Corona Diaries

Zoey

“The reason I'm putting this into the Corona Diary is that the thought of having to live in one room when you've had a four-bedroomed house, and at a time when movement is so restricted, fills me with horror. Gordon and I are lucky…”

Background Information

Female, aged 64-75, Retired Social Researcher, Living in London

18 March 2020

Note: It's now been suggested that the first case of Covid 19 (the Corona Virus) in China may have been as long ago as November 2019 (a month before cases were reported in Wuhan). First reported case in UK: January 31 2020. Things have moved rather fast: Shops: No loo rolls, pasta, few cereals, fresh veg today but not yesterday (in Tesco's). No loo rolls for at least three visits (Monday, Friday, Monday). People have been panic buying and someone on NextDoor1 who spoke to a regional supermarket manager said he'd been "appalled" at how people have been behaving. Some high street stores are planning to close temporarily (including Ecco and a major London department store – Harrods? (via Belle2). Food stores taking on more workers and drivers. Online food shopping overwhelming the systems. In some cases you can't get a delivery slot for three weeks. Checkout people wearing rubber gloves and in Holland and Barrett today I was asked to scan my own products to avoid staff touching the goods I'd touched. People are probably buying more food because they can't go to restaurants. Restaurants: Almost empty – a good time for me to go (because of my sitting problems)! Must be suffering terribly from lack of business. Theatres: London theatres closed (including our local one). Also cinemas, I think. Leisure centres: Announced today all borough leisure centres closing until further notice. Others will probably follow. Very few people there when I went today. The management is asking people to wipe down all equipment and use hand sanitiser. Social events: All cancelled – all our U3A meetings, Gordon's3 VHF crystal healing and other courses, Spiritualist Church closed (my development course halted), concerts, theatre performances, trips, AGMs. Anything involving groups of people all forced to close. Our U3A book/writing groups moving online to Skype (Gordon organising).

Jobs: People being told to work at home. Some are overworked (food store workers, doctors and nurses) and some have no work – e.g. schools closed (except for children of key workers), restaurant workers, probably now leisure centre staff, entertainers, ballet dancers, musicians… Economy: Stock market experiencing unprecedented falls. People very anxious about mortgages. Legislation brought in to stop private landlords evicting tenants unable to pay because of the virus. Public places: People wearing face masks. Far fewer people around in the streets and on public transport. Hand washing: Shops have run out of hand sanitiser. Huge queues outside our Boots branch (to buy it?) Pubs: Probably empty! I haven't looked! Older people: Over 70s recently told to self-isolate for three months. How are they supposed to get food if they have no one to help? We are now in touch with Ellie4, Belle, Sarah5, Donna F6 and Mum to check if they need anything. Larraine7 recently finished her contract and desperate to help Sarah if necessary (and us!) Gave us her phone number. Schools: to close from Friday (how long for? Probably won't go back until September). It's about half term time anyway. NHS: Already overwhelmed. All elective surgery cancelled. Plans being made to deal with a surge in cases "in a week's time" (Radio 4 News today). Doctors and nurses who develop symptoms sent home and told to self-isolate (or if they have kids/someone at home with symptoms) with no plans to test them so potential huge waste of manpower. Plans to have two levels of ITU and anxiety that there just won't be enough capacity. This is definitely not a good time to have an accident! Doctor on BBC Radio 4 news expressed a view that preparation should have been started at least a week earlier. NHS approached private hospitals to ask to use beds and told yes – at a huge cost. Help: All sorts of groups/people offering to help people get essential foods and medicines, etc. NextDoor – people offering dog walking (taken off? Why?) and a special subject-group set up for volunteers to offer help/young people knocking on doors of elderly neighbours. Belle has lost her shopper (he has to self isolate). Ditto Ellie. So we are trying to help them.

20 March 2020 All pubs, cinemas, theatres and leisure centres to close. Extra money made available to help businesses. No eggs, fresh fruit or vegetables (when I went to one supermarket). Toilet rolls still difficult to get. Can't get oats to make muesli. But Tesco's did have flowers and plants for Mother's Day! Yesterday we had our first online U3A writing group. To my surprise, a full house, and it went very well. I think people were glad to have something to distract them.

Last class at the Leisure Centre. Carol8 is anxious about income, but offering to deliver anything needed or wherever (not exactly on her doorstep). She has set up a WhatsApp group so we can keep in touch and stop each other from going mad. Met Carla9 in the Park Gardens. She is taking part in a voluntary support scheme to help vulnerable people. Larraine brought Sarah a bag of groceries and once again offered to help us. She has a husband and three children so it must be difficult enough to keep them all fed! Rang Belle, Ellie (got her some shopping), Donna (couldn't get hold of her) and Hannah10 (who is self isolating as her housemate had a bad cough).

21 March 2020 I'm now taking the shopping trolley with me wherever I go to the shops, hoping to find something I can't get (e.g. eggs, toilet rolls). Actually, we are now quite well-stocked with toilet rolls and kitchen paper, but eggs are like hen's teeth. When I asked the nice man in the local small Sainsbury's if they'd been busy, he laughed semi-hysterically and said "We haven't got anything to sell!" Actually, they have (plenty of Easter eggs, wine and many other things, but none of the things people are seeking – eggs, toilet rolls, tinned foods…) Lots of WhatsApp groups being set up – my phone constantly pinging. Have joined Carol’s one, a local volunteers group, and our spiritual development group one is even more active than usual. Government promising to pay people who would otherwise be made redundant (whether directly or to their employer, I don't know). People wondering where the money will come from (more debt for the country!) Spoke on the phone to cousin Louise in South England. Her two remaining four-year-old hens are still laying a few eggs a week. She'll have to lock them up to keep them safe! The chicken breeder she brought them from has sold out of chickens. Great excitement – someone posted on NextDoor that a small local shop (mainly a coffee shop, I think) is selling various foods, including eggs, at very fair prices. But also reports of traders charging crazy mark-ups on toilet paper, tissues and disinfectant.

26 March 2020 Government issued 'lockdown' rules 2-3 days ago. You can only leave your home for one of the following reasons:

• To travel to work (if you really cannot work from home)

• For exercise: one form/period of exercise (e.g. run, walk, cycle ride) daily • To buy essential foodstuffs

• For medical appointments/purposes

• To care for a vulnerable person.

