Wait until the end!

I always take rain personally.

It held off long enough for me to go and have my early morning swim and bike ride (sequentially, you understand) and then, after settling down with a book, it started to pour.  And it’s raining now with that sort of viciously increasing intensity that suggests that it will never cease.  So, it’s just as well that I still have 27% of the book to finish.

The book is The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and is a prequel to the Hunger Games series of novels by Suzanne Collins.  Or rip-off, you could say.  Though I read through the Hunger Games Trilogy with what can only be described as rabid avidity – just as I did with the Twilight series.  So, what does that say about having an English Literature degree.  Whatever you think about the literary quality of those series, you have to admit (well, I do) that they are absolute page turners.

So why have I decided to start writing about the novel when I am three-quarters of the way through and therefore should be reading frantically to get to the end?

Good question.

Having read the other novels, it is fascinating to see how a more than competent author deals with creating a gripping back-story.  We are presented with the events surrounding the tenth Hunger Games in Panem, a Panem which has not yet fully recovered from the destruction of the Rebellion, a Panem in which there are still visible scars from the war and in which there is still real deprivation.  It is worth bearing in mind that, for example in the real world, in Britain rationing after the Second World War did not fully end until 1954 – the way having ended in 1945.  So, the description of a still recovering Panem in the Hunger Games novels a decade after the ending of the Rebellion strikes home.

There is none of the flashy opulence of the stage-managed arenas of the later novels, the hunger games are still basic and confined to an amphitheatre that is an imposing, if bomb damaged pre-war relic.

We get references to elements that are going to be major in the later novels: the introduction of Mentors; the use of genetic engineering; the media exploitation of the games; the introduction of betting – a whole series of themes that the reader knows are going to be more fully developed in the later novels.  All of this I have found convincing and a please to see the manipulation of the narrative by a clever author.

The reason that I have stopped reading at the moment (there is no way that I will leave the book unread!) is that the manipulation of the author has become a little too obvious, it has be come more of the ‘I am the author and I can do what I like’ rather than the narrative having its own dynamic.

I know that Collins is not into the ‘happily ever after’ endings and most readers are going to know how things turn out: the major male character in this novel is called Snow and his grandmother grows roses on her rooftop garden and his dead mother’s compact holds rose scented powder – we have the clues, hammered home, we know where this is eventually going.  We know that this doesn’t end happily.  I just fear how mawkish it might eventually turn out to be.

And there I have offended against one of the cardinal rules of literary criticism; do not criticise something for what it has not done!  I don’t know (yet) how Collins ends this novel and I should reserve judgement.  Which I will, as each paragraph here has been written with an increasing sense of frustration as I need to go back to the text!  As you can tell my literary reserve did not last long and I will finish it off today and come back and give an opinion (as I should) on the whole thing!

LOCKDOWN [Phase 1] CASTELLDEFELS – DAY 81 – Thursday, 4rd June.

Rain!  The fact that the word has an exclamation mark after it shows how rare it is, hindering me from taking my daily earlyish morning bike ride.  I mean, I am not fanatical about it and I have discovered that my lightweight coat is now (after lockdown girth-gain) somewhat snug to the point of constriction.  This means that my ‘small enough to be compressed to the size of a cricket ball’ coat is now not so useful and I will have to look around though my weather-wear to find something more suitable to carry with me on the bike as an emergency covering to cope with inclement weather.

     The rain held off for almost all of my ride, and even towards the end the rain was ‘only in the wind’ and I did not need to put on the jacket that I had packed into a small backpack.  The inclement weather encouraged most people to stay at home and so my ride was rather more spacious than usual and a damn sight more pleasant.

     As Catalan weather is not quite as spiteful as British weather, the rain did not really develop into something more damp and we even had some sunshine, though I was too tardy to take much advantage of it.

The cultural event of the day was the National Theatre free play from the Donmar Theatre of Coriolanus with Tom Hiddleston.  Again it was one of those filmed performances that you really wanted to experience in the theatre rather than on the screen, but it was a moving experience, and I am glad and grateful that I have had the opportunity to see it.

