Count Your Blessings
I talked this morning with a guy who comes round sometimes to do stuff in our garden who commented, reasonably, that it’s hard to work from home if you’re a landscape gardner. He then mentioned that he only has one lung (he didn’t tell me why) and that his wife is in hospital with meningitis and he isn’t allowed to visit her. They have a small child. I can’t imagine what this is like for him.
There’s still a strange sense of waiting. I dropped down to the shops very briefly earlier. Everyone was being sensible but you could sense the apprehension from the silence and the nodded greetings and acknowledgements. So far all is well here. though I’m still alert for the slightest change in how I feel. It’s a bit like reading a medical dictionary when you feel sick and deciding that your vague headache is undoubtedly a tumour. I have that slight sense of pressure that you get when a chesty cough is imminent, but I’m not coughing and it could as easily be anxiety. Of course once you become aware of something it’s hard to let it go. As I type this I can see that, with all the washing, the skin on the back of my hands has aged a decade in a week and a half.
My reading of the analysis posted last night by Imperial College, albeit that it’s hedged round with worst-case assumptions, is that the present restrictions (or any more stringent ones) are with us until July anyway and more likely September. Possibly longer. It’s trite to say that this raises enormous challenges and difficulties for how we are used to living our lives, but it’s also true. A lot of sacred cows already turn out not to be sacred after all, and a lot of certainties are suddenly in doubt.
I took what I like to think is a positive action today and set up a WhatsApp group for my extended family based around Northumberland and Durham with outposts in Yorkshire and the US. It’s a way of keeping in touch and, perhaps, offering support if things get tough.
added: 18.00
After posting the above I watched the press conference from 10 Downing Street where the Chancellor outlined the emergency economic measures he’s putting in place. As he talked I thought more about the issues of sacred cows and certainties. It seems to me that this emergency ought to kill off any doubt about the value of the NHS and central coordination in the national interest. It holds lessons too about international relations, not just Brexit but more broadly. After all, out of WW2 came what we know as the EU, the UN, and other global initiatives.
It also seems to me that the measures announced and the eventual consideration worldwide of the current situation, must impact on economic orthodoxy.
Interesting times.
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