Page 8 - Moravain Messenger December 2020

Thoughts during lockdown
The Prime Minister asked those over 70 to self-isolate on 16 March, which I did. Up to then, I had been regularly active every day of the week except Saturday when I often had social engagements. All this came to an abrupt halt, even Mothering Sunday on 22nd March, which was just as well because by that time I wasn't feeling well. I had what appeared to be an ordinary cold and only felt ill one evening when my temperature was 37.5 C.
Neither of the stated symptoms appeared but soon afterwards my coffee substitute tasted odd to me. We were not given this symptom as diagnostic until very recently, so I didn't report it or ask for
help. I was not in one of the categories being tested at the time. There seems little point in asking for an antibody test which doesn't seem to be definitive in giving immunity and so not able to pass on the virus.
Thinking back, I think I was depressed for about six weeks, rather like the way I was for six months when my husband died. There was the same sense of loss of missing loved ones, particularly physical contact. I went through the motions, keeping myself clean and fed with shopping help from my daughter, but not much more. Added to my problems was the diagnosis of sleep apnoea and the need to adapt to sleeping in a special mask. I am still tired, achy and tearful.
I was also asked on 1st May to go through a basal cell carcinoma operation diagnosed before lockdown. Funnily enough this was more of a positive experience, apart from the discomfort, because it meant I had a trip out through the countryside entertained by the ambulance driver and the plastic surgeon who was a bass- baritone Greek! I trusted them all to keep me safe from the virus.
Looking back, I think the main problems were lack of my usual exercise and routine. I have never been good at exercising alone at home, nor at routine. I made a neighbour laugh when I said that I had a routine, but it was different every day. A friend once said I was the most organised disorganised person she knew. I fell into my usual fault of procrastination which I know is a form of laziness or sloth. I am also having some short-term memory problems.
Notes to myself and lists helped but didn't solve the problem, which is ongoing. My experiences in Zimbabwe helped especially in the early days because empty supermarket shelves were familiar and combating the natural reaction to hoard which was against the law in Zimbabwe. I gradually stocked up for two weeks supply and then relied on my systematic lists. I also attended many magical outdoor musical and theatre experiences there and in South Africa, which we are only just coming to now.
There was plenty of time to think, fed by reading and documentaries, even the social media,
although I was wary of the latter. A positive for me has been an increased skill in technology to maintain communication even at a distance. I came of age in the 1960s so was influenced by Rachel Carson's 'The Silent Spring', Vance Packard's 'The Hidden Persuaders and Ayn Rand's 'Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal'.
There was much rejoicing and amusement amongst the general populace as animals moved into the hiatus left by humans as the streets emptied e.g. capybara, kangaroos, puma, goats (in Llandudno!), wild boar, alligators, penguins, seals, ostrich, ducks, bears and elephant (not that the latter and also baboons have ever been shy about moving into human territory for food until chased away).
The ecologists were not hopeful that this had begun a new age for wildlife. They pointed out that the virus was probably caused by the abuse of wildlife,
possibly the pangolin. Changes would have to be more permanent. An example here is the Knepp Castle estate in West Sussex where the owners have moved from farming to creating a wildlife haven (Isabella Tree: 'Wilding'). Bureaucracy has been a big barrier for them, which is also a main theme in Barbara Kingsolver's 'Unsheltered'.
Bureaucracy has a lot to answer for. To me it is the only good reason for Brexit but it has also been a factor here e.g. in track and tracing and in the Windrush scandal (The Guardian, 13 June) It can be used as a weapon to delay political action. I don't accept immigration as a reason for Brexit which seemed to be part of the political engineering before the referendum. If so, the bluff that 'they' are taking our jobs has been called, as the fruit-picking hiatus has not been filled by the British. In
'No Man is an Island'
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
[Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Meditation XVII, 1624, by John Donne]
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