‘Gliding towards the light’ : Michael James shares a week of Corvid19 up’s & downs

21.34pm Monday 13 April  2020

These are uncertain days and mainly sleepless nights.  The irony of this Easter bank holiday has not been lost on me.  Practically the whole of my life we in this country have been plagued by rain or worse on our much looked forward too Bank Holiday week ends.  This year we have had spectacular sunny warm weather.  None of us were able to enjoy it as we would have liked.

We are all in lockdown.  We can go out to shop and exercise but not to meet up with family and friends for any sort of close encounters.  We are having to learn to keep our distance from each other.  That has unforeseen consequences for us all.  Sometimes good sometimes not so good.  Yesterday Easter Sunday, I lay in bed making plans for the day.  The sun was shining, hardly a breath of air. not too much noise or movement in the street below. I was lazily content.  The dreams and plans floated through my brain.  Good straight forward plans.  I rose and went into the bathroom fully intending to  get dressed to go out for a walk.  I had even planned my walk.  Prevarication stepped in. The next thing it was about an hour later and I had not even got dressed.  What had happened?  I’m not sure.  Just one simple decision was enough to destroy all my plans.

Thinking back I cannot see what that simple decision could have been.  Did I open the fridge door to see what I could have for breakfast?  Or the freezer door to see what I could have for dinner?  Something that innocuous, that everyday, leads me astray into other dimensions.  By the time I came too an hour or so later I had lost any desire to go out for a walk. Instead I needed to shave my head and face.  My skin was beginning to itch once more so I had to shave in order to relieve it and let me put some cream on.  By the time I did that I was tired and had to lay down across the bed to grab a snooze.  Tiredness works in tandem with the prevarication.  If I get out immediately then I am due a wee snooze when I return.

If I do any tiny weeny piece of housework first then prevarication sweeps every plan aside I become tired before I have had a walk.  The walk has turned from a joy to a chore and I’ve lost interest.  And so the story unfolded yesterday afternoon.  Come 2.30pm I undressed and went back to bed to tired to think let alone do anything. It was turning into a nothing sort of day.  Fine I can and do live with that.  No feelings of guilt.

I woke at 3.45pm and felt so much better.  I hopped out of bed, dressed quickly and left the house.  Walkies beckoned.  I had just left the safety of our communal car park when lo and behold I spied The Easter Bunny coming towards me with a huge smile carrying a plastic bag.  It was the ever lovely Art on his way to leave a pressie outside my door.  We couldn’t kiss and hug.  It was all so formal and funny at the same time.  We decided he should put the bag back into the car for safe keeping while we went on a social distance walk together.  6 feet apart we trotted off down to Marine Parade and stopped at the first available bench all the time keeping our distance, chatting and catching up with each others news and gossip.  Oh tons of lovely gossip.

We were accosted by a rather large red faced sexy old man.  I certainly would not have said no if he was on offer.  Neither would Art.  Perhaps another day another time.  He seemed to know me.  I have no idea who he was.  He was so loud and friendly.  Art thought he might have been one of my gentlemen callers from B&B days.  Perhaps but I think it might have been later than that.  He breezed past us with a cheery wave on his way down to the beach.  We chatted, laughed and gossiped an hour or so away.  Tiredness overcame us both.  I went onto our front garden seats to wait for him to retrieve the plastic bag.  He left it outside the street door to the block.  I picked it up and waved him goodbye as he reversed out onto the street.

Once inside I went through the antibac routine.  I found a packet of wipes, two books, a huge chocolate egg and a bot of red.  The red I polished off last night and the egg has yet to be opened.  What a wonderful surprise from a wonderful friend.

That cheered me up no end.  There is life at the end of the tunnel.  Each day is so different.  I love allowing it to unfold sometimes to show me what can happen when I don’t follow my own silly rules.  I’m learning to glide through my present limited lifestyle.  Believe me lockdown is a lifestyle.  It is not going to be at all easy but there are enough treasures en route to make it all worthwhile.  Tomorrow I’m back in the land of pressures.  Shopping for food and finding if I can get a delivery slot from Waitrose.  I know I will but I might have to go up to the wire before it happens.  Days of nail biting tensions lie ahead.  But days too of lovely things happening to relieve those tensions.