Names of the days seem meaningless, now .

It’s getting to the time, where you start to forget just how long you’ve been in “Lockdown” …
The initial novelty value of being able to work from home in your pajamas and talk to your cat  has worn so thin it no longer exists.

No matter how much you love your partner, after so many days stuck together,  you can’t help but feel like the Paul Sheldon character in the film Misery .  If you live alone, there is no escape, you are both Paul Sheldon and Annie Wilkes.
Lots of us who were working from home, now find ourselves put on “furlough” ( another way of saying laid off, without pay, until, something like, normal  business resumes) . Just how do you pay your way, with no way to generate income?

As each day passes another, strand of “life” vanishes .  Seeing people fight over toilet roll, a reminder of how “flimsy” “Society” actually is .

Still, what is one person’s hell, is another person’s paradise.. If you are an adrenaline addict, you no longer have to go and climb a mountain freestyle, race a fast car or jump from an aeroplan… All you have to do, to get your weekly dose of danger, is walk to the local convenience store….If you see someone cough, it’s akin to seeing a Muslim suicide bomber approaching ….
If someone steps too close, you jump back as if a London midnight mugger is trying to stab you
In some ways a dash to the local shop resembles the scenes from The Walking Dead , when characters brave the zombie apocalypse, in order to get a case of  Oxo cubes, or whatever other items remain , in a pre looted, abandoned supermarket.

In a way, I would rather dodge the walking dead than avoid the Coronavirus,  at least you can see a Zombie..
If one comes towards you, you merely turn into Usain Bolt and  run away or do a nifty two step and hit it over the head with a spade, before taking a bow and carrying on your way.

If you are unlucky enough to get bitten, you know you are infected and you take yourself off to the general location of your least favorite family member, wait until you “turn” and eat them .

With Covid-19, things aren’t so defined. You can’t see it coming. It’s everywhere, it’s nowhere..You just don’t know.

You can return from the shop .. Start coughing, convinced you have the virus you draw up a will ..Say all your goodbyes to family and friends ..Only to feel better a few days later and have to ask for all the possessions, you gifted,, back….
Alternatively, you can return from the shop,  rose cheeked from fresh air , feeling fit and hearty, only to drop dead a week later .

If life was fair, God would let us return this year 2020 and swap it for another.
Ah well….

Cats life..

People dying, people not able to pay rent due to being laid off.. Canceled, this and closed down that..

However, I have to say, I feel sorry for the world’s cats.. Who are used to having the sunny spot on the bed to themselves, all day.. Able to glide around each room undisturbed.. The whole home their playground..

Now they have to endure being picked up and kissed every two minutes by a human, who won’t stop talking and whom is, seemingly, surgically attached to their smelly, biscuit crumb coated pyjamas. Who never leaves the house.
“what the hell has happened to my life” they must think.

Poor Kitty cats of the world.

Billy Ray Virus

It’s been an odd few weeks in Seattle, it seems I moved into the American epicentre of the Coronavirus pandemic – some guys have all the luck.

Today, Seattle is now in utter lockdown, I can’t help but feel its all a bit over the top I have a feeling lots of people are pretending to be more anxious than they actually are, in order to get their employers to furnish them with a laptop and let them do the nine to five, at home, in their favourite pyjamas

Nevertheless, the highways are hideaways, the centre of town now merely caters for bags that swirl in the wind and the shop shelves hang wistful like a mausoleum afternoon

It’s even been banded about on social media, newsprint media and worldwide television media… Due to the Billy Ray virus, we should no longer partake in the age-old custom of “shaking hands”.. Even though the custom has been around since medieval times.. Surviving civil unrest, wars, the great plague and the career of Bonnie Langford.
I think it would be a shame if the custom died out, if only through fear of it being replaced by the French habit “Faire la bise” or social hugs – I’m all for hugging a loved one, but have always failed to divine why ANYONE would want to hug a stranger.

I remember around 1981,
The council estate I grew up on had several people in rattle vans that would plod around and push their products from .. There was a mobile library, a sweet van, a fish van (P U K E), a chip van and also a couple of soda pop pushers, who would sell their one-litre delights, come pink-skinned summer.
What’s curious to me in 2020 is the name of the pop being pushed was Corna.
Could it be, it was these sunny afternoon frizz pop slingers that were the real genesis of the modern-day killer?

It’s worth maybe nothing, but I will note that one of the Corna delivery boys had three nipples.
The tough and tumble kids would play football on the grass, then stop their game and say “Look it’s three nipples”
If I was nearby, I’d run home to the safety of my bedroom. I didn’t know if his spare nipple was a symbol of something more sinister.
More than that the thought of having three nipples made me anxious .. I didn’t know what to do with the two I had.

Despite COVID-19, I have managed to scout around Seattle and have found another area I like….Magnolia.
It’s only a mile away from where I live – basically, I walk out the front door and over a bridge (see picture)

It’s, rather, expensive there but is one of those Whistle Stop Cafe type villages-Lewes, in the UK, kind of, has that kinda feel, also.
That is, if Whistle Stop Cafe was in the Northwest and populated by lots of Catholics and Jews-I’ve come to notice, nearly, all my fave parts of the world are Catholic and/or Jewish

In Magnolia, the views are fantastic and the houses range from bungalows to Parasite style modernism.
It manages to keep alive that sense of white picket fence 50s Americana- toy town-style Fire stations, garden furniture and so on.

Magnolia, Is where my wife used to own a home, which is probably worth a million now…
I try to be supportive with a “well, money isn’t everything ..You like romance and adventure “
However, if I were her I’d take legal action against certain British pop stars and authors, for bending her mind enough to give all that up.

Speaking of The Wife, she said last night (after I explained why getting up early doesn’t agree with me)
“You people from working-class stock are meant to be hardy but really you are wimps, you can’t cope with anything”

I advised most are hardy.. Unfortunately, her Quality Street selection was one of the softer centres.

She didn’t laugh, I also got the distinct impression she would never buy Quality Streets again.

The end