30 March 2020 (Monday) - House Party


After a rather fraught night I poured away the last of the skanky milk and opened a fresh bottle for this morning’s brekkie. I watched an episode of “The Good Place” before having my morning’s root around Facebook. Quite a few people were posting brain-teasers on Facebook (which is more than many usually do), but there was a worrying undercurrent of resentment aimed at the NHS workers. A week ago the sun was shining out of the bum of the NHS workers; this morning there were quite a few other key workers who were rather envious of all the free coffee, half-price pizza and special shopping hours supposedly being offered to NHS staff.
There is something of a misunderstanding here. The free coffee and half-price pizza are very limited in numbers (maybe fifty to one hundred when there are about a thousand or so eligible for the offer), and these offers are issued on a first-come first-served basis.  Advertised by internal email, they are snapped up by those who have time to be constantly reading internal emails.
As for the special shopping hours, speaking for myself the special shopping hours coincide with when I’m working, and from what I’ve heard any “key worker” can turn up; the criteria for being a “key worker” being to declare yourself as such.

I got dressed taking care to let sleeping dogs lie. Now that we are in British Summer Time I put on a thinner summer shirt (I have winter shirts and summer shirts – it came as something of a surprise to find that most people don’t) and set off work-wards. As I walked to my car I was very conscious that I wasn't wearing a winter shirt. The summer ones are much thinner and it was rather cold this morning.

Last week the roads in the morning had been much the same as ever, this morning the roads were noticeably quieter. Lock-down is starting to really take effect. As I drove there was talk of the virus on the morning news. It would seem that this lock-down will realistically be in place for at least three more months.  Looking back over the last few weeks I was rather sceptical about the whole coronageddon pandemic when it first kicked off.
It would seem that I was wrong.
However the whole thing is a classic example of "the boy who cried wolf" isn't it? With the media having been declaring the end of the world so many times over the years, when something serious happens (like this current pandemic), no one takes it seriously. I certainly didn't. I would suggest this is why so many people are still flaunting the advice to stay at home and are still staging parties and barbecues.
And talking of serious, the pundits on the radio were saying that the virus has now taken a hold in Africa (a little behind the rest of the world). If there was ever any doubt, my Moroccan jolly planned for July is now definitely out of the window. I just hope that the week away planned for August can still go ahead. At this rate I can see my holiday this year being downscaled to a weekend in a tent in the back garden.

I got to work for the early shift. Some early shifts are straight-forward. This one wasn't.
My plan was to go to Aldi after work. I went to Aldi, took one look at the queue and came home. I got the odds and sods we needed from the corner shop, then took the dogs round the park for a walk.

One of the many disadvantages of coronageddon is that what with many people off work and not allowed to drive and are only allowed out once a day, Viccie Park is getting more than its fair share of “The Great Unwashed” who until last week would never set foot in the place from one year to the next.
We met a young family. Mum and dad had three young children with bikes. They had clearly never ridden their bikes before; all were going full-pelt in straight lines and could only stop by jamming on the brakes and falling off. Mother or father would then run up, stop the crying, and watch helplessly as each child then sped off again only to be in tears thirty seconds later.
We met a musclebound chap doing his sit-ups. Pogo thought it was a great game and started licking his face.
And then we saw a father and young child both on a scooter being towed by a dog the size of a cart-horse. It was going rather well up to the point when a squirrel ran across the path in front of the dog…

It was with a sense of relief that we left the park, but just as we were passing the shop up the road from home I overheard some “delightful young lady” bellowing into her phone that she’d gone right through the park and was at the shops by Singleton. I wondered if I should tell her that the shops by Singleton were about two miles away, but I thought it best not to interfere in other people’s balls-ups.

I phoned my mum and dad to wish them a happy wedding anniversary. Ideally we would have visited, but visiting isn’t something that happens at the moment. And having phoned them we had an experimental video game with "My Boy TM" and his tribe. “House Party” is a rather good app in which you can see people with the video camera whilst playing silly games.
If only I could get my mum to do this sort of thing…

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