No groups of more than two people outside your home (apart from family groups). Weddings restricted to a very small number of close family members who must remain at least 2m apart. Funerals ditto. Everyone to keep 2m away from other people, including in shops. Shortages (severe) of hospital beds, masks and protective clothing for health care workers. New 4,000 bed hospital specifically for coronavirus patients being set up in an exhibition centre in London. Supermarkets restricting customers to 3 of any item (and probably two for toilet rolls, hand sanitiser and other items.) Some shelves still bare. I went into the local Tesco's with my shopping trolley two days ago and a lady come up to me (member of staff) and looked at me sideways (probably to decide if I came into the category of "elderly" – I was probably obviously disabled as I had the trolley). "Do you need eggs or loo rolls?" She asked ("God!" I thought, "Do I look old!?" "I need eggs," I said. "I haven't been able to get any and I'm more worried about our disabled neighbour – she usually has one a day and can't get them." She asked me to follow her and walked towards the staff lift, where she had both items and let me have two boxes of eggs. Nice lady. At Morrison's yesterday, most people were doing their best to keep 2m away from others. Sarah had given me £10 worth of vouchers so I got chicken and fish for the cat, but unwisely used a basket (didn't have my shopping trolley). Each checkout had a spaced-out queue, all quite long. I had to rest the basket on the shelves as long as I could – too heavy for me! When I got near to the checkout, a woman stood close to the next lady in the queue to look at a shelf. "Would you mind moving away a bit?" said the lady. "I'm only looking!" she said. "Not talking." Rolled eyes from several people. A lot of front-line staff have contracted the virus because their clothing is not protecting them. I'm anxious about Melanie and Joshua11. He is on the front line and Melanie is having to take early maternity leave as she is now in an at-risk category (pregnant – baby due in May). He can't live at home so she must be frantic with worry. What if he gets it? What if she has the baby early and he isn't allowed to be there because of the risk? I want to ring her but am not sure if I should (have emailed Joshua to offer help if she needs shopping).

27 March 2020 Our friend Allen had to go to Hospital yesterday for a gastroscopy. There's a problem with his gall duct (quite likely to be cancer) and they wanted to do this as a scan had showed something there. He needed someone to be with him for 24 hours afterwards as he was having a general anaesthetic and we said he could come here. A nurse from the hospital rang quite early (about 9.30), wanting to check that he could stay with us and of course we said yes (he could sleep in the room I use as an office). Gordon went to

collect him and I half expected Allen to say he'd rather be at home as he's quite a private person, but he'd been told he had to have someone with him for 24 hours (they wouldn't do the procedure otherwise). Technically, he shouldn't have come to stay with us as we are a different household and people from different households are not supposed to be mixing (to try to halt the spread of the virus) but in this case we all had to flout the rules! He stayed with us until early afternoon today, when Gordon gave him a lift home, and he is now awaiting the results of the biopsy they undertook. I was a little surprised they went ahead with the procedure, but it shows they are taking it quite seriously – good old NHS!

28 March 2020 A little miracle: I rang Ellie to see how she was. Her neighbours Anna and Will, who've always been difficult, hostile and rude towards her, have changed their behaviour and attitude. Anna had a chat with Ellie when she saw her in the garden, said she would put her telephone number through her door in case she needed help, and did so! Good things are happening! Shops: now quite reluctant to accept cash (because of risk of transmission) so I'm paying for most things using my debit card. Parks were closed to traffic some days ago (because huge numbers of people were trying to get there to escape their homes). This led to a huge increase in cyclists, so now they've had to stop cyclists too! If we want to go, we'll have to find somewhere to park and walk there. Queues outside supermarkets (only letting in a certain number at once). This is really going to cause me problems as I can't stand in one place for long without pain. But I understand why they're doing it. May have to send Gordon to do the bigger shops! Very concerned about Joshua (on front line) and Larraine (baby due in May). A lot of health workers are getting the virus because of lack of adequate protective clothing. 8.00 p.m. People clapped for the NHS, standing outside their houses or in their windows. Very moving. I clapped until my hands was sore and rang one of Gordon's singing bowls. DIY stores shut so Terry12 is stuffed. Mum gets into the papers (maybe) Mum got a food parcel and had her picture taken at the same time. Said to be for the local paper. Now Hannah has been contacted by a journalist from the South West London press, after tweeting to say Mum had been so chuffed to get it. She asked Hannah to write something and it could go in the paper as part of an item on local cooperation (p.s. 1 April: It turned out the journalist worked for an online newspaper. We haven't heard anything about an article yet!) Volunteer forces

Have been in touch with Emma (PCSO). Police are organising food parcels. Ellie, Belle and maybe Debra are all on their lists and it seems they are working together. We are trying to get things for Sarah when she needs them and Tina (daughter of a neighbour of Mum's) rang and we agreed I'd call her if anyone needs anything.

29 March 2020 So far, Covid 19 has claimed the lives of 31,771 people worldwide. Prince Charles has got it, but his wife Camilla hasn't. Our dear Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, also has it and is having to isolate itself from his girlfriend Carrie Symonds, who is pregnant. I've had several touching emails from Mr. Pereira who is on the front line, caring for seriously ill Covid patients. Because he is at risk and Larraine is heavily pregnant, he can't go home so goodness knows how she is faring. I emailed to see how they were and to offer help on the rent if necessary. Letting agency contacted me recently about increasing it and I said I was willing to put it up a bit, "but not much". They agreed it was a fairish rent (only set a year ago) and we settled on a 3% increase. Given the current situation, I thought I'd offer to "negotiate" with the letting agency over it. Joshua replied and filled me in on what he's doing. Larraine had to take early maternity leave as she's in a high-risk group (and should be self-isolating) and he admitted as small an increase as possible would be welcome. I emailed Letting agency's immediately, explaining why I want to keep the rent as it was (front-line worker, pregnant wife… under the circumstances, etc etc). They agreed without demur (just glad they are continuing, probably! Estate agents probably aren't doing a lot of business right now!) So I passed their email to Joshua. He came back to me after a couple of days, really grateful. I'm so proud to have them as tenants. It's almost as if it were all planned. Of all the workers least likely to end up losing jobs at the moment, nurses have to be near the front of the queue. Joshua is now working at a private hospital, but I do know some private hospitals are taking NHS patients to help with the crisis (the original greed with which higher prices were being demanded was dropped, I'm glad to say) and maybe his hospital is doing that. All sorts of things I'd like to ask him but obviously now is not the time to do it! I did offer to help if Larraine needed stuff taken over and he was appreciative of that, but I doubt they would take me up on it. Hopefully there will be some sort of support for nurses who have to self-isolate or friends or a local volunteer scheme. If she's that pregnant, she's not going to be in a position to traipse around a supermarket (after queueing to get in) and then lugging it all home. A bit of me wants to ring her and check she's OK, but I have to hold back, I think – I don't want to interfere. But I'm concerned about what will happen when she has the baby (in May). Joshua would have to self-isolate (from her, anyway) for 14 days even if he did stop work, and how would she cope once she had the baby? Very difficult. Park is now closed to traffic (because huge queues of cars were building up with people desperate to walk in the open air) and now cycles (because so many were going in, there were crowds at the entrances!) Terry has Raymond15 this weekend and planned to use the wheelchair to take him up to the park. That's some walk with a wheelchair! From his nearest gate, it's u Allen – quite a steep hill, too, and I was concerned for his knees. Weather not so good today – a little rain this morning but OK at the moment. From nowhere, support groups have popped up and Mum and Sarah are both now getting food parcels delivered every week.

