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.