     I think of Coriolanus in the same way that I think about Madame Bovary: there is no one in the play or novel whom I really like, but I very much enjoy the moral dilemmas and quandaries that both throw up in their essentially chaotic lives. 

     The production of Coriolanus was complicated by the fact that Hiddleston has something of a mesmeric stage presence and, in spite of what he was saying it was almost impossible not to feel for him.  Both Coriolanus and Madame Bovary are both characters whose impossibly complicated lives seem to insist on death as the only reasonable solution to their situations!

I have now read (via Kindle) the second of Tom Holt’s novels using the characters created by EF Benson.  I think that I read it too soon after my re-reading of the first, with the result that the second, Lucia Triumphant, seems a little formulaic and self-indulgently picaresque – though, to be fair, that is quite like the style of the originals.  There were one or two points of real pleasure in the elegance of the writing and the cleverness of the situations engineered, but it did not satisfy as much as the first, possibly because the setting in the Second World War gave a more convincing overarching backdrop.  Nevertheless, worth reading.  And indeed, worth buying in Kindle.

     After talking to Irene, I have also downloaded at her suggestion a book of short stories by John Grisham called Ford County which I look forward to reading tomorrow.

The extension of the lockdown seems to be a formality here in Spain.  We seem to be heading for the next level in our lockdown by the weekend and who knows, it might even be possible to swim in the sea next week. 

     We take our pleasures as we are allowed to find them.

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 56 – Sunday, 10th May

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain and the threat of the “thin end of the wedge” challenge to exercise: if you don’t go out for your bike ride because of a little dampness, then what will you do if the sky is merely overcast tomorrow?  Will that be excuse enough to defer effort?

     Admittedly, rainy days are in the minority in this country, and therefore the opportunities for indolence are fewer too, but the rot can set in at any moment, and the dust can settle on a machine that is meant for motion!

     I do have waterproof leggings and a lightweight rain jacket so it is perfectly possible (if unpleasant) to go for a bike ride and stay relatively dry.  On the other hand, it does make the ride more duty than pleasure.  On the other hand (making three, by my computation!) exercise is essential for the preservation of a healthy lifestyle under lockdown and so the (unpleasant) effort should probably be made.

     As you can imagine, I indulged in such pleasant prevarication, while reading my Daily Dose of Misery from the news section of the digital Guardian and doing the Quick Crossword and, of course, drinking my essential cup of tea.  Time well spent.  And dry too!

     Eventually, I decided to test the weather and, after extensive sampling of the climatic conditions (i.e. opening the kitchen window) I reasoned that, while it was still damp it was not actually raining so the ride could be taken in relative comfort.

     It was only when I was gloved and helmeted with the bike newly charged and ready to go, that I looked at my watch.  I had missed my age-specific designated time slot for exercise, so back upstairs for a cup of tea?

     In the eagerness to return to the comfort of the sitting room I conveniently forgot the possibility of the mind numbing circling of the communal pool as a substitute for the more open and interesting vistas of the Paseo.  It comes to something that I have to write about it before the possibility of doing something that I outlined in the previous sentence becomes an imperative.   Moppy (for it is she, god bless her mechanical revolving cleaning pads) is about her business on our tile floors and therefore the presence of my obstructing feet are an impediment to her efficiency and I should remove them to the pool.  So I will.  And service will be resumed after I have listened on another episode of ‘In Our Time’ on the hoof!

     Which was Mandeville’s ‘Fable of the Bees’ – a book I own and have never read, but now I will be able to bluff my way and make links with present economic and sociological thought.  That’s what ‘In Our Time’ is all about!  Learning with walking stick in one hand and umbrella in the other and weaving my way around sun loungers to make the circuits a little bit more interesting.

     As the weather is glum, there are few people about and I am sure that gatherings of the ‘bike gangs’ (that makes them sound so much more threatening than these al fresco bike mounted chat groups are) will be loath to form without the clemency of warm weather.

     As it is Sunday, I will make one of my commercial outings to the pollo a last to get our chicken meal.  As well as facilitating the provision of food it also gives an interesting view of how well physical distancing is enduring.  So far, the distancing has been exemplary, although rain does encourage grouping under awning, so it will test discipline!

