Monthly Archives: March 2020
A Eulogy for Sue.
Sue was a person that lit up a room with her lovely, smiley face. She wore her kindness like a large fluffy, feather boa. It wrapped you up with warmth whenever you’d talk to her.
She was a classy, sassy, lovely lady and she was my friend.
Sue wore her long blonde hair up in a high bun and tied it back with a braided hairband.
She wore a lovely shade of bright coral lipstick.
Although Swansea it is in short supply of the sun (which she loved), she provided the sunshine on rainy days.
Sue was a nurse and a carer too. I never heard her moan about her work or her life. She simply took what joy she could and gave it back a hundred fold.
I will never forget your kind heart and your beautiful hugs.
And I think the world needs to hear how kind and lovely you were.
So if you are reading, know this beautiful lady’s name and raise a drink for her.
You will be missed by many.
In Captivity.
The World is in captivity, closed in, shut down, no go.
We will paint Rainbows in our windows.
We will plant seeds in our gardens.
We will thrive on ten cups of tea a day and that forgotten pack of bourbon biscuits at the bottom of the draw in the kitchen.
We will watch the news on repeat, looping around until the information spills back out the other ear.
We will wonder what day it is, even though it isn’t Christmas.
We will stop buying.
We will stop.
Lets not go for a drive.
Came outside and stood on the doorstep with my coffee this morning.
No cars.
No buses.
No people.
Just the wind and an army of jackdaws claiming chimneys for nests.
The clocks have moved forward for springtime, it feels pointless. I hardly know what day it is, a bit like Christmas holidays when you’re all stuck in the house but with less chocolate, more cabin fever and a nasty virus pandemic sweeping the globe.
The death toll has risen again this morning.
I sip my coffee and wonder where I’ve put my hairbrush.
Form an orderly queue.
So currently we are allowed to only leave the house for essential supplies and as infrequently as possible. One person is allowed to go. If you are over seventy years of age, you are told to stay in the house for the next twelve weeks and also if you are in certain medical at risk groups.
We managed to leave it a week so it was time to go to the supermarket, I picked my local one nearest to the house. List in hand I waited behind newly laid strips of stripey sticky tape laid out a two metre intervals in the car park.
I wore some plastic gloves, the woman in front of me wore a face mask. Another woman shouted at her young daughter to stop running up to people.
Somewhere up the line, a man coughed and everyone took a step back at the same time.,
A security guard waited outside and as one person left the shop, one was let in. It was a mixed queue of people, from women with prams and babies to elderly people. I had no judgement of these people, I am sure they all had their reasons to be here today and we all waited for our turn to go into the shop.
The shop was quiet and calm, I moved around with my basket putting in my shopping. Tins were in short supply as was bread but there was plenty of food for me to cook with and I certainly hope the panic buying has passed now as there are now strict guidelines on how many items we can buy.
The roads were quieter than I have ever seen today.
The sun still shone.
The death toll rose again.
I drove home and washed my hands.
Now clap your hands.
Tonight up and down the whole of the United Kingdom, we all came out of our doors and showed our love and appreciation for the people who are caring for us during this awful time.
Up and down our road and in the silence of Swansea right now I heard claps and shouts of well done. It was the most incredible sound.
We all clapped for the people who put their lives at risk on a daily basis, the doctors, nurses and surgeons and people of the NHS.
For the porters, the health care workers, the carers, the nursing home attendants, the ambulance drivers to the admins, the receptionists and the cleaners.
For the supermarket checkout people, the shelf stackers, the lorry drivers, the people we see every day that take no credit at all as it is their job.
We clap for you all and we know your names tonight.
Thank you.
Art on the streets.
Well I can’t go out but I can still draw.
This post is dedicated to all our friends in work who are on the frontline.
You have our gratitude, admiration and love.
I will see all my lovely friends again after all of this and I will be buying the drinks.
Wedding cake.
Today was the first day the whole country was locked down with the new measures to control the spread of Covid 19.
Powers have been brought in to prevent us from going out unless for essential supplies of food, medicine and fuel.