I've just had an email from Joshua to say he is still at home as he had "nowhere else to go" and he is doing all the shopping. That's a relief in a way, but he must be putting her at risk unless he has adequate protective clothing (and news is that there isn't enough). Doctors and nurses are coming out of retirement, student nurses and doctors are being drafted in to help, churches are holding online services (I "went" to the Church this morning and all we were missing was Olwen's music, the hymns and George's collection (Oh! And tea and cake!) Some restaurants are turning themselves into takeaways (I noticed the Italian, which I don't think ever did takeaway food, now offers it), councils are sending older people telephone numbers to contact if they need help and many other unprecedented things are going on. Mum is "so bored," and I've been ringing her every day to check she's OK but also to distract her from her unusual lack of visitors. The funeral for Anthony 's16 brother was due to be held at the Crematorium a few days ago. In normal circumstances, there would have been 80 or a hundred people. He was well-integrated in his church community and (so Anthony told me today) known to other people for his peripatetic organ and Wurlitzer playing. After the committal (and a 20-minute address by the minister) he went on to Pete's house to continue clearing. "Have you thought of staying over there?" I asked. Apparently, Pete had not a single heating source in the house and it is so untidy, cluttered and presumably freezing cold that no one would want to stay there. There were eight people at the crematorium (plus 5 funeral personnel) so at least something was done to mark his passing. But very sad. Funeral directors, morgues and crematoria are overwhelmed and various places brought into commission as temporary body stores (including an ice rink). I just spoke to Jonathan17 (rang to ask if Callum was home as it's his birthday tomorrow). Jonathan's sister runs a multiple sclerosis unit at a hospital somewhere (in London, I think) and is absolutely exhausted. The NHS, she says, has changed so much she can scarcely recognise it and no one, she said, should go into hospital at the moment (no elderly person, anyway) unless they have absolutely no choice. Ironically, the next morning (yesterday, I think) Belle was taken to Hospital by ambulance. We're not sure why. She had to call for help a few nights ago when her leg got stuck and she couldn't get out of her chairlift. She pressed her emergency alarm button and someone came and she managed to get into bed and a GP came next day and checked her over and said she couldn't find anything particularly problematic. So he doesn't know why she ended up at the hospital. She must still be there, because there are no lights on in her house. Ah! Have just had a chat with Marilyn18, who's in touch with Belle's niece Morine, and it seems she is still on an assessment ward. Marilyn does a lot to help her, but Belle is not an easy person to help and has refused to have carers on grounds of cost. The main problem seems to be her pain level. We did the book group on Skype on Thursday and we were all there except Esta (who hadn't read the book and isn't yet on Skype) and Susan (gone to her flat, but should be up and running next time and it is her choice of book). Apart from some initial interference (caused by Gordon and me using separate computers in different rooms) it went well. This week I joined in with a WhatsApp 'chat' with the rest of Jeff Hewitt's spiritual development group. Using text messages rather than visual chat, it worked quite well and we're doing it again next Thursday evening. Not sure what will happen after that as our 10-week course ends at that point but my guess is that it will continue anyway and we may have to come to some arrangement to pay with Jeff and the church.

Gordon has been looking at statistics for Incidence, deaths, date of first case etc for all countries and the USA is far and away the biggest contributor to world deaths. A few days ago, President Trump announced that he would get everyone out of lockdown "by Easter". His philosophy was that as a prolonged lockdown would cripple the country financially, better to let deaths happen and send people back to work. He is amazingly inane at times. If my mother or sister died of Covid after he let it run rampant, I wouldn't be voting for him in another election. As far as I know, he hasn't had it yet. Some hilarious videos flying back and forth across cyberspace.

31 March 2020 Shopping this morning at Tesco's. Gordon went last time (maybe twice) as Tesco's had a queue outside and I can't stand long. Today no queue at 10.45 but they now have 2m apart lines in the shop which are helpful but mean you end up waiting to get into an aisle or having to go via a devious route to get what you want. None of the main checkouts open – had to go to the customer services desk (self-service tills open, but I had too much for that!) Then to Superdrug, to ask them to order my drugs from the GP. A very short queue outside but as I wanted the pharmacy, they let me in. Usually it takes about three days for the drugs to come, but I now need to allow a week. Russia has gone from a situation in which everyone was told there was not a significant problem with the virus to severe lockdown, with people only being able to go to pharmacies and "the nearest food store." Walking the dog is OK, but other exercise not allowed! We have to count ourselves lucky! We are going for a walk by the River every afternoon. It's quite close and we don't meet too many people. Yesterday did our first Zoom-facilitated Pilates class with our usual teacher. We were a bit squashed in the front room and haven't got quite the mats we need, but it worked well and we'll be doing it twice a week. Very few people in the town centre. The shopping centre like a ghost town, except for Boots (about six or seven people in a queue to get in), Tesco's, Superdrug and WH Smith (and maybe Holland and Barrett). Tesco's was better stocked than I've seen it since this started and I managed to get tinned beans and a four-pack of tinned tomatoes. Most people are being thoughtful and aware and keeping 2m away from others, but in Superdrug, as I was coming out, a woman walking in kept coming towards me. I had to go backwards with my trolley and even when I said "I'm trying to keep you at 2m," she still came on! A middle-aged man and I smiled at each other. "This is like a dance," I said (referring to the dodging and side-stepping to avoid people). I'm thinking of writing a dance called the Covid Dodge (or Corona Shuffle). As I pushed the trolley up the road, I was reflecting that while we're all deliberately keeping people at a distance, people are actually drawing together to support one another so there's a thesis to be written there on distance and proximity in the time of Covid-19!

