Happy Palm Sunday

It’s been a funny week; two weeks into the lockdown and the initial confusion/giddiness of people who suddenly have a lot of time on their hands seems to be morphing into the depression of people who have a lot of time on their hands but find themselves trapped indoors. The memes and jokes are decreasing in number as we enter the period when reality begins to bite. Generally I’ve found that most people are just getting on with it but I think the younger people are finding it harder than the pensioners. We are the children who are used to instant gratification and constant distractions; when there is no ‘next new thing’ but just the insistent stream of our own inward thoughts it can be a true nightmare if you are not used to solitude. But be of good cheer, the lockdown will end. The world we find ourselves in will have altered but human resilience is worth betting on. At any rate we have now seen that the planet will survive without people. The question is, what is it worth without people? Walking through eerily empty streets on the way to work, it feels like all colour has been drained out of the world until I see another person. Beautiful as it is, the Earth is not worth a thing without people to admire its beauty. One in the eye for the overpopulation zealots.

As ever, I’m maintaining that the end of lockdown deadline is this weekend, based on my hope and prayer that the churches are up and running next week. The next two posts will be for my Christian brethren and sistren seeing as the pusillanimous CofE has downed tools (with the odd exception). Bear with us ; I’m sure secular UK will rear its head soon enough. Kudos to Rev. Pat Allerton of St. Peters, Notting Hill, who decided that if people can’t come to church, the church must go to the people. I guess all hope is not lost for the CofE afterall. Good man. I give you the Rev himself :

https://www.facebook.com/emma.peterswatson/videos/10156908679880685/UzpfSTUxMjUxNDA2NzoxMDE1ODY2Mjg4MDg1OTA2OA/

There are indications that the government will wish to extend the lockdown for the six months which of course fills us all with horror. All I can offer you is divine intervention – your MP can’t help you, your parents, doctors, lawyers, therapist etc etc, can’t lift the lockdown ……….. but I know a God who can stop all these sheenanigans in an instant. Pray, not least because we’re fresh out of options and you have nothing to lose. For the Christians here, if you can find a better prophecy describing the times we are in than Isaiah 24: 4-13, particularly 9-11, I’d like to see it. For the non-christians, be aware that the whole of this chapter is a terrifying prophecy of the end of the world so I caution the sensitive among you to tread lightly. If it’s any consolation, it’s not as scary as Revelations 🙂 Revelations terrifies me and I don’t scare easily. I console myself that hopefully I won’t be alive by the time that basket of worms is opened but who knows? Anyhoo, because this is AlaraApothecary and we sow only blessings, I leave you with a fabulous Nigerian/English mash- up (Yoruba to be precise) courtesy of my sister. Thanks BC! Hope it brightens your week. Stay safe, stay healthy. God bless and happy Palm Sunday.

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Nil Desperandum Auspice Deo

UK, UK, Quite Contrary…

We survived another week, hurrah and huzzah. I was going to leave off blogging for a while but seeing as I still have the privilege of going to work everyday, I thought it might be useful to give you a snapshot of what is happening on what is now seriously called the frontline without eliciting a smirk from anyone. How bizarre is that? The panic-buying seems to be subsiding, and the deliveries are coming into supermarkets now. Working in a pharmacy is now more like what we actually trained for– clinical checks to make sure your GP isn’t about to kill you off (fairly rare, you’ll be glad to know), dispensing and checking medication, helping the general public, counselling, giving advice, sorting out drug alerts (you don’t want to know), convincing the public to calm the hell down, finding an alternative drug for the GP to prescribe in the face of the gazillion drugs that have been in short supply for the last year, and all this with a smile on our faces (more or less…….) The workload is bonkers – our volume of prescriptions went up 50% in one week while the number of self-isolating colleagues also went up 50% in that same week for a lot of pharmacies. You have no idea how insanely busy it is behind the scenes.

People are slowly beginning to adjust to the fact that we aren’t there to give advice about which shampoo will make your hair look younger (seriously?), or which particular shade of foundation suits you best and when will it come back into stock (never, it was being made in a factory in Wuhan). And no, I am not going to leave off checking the blister pack of medicines that is going out to Mr Bloggs who has just arrived home after surviving cardiac arrest to look at the rash you’ve had for twenty minutes which may or may not be due to your imaginary food allergies. I can’t tell you how impressed I am with the general public who are mostly just doing their best to adjust to the crazy times we live in. I ❤️ U, Human Race. It’s a pleasure to go out and see you everyday. The number of people helping out a neighbour/offering to help with medicine deliveries/stoically putting up with shortages and delays is amazing. Never mind clapping the NHS, the majority should be clapping for themselves. The hospitals are no-go zones; ghost towns waiting for a deluge of patients which I am happy to report is not happening in most places, GPs are only letting in one patient at a time, none of us can guarantee we will be alive from one day to the next, but we are all still here to tell the tale, thank God, and to tell jokes. Laughter is an excellent booster of the immune system, and ‘as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he’. It’s actually a relief to write a blog to cheer people up without trying to sell them anything; not that I ever tried the hard-selling, bad businesswoman that I am 🙂

In that spirit, I’m sharing my favourite CV jokes with you. AlaraApothecary: we make your day better. I hope you and yours are in excellent health. For the Christians out there, remember Ps 46: God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. For everyone else, I hope whatever you rely on for spiritual sustenance does what it says on the tin. Have a wonderful week.

