You couldn't make it up....

 You couldn't make it up.

What will folk make of this disaster in years to come?  I can only imagine the shock and horror of future generations looking at this pandemic and wondering if it can possibly be real.

Trust me, we couldn't make this up. Today the UK has reached the grim total of 100,000 Covid related deaths. Hospital admissions are still over 1,000 a day causing vital cancer treatments and urgent operations to be cancelled. 

Glastonbury , cancelled last year, is cancelled yet again, dashing everyone's hopes of an anything like normal summer, yet alone a spring reprieve.

 

Boris Johnson still refuses to rule for a strict lockdown as it would mean paying people to stay at home. Economy wins over health. Those who can work from home must, but those who can't carry on, and there is a lot of "carrying on". 

Shops closed under the non essential retail clause open for click and collect -which often takes time enough to allow for browsing in the queues-take aways abound, markets open in the town, and resulting crowds everywhere, on foot, on the roads, on bikes.  

Tinkering around the edges is not helping. The Government is currently discussing quarantine hotels as it is a standing joke that our airports allow free access and no one ever checks up on those supposed to be isolating on arrival. As business and industry are resisting, our borders remain as relaxed as everywhere else.

The United Kingdom is the laughing stock of the world. The irony of trying to walk this tightrope between health and wealth is that the UK wobbled and toppled.  

We have the highest Covid death rate in the world and one of the steepest recessions. Double fail. 

Redundancies are at an all time high and can only climb once the furlough scheme is withdrawn. The jobless total has risen to 5%.  Business large and small are biting the dust. Flagship high street chains such as Debenhams are closed for good.

January seems endless. British black humour has replaced the blitz spirit. 

trending on Facebook , summing up the public mood.

Pre weekend Gov press conference of doom and dire warnings for law breakers back fired. The public have, statistically and against all predictions, behaved remarkably well and are fed up with taking the blame for mismanagement.

Cue too much criticism for even the most thick skinned of Governments. Boris Johnson today came out and apologised for the beyond belief death rate, declaring the vaccine rollout will save us and managed to avoid for once telling us it is all our fault.

And as for vaccines, you definitely couldn't make this up. Less than a month after Brexit transition ends and the EU and the UK are embroiled in a vaccine row.  AstraZeneca vaccines to the EU are being delayed due to production issues. The EU claim we have taken to many for ourselves and are threatening to deny us access to the Pfizer vaccine, produced in the EU.  Seriously.

Me, I walk. Endlessly. I look forward to weekends when I can meet my daughter.    Face time with my granddaughters lights up my day.  I write them letters, send them little gifts. I miss them so much my heart is breaking. 

My days drift past in a haze of walking, blocking out the building noise outside, pouring distraction podcasts and audiobooks in my ears to quiet my mind. 

Day after day. One day at a time. 

 

Where to start..

Where to start...

The grim fact that the UK officially has the highest Covid 19 death rate in the world?*

The ghastly death rates averaging over 1,000 daily?

The complete breakdown of trust in Government which prioritises wealth over health?

The bleak, grey, wet January days merging into endless barren empty wastelands?

"Blue Monday" has come and gone in a January where everyday is blue.  

The days merge into one. My husband works silently in his office, shutting out the building work opposite with noise reducing headphones. 

My car has been used so infrequently that it refuses to start when asked.The battery has given up the ghost. I know how it feels.

Staying positive is hard in the face of unremitting bad news. 

The Government's latest strategy to keep moral high is to play the mass vaccination card.  Hah. Whilst in fairness vaccine rollout is gathering steam, 4 million (officially) done and counting, it does not take a maths genius to work out that s only another 62 million to go then.

Controversy rages over priority groups. Elderly obviously, after that care workers, medical staff....but teachers want a shot, early years workers want a shot, police want a shot, the list goes on. 

Meanwhile the WHO accuses the world of moral catastrophe over vaccine hoarding as rich first nations hog the lions share of the available vaccines.  Shameful.

Press conferences are so monotonous the main headline recently was Boris Johnson and Professor Chris Whitty bickering over the meaning of 'spring' and who had mislead the public first into thinking we would be out of the woods before Easter.  Its okay , guys, none of us believed either of you anyway.

Staying local is a joke. The downs above our house are now more crowded than cities. Going for a walk is like riding dodgems. The streets of the village are packed with visiting cars. So much for Police enforcing stay local. 

By trial and error I have learnt to find quiet places and quiet times. But it too is getting harder as farmers , once welcoming, are now locking gates to preserve crops and livelihoods for hoards of inconsiderate walkers and the January weather has turned paths into rivers of mud.