     And I can now confirm that discipline was preserved and, apart from the kids who now seem not to wear mask as a matter of course.

Rather than listen to the Blond Buffoon who was speaking at 7 pm I went out in the rain on my bike rather than listen to his bluster.  The lead up to this talk (Why on a Sunday?  Why not in parliament?) was a master class in communication ineptitude as expectation was allowed to distort any possible message.  The new slogan “Stay alert” is confusing and dangerously ambiguous, it just adds to the general air of desperate ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ approach that has characterised the methodology of this government.

     Spain too is easing restrictions in a stepped approach.  You would have thought that any easing would only be in those areas where the virus had been shown to be limited, with extensive testing to verify any such limitation.  Why then has Madrid decided that it is one of the regions where restrictions can be relaxed when the number of deaths and new infections is still rife?

     In Spain and the UK, it would appear that the political is more important that public health, and unless that is reversed then we are going to pay for that in more and more deaths.

Tomorrow is our weekly shop, something I look forward to with pathetic excitement!  There is an added delight this time, as I have to find some ant traps to combat a mild infestation upstairs.  Always something to make like just that little bit more interesting!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 35 – Sunday, 19th APRIL

It’s raining. 

     I am disinclined to go on my circuits of the communal swimming pool in the pouring rain. 

     I am further depressed by the reading in the Guardian about Goblin Gove’s typically mealy-mouthed, unconvincing response to a series of allegations in The Sunday Times that the Convalescing Clot missed five consecutive emergency meetings of COBRA in the build up to the Covid-19 crisis and that the government shipped PPE to China in February. 

     That would have covered the period when our part-time Prime Minister was hidden away in Chequers, a prime minister who notoriously “didn’t work weekends” according to an unnamed senior adviser!  Once Bullingdon Club always Bullingdon Club: the lazy sense of entitlement of the rich and the privileged; let the lesser breeds without the law do the hard graft while the Johnson jonson sets about adding another child to the unnumbered brood.

     I am more than prepared to believe that the lingering poison of Brexit mixed with the euphoria of the Conservative right wing after the crushing electoral victory led the ‘government’ fatally to mismanage a coherent approach to the Covid-10 crisis. 

     The typical Tory inhumanity of the ‘herd immunity’ approach to dealing with the crisis, complacently accepting hefty deaths will be remembered, together with the astonishing U-Turn when it was suddenly abandoned in favour of approaches that more nearly matched virtually every other government in the world.

     The position of the Health Secretary is becoming more and more untenable – or at least it should be becoming more and more untenable as more and more avoidable deaths will be laid as a memorial to his incompetence.  Yes, efficient supply is difficult in times of crisis, especially in a cash and equipment and personnel starved institution like the NHS that is in its present state because of the cruel austerity practiced by the Tory government for the last decade. 

     The empty platitudes of support that Tory ministers mouth for Health Workers are cruelly ironic given their attitudes towards the NHS over the past years.  These are the same vile folk who cheered after a pay increase for Nurses was defeated in the House of Commons!  They disgust me.

     And, as I typed that last bitter sentence, the rain outside has grown appreciably heavier.  There is nothing like the Pathetic Fallacy to cement misery in place!

In an effort to escape the gnawing resentment contained in the paragraphs above, I have turned to something more creative.  My chapbook of poems written in Holy Week called Coasts of Memory.  I have been working on illustration and made a decision to use only photographs taken within the lockdown confines.  This means that the house, the garden, the communal pool and what I can see from the terrace and windows are all fair game for my camera!

     I spent yesterday evening playing around with the raw material that I had and started placing individual pictures in what I considered to be appropriate places in the chapbook.  I am constantly frustrated by petty mechanical problems with images and sometimes it is a case of printing what fits rather than fitting what I want to print!

     There is also the problem of he disappearing fonts.  I save what I do fairly religiously; I have been caught out too often and too painfully when documents develop a missing life of their own not to remember to save.  But I am often frustrated by the way in which complex documents do not always retain formatting. 

