Normal life is disrupted

Normal life is disrupted, but we need to hold on there for a moment because normal life is not totally destroyed. Things may be different when we reach the end of this big test of our strength and endurance. I do wonder if things will ever be quite as they were again. This time, will leave deep scars, as does any battle and battle is what this is.

Some relationships will have suffered but others will have strengthened. Things have changed in our house. Our relationship has strengthened even more. It seems as though this has gone on for much longer that the five weeks since my husband decided to stay at home with me. He has other reasons why that came about, as well as his first and foremost concern, that is to protect me by not coming into contact with other people himself. Our business suffered a dead stop. Nearly all of our clients are from other parts of the globe and this monster in our midst caused everybody to, very sensibly, scuttle back home for the duration of the locust like plague we find ourselves stuck in. There to sit it out in their own homes as are we doing.

 

It praise of my husband; the fact that I am almost eleven years older than him has always been a worry, in that the last thing he wants is for me to die before him. That has been part of the reason we set about getting fit in the first place many years ago. He wants his wife to remain healthy and strong and also finds that works with the idea that quite often men die younger than women. He thinks that might even things up.

So coming back to this threatening time it is important to him that he stays home too. I am the one who is loosely in the ‘A Risk’ category due to my age being closer to 81 than anything else and that I have Asthma. He will also add that whenever I catch a cold it will quickly go to my chest. That fact has been annoying taking into consideration that I am an athlete, current World Champion in my age group. Yet. My fitness does not protect me if a catch a cold or flu. I have had Pneumonia as well on more than one occasion over the last few years, that has been a worry. My Asthma was inherited from my dear old long departed Dad.

During the time we have been staying indoors all the time apart from a pre-dawn exercise period a few times a week, we have been taking extreme precautions. Steve picks up the post wearing rubber gloves and still wipes the envelopes down before opening them very carefully, extracting the contents and deposing of the envelopes just as carefully. Then washing the rubber gloves, and then again his hands. The same sort of thing happens with any deliveries. He speaks to the delivery person from a window instructing then to put the packet/parcel down. Everything is double wiped. Everything. No chance at all is taken. This may seem silly but it is not. It is what should be the norm. If you are not as careful as this, you should start to be, even though it may even be too late already.

I have heard that many people are saying that they are bored during this time. What I can tell them is that they are boring, not bored. They are also careless with other people’s lives. Bored indeed. How dare you be. Make yourself useful. Learn something new instead of heading for the excess of panic bought food you have stored, that means that I have been unable to even book a delivery from Ocado since my last delivery on March 17^th. Thankfully we still have food in the freezer, though in our former life we only ever ate fresh food.

Keep yourself fit rather that open another beer. Do a class on You Tube rather than eat unhealthy stodgy stuff that will put on weight that will be hard to get off later.

Do some gardening, grow something. Do some woodwork, repair the broken. If nothing else Relax with a sketch book, paint. See if you can still do a cartwheel or the splits, bet very few can. Ok I can’t do the splits either but I am working towards it and I am closer than I was a month ago. If you did ballet as a child, go through your arm positions or try to remember your plié s!

Be a better person at the end of this. Be a nicer kinder person at the end of this.

All that is left for me to do today is to thank everybody who has contacted us to see if we are managing ok. My son-in- law Martin; who has popped round with a few bits from the shops that we cannot get on line. Thank you.

I miss my friends and family even though we are in touch via social media. Miss the hugs, the jokes, the kidding and even the sarcasm.

It is not the end of the world. It is just a test for us to work and do our best in.