From Singapore to Widnes, you better watch your step
There we were, standing in the park while our dogs played all around us, an imperfect pentagon of social-distance observing adults acting, for all the world, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Talking about where we can get good deals on wine and the relative merits of ‘Brooklyn 99’, ‘The Marvelous Mrs Maisel’ or ‘Parks and Recreation’, which we’ve been watching lately and finding a very soothing experience at this time. One of us bought a new standing desk for his home office, another’s been baking bread and watching a lot of old movies. None of us saying out loud what we must all be thinking. That this is all so very odd.
The UK went into a pretty severe lockdown last night. it's Government finally realising that this isn’t something they can waffle their way out of. So they went from ‘this is fine, go to the pub’ to ‘you can only leave your house once a day for exercise’ in a matter of hours. Actual hours. Wild. We’ve stepped things up a little bit here too – although we’ve stopped shy of a complete shutdown. Now we can only move about in groups of four and all non-essential shops and services have been closed. So, for us, a couple with a dog, it hasn’t had a massive additional impact. Not yet anyway.
Saying that we’ll see what happens if work dries up - at the moment it’s all hands to the deck. I worked til 11pm last night and 9pm tonight which is something that would not have happened if I was going into the studio as normal. We’ve been trying to get a coronavirus campaign up and running on social media. Do people have money to donate at the moment? Only one way to find out. There’s certainly no shortage of asks.
Today is Day 14 since we went to that Steve Martin gig in the 3 Arena. So, I guess we’re in the clear on that one and we can retrospectively start to enjoy it instead of spending all our time kicking ourselves for putting ourselves at risk the night before the first restrictions were announced. We really shoudn’’t have been there. But that’s ok. We’re in the clear - it was a great night after all! But of course, that just means the clock starts ticking from a different event. The most recent was that visit to Tesco last Sunday when I was around a lot of people for a while. I mean, we were all moving and I was wearing a mask and gloves so hopefully not the same level of risk as a concert in an arena. Who knows. You could get it anywhere.
Talked to a pal today who has lots of friends affected by this. We’ve been lucky. Apart from Helen’s niece who’s in self-isolation – but seemingly doing fine – we don’t know anyone who’s been impacted. Long may it stay that way.
A prediction: by the time this is over there won’t be a person in the country who doesn’t personally know someone who has the virus. It could be your friends and neighbours next.
Watch your step!.
