DIARY DAY 5

DIARY DAY 4

DIARY DAY 3

Doom and gloom are inescapable as every day, every hour, brings worse news and more stringent measures to keep the  Coronavirus from spreading. Coronavirus? Maybe three weeks ago, I thought that was something to do with the heart.

More recently, we have been told that if we get the bug, we will suffer from Covid-19. That sounds like a herbicide to me.

Why can’t the people who invent the names for these things come up with something more appropriate? Doctors who provided the defining information about specific diseases, rather surprisingly, gave their names to their chosen Illness. Like Drs Alzheimer, Parkinson and Huntington. Other illnesses have learned Greek or Latin names. Why could they not have called Clovis,  Public Enemy no.1, PE1 for short or Keep Off?
What’s in a word? Quite a lot.

Keep safe, keep well
Carola x

Diary Day 2

I am the very model of effective social distancing!
I listen to the experts on the topic of resistance-ing;
I know that brunch and yoga class aren’t nearly as imperative
As doing what I can to change the nation’s viral narrative.

I’m very well acquainted, too, with living solitarily
And confident that everyone can do it temporarily:
Go take a walk, or ride a bike, or dig into an unread book;
Avoid the bars and restaurants and carry out, or learn to cook.

There’s lots of stuff to watch online while keeping safe from sinus ills
(In this case, it’s far better to enjoy your Netflix MINUS chills)!
Adopt a pet, compose a ballad, write some earnest doggerel,
And help demolish Trump before our next event inaugural.

Pandemics are alarming, but they aren’t insurmountable
If everybody pitches in to hold ourselves accountable.
In short, please do your part to practice prudent co-existence-ing,
And be the very model of effective social distancing!

Carola (who did not write it)

DIARY

Day 1

As of yesterday, Boris tells us to keep away from people and bang goes a lifetime of enjoying the company of others, not to mention the real need to see and embrace our nearest and dearest.
Of course, we have actually been ahead of Boris : we have kept away from other people and not set foot in a restaurant for over a week. And to think that when we crossed over to France just two weeks ago, Coronavirus was just something which had hit China and Italy and seemed to be of minor importance elsewhere. A week later, the significance of what one heard was inescapable. Batten your hatches!
Join the queue at the Euroshuttle terminal at Calais to come home on Sunday.

Three months of isolation is a difficult concept. We will have to reinvent ourselves, have a plan of action. Learn something new, write something new, cook something different, play scrabble. We’ll see. Keep you posted.

Time and time again

It’s New Year’s Eve. Tomorrow is another day, another month, another year. We will be clinking glasses, kissing strangers, beaming at each other, treating this moment as if it were different from this time yesterday or any other day. But what is different?

Time is intangeable, time does not exist. Time is a figment of our collective imagination. What are birthdays? Rites of passage? But what passes? What comes next?

When I was six, I was desperate to be seven, perhaps to be taken seriously. When I was ten, I was desperate to be a teenager, to be something of a free spirit. When I was fifteen, twenty-one was the golden goal, when I would be truly adult, free to follow my own path, not to do what others told me to do.

Slowly, my wish to be older became a wish to halt this ridiculous progression. Forty? Surely not. Fifty? God forbid! Older still? Well, OK. I’ll accept seventy because that makes me venerable and that must be worth having. Older still? You must be joking! What in heaven’s name has being over ninety got to do with me?  Am I a different person? Has this mythical elapse of time, changed me?
Forget about the outside. The inside is still pretty well the same. I still turn cartwheels, at least in my head. I still laugh like a drain.

I don’t really believe in it but Happy New Year!

Apologies to William S

A year has passed so.......

To blog or not to blog. That is the question

Whether 'tis kinder not to loose the slings and arrows of a wandering mind

or to take arms against those that annoy and by thus writing, satisfy my restless soul.

We live, we breathe, we feel; particularly the arthritis of my knee.

To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there's the rub.  To dream of brilliant meals and such delights and

know that they will speed this mortal coil: There are some rules fot this long life.

Not whips and scorns but weight and wrinkles.

thus conscience does make cowards of us all.

And this poor scribe does wonder whether  it is better not to write

 but to allow perhaps unwilling readers to have their peace

 and no more random rants.