Go Figure

You know you've been indoors too long when you see a figure on someone's doorstep and wonder, in all seriousness, why there is an Antony Gormley sculpture standing there.  It was just a bloke in a hoodie, of course.  I suppose it could have been a visiting art installation, but it's unlikely.

My walk to the Co-op takes me past the fire station, where other figures of note might be seen.  Although all I saw today was a fire-tender and some trousers and boots on the floor.  I know it's for speed but it does look terribly untidy.  I've just realised, only now, that fire-tender means something that tends a fire and not whatever other definition of tender you can imagine.

The man in the Co-op gave me a recipe for chicken.  This is the most contact I've had with an actual human being in so long, I could fall in love with him.  Or his tattoos at least.  I did quite a lot of work today and took no nap.  The vast, overwhelming exhaustion has gone off now, hopefully for good. 

The highlight of my day apart from going to the Co-op was putting the bins back.  Every time the bin men come, I put our many bins back in line out front. It gives me a sense of control. And then I wash my hands.

It's Clearly A Sign

Outside, some non-specific roadworks have been moved slightly west so that the temporary traffic light with the large red sign saying WAIT HERE UNTIL GREEN LIGHT SHOWS is right outside my house.  It seems very appropriate.  Because what else can we do right now except wait for the green light? 

I'm still having weird days of illness but it's all sort of merging into general porcine lethargy now.  I do a little work, faddle around a bit with stuff in the house, do a bit more work, have some lunch and then nap.  Do a little more work, and so on.  Try to unblock the sink.  There isn't enough boiling water, vinegar, bicarbonate of soda, Mr Muscle (and his various associates) in the world to unblock this motherfucker.  It's going to have to be snaked.  It is currently making belchy snoring noises after being fed several kettles, a lot of vinegar, and then vigorously plunged.

A delivery guy today told me that it was hush-hush but that lockdown was likely to end on 11 May.  I'm no more likely to believe a delivery guy than someone on Twitter or Boris Johnson (wherever he is) but it's a nice thought that 11 May might be the day we get green-lit.   In the meantime I should probably do some work.

 

The Power of Ealing

I took a walk tonight past the house I moved to in 1983, and along surrounding roads, where I have visited only in dreams since then.  I don't remember it all being so grand, but the buildings are the same, just a little botoxed and primped.  At 21 you tend not to notice buildings much.

There is Castelbar Hill where I was pushed in a supermarket trolley, coming to a perilous halt just short of the road, laying on the pavement laughing.  The large cocktail bar in a converted garage (which I suspect was called The Garage) that served goblets of sweet creamy booze with umbrellas on Springbridge Road, is long gone.   It's now an energy consultancy, whatever that is.

I walked across Haven Green at dusk.  It's been allowed, as have we, to run a little unkempt.  And we've been locked up so long the daffodils are now just brown shrouds.  To Tesco, on Haven Green, even though I don't really need anything.  It's well stocked for the time of night.  I have noticed a quiet but confident resurgence of toilets rolls and Lemsip recently.  Presumably because those who stocked up with thirteen 48 packs are still diligently trying to shit their way through them.

Fannying About

One of the worst things about the Lockdown is that one cannot tell hypochondria from genuine illness.  This morning I woke up feeling as if heavy pigeons were fighting inside me.  I've had waves of weirdness several times over the last weeks and either it's mild C-19 returning for another little crack or it's just me catastrophising, or both.

So the beef stew is back in the oven, augmented with falafels and a slug of Canadian whisky.  This crisis will make chefs of us all.  I suspect I'll be more Fanny Cradock than Nigella.  If I start dyeing eggs blue please disconnect me.

Today I am planning a walk around the ghost streets of Ealing.  Ghostly not only for the lack of people but for the fact that every road is loaded with past, in my head.  Perhaps someone lived there at school, a boy or something.  Not a boy on every road, obviously.  I was never that popular.  The ghost buses go past my window, ferrying empty seats to Greenford. 

I'm planning Co-op potato slices with the stew and then I will sit and wonder about the pins and needles in my arm, for hours.