Someone at Swansea University (Dr Micheal Ward) is doing some research using Covid diaries (I saw an item in the British Sociological Association newsletter online). Emailed to say I will send this when all this is over. Rang Anthony yesterday. There were eight people at his brother's funeral (committal) when ordinarily there would have been 80 – 100. At least he didn't have to pay for a wake! As all theatres, cinemas, concert halls etc are closed, a lot of them are now switching to streaming plays, concerts etc online and I've seen several videos made by 'virtual orchestras' (in which musicians play their instruments in their own homes and some technical whizz puts it all together). An interviewer on tonight's 'Front Row' (Radio 4) posed the question "Is a concert still a concert if it's performed in a different place from where the audience is?" Interesting question! Maybe our attitude to remote viewing of live performances will change. Mum has been going to the local cinema regularly for ages to watch 'live' operas and plays. The thought occurs to me that my life has changed very little. I can't go to restaurants, cinemas, theatres, coffee bars etc anyway, because of my back problem but for people who do it a lot, it must be a huge change to their way of living. Another family music compilation sent by Allen19. A father and daughter singing a glorious duet from home which brought tears to my eyes. Strange how this virus has seeded such family creativity – musical families cast upon their own resources are pooling their talents and recording concerts and vocals all over the country and thanks to modern technology, they can be shared with millions. A very positive effect! Hannah sent me a video of four house-sharing cathedral choristers who stand in their garden every evening and give people in their street a musical treat. Gordon and I talked about it and thought it wouldn't be quite so welcome if it were a rock number (to us, anyway!) A rather unpleasant Incident in the local park today. On my way back from the shops, I met Mario, who asked me if I knew how Belle was (he knows everything!) Then Marilyn (who helps Belle a lot) came along and we stood close to the entrance (Marilyn was on the pavement outside) in a 4m triangle, assuming (well, I did!) that if anyone wanted to come in or out of the park we'd be very aware of them. A middle-aged man was sitting on a low wall close to us with his dog, and I assumed he was just having a rest. He occasionally scowled at me and finally, when the three of us moved apart, he said in a very surly way, "Oh, I can get through now, can I?" "I'm very sorry," I said (completely taken aback). "You should have said!" "I want to get home!" he said, and stormed off with his dog (who hopefully had more civility than he did) in tow. If I'd wanted to get out of the park and found three people talking like that, I'd just have said "Excuse me, can I come through?" But maybe we were being unreasonable and who knows what this business is doing to him? Maybe he's lost his job and hasn't got enough money to eat. Took some food to a lady who is collecting food for the local food bank. It's really suffering at the moment and I heard recently that baskets in supermarkets designated as collecting points for food banks were having to be moved because members of the public were stealing from them.

The small Sainsbury's store has taken further measures to protect staff and members of the public. It now has 2m lines throughout the store and when you go to the counter to pay, you and the checkout person have to do a set sequence of moves:

• The checkout person (who has only a very narrow space to retreat into) moves out of the way while you place your purchases on the counter.

• You retreat behind the 2m line. The checkout person (wearing rubber gloves) scans your goods and informs you of the damage, then retreats.

• You step forward and pay, using a credit or debit card, and then retreat.

• The checkout person offers you a receipt and you do another dodge to take it if you want it.

Oil wells are overflowing because there are so few vehicles on the road and filling stations aren't selling much. Rumours that the wells may have to be capped (which Gordon says can be irreversible!) Slight argument with Gordon over whether I should still be going out to get the newspapers every day. We always buy the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail for our neighbour Sarah (her choice because they have particularly good puzzles in them) and the Daily Telegraph for us. I know how much she values having the papers and I know how much I value the extra little walk I have to collect them, but I can see the sense in his argument. I find this very difficult, because of course, I'm increasing his risk as well as my own. He thinks she will understand if we don't get the papers for her, but she's so kind that I don't think she'd say what she really felt!

3 April 2020 Shopping in Tesco's this morning to get food for us, Mum and a bit for Sarah. Gordon walked up with me and went to Boots to get a few things while I was in Tesco's (I'd told him that there seemed to be a queue outside Boots every day and I badly needed some cleansing lotion). Getting food seemed to take ages, not because I had to queue for a long time to get in but because once inside, you have to dodge people all the time and wait to get to the aisles you want if people are already in them. There was one group of three young people (not really allowed under the rules!!) who stood at the cereal shelves for ages picking up one packet and umming and aahing and putting it back and looking for something else. I stood there with my trolley, shifting from foot to foot and eventually said (in the warmest tone I could muster, and I think it came out very jovially!) "Do you think you could make up your mind, cos I'm trying to get there?" A young man grinned and apologised and they all moved on. Then a lady at the cabinet with taramasalata and hummus etc, standing there for ages choosing different items. Normally I'd just have gone and stood beside her – now I can't do that! Some people really don't appear to be very aware of 'space-hugging' – have no awareness of others wanting to get to the area they are in! We took Mum's food over to her in the car, parked on her forecourt and Gordon went in to sort out a 'missing icon' problem on her computer (carefully keeping his distance from her) while I lay in the car to wait. We left the car on the forecourt and walked up the hill, across the Common where we had a beautiful walk surrounded by the now just-past-their-best daffodils and trees bursting into life. A warm weekend's