     The latest example of this concerns by choice of a fairly exotic fort used as a title.  This font did not transfer when I sent the document via email rather than copying it onto a memory stick - in spite of my avowal of the very latest in technology, I can be whimsically old-school from time to time!  The font is space greedy, so when it transfers as something altogether more prosaic it means that everything else on the page is out of place and that has a domino effect on all the pages afterwards.  As I was going to use that particular version of the book for detailed editing, it might turn out to be self-defeating if I have to redo everything with the ‘correct’ font in place in the final document.  Such things are sent to try me, and at least I can have a direct effect on what I do there, as opposed to whingeing on about what my government is doing or not doing in this crisis!

In the way in which the petty becomes important: Toni is going out to get bread!  An event for which he dresses up like an Inuit and wings the desolate abyss between our home and the bread shop that is a few streets away.  I enjoy the results of these little excursions as we usually have a little treat from the patisserie as well as mere bread – by which alone, one cannot live!

     This time, as well as the bread, Toni is going to attempt to get some chicken from the pollo a last, this will be our first ‘bought in’ meal since the lockin began.  However, if there is a queue, or there are too many people there then the meal will be called off and we will have to settle for the bread.  And treats.

There are increasing accounts in the media of the possibility of no vaccine being produced in the short term, or even ever.  We have the example of AIDS, where, in spite of extensive research over a number of years, we are still without a vaccine.  Treatment for the disease, yes; vaccine no.  That is a very sobering thought.  It means that we will be dealing with the virus as an ever-present threat well after this initial surge is over and it also means that for people in my age group the restrictions are going to last for the foreseeable future. 

     This is a more than depressing thought!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 15 – 30th MARCH

A thoroughly miserable start to the two weeks of ‘extreme’ lockdown imposed by the Spanish Government. Presumably what we had before was a ‘Lockdown Lite’ and what we have now is a ‘Lockdown Intense!” – complete with exclamation mark. 

     This attempt to be more stringent is a belated response to the truly horrific figures of the dead and the infected that will haunt this government forever.

     The steady rain is a depressing backdrop to a growing realization that this period of two weeks is more than likely to be followed by another, and another, and another.  The Guardian reports one medical expert saying that the lockdown in some form or other could last as long as a year.  I resisted the need to put an exclamation mark at the end of that last sentence because, truly, it would not come as any sort of surprise.

     At the end of World War II in Britain, it took until 1954 for rationing to end: nine years after the end of a conflict that we ‘won’.  It seems unlikely that the number of deaths from this pandemic will come anywhere near the totals of the World War, but the dislocation is perhaps more truly worldwide than that conflict.  And if it took nine years to get back to sub-normal, how long is it going to take this time?

     This time around no infrastructure has been destroyed, the networks of transportation are running albeit in a reduced form and, most importantly, there is not the international conflict that makes communal unity impossible – apart, of course from the various populists around the world who are finding fascist rhetoric is of no use in fighting a real virus.  Countries are generally sharing vital information; people are working together to find solutions.  It will be the micro political divisions that kill us, working against the macro attempts to save us.

Toni, in his hunter/gatherer mode has been venturing out into this new world of increased restrictions to get some food.  We did not indulge in the panic buying frenzy at the start of this madness, so we do routinely need to stock up. 

     We are fortunate that in Castelldefels there is one area where there are five large supermarkets within walking distance of each other, so choice is not a problem.  The only real fear is peoples’ lax social distancing habits when in the confined spaces of shops.

     We had a fairly large list of needs and most of them have been satisfied.  We have made it policy that only one supermarket will be visited and if you can’t get what you want there then it will have to wait for another time.  Our decision to have a few ‘treats’ came to nothing, as the chosen store (Aldi) had no chocolate or ice cream (overtones of “No more mushrooms!” there) but the other items on the list were obtained, more or less.

     The only things that we had actually run out of were eggs and milk; and Toni forgot the eggs (but remembered the milk) and I suspect that he simply missed the chocolate (he lacks my professionalism when it comes to shopping) and everything else he failed to find, but we do have all the essentials. 

