Coping with lockdown.

As we go into another week of being under house arrest, more or less, I keep finding reports of the different ways people are dealing with it. And one opinion is that those of us who are comfortably retired, not rich but with enough to live on and maybe a little bit to spare, are probably coping best. Our routine has often not changed fundamentally. We continue to do much the same as ever, but without socialising as much as we might like.

Out on a run this morning, I overheard a snippet of conversation between two men on bikes, possibly in their forties. One asked the other how he was occupying his time. Cycling and DIY was the answer. The other agreed that there is not a lot to do. “I’m bored s***less!” was the last bit of their chat that I heard before they went out of hearing range. Well, they don’t seem to be coping well.

As exercise is supposed to be for about an hour a day, that chap who does only cycling and DIY must have done a prodigious amount of DIY by now. I wonder where he gets his supplies. I heard another man, walking his dog this time, talking loudly into his phone about DIY that needed doing. The gist was that he needed some cement but was not happy with the idea of standing in a queue outside B&Q for about three hours. So that particular task was being put off for a while. That answers my query about where people are getting their DIY supplies. Slowly and patiently, it seems!

Personally I have not been in a big store, supermarket or DIY or any other kind of store, since before the lockdown started. I have been relying on an occasional visit to our small local coop store and a weekly walk to the market. So far so good! By the time I ever get back into our nearest they will have moved everything around so much I will have no idea where to find anything.

That’s assuming I ever do get back into the supermarket. There is every possibility that draconian measures will come into force and, as an old person (official designation!), I will obliged to give in to online food shopping. Bang goes the spontaneity of seeing something on the shelf and making an on the spot decision to change the menu so that the unexpected ingredient can be incorporated.

As regards the boredom aspect, that is not a feature in our house. My daughter and I have long agreed that we are fortunate in that we have always enjoyed reading and so can always occupy ourselves. Books and music and a certain amount of television and we are fine. I have, however, heard a number of commentators on radio programmes saying although they are regular readers bthey are finding it hard to concentrate to read at the moment. They are too anxious, surrounded by too many people, or at the other extreme too alone. Strange times. Most of us are in contact distant friends and family by digital means of one kind and another. I have so far not used Zoom, which I had never heard of until this crisis came along. But lots of people are Zooming for all sorts of reasons. One solution to feeling too alone to concentrate on reading, writing or whatever is apparently to have a "silent Zoom". You and a friend, or several friends, linkt up via Zoom and then just get on with whatever you need to concentrate on, knowing that the others are there but not actually talking to them, a bit like sitting in a room reading together. In this case, together but apart.

Maybe this is what the world after lockdown will be like. More distance all rpumd. More working from home, fewer big musical events - if indeed there are any - more streaming of films and shows, fewer visits to cinemas and theatres. How will musicians and actors make a living? Will there still be office gossip and works’ Christmas dos? How will young people ever meet their life partners? And how will social distancing be maintained in already crowded classrooms?

I seem to be writing myself into a gloom and doom scenario. It’s not really that bad. But I am still quite glad not to be a young person trying to make a go of things at the moment.

But then, the sun is managing to keep shining, even if with a little more cloud today than yesterday. The flowers still bloom in my garden.

We’ll get by.

On the menu today is a chicken casserole, accompanied by roasted vegetables of one kind and another.

 Life goes on. Stay safe and well everyone!