Who remembers Val Guest?

We have been here before. In literature or in film at least. Who remembers Guest’s ‘The Day the Earth Caught Fire’? or Shute’s ‘On the Beach’? 

These stories do not consider the impact on earth of a pandemic or the plague, in old money, but the devastation of unwise political decisions on our planet ie the bomb.

It’s not just nuclear destruction that causes ruin for the earth. My current  read is ‘Wilding’ by Isabella Tree. I have reached the chapter where she relates that the stag in Scotland, known for its grandeur, is clearly much less heavy than its Norwegian counterpart. Why? Simply that the cause of the Monarch of the Glen’s low weight is the destruction of shrubs and diverse plants which has led to thin feed for wild animals in Scotland. Norway doesn’t have it quite right, according to Tree, however, as the most diverse landscapes are less forested than Norway but also less empty than Scotland.

In the film ‘The Day the Earth Caught Fire’ the planet is warming dangerously quickly. Universal weather patterns shift and there are floods in some areas of the globe, terrific gales in others and heavy snow falls where snow is rare. In the film water is scarce in the UK and, here’s the contemporary link, after chaos and panic, young people go mad in the street. They are tired of fear and being told what to do. However they don’t rush to the beach. Following doom-laden newspaper headlines youths spill out on to the streets, creating water fights, turning over parked cars and terrorising people trying to take a bath. Water in some areas has become bad, carrying disease like cholera or typhoid.

The film, in which Val Guest was the screenwriter, is not a disaster movie with a pandemic-lockdown theme but the behaviour of people in the streets is similar to those rushing to Bournemouth on the hottest day of the year. The message in the film and in reality is that lockdown and behaving cautiously will be tolerated for only so long. 

In ‘On the Beach’ the threat of nuclear annihilation drives Australians to spend their last few healthy weeks playing and relaxing on stretches of sand and swimming in the sea. Nuclear sickness has spread across the world and Australia is the last major country to be affected.

In February and March this year we knew coronavirus was heading our way. I recall knocking elbows, instead of kissing, with friends in town in the week before lockdown. We smiled. We still thought it funny. My optician was less humoured. He said he was dreading the pandemic reaching our shores.  

‘On the Beach’ is set in that pre-crisis time. The population knew death and sickness were coming. The film is a study of how the well folk cope, and prepare for almost certain death, in the weeks before doom. 

We may not have visited a pandemic in the above narratives but the dread and ‘last trips to the beach’ before it reached us in March are experiences familiar to us. I was in Devon, at a beach, in the week before lockdown. 

Letting off steam ie the lemming-like rushing to Bournemouth last week is a human response to feeling trapped. 

There are many novels written about the plague, as an historical record. And there are, of course, dystopian novels set five minutes into our future. We don’t, in the 2020 pandemic, have to suffer the scavenging and cannibalism of ‘The Road’  in the search for food, thank goodness. But in the novel we see the after-effects of a cataclysm and how mere humans react to a catastrophic present and a very uncertain future. This much we share. In our quest for an escape from lockdown reading about disaster may not be the answer. But death, disease, destruction are part of the human experience.

In literature and film we have been here before. 

Lockdown brain

When (younger) friends of mine have a baby they are happy, blithe and, naturally, new-child-focused. And when they forget the £25 they owe me - several times - they blame their forgetfulness on ‘baby brain’. Highly convenient. (You can tell I haven’t ever given birth nor brought up children.)

I’ve been casting around for a suitable event when I could also refer to my shortcomings as a feature of my foggy brain. I refuse to be old and will not use the phrase ‘senior moment’ but lockdown gave me my escape route. How about lockdown brain?

It is certainly true that, after several weeks of staying in, taking short walks and visiting about one shop in all that time I have lost some of my vocabulary. I can tell that chatting over the garden gate has not made up for the usual bouts of discussion and discourse with mates over a drink in the pub. When I’ve been to the chemist to collect a prescription I have managed to forget the one item I also went in for. Lockdown brain.

When I’ve ordered groceries over the phone I can’t remember to have my bank card ready to pay. Did I think it would all be free? And when I’ve opened up the gate or shed or garage padlocks I become obsessed about where I’ve put the padlock keys. Why? When I want to close up the padlocks snap to. No key needed. Lockdown brain.