     Being without milk, even for a number of hours rather than days, was a pain.  On the principle that it is better to be petty minded over slight inconveniences rather than freak out over major crises: I have to say that missing a late afternoon cup of my tea (50/50 English Breakfast and Earl Grey) was a real loss.      It threw my sense of new routine into chaos and unsettled me.  How, I reasoned, is civilized life to continue without a stabilizing cup of tea? 

     In spite of the horror all around us, we live in a sort of easy stasis where the day starts with the comforting rumble of the robot hoover and a cup of tea, and ends with the computer monitor going black.  During the time in between there are the little domestic things that have taken the place of engagement in the wider physical world, or at least engagement physically in the wider world.  Any disruption there is to the Important Little Things That Keep You Sane – well, the clue is in the last capitalized phrase!

     As befits the gravity of the situation that dictates our lives, I have taken to drinking only camomile tea in the late evenings: look on it as my way of saving milk, and indulging in a gentle quasi-protestant-self-denial.  I cannot really pretend that I like the taste of camomile tea, but I have rapidly got used to it, so that I am able to kid myself that the taste is at least ‘interesting’ and a ‘dis-flavoursome contrast’ to the beverages I usually drink.

     That is the sort of ‘re-branding’ that characterizes a great deal of what we are doing when locked down: a spiritual form of ‘make do and mend’, using what you have to make the most of what you want!

And talking of Protestantism, as I sort-of was in the last but one paragraph, the ‘treats’ that we had from Toni’s shopping expedition were almost perfect examples of the faith: two tone biscuits: Marie biscuit one side and a thin layer of chocolate covering (and overhanging) the other.  Marie biscuits are surely the most uninspiring biscuits in commercial production and delicious chocolate should never be thin. 

     Incidentally, when I explained to Toni the correct way to eat these biscuits: by nibbling away the overhang of chocolate round the edges, while trying to prise it away from the biscuit base to see how much of the covered biscuit you could uncover when you had nibbled away at the four sides, he had swallowed his whole.  And there you see the consumer differences between a Lapsed Catholic and an Anglican Atheist!

     And in a most un-Catalan like way, it is still raining and we have not had our customary glimpse of the sun. 

     It’s just one damn thing after another.

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 8

To absolutely no one’s surprise the government is going to ask parliament to extend the period of lockdown, or the extension of the state of the emergency until the 11^th of April, so we have at least another weeks of restriction.   

     I wonder if this piecemeal approach to the lockdown is because the government is not prepared to let us know how long they really think it is going to be – especially for people of my age and generation as we slip neatly into the most at risk category, and therefore we can double or triple the ‘safe’ period for us to be at home?

     As someone who is restricted to a house and a quick circuit of the communal swimming pool, and television in a foreign language it is difficult to get a sense of proportion about the wider implications of an extension to the period of confinement.  But, of course, that is not going to stop me!

     The front of the house looks onto a important road that runs virtually the whole length of the beach part of Castelldefels; the back of the house looks onto the pool and the other houses of our type, together with houses on the first line of the sea and to our left, a block of flats along the main road. 

     So, based on that vastly exhaustive sample of Castelldefels and Catalonia I am now ready to extrapolate from my observed experience from the three floors of our house and pontificate about the future direction of the country.

     The number of people breaking the rules: walking in pairs; using the dog as an excuse to go further from the house than has been suggested; families with kids pushing the boundaries of where they can ‘exercise’; people walking without purpose; people rapidly reaching their tethers’ ends cooped up with kids – the afternoon especially are punctuated with childish howls.  All this is leading to a pressure point where people will rebel against restriction.  We are not supposed to leave our homes except for essential outings and that basically means buying food or seeking medical care and attention.  That is not how people are living their enclosed lives, and it will get worse over time.

    In Spain the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 is now 28,572 and the official death toll is 1,720, which, according to my calculations gives a mortality rate of 6%!  Of course this does not take into account the number of undiagnosed cases of Covid-19 there are in Spain, so the real percentage must be (surely) much lower than 6%? 