I woke early, just before six o clock. The birds were singing loudly before it dawned on me that I couldn’t hear rush hour starting on the road outside.
Just birds.
Alongside the lockdown, weddings are being postponed as to prevent gatherings of people.
My neighbour, who makes wedding cakes, left me a gift outside our house.
After a brief knock, we opened our door to see a large white box inside which contained a large, white wedding cake.
There was much excitement as we carved into the giant cake as the slices were enormous and very delicious.
Also sadness that for now, we all remain separate while we wait for the virus to peak.
Shutting down.
My evening walk tonight was even quieter than last night. Hardly any traffic on our street lined with terrace houses and neatly stacked recycling bags of tins and bottles and grass cuttings from today’s lawn mowing. A broken mower has been dumped outside one house, its electrical cord hanging, severed after a mishap when someone decided looking the other way to the electric mower would be okay.
The electronic billboard wasn’t working tonight and I was glad not see the Covid 19 symptom advert. There has been news saturation for me today. Too many people still flocking in groups to enjoy the beautiful spring sunshine and infecting each other amid images of Italian and Spanish hospitals.
Tonight the easterly wind moves up the main road free from cars and carries the scent of fire from the hill over the valley. As the hill looms into view, the huge fire burning looks eerily beautiful and I take time out to watch the flames and smell the air.
My walk brings me to our local play park which has today been sealed up with red stripey tape and a notice.
The parks are closed in the city as of today to prevent the spread of the virus. The council says it is because the virus lives on metal and surfaces and therefore children are likely to spread it when they play outside.
My throat still hurts from last week but I feel well and the children are well which is a relief. We played in the garden today as our world became even smaller around us.
Siopa
First time shopping after being in quarantine for a week and the world’s gone bonkers.
Queued to get in the supermarket this morning before it opened. People stood there coughing, sneezing and talking.
Once the shop opened a tense huddle formed at the opening of the shop as people politely but hurriedly grabbed their trolleys and baskets and rushed with quiet pace around the store.
I bought coffee, fruit and some croissants. I looked at the spaces on shelves where there were tins and couldn’t for the life of me remember what was there before.
I still forgot what I came in for too.
But I’m not going back for a few days.
It is written on the walls.
I’m walking the dog later at night so I can stay away from people.
I noticed a new electronic billboard being installed the other night. The first adverts are ringing out the message.
It is here and it is spreading so very fast.
We are in a new world right now. The new buzzwords are self-isolation, quarantine and death toll.
My children are making rainbows to put in the window today as the sun shines and the death toll mounts.
Mother’s Day
I am mam.
Made by tiny fingers and hearts of love.
Sobs of sleeplessness and sicky shoulders.
Mountains of washing, crayons and food on the floor.
I am mam.
And they made me.
Stop, look and listen.
This is my view when I stand on my doorstep and look out. There are rows of stone terrace houses, there are fast moving clouds in the blue sky today but there are no aeroplanes flying.
The air feels fresh with a hope of spring.
I can hear the bus coming up the steep hill. Plenty of people on it too, I hope they’re keeping their distance (but also I hope they’re talking to each other too).
There are dandelions growing by my feet ready to flower.
I can see a bumblebee flying by, it’s a whopper, (god knows how that manages to fly) and Bonnie (my dog) wants to snap at it.
This is my view of my world. It’s become an awful lot smaller recently due to us self isolating.
What is your view? What do you see? Is is nice? Is it busy? Is it ugly? What do you hear? What do you smell? Tell me, let’s talk. Let’s make the world bigger for a bit. Doesn’t matter how small, if you mopped the floor today I want to hear it.
Tell me.
Inside.
I lost my temper today. The type where your fingers shake. The reason wasn’t anything to do with my family nor anything that had happened in the house.
As we are self isolating, we are all in the house so the telephone call I was making was overheard by everyone and repeated to me word by word afterwards by my kids who thought Mam had handled herself admirably.
I didn’t.
I tried to stay calm but a single sentence during this phone call sparked a fury in me that even surprised myself and I’m ashamed to say I erupted and hit the roof.