When I’ve got Henry Hoover out I manage to get the cord twisted around my feet. In tying up the rambling rose after the winds of a few days ago my ability to tie in stems and use a pair of scissors ended up in my being scratched to smithereens. Did I bother with gardening gloves? No. Even when dealing with huge whips of a rambling gallic rose? No. 

And this lunchtime I rushed around making a bean salad, tuna, lettuce and tomato relish and smeared most of it on my shorts.I stripped down to my knickers and put my shorts in the washing machine. But I noticed the cat wasn’t just playing with his cat-nip toy but a real mouse causing me to dash outside with the very scared creature. I forgot I was in my saggy pants as I held the mouse aloft on a dustpan at a half metre distance. Beat that for social distancing Boris Johnson. Then I panicked that I’d left my iphone in my shorts and turned the washer to drain. By that time the phone would have been ruined. Lunch certainly was. And the phone had been on a chair all along.

But worst of all is that I can’t remember friends’ names. It’s ok when emailing as I have time to think. But over the phone or at our gate my mind goes blank. People I’ve known for forty years become no-names. Lockdown brain.

I haven’t had time to binge-watch or get bored as I’ve been busy keeping house, cooking, gardening, cleaning and being a carer. I’ve never been so domesticated. And when I do go out it’s still very quiet on the lane. Although yesterday, towards the main road, there was certainly more traffic. But my general at-length art of conversation has become rusted. Friends of mine and I have been ringing each other every few days during lockdown. These are people I’ve known since 1970. And I forget their names. Lockdown brain.

Unlike many I don’t mind the peace and quiet that accompanies lockdown. I only felt bored on one day in the last 90 and that was because it rained continuously for over 24 hours. But I’m so concerned to wash everything down after a delivery that the little things, like where I’ve stored my deliveries, gets forgotten. I ordered four coin-batteries for my kitchen and bathroom scales. After the old ones finally failed the new ones were not in the usual cupboard, nor hanging on a hook, nor in a drawer or container in the bathroom or kitchen. Where had I put them? Goodness knows. Two deliveries and replacement batteries later I saw them in a tiny pot. Not in their plastic display sleeve but separate and lying in the bottom of a tiny ceramic ornament just waiting to be used. I can’t remember sanitising them nor cutting them out of their plastic packet or dropping them in a handy container. Lockdown brain.

One day, expecting 12 eggs in a delivery, I received 36. And a friend had just brought round another twelve. I had more in the fridge making a grand total of 54 eggs. I gave them away. Then didn’t have enough for the two of us. Lockdown brain.

When I’ve gone to our studio at the top of the house to follow an online arty challenge it’s been baking hot. And I’ve been certain that I’d opened the windows. But I hadn’t. So I’ve been forced to sit over my Bockingfords and watercolours sweating. Lockdown brain.

I could go on about the daft things I’ve done with gravel, bark, compost, cuprinol and other gardening mishaps. But I won’t. It’s not as though I’ve been disturbed or forced to rush to get things done before going out. But I am distracted. I’m not concentrating properly. Lockdown brain.

To ease things we’ve had friends round in the garden at an acceptable 2 metre distance. And conversation hasn’t been too ‘institutionalised’ ie I’ve not reverted to someone who had forgotten how to do small talk. But I suddenly find I can’t remember the word for... and it’s gone.

Lockdown brain. 

I’m surprised I’ve managed to write this without referring to a spell checker. But writing gives me time to think of the words required. Talking doesn’t. I need to get a grip if we’re able to go out for a socially-distanced drink at the pub from July 4th.

And for how long can I blame lockdown brain for my fogginess? 

Bored? No time!

I cannot say I have joined the masses who are filling their time following Joe Wicks nor watching box sets. For me it’s more like being the mother of a new-born - countless half cups of tea await me when I do finally sit down.

If Richard had more stamina he’d be up doing morning tea, bringing me breakfast in bed, hoovering, feeding the cat and taking the car to the co-op to do the shopping for the next couple of days. I would have time to do the washing, the finer points of cleaning in the bathrooms and kitchen and potting up in the garden. I would have time for tea and time to sit and read a paper. And editing, critiquing and enjoying fiction.

But, now, my mornings, in particular, start early and there is rarely breakfast in bed. Sometimes our enthusiastic cat wakes me at six a.m. by sitting on my head, crying loudly in my ear, rubbing himself against my face or simply landing on me and rolling around with a loud purr. Whatever behaviour he manifests the importunate beast gets his way and I stagger down to the kitchen to part fill his bowl with whiskas while I rapidly make myself a cup of tea before he wants a top up of Sheba.