     This is the sort of disaster than strains the resources of any health service, even one as good as the Spanish.  We are going into uncharted territory and something will have to give.

On the personal front we are doing well, we have plenty of food, the baker is not far away, Toni is well into his on-line course and I have sighed up for two MOOC courses on Modernism and European Painting. 

     The painting course will be a delight with easy appreciation, while the second is rather more challenging with the readings for the first week of the course including Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Kant!  In translation, thank god!

Yesterday was Sunday, but you would have been hard pressed to have discerned any palpable difference from any other during our samey days ‘inside’.

It has been raining heavily this morning, and Toni ventured out to get the supplies that had been running low.  In spite of the adverse weather, Toni tells me that there were more people in the supermarket and that the experience was made worse because of some people’s inability to obey the restrictions about personal space and distancing.  It must make these social occasions dangerous.  Toni has returned in what I would describe as a disgruntled mood, failing to understand lack of adhesion to simple rules designed for personal safety against death!  But that’s people for you!  In all senses!

Much to my horror, our Catalan teacher from school has contacted me with a proposal to set up an on-line system where we can continue our studies.  I must admit that I was fully prepared to let my school time fade into the general chaos of a society in meltdown, but this (admittedly positive) offer is something that I will not, in all conscience, be able to ignore and consequently the Catalan lessons will be up and running again in some form, and “lo, my fit is come again!”

     As far as I understand the proposal, this will be based on a written form of social messaging system rather than a live face-to-screen experience, but who knows how this will develop?  I will have to knuckle down and get our merry band together and see where we go!

On another cultural tack: I have just finished reading an on-line essay called “The Fabric of History.  Power and Piety in the Pellegrinaio of Santa Maria della Scala” on the Academia website that offers a wide range of papers to read free, gratis and for nothing – though, as ever, there is a premium service that you can access by paying a fee.  I have downloaded two of my own papers on Art History to the site and have read numerous interesting (and sometimes impenetrable) papers in return.  I recommend it without reservation.

     This particular paper refers to a Renaissance hospital building in Sienna that is decorated with a series of murals that reward further study.  This paper takes an historical approach and there is something delightful in having your memory jogged, as one of the essays on a previous OU course that I took concerned one of the panels of this very fresco.  The rivalry between Florence and Sienna; popes and anti-popes; humanism and religion; piety and profit; charity and war; status and death – all are there in the backstory to the frescos.

     It was interesting that I read the paper with an eye that was constantly looking for ideas and quotations that I could use in my own essay.  This would have been very, very useful when I was doing my own work on the frescos and would have made my final mark higher I think!  As it is, I can read through with remembered scholarship and relax.  The paper is worth reading and the frescos are readily available to view on line. 

     And if you have never heard of the place and don’t know the frescos, then I would humbly suggest that given our home-bound existence at the moment, you could profitably spend some time reading and looking!

Don't forget to visit my 'new' poetry blog at smrnewpoetry.blogspot.com 

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 1 (and it rained too!)

LOCKDOWN – DAY 1

A miserable day to start our two week sojourn in the house!  The Pathetic Fallacy is alive and well and living in the Castelldefels climate today!

     We have not been outside once, which is hardly surprising for the first day.  Come back in a week or so and find out how well we are doing then!  That’s four sentences so far, and I’ve used exclamation mark in 75% of them; if I am using them up as such a prodigal rate on the first day of our incarceration then what on earth am I going to be using as punctuation by the end of the fortnight?

     As is to be expected we have been glued to the news broadcasts and we have watched them with different degrees of exasperation.  What does the term ‘lockdown’ actually mean?  As far as the metro in Madrid is concerned then it appears to mean nothing, nothing at all.  We have been shown pictures of crowded trains filled with people ostentatiously not the regulation metre apart: each person should be (ideally) in an empty circle of two metres diameter, or (even more ideally) not travelling at all.

     We have also seen pictures of factories in industrial areas seeming working perfectly normally.  Normally in anything by normal circumstances.  It is, however, difficult to take restrictions with anything approaching seriousness when shops that have been exempt form closure include tobacco shops, hairdressers and lottery outlets!  I will look further into that, as I am more than willing to be shown to be wrong in such muddleheaded exclusions.