forecast, but Boris Johnson (who is still recovering from the virus) made a plea to the British public not to make a beeline for the nearest park but to hold back and do their bit for Britain! In Tesco's, I bumped into Jessy, neighbour of Bev. We had a brief chat and I asked Jessy if she'd seen Bev lately. To my surprise, she said Bev had moved, having sold her house, and was now living in one room elsewhere in London as "she hasn't got anywhere else to go". Bev did a lot of improvements to the house a few years ago, adding downstair and loft extensions, and had to extend her mortgage to do that. I knew that she regarded the house as her 'pension' and had always planned to move out of London at some point. Recently, I heard that the Inland Revenue had caught up with self-employed people who had been paid through what the tax people came to regard as a tax-avoidance scheme and that thousands of people were being clobbered with huge retrospective tax bills. Bev was paid through such a scheme, at least for a while, and I remember thinking when she told me about it (and said that her accountant had said it was perfectly legitimate) that it sounded pretty dodgy. When the news hit, I wondered if she'd ended up with a big tax bill, and that may have been one reason why she decided to sell when she did. The reason I'm putting this into the Corona Diary is that the thought of having to live in one room when you've had a four-bedroomed house, and at a time when movement is so restricted, fills me with horror. Gordon and I are lucky – we have our state and occupational pensions and the mortgages on our houses are paid off. I'd been thinking about how very difficult it must be right now for families living in cramped accommodation with children who have nowhere to play. Difficult at the best of times, but with everyone on house arrest, much more difficult. I hadn't had a Christmas card from Bev this year, and had been meaning to contact her. I'm glad I met Jessy, because at least I now know there's no point in ringing her landline number! Trying to buy another house at the moment would be very difficult. Some people are selling, but with movement restricted and social mixing not allowed, it's not surprising that the market has flatlined! On Thursday evening, the British public did the second 'Clap for the NHS' outside their homes. It didn't seem quite as enthusiastic this time in our road and I gather from messages on NextDoor that that was the case generally in our area. I expect we'll continue to do that every Thursday at 8:00 p.m. It's not only older people who are dying from this virus in the UK. An otherwise healthy 13-year-old boy has died, numerous doctors have died and today (or yesterday) it was announced that a 36-year-old nurse had died from the virus. The numbers are increasing every day in the UK, though China (having imposed strict lockdown measures early on) seems to have controlled the spread of the disease to a large extent. Here we are having to prepare for a period of restriction lasting up to 6 months. The 4,000-bed Nightingale Hospital in London is now receiving its first patients. Based at the former Excel Centre and built in just nine days, it will accept only virus patients already on ventilators and will be the world's largest critical care unit. Similar centres are planned in three or maybe four other cities including Bristol, Birmingham and Cardiff. Prince Charles (self-isolating and recovering from the virus) formally opened the hospital by video link. I'm wondering what the virus is doing to crime figures. Domestic burglary has probably gone down dramatically, as many more people are now at home during the day, but domestic abuse has risen. That's

hardly surprising. Home may be a safe haven from the virus, but no one would want to be cooped up 24 hours a day with an abuser! I was also reflecting on what this will be doing to retail figures. Apparently, shops have been cleaned out of hair dye. Not surprising, given that hairdressers are all shut! Will we suddenly see far more grey-haired people around? Gordon said that a woman in Boots on Friday was getting very annoyed because she'd bought the wrong shade of hair dye and they didn't have the one she wanted!

5 April 2020 A glorious weekend – hot, sunny… Just the weather to be in a park, out in the country, by the sea… But official orders are that we must Isolate for Britain and stay at home. For many, that means staying in a high - rise flat with bored, fractious children who are absolutely desperate to meet their friends and get away from their parents. Yesterday, 3,000 people flocked to Park in London, flouting government advice. Maybe they figured most other people would listen to the pleas to stay at home and that it was fine for them to go. As a result of the invasion, the park is closed today, which is very hard on people who use it on their own to take the dog for a walk or go for a run at times thoughtfully calculated to avoid other people. Not only that, we've been told that if people continue to ignore government guidelines, all exercise outside the home will be banned. I couldn't find photos of the offending masses in the park and can't help wondering if any that do exist have been withheld for fear of accusations of racial discrimination. Please read whatever you like into that! I'm very frustrated not to be able to get to the leisure centre (which I usually do at least five days out of seven, either to use the gym or to go to a Pilates class) and if we were banned from exercise outside the home, I'd go pretty crazy. I need exercise for my physical and mental well-being and I don't just mean a gentle 20-minute stroll every day! Gordon was talking to our neighbour Jonathan yesterday (at a safe distance while fixing something on the car!) He's a property developer and offered his opinion that if this went on (the lockdown) for six months, it would be a complete financial disaster for the country. On Thursday night, I joined Jeff H22 and the ladies for our WhatsApp spiritual development session. Jeff is very patient, and we should all be grateful to him – he could take the attitude that since the church is closed, he has no responsibility to lead a class. It was presumably his idea for us to have a 'get-together' every week at the time we'd usually had the class (which was running every other week). 'Getting together' really means little more than exchanging texts but some people have started sending voice messages now and I had to go online to work out how to do that! One of our number (who shall be nameless!) keeps asking inane questions and sending endless voice messages but Jeff is extremely patient and just explains in words of one syllable! He did get us doing exercises in pairs (seeking information psychically) and it worked pretty well. Re Bev B: I had a mobile phone number for her and sent her a trial text, half expecting it to 'bounce' (it must be a very old number). She got back to me very quickly and said she and Mauro are now living in a house and (as she said they were waiting to have a landline installed) I assumed that she had bought it. Her house would be worth a lot now and the area she's moved to is a bit cheaper, but I was surprised because I thought she was going to move out of London altogether. No question of suggesting a visit at the moment!

I'm now writing two journals – my regular one (which I write every weekend) and this one. This lockdown is likely to go on for several months, so this journal won't be short lived and I'll have to do my best to avoid duplication!

6 April 2020 Boris Johnson has been in hospital – an overnight stay, but no idea if he's still in – suffering Corona virus symptoms. He's had it for a while and I assumed was recovering, so was quite surprised to hear this on the radio news this morning (he's in intensive care). A 25% increase in reports to a national domestic abuse hotline in the last week. That's very, very sad and my heart goes out to all those individuals (probably mainly women) who are stuck at home with an abusive partner. The current situation is testing for the best of us, but must be very, very frightening for those women and (as the reporter on the radio suggested) homicide is likely to increase. I did another shop at the town-centre Tesco (Tesco Metro) and will try to keep to the time-slot around 10.45a.m. as it's not too busy then. I didn't have to queue at all and once inside, managed to get round more quickly than I did on Friday. They had our usual loo rolls – a pack of nine for just under £2 which is considerably cheaper than the ones I bought in Sainsbury's recently. So I got a pack. Not many eggs today, but we're OK for them and I didn't need to buy any. Then on to Superdrug to see if my prescription was ready. They were about to close for an hour, because of lack of staff, but let me in and I just got out b efore the shutters came down! Got my drugs, thank goodness! Heard something on the radio yesterday (or the day before) that was a bit worrying. Ferry companies are in severe financial difficulty and may have to stop work. That means some food supplies could be under threat. I haven't heard any more about it and wonder if the government is trying to hush it up to stop people entering another phase of panic buying! Our dear 94-year-old Queen made a speech yesterday, calling on the British public to pull together to bring the country through the Covid crisis. She's a wonder, really. Same age as my mum, give or take a few months, and just as lively! I'm assuming Belle is still in hospital as I've had no updates from Marilyn. I don't get a good feeling about it and fear she could succumb to pneumonia or even the virus. Her quality of life has been pretty poor and if she does get through this, she'll need to go into residential care. Rang Esta to see how she is. She's probably in her late 70s and has been on chemo for bone cancer and had an operation not too long ago to shore up one of her hips. She didn't sound too great. Had a bout of chemo two weeks ago which "knocked [her] for six" and has a cough, although she seems confident it's not the virus as she hasn't got a fever. Someone is doing all her shopping, which is good, and she's been put in touch with the Voluntary Service to try to get someone to come and change her bed for her and wash the sheets because she's finding it very hard to do at the moment. She's very involved with her local church, so I imagine it's someone there who is helping her with her shopping. Told her that our book club meeting on Skype went well and asked if she might think of joining us. She doesn't have Skype and I'm not sure how