If I’m lucky I get to listen to Today - which is a joy now the misery Humphreys has left. When I’m more awake I disinfect door handles, front door knocker, letter box and lock. I spray Flash on the bannister rail, taps, loo handles, light switches, cooker, washing machine and dishwasher controls, cupboards, fridge and freezer door handles. Finally I disinfect the necessary ie the loos.

If the cat is content I make myself breakfast, unload the dishwasher, put out or check any washing on the line, hoover and dust. Then I check on Richard. If he’s awake he’s ready to have his bowl of soap ( not soup) and hot water to wash his hands for the regulation twenty seconds. Then he has an orange or cereal and his meds. He usually has water but often I make him tea which he’ll sip and leave until he’s ready to drink half a mug. Meanwhile I disinfect the ensuite and make him his sachet if he feels the ravages of prostate cancer treatment are making him feel constipated. This, now, is only occasional. Usually he’ll sleep until midday. He has post-surgery depression, PTSD, psychosis and anxiety. Exactly the issues now confronting covid-19 patients who have undergone endless, frightening days on ventilators and a lack of family contact. I’d never heard of post-hospital PTSD, depression, psychosis and anxiety until Richard suffered from it in the autumn. Now it seems to be in the daily headlines. I also understand cancer patients suffer similar post -hospitalisation depression and anxiety. Others who have had prolonged treatments have said while they may have physically overcome procedures their mental health took a long time to stabilise.

This situation requires that I carry the label ‘carer’. Carer in my case means the following: checking that Richard eats well, takes his meds, stays hygienic and has some stimulation which, for him, is usually in the evenings. It also means I get to do everything around the house and garden. 

Richard is still very quick at answering questions on early evening tv quizzes and at University Challenge. He’ll cook most evenings, now, and will cut the lawn, deal with the bloody recycling, sweep the stairs and is just beginning, again, to follow life-drawing classes. He engages with Grayson Perry’s inclusive art series and loves BBC 4 programmes. (Please don’t take BBC4 away! ) But in lockdown I can’t provide the social interaction he needs to be fully part of society again. Now our small local shop has closed - since lockdown - he doesn’t go there for milk and a chat and he can’t get a drink nor mix in the pub or in our local brasserie. All these interactions would help him overcome anxiety and depression. Thankfully the psychosis seems less troublesome now.

We are entering the warm months of the year and I can spend hours weeding, watering and digging the garden. I put in this year’s broad beans and potatoes, for Richard. The French beans have just gone into their planting spaces after ten days’ hardening off. The courgette seedlings have got through a whole night outside but under cover. They are five days behind the beans and aren’t fully hardened off yet but are leaping out of their pots.The tomato plants are eager to go out too but not full time yet. 

When I’ve finished my morning’s gardening I’ll deal with the post, disinfecting it first, choose what to serve for lunch and prep an evening meal unless Richard seems eager to do so. There are endless things to arrange eg house insurance, boiler breakdown cover, Richard’s medical appointments and procedures, organising workmen - within social distancing rules - contacting friends, family and neighbours and so on.

But the area that has dominated my life since lockdown has been shopping. Because I can’t drive and Richard is advised not to until he’s more alert ( an overused term now, surely) the big weekly shop is out. We rely on deliveries. To my pleasure Sainsburys sent us a ‘you are priority’ email, which was great, at the start of lockdown. But that was a short-lived joy. We couldn’t book another delivery slot for five weeks. Thankfully our local WhatsApp group recommended a foodies heavenly farm shop which also sells and delivers household items like washing up liquid. But I also had to get deliveries from Superdrug and Holland & Barrett for shampoo, gluten-free ingredients and sugar-free items. Neighbours have been shopping for me too. It’s been a lifeline. And, when you consider Richard has shopped and cooked for me for forty years, you’ll see what a change this has been for me. But we prevail.

Sainsburys delivery slots are, tentatively, improving. The driver yesterday said they were recruiting from agencies and working round the clock to get deliveries out to households. I didn’t have the heart to question why there were no eggs in my shopping. No eggs!!

After a big shop has arrived at our doorstep I wash every item to ensure covid-19 isn’t lodged in our household and put them to drain on cloths, ensuring chilled and frozen food get into the fridges  and freezer first. 

It takes ninety minutes to put all my shopping away, to wash the cloths, bags and floors that have been in contact with the outside world and finally to wash my hands thoroughly and strip out of my possibly contaminated clothes. 