     Apart from the noise from the (illegal?) renovations in the house next door, the passing traffic, um, hasn’t.  Planes have not been passing overhead.  People have not been over-keen to play around in their gardens.  It’s too cold for even the hardiest swimmer to venture into the open air pools.  We have felt almost isolated, except of course, with television you are never alone, you are always plugged into the wide, wide world, which brings us to the Internet and Social Media. 

     In the Sixties and the Age of the Telephone, it was only love-sick teenagers who were in constant communication with each other, and that was usually a single two-way link.  Now with the ease of Twitter, and emails and all the other forms of wordiness that are available to a tech-savvy isolate, you need never feel alone.  Be alone?  Yes.  But never lack the comforting little sounds that your mobile phone makes to let you know that you are the recipient of yet another breathless, quasi-aphoristic, random thought that lets you know that Others are there.  Not here, but certainly there.

     During the Great Snows of 1963-64 in Cardiff when even traffic on the Newport Road was stopped, we did feel trapped.  We did have neighbours, and there was the landline phone, but we were forced on our own resources.  I can remember that it was then that we frantically retuned the radio to a local station to find out exactly what was going on in our own location.  There was no sense of danger, just of pleasurable otherness in the uniform whiteness of deep, deep snow.

     Today is different, today is not the same: the roads are clear, if wet.  There is nothing to see.  We have to take on trust that we are in danger, that people are dying, that the threat is all around us.

     People are generally well stocked with necessary supplies, indeed with the jealously horded stash of toilet rolls that each inhabitant must surely possess, we could pass the time of our lockdown by pooing our time away!  People seem to have lost the concept of how much of anything is needed for a two week survival IN YOUR OWN HOME and catered (if that is the word) for a season’s roughing it in an excavated hole in the garden.  When we were doing Tudor History in school, we were constantly being acquainted with the phrase “The King should live of his own” in other words be self-sufficient and not ask for the imposition of taxes.  Given the contents of fridge, freezer and cupboard, I think that most people could “live of their own” for a time longer than the projected two weeks that we will be in lockdown.  But, the panic buying has emptied shelves and I wonder just how well supplied the supermarkets will be when we finally venture out to get essentials.

     I have stocked up on individually wrapped, calorie reduced, grain enhanced break squares that appear to have a shelf life of god alone knows how long, but it isn’t really bread under the meaning of the act.  If we want fresh break then, logically, we have to go and get it on a daily basis, but I am not sure that we want to do that.  And if we don’t do it, we can survive.  And that goes for a lot else too.

     I wonder when we will go out.  How long we will be able to remain cloistered and allegedly ‘safe’?

     Time will tell.

     And time has brought the rain to an end, but it’s now night and no chance of sitting out on the balcony and taking in the non-existent sun.

     If today has given me opportunity to reflect then I have to say that none of cogitations are in any way positive.  In both my countries, Catalonia and Britain, the situation seems to be getting worse and the pronouncements regarding my age group seem to be verging on the catastrophic.  The suggestion is, depending on how you define the age at which people become ‘most at risk’, that people over 65 should consider putting themselves in isolation for something like three to four months!  It would appear than my missed Catalan examination is going to be the ‘one that got away’!

     I fail to see that a mere two weeks is going to see the Covid-19 peaking in Catalonia, and even if it did ‘peak’ there would still be danger from the tail of the infection.  I think that those experts who say that we have to be in a protective situation ‘for the long run’ are probably correct and that this outbreak is going to have a society changing impact.

     And then there’s Brexit!  What a stupid, self-harming irrelevance that foolish piece of nostalgic nationalism now seems!

     Well Day 1 (or Day 2 or 3 by Toni’s reckoning) is now over and bed beckons.  One of the many good things about the way I go to bed is that, whatever concerns I have waking, when I put my head on the pillow, I sleep.  I might wake in the morning with a crystal clarity of understanding of why my sleep should have been disturbed, but when I sleep, I sleep.  So, oblivion and forgetfulness call! 

     Good night!