Corona Diaries -day 7

Corona Diaries -day 7

Lots of people commented on the number of satellites they could see tracking across the skies last night.  

It was lovely and clear. A waxing crescent moon hung heavy, with brightest star Venus on a diagonal line beneath it and the seven sisters of the Pleiades between them.

Now, by day, the vapour trails of aircraft no longer make their familiar patterns.  The few remaining flights are bringing people home. 

Our world is changing. 

It’s a grey sort of day today. I’ve been watching a pair of blue tits, nibbling at the entrance to a nesting box I made that doubles as an insect hotel. 

They did the same last year but failed to take up the spring/summer let on offer. 

Frank rang last night to give us a preview of his shopping list. Get this: He doesn’t like to own more than one of anything and he’s managed to break his only mug.  

He thinks he’ll take my advice and get two next time, he says. 

I tell you, if there IS a zombie Coronavirus apocalypse and we run out of everything, don’t waste your time going to Frank’s house for emergency supplies. You’re likely to find only a mouldy peppered salad and some stale croutons and nothing to eat them with.

He rang twice again today. I told him he could have one of our mugs as we have plenty.  We synchronised watches and in a military style operation (Frank is an ex Royal Marine PTI) I placed the mug, with blue-gloved hands into a carrier bag and left it at the bottom of our drive and Frank collected it moments later. 

The second call was to confirm that the mission had been completed. Frank had to go before government officials traced the call and came for him.

I’m sure this will be the experience for many of us who have offered help to those living alone. They might seem self-sufficient and content with their own company in normal times, but really they crave human contact just like the rest of us. 

And I think I’m starting to realise that loving my neighbour is not just about helping out our mates, but also the people who we might otherwise keep at arms-length. (Currently 2 metres)

Mind you, I’m getting a bit tetchy with Michelle today and could do with a bit of time alone. 

I’d like to think that I’m a fairly sociable sort, but only up to a point. If I don’t get some quiet time alone each day, without interruption, I can get a bit grumpy.  But if I take myself off somewhere quiet, it’s not long before I like to hear another voice, even if it is Michelle’s. 

I’ve noticed, a week into lockdown, that the conspiracy theories are starting to do the rounds on Facebook and Twitter. 

This must be because people have now got far too much time on their hands and are trying to find a scapegoat in tune with their politics and worldview. 

I prefer to go with my intuition on these matters, to listen carefully to what is said and who is saying it and treat with suspicion any confirmation of my own biases. It is a fact of nature that none of us are very good at detecting our own bias but we seem to be adept at detecting it in others. 

Even before the pandemic there seemed to be a mass of information and comment telling us that there is no such thing as truth. That the things we all knew to be true until yesterday, were all wrong and that we needed to check our thinking or be condemned by the new self-righteous order as bigots and ‘phobes’ of one prefix or another.

 It is certainly much harder to find the truth, given all the disinformation and doublethink doing the rounds. Some people will tell us “there’s no such thing as truth” and they tell us this as an absolute truth without seeing the contradiction. That is, if the statement is true, it must be false. 

Think about that one for a minute. 

Anyway, we can always keep off social media and rely on our own experience to know what’s real. That never fails. I say never, but It is interesting that during the Stalinist trials of the 1930’s, one man, in defending himself, was so brainwashed by the whole thing that he denied his own experience and lack of mens rea and confessed “the party is always right and if it says I’m a saboteur I must be one.” 

Such is the power of Totalitarianism to colonise the mind and deny people the right to experience their own experiences. Readers beware. 

I noticed a lot more people out during my daily dog walk and it was hard to avoid them at times. A pair of elderly ladies with a small dog, recoiled in horror as I passed, wrapping their scarves around their faces as if I were a hideously deformed Leper (or Jeremy Corbyn, campaigning for a new election).  I decided not to take it personally though, or indeed as a sign of some awful prejudice. “Bigots!”

The sun briefly emerged to throw my shadow in front of me and show me that I really do need a haircut. 

An ambulance roared up the road on blue lights and sobered my thoughts. 

I must say, now that I’ve got most of the big jobs done, the novelty of staying at home is beginning to wear off.  I hadn’t really appreciated my freedom before in the way that I long for it now. To be on Dartmoor, alone with my dogs and the wild ponies.

We’re hearing of friends now who have actually lost their loved ones to this virus and that is all the incentive we need to keep to the new rules and stick it out. 

We’re told that the restrictions are beginning to take effect, so there’s some encouragement too.