Sounds neurotic? You bet. But if I got covid-19 Richard wouldn’t cope in the mornings. I would be in bed, ill, desperately in need of a drink but he’d be far away in the land of medicated nod. If he contracted the virus he’d have a set back mentally and would become even more anxious and confused. I truly can’t take risks.

I’m not bored. I don’t have the time or energy for it. Until Richard is well and driving I am a domestic goddess. Or a maid of all works. Take your pick! I’m busy, that’s certainly true.

Where do I fit in reading, editing, critiquing, virtual pub quizzes and zoom calls? My regime is a bit like working full time, but without the social interaction nor the traffic jams. Time to get bored? Time to watch box sets? Time to follow Joe Wicks? Erm ... that’s for others. Meanwhile I’m keeping house and home as intact and functional as I can manage. And I have lots of early nights! I just about managed to write this as we don’t have medical appointments today. 

Will life return to normal? What is normal? And would I recognise it? I don’t have time to ponder such things for long! 

STAY SAFE EVERYONE 

Every man ( and woman) for themselves

Many weeks ago, when my marathon runner friend, just turned seventy, went into self-imposed lockdown for twelve weeks I thought he wouldn’t cope. After all, ever since he turned 16, he’s done a daily run. And when he said people near him weren’t keeping their social distance and he had two freezers full of food I knew he was taking the c-virus risk to his health very seriously. However I had to laugh when he said neighbours were supplying him with milk and oranges but none had arrived. I told him he was more likely to die of thirst than c-virus. Needless to say the milk was delivered and eight weeks later he’s still keeping fit running upstairs in a timed workout.

Now he says he’s had an argument with neighbours. I’m surprised as he’s so mild-mannered but he hates the fact they are not adhering to social distancing.

Where he and I have agreed all along is that our government’s response has been too slow to react to the c-virus risk, too slow to take up offers of manufacture of visors and PPE in the early days of infection in the UK, too slow to test, track and trace and that it would be the poorest who became victim as we are run on such outdated social class groupings in the UK now. We both agree Nicola Sturgeon, Angela Merkle and Jacinda Ardern have got the right idea and how Germany, having a scientist at the helm, has cracked the disease as far as is humanly possible.

We both agree that we will still be staying home as the easing of lockdown in England is far too early and that people may not show respect for social distancing if they sense they can relax their behaviours. I won’t repeat what we both said about our government. 

My runner and I speak on the phone every other day. We discuss scientific know-how - such as the need for test, track, trace but also the need for retest. We agree that tests sent direct to homes would be safest. 

But where we differ is that he manages to keep his weight down whereas I am putting on the pounds. I do have a fitness regime but I know I need to walk. My marathon runner gets his steps in on his stairs. Could I manage 9000 steps a day on our stairs? I doubt it.

At first, back in March and early April, I was going out. I was joining short queues and doing the shopping. I always took my hand sanitiser and my mask in case of difficulties.

But I realised that if I became sick my husband couldn’t look after me as he is suffering from post-surgery depression. I decided to agree with my marathon runner that staying in was best. And I have had excellent support from neighbours, a WhatsApp support group, AgeUK and Compassionate Care. Not because of my needs but because my husband needs a carer for at least up until 2 pm on most days. The only real hitch has been the lack of regular Sainsbury deliveries but that has eased slightly. And the excellent WhatsApp support group has recommended a truly good farm shop delivery service which has lots of deliveries as they were supplying caterers, BandBs and hotels.

What chills me is the tale of our family builder and how quickly his wife succumbed to the virus after she stood in a queue and was coughed over by someone who said they thought they had the virus.

She’s now in a coma, on a ventilator and can just about blink. 

After a few days in critical care she had to go into intensive care - needing a tracheostomy and ventilation. She is now being gradually brought out of the coma after 25 days and is beginning to make some movement so is improving. 

It’s so frightening when it’s someone you know. And my marathan runner was right. If people don’t keep their distance and cough over you the virus becomes a real, real threat.  

It’s simply best not to get too close to anyone. As so few of us have been tested

we don’t know who among us is asympomatic and who may be a carrier. I am staying in, apart from collecting necessities - this week in the form of tomato plants, and medicines. Tomato plants are my husband’s hobby and it may help him. The walk to collect them will do me good as I need to shed the pounds but I will wear my mask. And next week I’ll have to eat less and exercise more. 

