Day 32 – Curfew – Friday 24 April 2020.
I am definitely slowing down. Every other day is turning out to be what I refer to as ‘a lazy day’. I may do a few chores or pick out a few weeds but in the main I’m tatting** around.
Even my runs and Pilates sessions have been less frequent than during the first 3 weeks of curfew; oddly, I enjoy the runs but I struggle to get myself out of the door so I have to get up just 15 minutes before I want to run, throw my clothes on, have a quick espresso, pop on my power-heart (a magnet that I swear aids recovery after a run) and go!
Pilates is slightly easier as it takes place in the home: I wonder if this is may be how people become agoraphobic, going out of the home less and less until they just can’t bring themselves to do it? Of course, agoraphobia would be more to do with a persons mental-health initially, but it does make me wonder.
Talking about mental-health it is very concerning how this curfew is equipping people to use the situation to their advantage.
According to the Guardain newspaper, ‘A number of domestic abuse charities and campaigners have reported a surge in calls to helplines and online services since the lockdown conditions were imposed, reflecting experiences in other countries. The chief executive of a domestic abuse charity, said: “I don’t believe coronavirus creates violent men. What we’re seeing is a window into the levels of abuse that women live with all the time. Coronavirus may exacerbate triggers, though I might prefer to call them excuses.”
Read the full article here…
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/15/domestic-abuse-killings-more-than-double-amid-covid-19-lockdown
Some parents are using the curfew to inflict pain on the other parent of their child/children too. The following is taken from another article from BBC online I read earlier this week…
“Separated couples exploiting the Covid-19 lockdown to stop an ex-partner from seeing their child could face court action”, says a senior judge.
Head of the family courts Sir Andrew McFarlane says children should continue to visit parents they do not live with, as long as both households are healthy.
Family lawyers told the BBC they have been inundated with separated parents arguing over contact during lockdown.
Some say parents have exploited Covid-19 guidance to stop visits altogether.
The guidance for parents who live apart states that children under the age of 18 can be moved between their parents’ homes after a sensible discussion, and an assessment that the children are not being put at risk.
I find the second paragraph interesting – it would be easy to exploit this further by taking your child to live in a household that could be deemed ‘unhealthy’ (say, with an older relative) if you wanted to further exploit the guidance.
You can read the whole feature here…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-52310034
Tom attended the funeral of one of his old friends on Monday. Six mourners were there, all sat apart. What was even stranger was the fact that nobody officated or spoke; just three pieces of music were played and that was that. The deceased had become a recluse so maybe it was what ‘B’ had wanted.
This morning Tom’s step-brother passed away – not of corona virus – he had been ill for a while and, 20 years older than Tom, was ‘a good age’. Right till the end, whenever he and Tom said goodbye ‘M’ would give Tom a bone-shaker hand shake.
I still don’t understand death. Does one know when one is dying; are you aware of anything; is it a bit like dreaming when you are dying over a period of time; are you in pain or is it even a pleasant experience as you drift away from this life? Nobody can ever tell, can they?
Enough about death, some excellent news this morning was that an ex-colleagues husband is recovering well from Covid19, my friend, ‘K’, is elated and her husband can’t wait to be well enough to start doing a few jobs; what a brilliant attitude? Actually, many people are recovering yet the news focuses more on deaths that recoveries (generally).
I listened to a very good broadcast on Radio 4 on Tuesday, ‘More or Less’ focuses on ‘facts made simple’.
During the discussion Professor Donnelly highlighted the point that we need to look more closely at numbers – not at which country is faring better or worse at Covid 19 – so comparing one country to another is pointless. The UK has had more deaths per million population than Ireland for example, but we are more densely populated and patterns of movement are totally different so this has to be factored in. Some fact and figures I picked up on from this programme are:
The general population of the UK is 66 million. If you look at just working age people it falls to 42 million. So far 16,509 people have died in hospital from Covid 19. Of those 2,145 were ‘working age’ so that works out to just 1 in 19000 deaths of working age people – less scary than the media is alluding to.
Working with the same figures this would indicate there would be 75-80 deaths of NHS workers (as they are ‘working age’ people). When the programme was broadcast there had been 77 deaths of NHS workers, which is what you would expect. Therefore, NHS staff are dying at the same rate of everyone else who is working age. It doesn’t make it any the less tragic, but it does make you think.
You can hear the episode here…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000hfqq
Two NHS workers who have died since Tuesday were twin sisters which makes it seem all the more sad somehow (they did have underlying health issues). Covid 19 doesn’t discriminate does it?
The funniest/most scary/tragic thing I heard today was Donald Trump – President (or Palace Jester) of the USA questioning whether people could be inject with disinfectant. Is the man for real? What on earth was he thinking to even voice such a ridiculous thing. The mind boggles.
Well, it’s a lazy one for me today. I’m going to plant out my sweet peas, do a pilates session and tat around in the sunshine.
Tatting around – its becoming Just this Girls Thing!
Hugs
Leigh
**tatting is a word I picked up from Tom – it means generally finding bits and pieces to occupy you (I think!)
