Allergy in the Time of COVID

This is not a romance, be strongly advised of that.  Today as I woke from a nap while watching "The Elephant Man" an email was read to my eyes, ending...and I cannot tell you why.  Somebody in my nap-dream had broken off with me by email and although it was disappointing, it was not entirely surprising.  I would probably break up with me too.

I have dreadful allergy symptoms at the moment, even when indoors.  Seeing as there is little to be allergic to in my flat except dust, most of which is my own dander, it seems I am basically allergic to myself.  This seems to be taking the auto-immune response a bit far.

This weekend, the world has apparently gone back to some semblance of normal, choosing to believe that sunshine proffers immunity to a prickly, somewhat deadly virus.  It is understandable, in a way.  We've all been locked up, or down, for so long that it would be easy to think "Well, I'm either fine or I've had it and anyway, look, a park."  I had a dog like that once, she would go nuts when she saw grass from the car.

I shall continue to stay indoors with my violent skin flakes, not because I'm good at following rules but because I want a future, and to see you all again.  When the time is right.

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.

Life in the Old Bitch Yet

One of the many things I learned since coming back to the UK was how to live in a small space.  In Belgium I had places that were ridiculously large - in one flat, an entire room for dining and an entire room for sitting and an entire room for bed.  So many rooms.  Now, I'm pretty much in one room.  I have a toilet/shower room to the side.  It's what might once have been disparagingly called a bedsit.  I think of it as a cosy studio.  It's going to be jewel-like and tiny and beautiful once sorted.  But cosy means I currently trip over things a lot.  It won't be COVID-19 that gets me, it will be the fucking un-unpacked boxes.

I've also learned something approaching patience.  I returned to the UK only with possibilities or lack thereof.  More lack thereof than anything.  There was a lot of crying in the shower.  I gritted my old amalgam-filled teeth and carried on, not really with any sense that it would work out, but it did.

What does this all mean?  Maybe that you can teach an old dog new tricks.  An old bitch, strictly.  And I can now walk on my hind legs and do presentations to 30+ colleagues via the internet. 

Another space-saving trick there.  Woof.

Going Viral

My, that was a fair old pause.

As you might know, I'm now happily and permanently employed at a university, and have moved to a tiny flat in Ealing.  That should have been a couple of neat bows to tie things up, should it not?  The -after tagged onto happily-ever.

Then covidity arrived.  Within the space of a week we went from having jolly drinks at work together and joking about people going off precipitously sick with man-corona, to being in seclusion, working from home until further notice.  I'm adapting slowly to co-ordinating 30+ people from home (who are also at home) from my bed, with my computer resting on boxes.  Because I just moved, and have no furniture, and am basically camping.

Today is Mother's Day and my birthday.  It's fine (I'm not saying that in a Ross from Friends way).  It really is fine.  My best present will be that you all stay well and keep laughing at my lame jokes.  I can celebrate after these projected months of enforced solitude are over.  I've been much heartened by the goodness I've seen displayed, and the willingness to help vulnerable people.  I've been much disgusted by the sheer cuntery that can clear a supermarket of all its staples with piranha rapacity.  I don't care how worried shoppers are: every unneeded item bought is leaving someone else without.

We'll get through this.  Thank god we have the internet to help us, and connect us.