easy it would be for her to download and install it without someone there to guide her, but I offered Gordon's services for phone guidance! I don't think it's likely she'll do it, but I will try to encourage her to let me know what she thinks of any of the monthly books she manages to read. Had been meaning to watch the 10.00 news on television every night, but haven't stuck to it. Everything else but the virus has just disappeared from the news – it's quite depressing in a way! Tony Blair on Radio Four this morning saying he's really anxious about what this is doing to the British economy. Can't help wondering how much he's concerned about his own investments (he probably has a lot!) and how much about the British public! I can't remember the adjective he used, but it was quite dramatic – worse than anxious. Maybe 'terrified' or something like that. I'm still editing my autobiography, which is most definitely not intended for publication! It's around 90,000 words, but I'm now reflecting that I will have to add a section on the Corona Crisis! Rang Helen. Because of the crisis, her follow-up appointment at the hospital to talk about what they are going to do for her (following her cancelled hip replacement operation) has now been moved from May to November. That reminds me. I have an appointment at the hospital to look at my cataracts in June and was meaning to ring to change it anyway, so will probably have to ask for an appointment at the end of the year. It's not at all urgent and isn't a big problem for me.

7 April 2020 Another very sunny day, so I stripped the bed and put the sheets in the washing machine. It finished, but hadn't spun them, so I started it off on a short rinse/spin/drain cycle. The handbook suggests it was unbalanced and needed redistributing. Just hope it works! It could be difficult to get an engineer out right now. Feeling absolutely grotty after an even more broken night than usual. At 3.00 (on second waking) realised I'd left my water bottle downstairs and woke myself up going down for it. Lay there for ages and ages until Gordon suggested I have half a Nytol tablet. Did get back to sleep but as usual, several more wakings. Dominic Raab (Foreign Secretary) is standing in for Boris Johnson – not a task anyone would relish! Apparently Boris's pregnant girlfriend Carrie Symonds is now showing Covid symptoms. A bit like war! Mercedes is now making ventilators! The Queen likened the situation to the Second World War in her speech and it is, but this time you could be within an inch of your enemy and not know it! There seem to be some small indications that social distancing is helping to reduce the spread of the virus. Discussions on Radio Four about how difficult it will be to know when to relax social distancing rules and whether it would be possible to do it at different times in different parts of the country (since there are area differences in prevalence – or is it incidence? I can never remember! Both, probably!) Just had a phone call from Marilyn. Belle now has Corona virus. Belle's niece Morine is keeping Marilyn informed and Marilyn passing it on to us. Belle's only daughter Amy is in New Zealand and no help at all,

says Marilyn, but Morine and Belle's granddaughter Emma (in this country) are both on the case but of course, no one is allowed to visit inpatients at the moment (and that includes Boris!). Belle's sister Milly hadn't been informed that Belle was in hospital, but tried to ring her on Saturday and tried the hospital when she couldn't get her. My hopes of Belle getting out of hospital are dwindling.

8 April 2020 I rang Ellie yesterday to see if she needed anything from the small local Sainsbury's. No reply and she didn't call me back, so I guessed she was having a bad pain day. She rang me this morning and said she'd had a bad day. She's out of CBD cream which does help to some extent and her next door neighbour says he'll try to get her some. She buys it from the health food shop in the Village and wants the same one as she knows that one does give her a bit of relief. We're avoiding walking up the hill at the moment (to try to avoid people as much as possible) so don't go close to the shop, but Archer says he'll use his motorised scooter to get there. Archer's brother and sister-in-law (who share the house with him) went to visit their parents in Sri Lanka and are now trapped there because of the lockdown. The Sri Lankan government has imposed a severer lockdown than we have here – you can't leave your house for any reason, apparently. The only good I can see in that situation is that they are there to take care of the parents. Ellie had had two "suspicious" phone calls, one relating to a fall she had a while ago. She couldn't get them to state clearly who they were or what authority they were working for, but they said they wanted to visit her at home. She'd been put in touch with a rehabilitation clinic by her GP but wasn't sure whether this person had something to do with that and wasn't willing to let a stranger into her home, especially at the moment when she (a very vulnerable older person) is supposed to be self-isolating! There are a lot of scams around at the moment, so she probably did the right thing. I think they would have written to her, rather than ringing her. Just done another Pilates session on Zoom. Unfortunately, we missed half of it because we couldn't get in! Turned out we needed to do an update on Zoom. Gordon thinks they must have increased the size and hence the number of digits in the Meeting ID because there's been a huge increase in the number of people using Zoom! Have just found an entry I scribbled down relating to Boris and the number of people who've died in the UK from the virus. Unfortunately, undated! Boris had been taken into intensive care "as a precaution" but seems to be recovering now. Concern expressed that the country is now struggling to deal with the crisis situation "without a figurehead" (BBC TV News 10.00 but which day?!) Doctors say they have never seen anything like it and are working flat out, with great difficulty as the personal protection equipment (goggles, gowns, masks etc) are difficult and tiring to wear. The pressure is relentless and some doctors and nurses just haven't been able to take it. Numbers who have died from the virus in the UK (in hospitals) cited as 5,375 and more than 10,000 in the USA (sorry, no idea what date that was! I'm a bit disorganised, here!)