I am lucky to have a large house where my ailing husband can have his own bathroom, towels etc and we aren’t on top of each other, getting on each other’s nerves. We are lucky enough to have a large garden and plenty to keep me physically fit and psychologically distracted from the threat. I am lucky to have such helpful neighbours and friends. 

Why, then, am I waking so early in the mornings and thereby feeling knackered mid-afternoon? Is it the bright light piercing the bedroom drapes? Is it having lists of things to do in my head making me hyper-vigilant? Is it because I’m not doing any swimming and I have excess energy? Is it anxiety? Is it because the temperatures have dropped and my bladder knows it? Is it because I know I need to ring the pharmacy for Richard’s repeat prescription? Is it because we have a delivery most days and I have to be up and awake for that?Or a mixture of all of the above?

I wish I could sleep longer. Most of all I wish my husband was well and we knew who, outside our front door, had had the virus and who was immune. We have a right to feel safe. 

It’s a fine balance. And every man, woman and child for themselves.

Who cares for the carers?

It has been an eye-opening and demanding half year for me. On September 23rd last year Richard had a psychotic episode. It followed a series of surgical procedures and medical appointments which resulted in his anxiety going overboard. By December, despite family visiting and helping out over four extended stays with us, and Richard making a journey with them to Cornwall to give me a break, his psychiatrist declared that the meds he was on  had no more useful job to do. He was not getting substantially better.

For the month up to Twelfth Night I grappled with a new medication regime that changed weekly. Thank goodness we weren’t in lockdown then. The strain, after three and a half months of Richard’s anxiety and depression and the added burden of being his cook, housekeeper, nurse and carer, would have been too much if I’d had to queue in the cold outside our pharmacy, every week, for a different batch of pills.

Gradually, during January and February, the low time of the year, Richard began cooking and painting again. By March 14th - my birthday - he was confident about travelling to Devon. He enjoyed my birthday treats in a lovely hotel by the sea front. We met friends, had a smashing time, enjoyed birthday cake and did some shopping on the way back to Bath. Back then we felt some of the reports of the effects of covid-19 seemed OTT but we religiously washed our hands, easy when it is your birthday and you can happily sing two verses of ‘Happy birthday to you.’ Except I was singing ‘...to me’ for the statutory twenty seconds.

At that time there was no social distancing and no wearing of masks. But we knew the virus was coming. 

And Richard’s treatment was working. He was going to our local shop, the pharmacy, to see friends and to GP appointments. And on his own. 

Then wham! 

Lockdown!

The local shop shut without warning.

The pharmacy and surgery introduced distancing and familiar faces became alien in masks and visors.

Richard took to his bed. His anxiety resurfaced. His progress retreated. All that was good for him - mixing, enjoying going to the pub, shopping locally - were denied him. He didn’t want to go out. He stopped cooking, painting and taking an interest in the garden. I wrote to Boris Johnson about the effects on the mental health of the over-seventies in enforced lockdown. I have received no reply. I tweeted that we needed a public inquiry into this government’s handling of the crisis in the UK. That was in the second half of March. Now the cry for a public inquiry makes the headlines in tomorrow’s  newspapers.

And now, on May 6th, our country’s death rate from covid-19 is the highest in Europe. We still don’t have a substantial testing, track and trace system in place. Mutterings about Brexit and coming out of lockdown are happening alongside our worst national crisis for many decades and internationally we are beyond a joke as a nation. 

Meanwhile Richard has mown the lawn and cooked. He hasn’t restarted his painting but he sold a few of his fine art cards from our gate - at a distance - at the weekend.

When I watch ‘The King’s Speech’ and scenes of Queen Elizabeth comforting King George VI around the time of the abdication it shows how strong a wife can be for a man who fears for his role in life. When Richard had to go to hospital for a routine check - during lockdown - he said he was terrified. He had a very kindly driver from AgeUK who looked after him.

In fact going to see a nurse on his own gave him some confidence and his hours in bed have substantially decreased since then. ( I had a bad bout of hayfever and couldn’t accompany him.) I rang him several times during his hospital visit to check he didn’t feel overwhelmed, ensured he had his medical notes, wore his mask and gloves, used his sanitiser and took a bottle of water. I was caring at a distance but caring nonetheless. 

