Living With Covid-19
I don’t have Covid-19, but Boris Johnson does. He’s suffering mild symptoms and is working from home. Tomorrow he might even be well enough to pop out to the supermarket for some ‘essential’ shopping.
It’s been a grim week for near on all of us. For me personally the magnitude of the coronavirus hit home when I heard that 3.3m Americans had filed for unemployment last week, and that 769 people had died in a single day in Spain from the disease.
As is the case with most people, I am concerned about finances. I’ve taken so much for granted, and now it may be gone. There’s a fair bit of work going on in my garden. Once it’s done, I’m battening down the hatches. The extension will have to wait – perhaps indefinitely.
How’s your self-isolation working out? I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading. I need my transgressive fiction at a time like this.
Gardening has also been on the agenda. The weather has been glorious here in the UK – sunny days and cold nights.
What a find …
Today, at lunchtime I went to the extortionately priced farm shop to get something for tea. It took nearly half an hour to gain entry due to only five people being allowed in at a time.
We are constantly being told that only ‘essential’ shopping should be taking place. Inside the farm shop, I found myself pondering whether octopus can be classified as essential.
Well, if you’re poised to perish from Covid-19, and don’t fancy being ransacked by the state for death-duties, £16.95 packs of octopus could be deemed ‘essential’.
One can’t have enough of the stuff.
Doggy has been enjoying some sunbathing. He’s been stoically coping with the Covid-19 lockdown, though he has not been impressed with the 20% picture quality reduction on Netflix. He has embarked on barking tirades whenever I switch it on.
There are far worse places to be for a stint of self-isolation than the countryside. I am really grateful to be able to get outdoors at a time like this.
As if searing heat, abysmal hygiene and grinding poverty aren’t bad enough at the best of times … Just imagine being in lockdown in a cramped Delhi hovel with three generations of your hand-to-mouth earning family. If you venture outside, you’ll face the wrath of the cane-wielding Delhi Police. I’ve only ever spent a few days in the city, but for some reason I keep imagining what the Covid-19 lockdown is like there, and other similar places.
I’ve sold a handful of my darkly humorous offerings this week, all on Amazon US for some reason.
Have a good weekend. And if that isn’t possible under the current conditions, have a tolerable one.