10 April 2020 (Good Friday)

Spoke to Collett yesterday. We're both very concerned about Belle and agree that even if she does get through this, she's very unlikely to be able to return to live at home. At one time, Collett and Jonathan were having to go in very frequently to help her – changing light bulbs, mending the washing machine, etc. Belle had been saying for ages that she couldn't manage her cleaning but had steadfastly refused to have someone in to do it for her – a problem many older people have, I imagine. No further news from Marilyn, on whom we are relying for information. Collett was anxious about her father, who is dependent on opioid drugs. She had difficulty getting them for him recently – had to queue for two hours (either at the GP surgery to get a prescription or at the chemist's) to get them and was very anxious about whether she would be able to get further supplies for him. An unexpected card from Sofia. She'd tried to contact me using a phone number that didn't work (could be my old mobile number, though I've had my current one for over three years). Said something was pushing her strongly to contact me and was "very relieved" when I responded with a text and email. Interesting. We only usually correspond at Christmas, although she did send me her phone number last Christmas (or maybe the previous one) and I'd been meaning to call her. Some good outcomes of the virus – I've contacted quite a few people I haven't been in touch with for quite a while! Some great news from Allen. The diagnosis so far is "a pancreatic localised dysplasia" which his consultant "cannot say conclusively does not have the potential to be cancerous" but at this stage no spread to other organs. That's brilliant news – he must be so relieved! Has been a lot in the news about developments in testing. It seems that various different tests are being developed (including one to check antibodies to signify that someone has had the virus and others to show that they have it, I think) but at least some of the tests are quite complicated and time-consuming to undertake (requiring several different stages). This country has been very slow to develop an adequate means of testing and roll it out, but I'm not aware that our record is any worse than that of other countries. Did another shop in our local Tesco's today and it seemed a far more tedious and frustrating process than last time I went! They've now introduced a one-way system, with arrows on the floor. In theory that's quite a good idea, but there are a few problems with it: (a) People are ignoring it (I had problems with two or three people going the wrong way!) (b) At times it's frustrating. Imagine that you're sitting in your car in the early hours at traffic lights that are red. Nothing is coming in either direction, but you have to wait like a good citizen. On one occasion I was waiting to go left but two people were ahead of me, taking their time. Straight ahead, against the flow, was a clear aisle from which I wanted something. I did nip over and get it, but there were too many people in the shop today and it took me ages. One man accused me of "just standing there," to which I replied, "Yes, because I'm following the one-way system and trying to give people 2m of space!" So many people ignoring all the rules (one-way traffic, no closer than 2m) that I got thoroughly exasperated and moaned about it to Gordon when I got home. Took food to Mum and had another walk in the Park. Not as busy as we expected (on a hot, sunny bank holiday) but a lot of people on the Common and on the route up to the park. An email from cousin Louise. I recently sent her an article from the Daily Telegraph about keeping rescue hens as pets (she still has three chickens). She sent me an item from the Facebook page of Martin's Wood

Farm, Lewes (the place she bought her hens from four years ago). They've been absolutely inundated with requests for their 'point-of-lay' hens and have sold their entire stock for the month of April. Queues were so bad (they started at 5.00 in the morning) and the buildup of traffic on the road getting so dangerous that they were forced to estimate how many people they could serve and draw a line and send away people behind that line. They imposed a very strict behavioural code for social distancing and safe practice and said that they would refuse to serve anyone infringing these rules! On Radio Four news at 6.00: sales of alcohol have increased dramatically in Russia since the start of the pandemic. Apparently a very high percentage of Russians (but query source!) believe alcohol will increase their resistance to the disease! At the same time, there's been a huge slump in nationwide demand for oil.

12 April 2020 A long chat on the phone with Sofia yesterday (first for a long time!) She told me the police in her area of London were patrolling open areas and stopping people from sitting on the seats and benches. If they were out at the house for the purpose of going for a walk, the argument ran, they should be walking, not sitting! One of Sofia's neighbours is 20 and has recently had a hip operation. She is supposed to be walking for short distances but does need to sit and rest in between walking. Police challenged her and (because she is young and looks healthy) wouldn't believe that she'd had a hip operation and ordered her to return to her home. A four-year-old child throwing bread to the ducks was stopped from doing it (which must have been upsetting). I could see potential here for tension between police and members of the public and later mentioned it to Mum who (at 94) finds that she needs to have a rest when out on her daily walk. I posted a message on 'NextDoor' to ask if anyone had had such problems (we'd noticed taped-up seats in the Wood park where we walk). I said I did recognise the need to stop unrelated groups of people sitting together and also the potential for transmission of the virus on seats and benches. Quite a few replies but one of the moderators sent me a private message to ask me to consider closing down the discussion as it could lead to a long series of finger-pointing emails. She assumed it was me who needed to sit down! I emailed her back and said unfortunately I can't sit (because of my back!) and that I was thinking of other older and disabled people. I did take her point to some extent and closed down the discussion. Sofia said that she was enjoying the peace and quiet of fewer aircraft. Apparently, her area is "directly under a flight path to Heathrow" and is usually very noisy, but now there are only "about five flights a day". She told me that the Royal Marsden Hospital is centralising treatment for seriously ill cancer patients from all over London and has been designated a 'Covid-free' Hospital. Today is Easter Sunday. All churches are closed but many are conducting 'virtual' services. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is doing his Easter service from his kitchen table and this morning I listened to a 'virtual service' on Radio Four complete with a 'virtual' choir (of over 100 parishioners recorded individually in their own homes) singing 'Thine Be the Glory'. After that, I heard a 'virtual' orchestra (individual players recorded playing in their homes) playing Irving Berlin's 'Easter Parade'. I would never have guessed that either of the two pieces of music were anything out of the ordinary! An item on Radio Four reporting on ladies in London – all volunteers – who are sewing gowns for NHS staff. There is still a terrible problem for front-line workers, many of whom are not able to access adequate

personal protection equipment. A lot of NHS workers have already died from the virus. Again, I think of Joshua and pray that he is adequately protected! Yesterday an email from Anthea in which she mentioned that she was having three "Internet parties" a week. I told her I was imagining her guzzling away in her front room and having a giggle with her friends. At least she wouldn't have to worry about staggering home afterwards!

