Lockdown Diary - Sunday 1st November 2020

Though there are always chores to do, I try to make Sunday a day of relaxation, at least in part.  As I didn't get time to read any of the papers yesterday, that's one of the things I'll hopefully find time to do.

It's now November, which heralds my wife's birthday in less than two weeks. Before she became ill, and especially before she became bedbound, finding birthday presents was easy.  It's become increasingly difficult to find new ideas given that she can't move, she never goes out, she can't get dressed beyond wearing night clothes, she rarely eats anything by mouth (and if she does, there's a real danger of choking / aspiration) and is rarely awake for more than 10 to 15 minutes at a time.  I don't know how aware of her birthday she is but even if she is totally unaware of it, I cannot let it pass unnoticed and uncelebrated because I would feel I was failing her, or letting her down or effectively saying she was no longer part of my life, or most likely all of the above.

I have bought an item of jewellery, as the core present of what I'll buy, but I do need to add to it. Flowers could be one additional thing, though there is a danger that she'll receive flowers from her mum and her dad. Can you have too many flowers? Perhaps not, though maybe I'd be better off buying flowers at a different time for greater impact.

Over lunch we watched an episode of 'The Thick Of It' which brought a smile to my face and several laugh-out-load moments.  As the boys returned to their computer games, I started on Saturday's papers. 

Paper-reading was punctuated by the chance to cut my hair and trim my beard, with the added luxury of son #1's help finishing off cutting the hair on the back of my head, which I can neither see nor seemingly cut properly on my own.  There will be no barbers open for a month and they're probably besieged at the moment with people trying to get their last cut in for a month (or more).

The carers bring news of the outside world: apparently the local supermarkets are besieged by panic buyers and report huge queues for the car parks at some of the larger stores.  Shelves are stripped bare for canned goods and bog rolls in ASDA, I am told.  I despair.  What are people like?  So many people can neither afford to stock up nor on a whim go out and buy trolley loads of stuff. When we were shopping on Saturday I noticed a man buying ridiculous amounts of canned goods and at the time I thought, 'here we go', but paid little more attention to it.  When we checked out I apologised for the fact that we had two packs of bog rolls: one was for son #3 to take back to uni, but did I feel guilty, or what? Surely people learned from the first lock down that if you panic buy, you create the shortages. Once people had bought enough cans and bog rolls to build themselves a full-scale replica of Windsor Castle, and buying restrictions were introduced, supplies returned to normal.  Oh well, I guess I'll find out soon enough how mad people have gone.

As the evening approaches it will soon be time to take son #3 back to uni, and probably he'll be stuck there until early December at least.  He's gathering all his belongings together ready to leave at around 7 p.m.: clean washing, supermarket shopping from yesterday, another book I'd bought for his course and other vital stuff, like a supply of cider.

Son #1 and I dropped son #3 and all his belongings off at his uni flat, said goodbye and returned home to make dinner.

We're going to have baked haddock for dinner tonight, so first thing to do is get that underway with son #2.  First challenge is what are we going to cook it with? Son #2 has identified an interesting herb and spice mix to rub the fillets in, so off we go.

I have suggested we start watching the edited version of episode 4 / Autumn of 'The Third Day', probably in two parts as we'll never managed to watch it all tonight - it's getting too late.

Whilst at the same time being compelling viewing, in order to try and make sense of what's happening, the action is very, very slow, given it's real-time footage. We all wonder exactly how little must have happened at times during the 12-hour version of this episode. Once things start to happen and the main characters begin to appear, there is much to interpret and not a huge amount of dialogue to help piece it together. Hopefully we'll finish it soon - not tomorrow night, due to it being book club, but certainly by Tuesday evening.

This song came up on my mega-playlist a few days ago and it's been sitting around in my brain waiting for the right day.  I think it fits the mood for today, so without any more waffle, here's Metz with 'Kicking A Can Of Worms' from the album 'II'

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