As a group of individual days and weeks and months, soon to be quarters, as a whole, day to day, it’s been ok, theres been some shitty days and theres been some great days, but mostly the days and weeks have moved along like an airport travelator, only to disappear down into the innermost workings of the machine below, forgotten only to re-emerge with the sun the following day, more of the same. No good news stories, only death and me whinging about my boss, his manager, the corporation, the fucking government and everything else I have no control over, in retrospect I’d say this is shaping out as a year to forget, the news always doleful, and us, as bystanders searching to find some way to entangle this awful mess, to make sense of the science, all of it. But in the end realising that we are all, ultimately, at the mercy of an invisible assailant, and then on top of that, risk fines if we break newly created unclearly set out rules.

In about 3 weeks my Dad is going in for a Hernia operation, hopefully, its an overnighter, not like the Cream all nighters of the early 90’s, but one where my Mum has to leave him in the hospital, return home, pour herself a glass of Red and find herself with time to ruminate, when she would probably rather not. She needs Fun times with some sort of fun time Charlie to take her mind off things. So I’ve booked the day off so I can go over after she’s dropped him off, take her out for dinner and share a bottle of Red.

However, the virus dictates that I can’t, she’s vulnerable although pretty fit and heathy at 82, Dad will be recovering from an operation and so susceptible to germs, however small and invisible. This means I probably won’t be able to go over and stay the night, take her out and share a bottle of Red, chat or shout to her (she’s pretty deaf). Maybe if I isolated for two weeks prior to seeing them, but then that means my household has to isolate too, my daughter who’s just started college must stay away, my son who had just hatched a scheme to bulk buy and sell sweets at school will also have to stay at home, Mrs T who has to work and exercise a social life will also have to stay at home, I’ve got work to do which I couldn’t care less about to be honest, but won’t be able to if I need to isolate. I can’t go and have a test because there aren’t enough for the really sick, at least not within 100 miles from here, so I guess I’ll just carry on as normal and speak to Mum on the phone at maximum volume with everyone in the house telling me to keep my voice down as they’re trying to watch a full volume replay of the Chemical Brothers at Glastonbury. 

Shit; thats what this is, really shit. But we have to listen to the experts otherwise we’re left with bygone pop stars eulogising the removal of our civil liberties whilst writing songs unmasking and discrediting the masks we’re meant to be wearing to protect others, Dicks. So yes it’s shit, one day merges into the next, on the travelator of Covid life, carrying us along for the ride, with no chance of getting off until, it looks like, a vaccine comes along. Herd immunity is a long way and tens of thousands of deaths away, so I guess i’ll just have to sit tight, and hope my Dad’s minor operation goes ok, seeing this outbreak as a slight glitch in my life, hopefully totalling not more than 1% of my time here. 

Sometimes its just hard to maintain a positive view, and looking back on these posts from this year, latterly the last couple of months, I can see my head is in a pretty negative space. A house move, ideas of how to disrupt the new Clifton Community with Chilli Clubs and Art House Village Hall Cinema and trying to think up a new name for the Ministry of Shrawley Walks is going to keep me busy I’m sure.

“Heres to Nelly, God Save the Queen,” he shouted as he jumped into the unknown.