Coming Out

  

 

Rain drips steadily in the garden, although sometimes it thumps down. I have been steadily dripping inside the house too, also coughing and feeling unwell and miserable and alone and wishing someone, anyone. could come and make me a cup of tea. But they can't. So I do it myself and not tea either, but one of those lemon-type drinks with various medications that help you feel a bit better. Eventually.

I haven't really ventured out of my rather rigid degree of isolation, and now I'm back in it because I realise that I might be infected and infectious. Then I also realise that any time any of us gets a common-or-garden cold we are going to think, 'This is it! The end is nigh! One of those dreadful things with prongs all over it got through the holes in the face mask even though I have never been closer than a metre to anyone since this whole business began, let alone for more than fifteen minutes.'

Coming out of lock-down is hard to do. Harder than going into it, because at least we all knew where we stood on that. I don't want to know how long it has been, but I can measure it by the age of my youngest grandson, and he is now a bit more than six months old. We have not been able to meet yet. In earlier times I was  sort-of joking about hoping to meet him before he starts school. That wasn't funny at the time, and now it's even less funny because it becomes a realistic situation.

There was a fragment of chance a week or so ago, but it evaporated rapidly because I got very cold feet about going through Heathrow and getting on a plane. The cold feet are not for my own sake, but out of a deep mistrust of almost any of the so-called safety conditions in this country. I am in the much-at-risk category, and my fear is of picking up infection during the journey and transporting it to members of the family who are otherwise safe and well in a country where rules are clear and (mostly) obeyed. In England they are neither.

This account is not strictly true, either. There have been two occasions when family members in this country have visited here for the day, and one recent occasion when I visited them and stayed overnight. All these visits were made after much thought and discussion, and with young children firmly in mind. We needed to see each other, and I had been self-isolated here for weeks on end so that I would not pose any risk to them.

As an accredited at-risk oldie I think it is my duty to be as well-informed as possible about the risk factors, and then to make the best decision I can in any situation. There are risks in close contact with young children who are at Nursery and playing with a variety of other friends, but what are the risks to them of not seeing their only grand-parent or, much worse, thinking their only grand-parent may not want to see them?

The only way to stay safe may be to stay in lock-down isolation, disinfect every scrap of food and wash your hands every time you touch anything. Being born is probably the most dangerous thing we ever do because the whole of life from then on is beset with perils, some much worse and more likely than others. Perhaps instead of wishing each other to 'take care' we should be saying 'take risks', small ones that we've thought about and balanced against the other odds, but risks all the same.

And then we should go out and dance in the puddles, socially-distanced and silent.

Notes from a Very Small Corner.

 

Surprisingly early in the evening the light begins to fade. The little puffs of cloud balancing above the hills turn pink and apricot before they melt in the haze. The hills darken to deep lilac.

What happened?

I've only just had lunch, with a friend, in the garden, socially distanced, behaving properly, keeping the rules....and another day has gone, whizzed by, apparently almost empty yet full of  very small, mostly unrelated incidents. It is a recognised fact that the perception of time changes with age. It speeds up. It really does. 

For the next week or so I'm following a regime of eye-drops every four hours. This is for the second life-enhancing cataract surgery. I do the eye drops, go out into the garden, look at some things growing, watch a few birds sunbathing unwisely on a slate roof in 30 degrees of heat, go back in, top up the water-baths in the garden and indicate to the birds that they should use them, make a cup of coffee, look at the clock.....and it's time for the eye drops again. What happened?

Nothing and everything hasn't happened, and goes on not happening here in Middle England. Here most of us are keeping the rules (when we can work out what they are), wearing masks, washing our hands, sanitising ourselves and not cuddling each other. The heat may have made some of us reckless, but not me.

Being good is not all it's cracked up to be. I have ventured into two shops now that I'm allowed to do so. I've been into the cafe in M&S, partly because I can, mostly because I'm hoping to see another elderly, rule-abiding citizen attempting to drink a large filtered coffee while wearing a mask. No luck so far. You have to find your entertainment in very tiny doses these day. I do, anyway.

In this small corner of a small town near to some large hills I like to see the avoidance techniques on my daily walks. The sashaying on and off narrow pavements, the darting into the nearest gateway, the dilemma of eye contact - wanted or not? The protocol of the mask, worn when driving alone in the car? Worn above or below the nose? Removed in order to speak to someone wearing a hearing aid? Kept available at all times by being round the neck? Not worn because you say you don't like it and you can't breathe properly? Neither can infected people, strangely enough, but perhaps you haven't thought of that? Designer-made, home-made, reusable, colour co-ordinated? I await the arrival of sponsored masks bearing adverts.

When I'm not venturing out, looking for diversion of the very mildest Covid-controlled form I'm at home, watching my vegetables. I have not grown vegetables previously, and now I have four plants, given to me as small, helpless infant seedlings by a neighbour on a suitably distanced and sanitised day in early Lock-Down.

Four! Two different tomato plants, a cucumber and a courgette. I cossetted them into adolescence and then I watched their adult struggles for space in a small border. If I could do this on a time lapse I would see the fights, the pushing and shoving and elbowing of each other. The thuggery that goes on in a vegetable plot. The fight for light, for food, for life from any source, at any expense to anyone else. Gosh, it's powerful stuff! The cucumber is making a desperate climb up the fence, hauling itself out of the melee with its initially soft tendrils that can cling like metal within a few days. The courgette had experienced a death-defying struggle against a determined and destructive enemy until I found one huge viscous and vicious invader tucked beneath its prickled leaves, ready to pounce as darkness fell. But I got there, just in time and the slug and its bloated orange under-belly met a sticky end. Ha! How satisfying a squelch was that!

Now that I appreciate the emotional impact of vegetable growing I shall need to do it again. Until I've finished the eye-drops I mustn't bend or lift, so other parts of the garden are getting a bit over-run, but with my new brilliant eyes and action-packed fleeting days I can do a great many other satisfying things. Sorry about the slug to those who care about such things, but all is unfair in love and gardening.