There really was no justification for my outburst so I removed myself upstairs and I tried my best to do some yoga. The cat cuddles from Renee helped more today but It was nice to do some flows and calm down.
Keeping active is important to me and has helped enormously over the years to help me and has evolved into me realising I am capable of so much more (but that’s a whole other blog).
We had a meat delivery today from a local butcher so we have food again and we are stretching out what we do have. It saddens me to hear that the panic buying is continuing. We all need to eat but we all need to get a little more inventive right now with what we have.
I’m quite down right now but I’m sure five minutes of dog licking my face will snap me out of it.
The kids are great and very positive, I’m very proud but I think today I’ve let my positive crown slip. Tomorrow will be better.
Do not pass go.
We can’t go out. We can’t go to the shops.
I’ve got food in and we can cook.
But it really involves not going out.
Self isolation is four walls and many faces of boredom, many times a day.
Read a book, draw something, mam’s got a raging headache and a face like a tomato.
No school today.
There’s no school today.
We can’t go out darling because I’m not well.
That means we have to stay in just in case, to make sure we don’t make anyone else ill.
It will be ok, Mam is just a bit sick and I’ll be better soon.
And you will be ok too. We have to make sure no one else gets ill so the shops may be shut for a bit.
It will be ok.
It will.
Self isolation- poetry – or something else?
They see me rollin.
Stockpilin’
But what they don’t know
Is that the virus is not in your
Arsicles.
It’s in your chesticles.
So farscicles.
Self Isolation – Bad poetry
I wanted to
write a
poem about
coronovirus
but the only
thing that
rhymes
with it is
Miley Cyrus.
And that’s a bit shit.
So that’s it.
Under house arrest.
I did wash my hands!
But there we are. I’m sweating one minute, cold the next. Throat is swollen, glands are sore and head feels full of cotton wool.
And I’m so very, very grumpy.
Now wash your hands.
So we’re washing our hands at every opportunity as we’ve been told to.
Shops have been stripped of painkillers, soap and bog roll.
Help the aged.
Just come off the phone to my elderly 90 year old neighbour.
I was asking if she needed anything from the shops as you do.
Imagine if we all did that? All of us picked one elderly neighbour who was on their own and asked if they needed anything. Because it’s going to matter a whole lot more in the next few months when they cant get to the shops because they’re too ill to or because they have no bog roll or paracetamol because someones’ bought it all.
So I’m appealing to you, the person who filled up your trolley with toilet roll and pasta in the supermarket. I want you to redeem yourself and pop round to Bob at no 42 and see if he needs anything. Take a few rolls of your precious bog roll with you and see him alright.
That is what will make a difference rather than this utter selfishness I’ve seen over the last week. Do better, please.
Administration.
“I have something for you mum” are words that every parent knows are laced with a few meanings.
The first is innocent and lovely, probably a little handful of daisies or a hug.
The second, however, is something unwanted, sinister and must be approached with extreme caution and cynicism.
“Oh yes?” comes my reply (raised eyebrow). I am the master after years of being tricked, poker face is on and braced for impact,
And there they are in my hand, a scrunched up pile of months and months of school letters, casually handed over without a single drop of sweat shed.
Months of letters.
Suppose it could have been a slug or a dead spider.
Puberty meet menopause.
Puberty one end, menopuase the other. Both made better by hugs.
I don’t want my children to have the same experience I had, we talk and we laugh about things and how rubbish hormones are. We slam doors and shout and cry. It’s good to.
I can’t protect them from the outside world though and it stinks that my daughter is constantly questioned over her decision to have short hair.
She’s twelve and she’s having to already fend off questions about appearance.
I tell her sometimes people just aren’t ready for fabulous but to carry on anyway and to be just so.
If you have a stroppy teen in your house, remember how much it hurt to be that age, it sucks majorly and you as mum are there to keep them going until they are ready to be a big person.
Until then, hold fast and try not to think about the hormonal plughole that you’ve become.
Doodlemum 