George VI must have felt terror trying to give a speech as King back in 1937. But he had a caring wife. I don’t like being called a ‘carer’ but in order for Richard to get over his anxiety and depression I do need to support him. In lockdown who else is there? At least we don’t have a press or public making demands of us and we can live quietly, unlike the Royals.

And bravery plays its part.

If I’m a carer I wonder how our government has been caring in the recent and more distant past for its people. Ten years of austerity, running down the NHS, the boasting of Brexit as a cure for our ills and unpreparedness for the pandemic have led to a divided country. The poorest are dying. Isn’t it time we got rid of class distinction in the UK? It does not serve our care workers who are paid and trained badly. They are poorly equipped against covid-19. 70,000 civilian deaths occurred in the UK during the six years of World War 2. 30,000 deaths have occurred in approximately two months from covid-19. This is shocking by anyone’s standards.

Who is doing the caring in our government? Who cares about our people? Who cares for the carers? 

From my window

After a frenetic few days organising cat food deliveries, farm shop groceries, arranging flowers to be purchased for our wedding anniversary, planning Easter goodies, painting the garden shed and fence panels I am having a couple of days R & R.

At the top of our house we have a light, bright guest room where not even the internet penetrates. No sky+ box installation leaves the room removed from tv adverts, news bulletins and the general hum of live broadcasts.

Opposite me are my father’s tomes from his days in WW2. He served in signals in the eighth army under Field Marshall Montgomery. Three titles stare out at me ‘Monty’, ‘Monty’, ‘Monty’. My father was always safe in the war as he was in armoured cars with a driver. But at the end of hostilities, in their swing round to Berlin, they were diverted to Belsen. He was part of the liberating army.

My jumpiness about when the next food delivery slot will appear in this time of corona is nothing to the dreadful sites he must have witnessed. He recalled people had been reduced to rag dolls. All muscle tone gone. Too weak to move, and like a child carrying an unanimated toy, each dying body had to be lifted gently by a serving soldier to a quiet place as their spirit left this earth. Dad never mentioned the stench, the smell of death, just the face masks and DDT. And his hatred of racism.

After the war dad took his degree, deferred through war service, but succumbed to pneumonia when he started his MA. He’d always had weak lungs and after serving in the big arenas: El Alamein, Salerno, D-Day and encountering Belsen, doing an MA on top of an active mind but a weary body pushed him too far. He never finished his Masters. I have two. An M.Ed. and an M.A. One of them is for dad.

Today I am resting. The cat has been fed and I will make brunch when I feel more like being active in the kitchen. We have a treat in store. The Fine Cheese Company is a lovely band of people who are delivering their goodies this afternoon: the basics - milk, artisan bread, butter, cheese and crackers but they also have a chef from Hyderabad to delight us with his paneer tikka masala. 

Unlike the poor souls who suffered in the war or, today, are sick from c-virus or overwrought from loss of earnings or enforced self-isolation, I can relax. From our light, bright guest room I can see a horse chestnut in full leaf, a luminous, pale blue sky and next door’s chimney pot. Someone, somewhere has work. I can hear birds in the trees and, sporadically, the sound of a power saw cutting through timber. 

Evita, the dog next door, has just been let out and is now whimpering to be let in. Our cat hardly ever whimpers but even he, with his panther-like grip, pushed open the sitting room door when I came upstairs with my morning cuppa. He didn’t want to be on his own. But I closed the door on him.

I wonder how long it will be before he discovers the roof tops once more and climbs through the window in the guest room. He can be strangely affectionate and, when he decides, he likes company. Most of the time he is like Greta Garbo and wants to be alone. Self-isolation is no hardship. Providing, like me, he gets his food.

In the guest room sunlight is glinting on old jade-coloured glass bottles unearthed by a detectorist decades ago. Next to it, on an apple-green wooden window ledge, sits an emerald glass sea horse. It was given to me when I was twenty-one by my school friend. I wonder what has happened to her.

All I have to decide, now, is when I will take up position on the sun lounger and do some reading. Self-isolation, while we have space, food and beautiful weather can be a time of peace, for some. Let’s try to remember those who are less lucky.

Churchill’s Greatest Fear

If the last four weeks have taught me anything it’s that relying on grocery deliveries seems an easy option but that reliance can, in reality, be anything but straightforward.

After lockdown owing to the c-virus pandemic I was advised to stay home. My husband is unwell with an unrelated condition. But if I’d carried on shopping as I was, in queues, outside and inside the stores, I was risking picking up corona virus. 

