We Are Sailing

First the good news – despite the frantic speculation, leaping from one improbable scenario to another, I can assure you that the lockdown is definitely coming to an end. Evidence? Exhibit A M’lud – hospitals are beginning to book appointments for the patients who have been shamefully sidelined to cope with a crisis which is obviously not coming. Exhibit B – the testing labs which moved all their staff to other departments to increase capacity for testing for Covid-19 have moved staff back to their original jobs, testing for benign and unimportant conditions like sepsis and cancer. Forgive me if I have a sense-of -humour failure but exposure to the press makes me feel like the captain of the ship of fools. It’s just been really hard to view the distress of people with life-threatening illnesses being left in limbo while our sheep-dip-for-brains leaders lurch from one position of indecision to another.

Despite the tomfoolery being posted in social media, I can assure you that most ‘essential workers’ do not spend their time making TikTok videos. The stress that is experienced by the staff in those empty hospitals is palpable as they work 12-hour shifts practising endless drills. Constant adrenaline is not something the body is tailored to withstand; please ignore the damnfool videos. The hardest part of each day? Projecting calm reassurance for the patients. If we freak out, they freak out. Nevertheless, I still think we are better off than those who are at home 24/7, worrying about their jobs, worrying about money. So many jobs have been lost that it’s really difficult to imagine what the country will look like post-lockdown. Why the decision is being dragged out, I for one cannot fathom. There is no way to know what will happen although it is quite obvious that as predicted, the levels will tail off as the temperature rises. The only viable option is to get everyone back to work so that we have a chance of rescuing what is left of the economy. As most of the country seems to regard other people as walking vessels of infection thanks to the wretched media, the hardship will be in getting people to socialise again apparently.

Luckily, we have our killjoy politicians to the rescue. The 10-person bubble idea pretty much made my week. It’s the perfect example of lack of joined-up thinking. It would seem that critical thinking is very much an optional extra where viruses are concerned. And how do we get people to get back their confidence and forget their fears? Ban wedding and birthday parties, and all church gatherings. Quelle surprise. The highlight of our weeks can be a visit to B & Q instead. Unbelievable. So, as I posted last week, the lockdown is going. In my prediction, I didn’t factor in that the government were going to tack on some care-home deaths they had inadvertently forgotten to count, thereby bumping up the numbers and extending the blasted lockdown for another week. ‘Hey Tarquin, here are some deaths I found behind the sofa. Don’t know how we managed to not notice the 4000 people, no, 5000, no, 6000 (pick a number, any number) people who died over the last few weeks.’ Utterly preposterous.

So don’t be afraid. You’re likelier to die from heart disease than Covid-19. That didn’t come out right 🙂 AlaraApothecary: we depress you with our statistics! My plan, God willing? First chance I get, I’m up, up and away and going on holiday somewhere, anywhere. The images are of some of the beautiful places I haven’t visited yet. On my list for this year though? New York, because anything can happen there. It’s where I recorded my favourite video which I’m sharing below. Just some random people doing their thing : no empty streets, no eerie silence. Just life. Have a fabulous week. Oh, nearly forgot – Sunday verse for my peeps out there: Ps 102:13 You will rise up and have compassion on Zion. For it is time to have mercy on her, for the appointed time has come. For Zion, read the human race. Toodle pip.