My wife and I are both 81. She is in the high risk group as she has a low immune system due to rheumatoid arthritis, so we are both going into voluntary isolation, since I do not want to get the virus and infect her.
But this does not mean not getting out into the fresh air. I can take her for drives and I shall still continue to cycle. But I shall do it alone and won't call into cafes. It will be like my youth when I couldn't afford to buy food in cafes and took my own flask and sandwiches when out cycling. But my heart goes out to those small, intimate cafes. They are going to experience a large drop in clientele, as will many others. It looks like the big hitters like airlines will be government subsidised (from us, the tax payer, ). But these small, often one man/woman businesses which try to make their way will be thrown to the wolves.
Our government's latest announcement suggests that anyone over 70 should put themselves into 4 months quarantine, regardless. Hell! I was very busily working until I was 75 until a stroke told me that I was, perhaps too busy. Even now, at 81, I need to get out for 30 mile rides, albeit on an e-bike. If I was really "confined to barracks" I should get stir crazy.
Hopefully we can get food delivered from our local supermarket, although they are experiencing difficulties with over subscription at present, so planning ahead will be vital.
But I am just reading Hilary Mantel's last volume in her "Cromwell" trilogy and the 16th century's matter-of-fact attitude to the mortal "Sweating Sickness" (gay at breakfast, dead by evening) and the Black Death puts these current tribulations into better focus.
I hope we all have a long, hot summer, which apparently kills the virus and will give a chance to find a vaccine.
11 comments:
Confined for 4 months doesn't bear thinking about. Hopefully once this round of panic buying ends and supplies get back to normal then supermarkets will be able to cope. Cycling solo at least you stop, look and take pictures whenever you want. Enjoy your rides. All the best.
Dave:
Thanks for the good wishes. mine to you also.
All the best to you both...we are getting out on our bikes round the lanes too.
We must meet up on our next visit to Kent.
gz:
Thanks, your wishes are reciprocated. When these shenanigans are over and you once again can come down to tour Kent by all means get in touch for a meet up somewhere.
Yes, it's not as bad as it sounds, unless you really like going to parties and big events. Walks in the countryside and drives in the car are going to be something that I will look forward to as well. The pub is a small thing, but it was my social life!
It's good to hear you are getting out. I've still not taken the plunge and bought an electric bike yet and rely on walking my Lurcher for my exercise. I am just about into Kent although technically it is Greater London. We seem to miss the worst of the weather up here.
Look after yourselves and stay healthy.
Tom:
Fortunately I have never been a pub man, so won't miss it. I guess it's not the same, though, solitary drinking at home - you will have to get "anti-social" for a while!
I wonder, isn't self-isolation a case of depending solely on our intellectual resources? Should we be worried by it or should we see it as an opportunity to examine what we're made of?
Take no notice of me, though. By not courting acceptance, in fact behaving like an anchoritic bastard since early middle age, I find myself with a social circle that can be measured in inches. Thus more or less perfectly prepared for the onset of the Trumpian Plague (A phrase which is both appropriate and saves us from being nasty towards the corona, an utterly lovely natural phenomenon.)
PS: Always a pleasure to visit Kent, it suggests there must be something in resurrection. There is Barrett Bonden (hiding behind the grim face of Graham Greene), dead these many years, yet living on among your followers. You must introduce me some day.
RR:
In some ways like you (is that a good or bad thing?) I have always been a fairly solitary person, as the verse on my blog header intimates. I think I now have, relatives apart, only two steady friends one of whom, a friend for nigh on 40 years almost seems like a relative. The other is my regular cycling mate, but we have only known each other for about 10 years. So I do not miss a wide social circle.
Barret Bonden? Ah, I remember him, he came knocking on my door in about 2008. He stuck around for a while and then went through a few transmogrifications. I believe he still lives in Hereford, quite close to you.
Given the criteria you cite, I'm also down to two (perhaps two-and-a-half). One of them being a friendship that's only sustained by old-fashioned letters, we live too far apart for regular visits.
As to whether such a wizened social circle is either good or bad reflection tells me it was inevitable in my case. For thirty or forty years I was a voracious reader, intent on gobbling up all the books designated (by those with a better education) as masterpieces. Especially the very hard ones. Reading certainly kept me out of circulation. Thereafter reading overlapped with writing (over a million words I once calculated) and that too was a social no-no. Singing is a comparatively recent obsession and I am typically glad I live in a detached house.
Briefly we had a social fling when VR became chairman of the Parish Council and I edited the PC's magazine. But then, quite contentedly, we snuck away.
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