the fuckety fuck that ever meant) have never mattered less. I’ve lost three pounds in the last 10 days through food rationing during self-isolation but I couldn’t feel less interested in getting a ‘bikini body’.
Every time we have walked the dog in the last three weeks I’ve cherished the freedom to do so, really noticed the blue sky, the cool breeze, the light on the rippling water of the lake, the joy in the heart of my dog as it innocently canters about the grass, rolling in fox poo, sniffing the wee of other dogs left on mole hills or tree stumps like it is inhaling the scent of an enchanting lover.
Will this be the last dog walk where I can nod pleasantly in greeting as we amble past other dog walkers and families out for a stroll rather than assume they are from a rival tribe of people who will slit my throat just to see if I’m carrying a pack of Handy Andies or hand sanitiser in my Primark faux leather handbag?
In the relative silence brought about by the lack of traffic on the main road where I live, I have noticed the bird song late in the afternoon. We never hear that here.
And every morning since André and I fell ill together, I have woken up and held my breath for a moment to check he is still breathing and then smiled with joy to know he is, before rolling into the nook of his arm as he wakes and greets me with a kiss and a smile. “Another day in paradise with you,” he said one morning, without the smallest hint of sarcasm. He got sweet loving that day, I can tell you.
We are glad to be alive for as long as we are. We are grateful to have a home, for the moment we have work we can do from home, grateful for internet access that allows us to connect with friends and family and information and entertainment. We are grateful for the food we still have (acknowledging the anxiety we feel of not knowing where and when future food will come from). We are grateful for the dog who, having trained us well, keeps us to a good routine of daytime walks and reasonable bedtimes.
And talking of routines and rituals, it’s amazing how quickly things become the new normal. We religiously pop our zinc, vitamin C and vitamin D tablets, and gargle with bee propolis. We wash our hands more thoroughly and for longer. We answer the postman with rubber gloves on. We phone or text our families much more often. We tell everyone we love them much more regularly.
We check in at least once a day with a hypnotherapist buddy who is leading free online relaxation and confidence sessions three times a day with her group of colleagues. It has become a little rock of calm in the current stormy sea. You can see in the Facebook Live sessions which of your friends join in too. In this way I can do something once a day with my sister who lives on the Maltese island of Gozo, and who I almost never get to speak to. Doing an online relaxation class together gives us a moment of connection and soothes my soul.
My morning coffee routine has stuck well into the new timetable, ever since I had my first taste of freshly ground coffee very late in life and became a convert (but ONLY very particular brands of coffee, ground for exactly 9 seconds, brewed for exactly three minutes and with a very large dollop of Oatly Barista milk). These days I eye the ever-decreasing supply of my favourite oat milk and know I’m counting down the days this ritual can last because all supermarkets are sold out of it and some utter scrotal sacs of human beings are selling them for upwards of £22.99 a litre on eBay.
What do they call this…oh yes…First World Problems. Relax CJ. Relax.
So each day I breathe in the smell of the beans as I open the packet of coffee with the enthusiasm of my dog sniffing the crotches of her canine friends. I inhale the aroma of freshly ground coffee with my eyes shut and my senses coming alive each morning. I savour the first sip and and every sip after that. Because who knows how long it will be until all this sweet simple pleasure stops? So I’m cherishing everything. Every single second. Every single breath.
And speaking of breathing, I do think I’m getting better, albeit very slowly. There have been several days where I thought I was much better only to have a bad afternoon of breathlessness or to start coughing again after exerting myself only a tiny bit. But in the absence of my peak-flow meter (a thing asthmatics puff into to measure the strength of your lungs…mine being lost somewhere in the house right now), I have been measuring the strength of my lungs another way…by singing quietly in my kitchen as I brew my coffee.
A few mornings as I brewed the coffee, singing was very hard to do because the breaths just wouldn’t come. I was scared I might get worse and even if we survived my lungs might be scarred and I’d never sing again. But this morning I could reach the high notes once more. And even if I don’t have the power behind my voice that I am used to, I felt a little hope that I will be able to sing again in something more than a whispery squeak.
My neighbours may not be so grateful for this now they are stuck in all day like we are. They may not appreciate my love of cheesy classics and showtunes. They may not realise that me singing ‘The Lonely Goatherd’ and ‘My Favourite Things’ from The Sound of Music is actually what is going to get us all through the apocalypse. They do not realise that I am actually the Covid-19 Vera Lynn. They do not realise that when I am Queen of the New World Order that our National Anthem will be replaced by a suitable Julie Andrews classic complete with a choreographed dance routine with puppets and fake moustaches.
When I get enough breath back I have promised to entertain my friends online with some singing. They are currently in good enough spirits to encourage me. I am really not that good. But having spent a lifetime of desperately loving to sing and talking myself out of so many opportunities to sing out of shyness or self-doubt, I now recognise how precious every single chance has been that I turned down and deeply regret not seizing those moments to shine and suck the marrow from life.
I cared way too much what other people thought of me. I worried way too much about looking foolish. Those nights I wanted to get up at karaoke and have a go where I dithered for so long that by the time I was getting my courage up for my first go the night was winding down…I never quite managed to work myself up to the big belting show stopping Barbra Streisand number I ALWAYS wanted to wow my local pub with. I really pray it’s not too late. I now realise that the only foolish thing is not looking or sounding foolish but not doing what makes your heart soar in because of ridiculous worries about what other people think. (Disclaimer, this rule/realisation should not apply to the following people:- rapists, perverts, flashers, murderers, cannibals, thieves, sheep shaggers, fox hunters, or Tories. You should all continue not to follow your instincts of what makes you happy).
I’m also trying to work as much as I can, while I can. While I work I distract my brain with the help of Netflix and BBC iplayer (God bless the creative arts for keeping us all sane). My recommendations for the Apocalypse are ‘Call the Midwife’ on the BBC (people with nice manners, community spirit, just enough drama to keep it interesting without too much drama to taunt our poor overworked adrenal glands), ‘Great Pottery Throwdown’ on More4 (lovely, lovely creative people make nice things and help and support their competitors while the judges cry at the beauty of what they create and everyone is just so nice, also with lovely manners), and ‘The Walking Dead’ on Amazon Prime (research for when the shit really hits the fan, it all goes tribal and we have to attempt to rebuild society. It also makes you very glad that at least with our virus, however bad it is, it doesn’t involve zombies yet).
In many ways, André and I are so incredibly lucky. Our new normal is so much like our old normal, at least for now. We may have no idea how our business will survive the next few weeks or months, but dealing with one day at a time we’re OK right now, and that’s all most of us can say.
We are used to working from home, we are used to being with each other pretty much 24/7, we don’t have young children to have to entertain and home school, we already have a shit social life. So we will continue to count our blessings and try and stay in a happy place in our head as much as we can, even if some days it gets much harder than others. Even though some of our friends are in terrible situations and we are fairly powerless to help them right now, keep to your rituals, notice the small elements of beauty in your life, sing Julie Andrews songs….And the world will keep on turning until one day this unfolding nightmare will be in the past tense.
We will mourn together, pick up the pieces together, rebuild together. One day we will be able to hug each other again. Until then, a virtual hug from me, and a reminder that if the human race doesn’t make it, the tortoise-shoe mutant hybrids will be doing their damned best to repopulate the world.
Stay safe and sane, love the ones you’re with, and see you on the other side.
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