Coronavirus diary

The day started off well. I put together a proposal for a set of webinars, and it went downhill from there. Rather than dealing with today, or even this week, I’m thinking ahead. I’m finding this is not a sensible course of action in lockdown land. Perhaps some of it was triggered from last night’s googling of face masks, and not the fun kind of face masks. Perhaps it was today having a chat with to a woman with a toddler. I asked her how her daughter was dealing with social distancing. Her daughter doesn’t understand. She’s at that age […]

I’m at the stage of lockdown I could no longer deal with spending the day wearing gym kit. So I got up, had a shower, and put on a dress and a touch of make-up. This is certainly not a big deal, nor any sort of deal in the scheme of things. And while I’m back in gym kit having just been for a speedy walk around Peckham Rye, there will be more days of dress wearing. Day 42 of lockdown, 6 weeks. I stopped going to the gym 3 weeks before that. And I’m noticing a difference in my […]

I’m at the stage of lockdown that I’m cleaning out my spice drawer and rearranging my bookshelves. I could be reading. I could be writing. I could be watching something on my laptop. I could be sorting my emails. There are a thousand things I could be doing. This is displacement activity. Mundane activities that require little thought but do require at least some degree of concentration. I’m trying to find the delicate balance between thinking too much and thinking too little. Either raises my stress level. It’s not boredom as such. Perhaps some minor existential crisis about the meaning […]

It’s been a reasonable day today. For a change of scenery I decided to head up to the gardens at the Horniman Museum. I mapped the route in my head before setting off – thinking about quiet roads, wider footpaths. Some hills on the way there. There were lots of parents with young kids, but not too many. And it was a big sky. It was the sort of sky I got used to in Australia. But in London, it’s rare, a real treat. In these strange times there are more and more big sky moments. The sky is not […]

I’m at that stage of lockdown where everything is irritating me. And it’s not just that low level rumbling irritation. It’s the screaming at everyone and everything kind of irritation. Yesterday was a good day. But last night was one of vivid dreams. And not the good sort. It was the sort where various people in my past who have annoyed me in one way or another came to visit. Their eyes were the same. But their faces had become hideous. I knew who they were from their eyes. Gratefully I don’t have that many folks who fit into that […]

It’s strange how the days bounce around. One day good. Another day, not so good. No real reason for these strange shifts of my moods in these strange times. I’ve given up trying to make sense of it as there’s a lot that doesn’t make much sense anymore. Today has been a good day. Woke up early, not too early. Got some cleaning done. Sat down to do some work – commenting on a comms plan and a website; lined up some meetings; got some good stuff done. I can also get a decent amount done when I’m in a […]

We’re not all in this together, that much is clear. Resources to the NHS, absolutely necessary. Resources in care homes, absolutely necessary. But the stark divide continues and it is to our shame. We are allowing, enabling, this virus to impact most heavily on those who are most vulnerable. We are failing to protect. I worked in the Department of Health for 15 years. Each successive government would talk about, plan for, publish Green and White papers on, the integration of health and social care. And on this task, every government has failed. Social care remains the poor relation to […]

The messaging remains confused. We don’t know what’s happening when. But there are hints of relaxing of lockdown which would be good if any of us had any idea what this means. Well it might be good unless folks relax just a little too much which would mean another spike in positive cases and deaths. Then we’d go into lockdown again. There is a slight improvement in the hospital figures though its hard to say what this really means. We’re up to 82 deaths of NHS workers and 16 in social care. The figure on hospital deaths today is up […]

It was to be London Marathon day today. It would have been a glorious day for marshaling. Perhaps a little warm for running it. I remember before we moved from ‘normal’ times to these strange times, for many, their biggest concern was whether or not the London Marathon, and other big city marathons, were going ahead. Some thought that a few cancellations before London was being overly cautious. I had been seeing the numbers infected with this bloody virus expand, as well as the countries affected. I could see what was coming. Certainly not the detail but clear trends were […]

Most of today has been a day of getting through it. I slept badly, walking up from 4.30am. I’m not an early morning person by nature. Around 7am is generally the best I can do to have a reasonable day. 4.30am is not a good way to start the day. I managed to doze little to finally get up in a pretty filthy mood. My musings from yesterday sit there, already a distant memory. I feel trapped. I feel bored. I feel frustrated. That’s where the afternoon nap came in after a walk through a few Dulwich parks. I find […]

Today has been a day of strange reflection. Time continues to pass in bendy stretchy ways. Days are flying by. It’s Friday though that has little meaning in these strange times. The markers of the days no longer exist in the same way. There’s no Saturday morning parkrun. In ‘normal’ times, I’d get up early, get to the gym, and then walk to Dulwich Park to have coffee with some of the parkrunners I know. I’d go to at least one event during the week in central London – hearing about all manner of things I find interesting and can […]