Comfort-eating? Moi?

Trump-haters, I’d never leave you high and dry

My personal favourite

Our esteemed leader

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Are You Skanking?

St. Nicholas, Chiswick. Final home of satire supremo William Hogarth
Silver & Blue Thames

How bizarre is it to see so little traffic on London roads at the moment? Moseyed on down from Chiswick to Brixton (supermarkets are for amateurs at the moment, get thee to thy nearest farmer’s market) and it took all of 40 minutes. Unbelievable. Last night was really quiet on the streets but today there are people jogging, out for walks, soaking in the sunshine but everyone is mobile; there are no groups sitting about. The Thames looks amazing with the bright sunshine bouncing off it, just like a giant rug studded with a gazillion diamonds and tiny tiny rainbows. Beautiful. There are a lot more people wearing masks or using their scarves as makeshift barriers but there are also loads of carefree youngsters on bikes, taing advantage of the car-free roads. It’s only now that you can see how much time we all wasted in shops on Sundays – I hope commerce is up and running soonest, safeguarding all those millions of jobs but there is something to be said for keeping Sunday special as far as I’m concerned. I think the sunshine will be the limiter for this virus personally; although it’s not an RNA virus like influenza, looking at the worldwide spread, I think it will burn out in the Northern Hemisphere, so to speak. I do then fear for the Southern Hemisphere where the temperature is about to drop though.

I was thinking that if anti-malarials are killing the virus, is it just the drug or is that in combination with the fact that people coming from malarious regions are usually chock-full of Vitamin D, again linked to sunlight? Just a hypothesis; I’m sure if there’s a link the eggheads will find one. Don’t believe me, just watch! I think we could all do with some Vit D anyway. If you’re lucky enough to have a garden, I’d get out there for some sunshine and Vitamin D if possible – grow some tomatoes or summat, saves you haunting the shelves in Sainsburys. My number one solution though? No-brainer, I’m a Christian – everyone who can should pray. Even if you’re a hardcore sceptic/atheist, what’s the harm? We all have plenty of time on our hands, the churches are closed, it’s mano e Deo so it’s private, you have nothing to lose. God knows ( 🙂 ) politicians and scientists are running around like headless chickens at the moment, they sure need some divine intervention. I certainly don’t wish to see the passing of the draconian laws being voted on in parliament tomorrow , no one wants to live in a police state. If you don’t know what to pray about, pray about that. If the virus is contained, those laws will not be necessary and we get to keep our civil liberties. In the meantime, can we all calm down a bit; I can assure you the stress and fear is not doing your immune system any good at all. Take a leaf out of the Bobster’s book:

Bob: visionary and poet.

All we can do is to try to be sensible and stay safe, keep your loved ones close and on my part, I’m doing some thinking about who I am, what I’m doing here, and what next when I kick the bucket. If I find out, I’ll let you know 🙂 In the meantime, since this is AlaraApothecary and our mission is to make your day better, I give you some Mark Ronson + Bruno Mars just in case unbelievably, Bob is not for you. Watching these boys dance makes me incredibly happy. Have a great week.

Heading straight to La Bella Italia ASAP, deo volente
Tapestry@The Vatican
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It Was The Best Of Times…..

Absolute bedlam at work today. I didn’t help myself by spending the first five minutes ranting and raving about the entirely useless leadership of the Church of England. I can’t believe they are shutting down churches, no wonder the pews are emptying. Churches stayed open for the first and second World Wars but they are being shut down because 4000 people are ill in a population of 70 million. Not to downplay the 137 deaths in the UK thus far; each one is an absolute tragedy for their families and friends, and I’m sure a tremendous loss to their communities. But to put the numbers in perspective, there were 149 homicides in London alone last year which is crazy. Where is the brave vicar who will defy their ludicrous edict? They’ve just embarassed the whole of the Christian fellowship. Still, Jesus shall build his Church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. Schools are open, hospitals are open, supermarkets are open, pharmacies are open. God’s house? What?? Who would protect us??? Shut them all down. If only we knew of an omnipotent, omniscient Being that we could pray to for protection and who has promised to watch over us always…..Luckily, there isn’t currently a worldwide pandemic that has left most people terrified, searching for the meaning of life, and looking for answers, guidance and reassurance. Hang on….. Numpties.

In other news, a customer told my boss he hopes my boss gets infected because he wasn’t allowed to stockpile stuff, and another told a pharmacist colleague they hope she dies because she wouldn’t let them have a third box of paracetamol. Members of our lovely race can make you retch, can’t they? It reminds me of one of my fave poems which always makes me smile – Sir Walter. A. Raleigh’s:

I wish I loved the Human Race;
I wish I loved its silly face;
I wish I liked the way it walks;
I wish I liked the way it talks;
And when I’m introduced to one,
I wish I thought “What Jolly Fun!”

