There
is something almost poignant in cancelling an mobile phone alarm that had
previously got me up at 6.10 am each day to get read for my early morning swim
at 7.00 am in the local pool. With the
closure of the pool due to the virus the need to rise early was gone, but the
continued sound of the 6.15 alarm was a reminder of my normality. The cancelling was a delayed gesture and an
acceptance of the situation as it is now, rather than the situation as it was
then. The new reality finally finding a
sonic place in my daily routine!
Today was the first silent awakening and I
duly had a ‘real’ lie-in and didn’t get up until 9.45 am! Three and a half hours later than usual! I must admit that I felt thoroughly guilty by
the time I staggered into the bathroom and started to get ready for the day.
As I showered and shaved I wondered why I
was bothering – not about the showering, personal hygiene is something that
becomes even more important during a pandemic than in ordinary times, but
rather in shaving and going through the rituals that structure a ‘normal’ day.
There is a Somerset Maugham short story
set in the Far East which centres on two colonial Englishmen, one a stickler
for what he see as civilized English standards of correct behaviour and the
other who considers such an attitude absurd when placed in the strange and
foreign surroundings of a country totally unlike England. One aspect of the Stickler’s behaviour I always
remember: even though his copies of The Times were delivered in a batch to his
remote location, he would only read them one a day in sequence in arrears, even
if he was desperate to find out what had happened. He would wait and steel himself to be
patient! The other man was not so
patient and when the bundle arrived, he ripped it open and read the most recent
first. The story does not end well.
Ritual can be comforting and give a
pleasant sense of structure, but it can also be negative as those who have
lived by ritual and structure find when these elements of scaffolding are taken
away.
OK, I know that I started talking about
cancelling an early alarm, and it’s only been a week since we have been in
lockdown, but this lockdown is likely to last for a damn sight longer than the
end of this month and small things in enclosed environments are likely to
become more significant. So, small
changes can have disproportionate effects.
Perhaps writing about such things is a way of noting the variables and
coping with them!
And, I might add, I do not intend to stay
in bed until quarter to ten each day during this crisis! One has one’s standards!
I am
getting progressively more worried about the attitude of people in the UK about
how to react in this crisis. People say
that they know that it is serious, but then they say things that show that they
are not fully conversant with the fatal seriousness of what might happen if
their precautions are inadequate.
As far as I can see, the attitude of the
Generalitat in Catalonia is the right one: a lockdown, which really means
lockdown. We have increasing reports of
the police stopping people who are two to a car and asking them why they are
flouting the instruction that says that only one person is allowed outside the
house at a time. We have been told of
people being warned about taking their dogs (a vaild reason for leaving the
home) too far from the home itself. They
are supposed to be no more than a couple of hundred yards away. People next door to us are making daily
visits to continue the reformation, something which is simply stupid and
dangerous. People are still going for
walks and runs and one friend has told me that something like 30,000 fines have
been issued to people breaking the rules.
As we saw from the guy who went to Italy
then France and ended up in Britain, all it takes is one person to spread the
virus with disastrous consequences. And
what Britain is allowing with this selective lockdown does not prevent the
virus spreading. The lackadaisical
approach shown by the so-called government and the bumbling blond buffoon must
translate itself into a similar attitude from the general population – and that
mean more death.
I simply do not believe that my fellow
countrymen are hand-washing with the sort of manic intensity that we are in
Catalonia. I am not convinced that people
are properly afraid, and are taking the seemingly neurotic precautions that are
necessary to stem the advance of the virus.
And if they don’t then they are making a fatal mistake. And they do not realize just how big and bad
this pandemic can still get. Easily.
I
have been making some use of the third floor terrace. There have been one or two days when you
could kid yourself that it was sun-bathing weather. And it doesn’t take a great deal to convince
me of that. We are lucky that we have a
terrace that is big enough for a couple of loungers and a table and chairs, we
have small gardens front and rear, and a communal pool.
What about those people who live in a
small flat in the centre of Barcelona or another city? Most Catalans live in compact flats, and if
you have a couple of kids, then you soon begin to see why a great deal of
normal life is conducted outside the home!
A
friend has sent me a list of MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) about Art
History and I am strangely drawn to trying one of them; especially as they are
all free as well!
Always
something to do!
And, if you want something else to read, might I suggest my new poetry blog at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com
And, if you want something else to read, might I suggest my new poetry blog at smrnewpoems.blogspot.com
