At times it’s so quiet, it must be what it’s like to live in the country. Clear blue skies, few planes overhead, the sound of birds, little traffic. And the birds are very polite here. None of the shouty birds you get in Australia, albeit there are quite a few rowdy parrots in Dulwich Park. Even magpies are polite. There is no magpie season in the UK.
I heard on the grapevine that Dulwich College has opened many of its playing fields to the public. So I walked through Dulwich Park, up to the College fields and wandered through. A few folks about, not many. Mainly parents with kids kicking a ball around, a few runners on the track including a toddler who did an awesome 10 metres or so. On the way back I meandered past the school a few streets away. I wandered through there yesterday. There were a couple of Community Support Officers checking there was noone lounging about I guess. A tough job.
I spent most of the day working, typing away. I met up with my neighbour for a coffee on the steps. We take our own coffees and keep an appropriate distance. I am so fortunate to have lovely neighbours. Noone’s having parties and inviting family and friends over. I live by myself which I like, but without seeing a friendly face at least every day or so I would go a little loopy.
Another day in lockdown. Globally we’ve hit the 2,000,000 mark on global confirmed cases. In the UK, another 761 people hospitalised people have died. And the anger is growing – sometimes directed where it should be, other times wholly inappropriate.
It seems like some in the community are becoming emboldened to comment on strangers’ behaviours (at least this is what I’m hearing, I haven’t seen it myself) – a mother out with two kids being verbally abused for there being three of them, not two. There is no rule saying households can’t do their daily walk/bit of exercise together. Of people being bolshy on Twitter about parents who ‘aren’t keeping control of their kids’. From what I’ve seen, at least in my little part of the world, parents are working really hard at teaching these strange new rules to kids who are too young to understand.
What I’m generally seeing is the gentler side of things – polite queues, the occasional shared smile or joke about doing the social distancing shuffle, neighbours looking out for each other. I do give the occasional nasty look if someone comes too close but I’m getting pretty good at getting out of the way.
More widely, there is a growing anger at how this is all being dealt with by government. There’s very little sense yet of how many have died of the coronavirus in care homes or at home, at least in England and Wales. There is no way off knowing until the tests are done and deaths registered, leading sometimes to a significant timelag. While today a little more attention is being paid to care homes, there are still fundamental issues to be addressed.
It’s still too early to know how long lockdown will last for and the plan for easing restrictions. I still like the idea of a community time when we can shout out our frustrations. It would be rowdy.
So that’s it for Day 23. Stay safe, stay well, and stay home!