Supposing I got sick my husband couldn’t look after me and he’d be very likely to catch it as I have to be his carer - at least in the mornings. Instead of going out and shopping, therefore, I exercise indoors, do the garden and all the cleaning and prep our food.

Three weeks ago Sainsburys sent me an email saying we had priority booking for a delivery slot. That was a huge relief and I duly placed my order. Since then nothing. Absolutely no delivery slots for us for the foreseeable future.  We had another delivery booked with Asda and that was great but Waitrose, Morrisons and Tesco have offered nothing. And now Asda slots have all gone too.

Thankfully I have extremely supportive neighbours who get what we need when they are out shopping but my waking hours seem preoccupied with placing grocery orders, emailing local butchers and greengrocers, waiting for a cheese shop, market stall holder or wholefoods shop to get back me, waiting for a delivery, paying by BACs, ordering from farm shops, finding delivery slots and planning when our next big online shop should be.

I’m sure in the panic buying of a few weeks ago folk must have purchased huge fridge freezers otherwise where could they possibly have stored their bulk purchases? Perhaps they have large kitchens and garages too. We have none of those. We do have two under counter fridges and a mini fridge plus a freezer but no extra storage space. Planning where to store our groceries, ensuring we eat the longest-stored items first and making space for a new order requires a spreadsheet! I have a chart where goods are listed and tallied then crossed out when cooked and used. My greatest fear is running out of, say, milk, Fage Greek yogurt or blueberries, porridge oats, fishcakes and vegetables. The basics.

But then we also need cat food, washing up liquid, bin bags and yes ... loo roll, and that other rarity: flour and yeast. If I can’t go out food has to come to me. If there isn’t an available delivery slot what to do? 

During the second world war Churchill wasn’t as scared of the Luftwaffe, the German army or Rommel as he was of the 

principal strategy of the enemy in the Battle of the Atlantic. The German tactic was to attack shipping bound for Britain to restrict British industry. The nation would be left starving if food didn’t get through, forcing the UK into submission. Foods were mostly imported into the UK and to our allies from the USA and Canada - crossing the Atlantic. 

In 1942 The Combined Food Board was set up by the UK and the USA to help get food to the Allies. Churchill feared enemy U boats more than any other tactic the Germans could use against us. 

I quote from Wikipedia:

As a small island country, the United Kingdom was highly dependent on imported goods. Britain required more than a million tons of imported material per week in order to survive and fight. In essence, the Battle of the Atlantic involved a tonnage war: the Allied struggle to supply Britain and the Axis attempt to stem the flow of merchant shipping that enabled Britain to keep fighting. From 1942 onward the Axis also sought to prevent the build-up of Allied supplies and equipment in the British Isles in preparation for the invasion of occupied Europe. The defeat of the U-boat threat was a prerequisite for pushing back the Axis in Western Europe.

Food or starvation. Victory or defeat. Atlantic convoy or the U-boats. This constant worry was Churchill’s greatest fear.

The securing of food delivery for me, now in 2020, is one of the stresses of the c-virus pandemic. We are lucky enough to live in a large house so that in lockdown we aren’t on top of each other. Our neighbours couldn’t be more helpful, the weather is lovely and we have a large garden to relax in and to work on. We are not cramped, short of money nor space but our little local shop has shut for the month and we can’t just ‘pop out for milk’. And that uncertainty of milk supply is a stressor.

Every meal, food order, space in our fridge, freezer and cupboards has to be planned and noted. Never have so many thoughts of food penetrated my waking hours so deeply. As soon as I find one outlet who will do a delivery any subsequent slots are quickly gobbled up by other hungry households. Then I have to find another store to take my order, my payment, my address and make a delivery    date.

Thankfully we have local butchers, greengrocers, brasserie and pub who are all delivering here. But we can only buy what they offer. It’s not the same as doing your own shopping. 

We won’t go hungry but heaven help you if you have special dietary requirements. Of course it’s quite right that essential workers and the very vulnerable have easy access to groceries. I am fit enough to walk to shops. But I can’t drive, tut, tut, which means shopping daily - more often than our government would like. Am I vulnerable, caught in the middle, over-thinking it or worrying unnecessarily? The lack of Sainsbury delivery slots has shaken me somewhat. The old familiar ways are gone, temporarily at least. 

Adapt and survive. It’s been a changing world since covid-19 made its first attack.

Hunger, weaken then surrender. A war of attrition. That was Churchill’s greatest fear.