It’s even funnier because he wrote it after attending a summer garden party. It must have been the seventh circle of hell; I wish I’d been there 🙂 But then , I came home to this:

I don’t need the help, thank God, but how wonderful is that. Makes you glad to be alive. Plus Gary Neville and Giggsy are opening up their two hotels to provide free accomodation for NHS staff. My boys – Man U 4 Eva! I was blasting out surely the greatest hip-hop track, ever, on the way to work today: Grandmaster Flash’s Message:

Neon king kong standin’ on my back
Can’t stop to turn around, broke my sacroiliac
A midrange migraine, cancered membrane
Sometimes I think I’m going insane, I swear I might hijack a plane

Don’t push me, ’cause I’m close to the edge
I’m trying not to lose my head

It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under
It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha

Pure genius, still relevant today, and almost certainly the only time sacro-iliac has been used in a song. Life can suck but people are what makes this planet worth living on. Still though…..don’t push me cos I’m close to the…. Have a fabulous and healthy week.

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Treasures In Clay Jars

Well, hasn’t that been an eye-opening couple of weeks. I came back from the Mill Hill Souk to find the world changing right before my eyes. The only thing I can liken it to is how everything changed after 9/11. I was in the States with my Mother on that Tuesday; we went to bed on the 10th of September and I remember being called  by her, ‘Come and look at this’, and we sat on the bed watching the TV in total disbelief. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen both the best and worst of mankind – all human behaviour seems to have telescoped to a point. I’ve seen people trying to look after neighbours they hardly acknowledged before, I’ve seen people steal sanitiser gel from hospital wards, potentially condemning the sick to the possibility of sepsis. Before I start writing about other stuff, I hope you find the chart helpful. What you need to watch out for is a continual cough, a high temperature, and shortness of breath. All respiratory illness might have the usual cough/cold/flu symptoms but those three are red flags. Also, washing your hands and good hygiene is key. The virus might not kill young people in general but an opportunistic bacterial infection that piggybacks on a virus-weakened immune system can cause mayhem. If you are a vegetarian or vegan, unless your diet is exemplary, a course of extra multivitamins AND minerals, and maybe some iron supplementation might be something to consider – talk to your friendly local pharmacist.

It’s one thing to tell yourself that the stuff you accumulate is worthless; we all say it, but we don’t really believe it. It’s another thing to find life reduced to dried pasta, tinned tomatoes, and loo rolls. Even the things we think are sensible won’t help – we think we will have things to trade: gold, electronics, clothing. None of these are worth a thing when the only currency is Tamiflu, surgical spirit, and tinned peas. As a Christian, it brings into sharp focus Jesus asking, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his soul. What will a man exchange for his soul”, or in this case, what use is the Balenciaga bag or the Stella McCartney top if there is nowhere to wear it to, and no one to see it? It’s made many of us consider how and why we live, and even when (not if) we survive this virus, one day it will be game over. What next? And this isn’t THE pandemic, although the wretched media would have us believe otherwise with their scaremongering and incitement to panic. Turns out all the world needs is people to grow food and healthcare professionals and scientists to supply medication. And undertakers, sadly. Even if the power stations and water supply shut down, we would survive. But no food and no medicine? Not so much. At no time have I heard anyone say ‘If only I could see my lawyer or my facialist or my couturier’. Not that those things are worthless, we all play our part to make this planet work and play after all. But when push comes to shove, you end up with Italy….supermarkets and pharmacies. Even your GP can’t help unless she/he has a handy ventilator stored in a cupboard somewhere. It is entirely sobering.

And yet. This is exactly how the majority of the world lives – no power, no water, little food, no schools, no hospitals, no infrastructure. Can you imagine life in those refugee camps? The other thing that occured to me is that if you locked down the motorways, people in cities would starve within a fortnight. How did this happen – that we are so far from self-sufficiency? So much stuff is trucked in from elsewhere, it is absolutely crazy. We should start growing vegetables in those pretty gardens of ours if we have them. So, no working from home for pharmacists unfortunately but I have to say that although the job may sometimes be a pain in the neck, it’s at times like this that we realise how useful our profession is. When the surgeries are in lockdown and hospitals are guarded by the Army, I can guarantee that pharmacies will still be open and the staff will still be smiling – more or less 🙂 A big thank you to those ‘unskilled’ people who keep the country running, and to the awesome crowd filling our lives with memes and gifs. Some think the jokes are irreverent but I think, 1) over 40000 have died of the flu this year alone worldwide, and 60 million people die on average very single year, of not-coronavirus and 2) we are alive, and must live till we die. Redeem the time, hug a loved one, have a laugh. To this end, I have made a giant pot of ragu and will watch some brainless rubbish to calm my brain. I leave you with my favourite videos. I was going to share the ghastly coronavirus nail art but I’m holding back on grounds of taste. Stay safe, stay well, go see your Mother on Mother’s Day – she doesn’t want a present, she wants to see that her child is well and happy. Have a good one.

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