Me, I pass my days a day at time. I run. I walk. In solitude mostly. With my daughter at weekends. I resist the urge to become a recluse and have a few trusted friends as walk buddies.  I work to feel useful thought I would feel more useful if my work was valued enough to merit a salary. 

This time last year I was off to India, a free spirit, loving life with my family, my grandchildren, my friends.  

This year my world is bereft of everything which gave it joy. I hold on to hope as each day disappears into the mists of wasted time. I wade on, a day at a time, through the January gloom.

 For reference

Happy anniversary 😒

Saturday Jan 9th.

My 39th wedding anniversary.

No cards, no flowers. Neither Paul or I will risk our lives going shopping for the sake of tokens.

On Friday 1,325 Covid related  deaths were recorded in the UK, the highest figure in a single day since the pandemic began.

Hospitals throughout London and the Southeast have declared a major incident. Medical chiefs advise beds and oxygen are at capacity. God forbid anyone gets ill now.

Ambulances queue for hours outside hospitals unable to unload seriously ill people. Non Covid patients are in dire straits, cancer operations have been cancelled, major surgeries postponed, accident victims left in agony for lack of services and staff.

The UK Lockdown is universally deemed to lightweight but this Government seems oblivious. 

Schools are shut to all but key workers. However, with many, many more businesses are open , far more than in the first lockdown, and those who cannot work from home being deemed "key", the pupil numbers are still high.

In the second lockdown schools remained open. Now, in lockdown three, the rules regarding businesses stay as in lockdown two, i.e. soft. 

Garden centres, pet shops, builders merchants, health food shops, the list of essential businesses is long and growing. People who cannot work from home can send their children to school. 

Plus now the rule is only one parent at work , not two as in the spring lockdown, entitles a child to a place, alongside those who have no access to a laptop , plus the vulnerable, plus the parents who simply can't cope, etc, etc.

Yesterday I heard of a teacher in a local school who has died of Covid. This new variant is lethal and children are super spreaders. 

The Government is under pressure to change the leniency of lockdown. This is not lockdown as we knew it last year. This is a mess.

This week also brought shocking news from America. Wednesday Jan 6th violence broke out in Washington,  protestors stormed the Capitol in a (failed) bid to prevent lawmakers certifying Joe Biden's Presidential victory. 

Four people died in the riots. Trump organised the march, incited his supporters to rise up and protest. Despite his subsequent declaration of innocence, he has been banned from Twitter and social media platforms. There are calls to impeach him rather than allow this madman even another 12 days of presidency. 

Less than 10 days into 2021. Not a good start to the new year. 

  

One day at a time

"How do you do it said night
How do you wake and shine
I keep it simple said light
One day at a time"

Lines by Lem Sissay saying better than I can how it feels today.

This is my Coronavirus Diaries part 2, 2021. 

A new blog for an old story.

Last year I began writing what I then believed was a unique journey , a travelogue of beginning, middle and end. I had no idea that one year on I would be living in a nightmare with no end in sight.

The 2020 blog entries until September were part of a universal diary collecting individual accounts of the first lockdown. 

Now reading back we seem collectively naive, innocent, trusting and incredibly optimistic.

By the summer the country had been released from lockdown, with social distancing in place admittedly but overall life seemed normal.

Funding for projects ceased. The lockdown was done, in every sense.

Schools, universities, colleges , all returned in the autumn and unleashed a second wave of this deadly virus in all its fury.

By Christmas we were in the mire. I had by then began writing only for myself, drawing my blog away from its collective link as I distrusted the social policy uses involved.

For those who entrusted me with their voices earlier in the year thank you. Those entries are safely in Mass Obs in a project which was ringfenced in August and rests in trusted hands for perpetuity.

As I begin this new year and new blog, the hopes and dreams which sustained us last year are in tatters. 

The new variant of the virus is lethal. Today the UK recorded over 1 000 deaths. 

Vaccines are here but so far barely anyone has had one. There is an endgame but it is so far out we cannot see the finishing line. 

The country is officially in lockdown. Schools, colleges and universities are shut. However,  nurseries are open, as are garden centres, and so many "essential" shops that this is a vastly different lockdown to last year. Traffic is as bad as ever. Buses and trains continue to run. 

Why? Shut everything, surely? But what we learned last year is the cost of this to the economy and to mental health. This Government says it is trying to balance those with the need to keep us safe.

I believe that is a cop out. Stunningly incompetent.

We have been led down blind alleys, turned round so many U turns, and finally tipped into a cess pit. 

No use looking to the Government for help. Failed track and trace app, failed mass testing, failed in every safety net which could have saved people.

I am grateful that I and those I love are well.  To remain well means avoiding everything and everyone we hold dear, family, friends, life as we knew it. 

It feels impossible. One day at a time is the only way forward.