13 April 2020 Misinformation? A few days ago, Gordon received an email with a link to a recording made by a woman who claimed to be "associated with the ambulance service". It was an alarming presentation. The service was already overloaded, she said. If you develop breathing difficulties, there may not be adequate capacity to transport you to hospital. The situation is such that many people (including children and young people) will die at home as a result of the virus. The situation is extremely serious. You must stay at home. As from Thursday (which Thursday was not clear) people would no longer be allowed to leave their homes for exercise or any other reason. Street marshals would be appointed and only people with properly authorised documents permitted to leave their homes. The best thing you can do is stay at home and wash your hands thoroughly every 20 minutes. I became increasingly alarmed as I listened to it, but at the point where she advised people to wash their hands every 20 minutes (at home) my doubts were strengthened and we are assuming this was a very unpleasant piece of misinformation put out by (a) Someone deliberately trying to stir up panic in the general public or (b) Someone who is genuinely very anxious about the situation and is just trying to get people to take the situation more seriously or (c) A person with mental health problems. I've heard nothing at all to suggest that the UK is on the brink of a total lockdown of the strictness imposed in other countries (with people having to obtain state permission to leave their homes) and have concluded that this was from an untrustworthy source, but I am concerned about the effect it could have on more credulous individuals. The fact that the woman does not reveal her identity or her status (and is not visible) is significant, I think. So while we are all grateful for modern technology (or should be!) for keeping us informed, it's an unfortunate fact that we cannot believe everything we see and hear and need to exercise our judgement in sorting fact from fiction!

13 April 2020 (BBC TV news) The UK hasn't yet reached the peak of cases, so the number of deaths is expected to increase. The statistics haven't included cases and deaths in care homes and in the community, but it's feared the virus has now spread to over 2000 care homes and once it gets in, it must be hard to stop the spread with so many vulnerable residents unless staff are extremely vigilant and have adequate personal protective equipment. Spain will be instituting a gradual relaxation of lockdown from 11 May, which worries me a little as I thin k they still have a lot of cases.

In the UK, there are some signs that the lockdown is having an effect, but the official line is that it's too early for the government to issue a statement about when lockdown is likely to be lifted. It was a glorious bank holiday weekend, but thankfully most people are heeding government advice and staying at home. Pictures of deserted beaches, funfairs and beauty spots. Continuing discussion within government about whether members of the public should be advised (or required) to wear face masks. There is some evidence that they help to protect other people if an individual already has the virus, but little evidence that they protect wearers from the virus if they don't already have it. Meanwhile the problem of providing adequate gowns, masks, goggles etc to front-line medical workers continues, with some risking their lives to care for people. In France, President Macron announces that there will be a progressive relaxation of lockdown in a month. He is assuring the population that an adequate number of tests will be available by then. China (which has come out of lockdown) reported its highest number of cases in several weeks. Worrying! There were 108 new cases today, most involving people who had returned to China from abroad (now in quarantine). Boris Johnson announces that he owes his life to the good care of the medical staff while he was in hospital. It was "50-50" at one point, he says (presumably meaning he had a 50% chance of survival) which ties in exactly with what astrologer (Steve Judd) predicted a week or so ago. At present, he is "recovering" and there is no news of when he will return to work full-time: it could be several weeks. Large numbers of people suffering anxiety and depression. Not surprising, with so many job losses, social restrictions and uncertainty about how long will this will go on. Our friend Donna is in a pretty low state. A tearful and impassioned plea from a female London bus driver for provision of adequate personal protection equipment for transport staff. They are key workers, helping health, care and other essential workers get to and from work, but 12 London bus drivers are reported to have died from the virus and no doubt there are many more outside London. My mobile informs me that to date there have been 88,621 confirmed cases with 11,329 deaths in the UK (119,686 deaths worldwide).

15 April 2020 A break from all the gloom and doom: Ambridge remains virus-free! It's been a little bizarre, listening to a soap that in general keeps up-to-date with the world in terms of political happenings, seasonal change and major national events, but which now appears to conduct life in a bubble, with characters completely unaware of the very major social, ecoElliec and health changes that have been affecting British society!

Just before Covid struck, Ambridge had to deal with its own very local disaster. A careless worker fixing a problem underneath the floor of the kitchen at Grey Gables Hotel set off an explosion which caused him and a member of the hotel staff (Linda Snell) serious injuries. So while we've all been struggling with social isolation, food shortages, job losses and high anxiety over our own and other people's health and wellbeing, Ambridge has been stuck in a time warp and focusing its attention on Scarlett's recovery (ah, but will she recover psychologically?), Shula Hebden-Lloyd's preparations for vicarhood and the reopening of the hotel. At times it's rather bizarre and I want to shout "Hello!! There's a pandemic going on out here!" but in some ways it's rather charming. I imagine the same has happened with TV soaps such as Eastenders and Coronation Street. It'd be difficult to film in the Rover's Return in a situation where no public houses are allowed to open! President Trump has just announced that he will withdraw funding from the World Health Organisation. His rationale for this is that the organisation was complicit in allowing China to cover up the extent of the spread of Covid-19 and failed in its basic duty in response to the virus. The USA is a major supporter of the WHO, which I gather is already seriously underfunded, and Trump's actions in this regard have been heavily criticised. He will not make himself (or America) very popular, I'm afraid (not that that's too much of a change!) Gordon went to Tesco's on Monday to get the shopping and said it was chaos, with people ignoring the one-way system, not enough checkouts and lack of consideration for other shoppers. It's definitely taking longer than usual to do the shopping and I'm glad I didn't try to do it. I'd already spent quite a long time on my feet putting the washing out (still lovely and sunny!)

16 April 2020 Something on the Radio Four news today suggesting schools may be reopened in May. I'm amazed and a little worried by that – I'd assumed they would stay shut until September! Somebody did comment that it could be an important step in getting people back to work and I suppose they have a point, but it does seem a bit worrying! Have been trying to contact my friend Lewis who's been in a nursing home for over three years. Normally I visit him every week and a half, but visits to people in care homes have been banned since lockdown. His mobile phone is on the blink – only lasting 30 minutes from fully charged. I've emailed, texted and sent a Facebook message, all to no avail. I'm avoiding ringing the home because I'm sure the carers are all very busy but did contact his niece, who says she thinks Facebook Messenger is the best way to contact him. I'm so missing our regular chats and have now sent him a letter, dictated using my Dragon Dictate software. Just hope the management will let it through and not confiscate it for fear it might spread the virus! Marilyn rang with an update on Belle today. She's still in Hospital and the staff are concerned about her heart, which has been erratic in its rhythm for a couple of years. Her blood pressure is also giving cause for concern. But there is some good news. Her cough is a bit better and she's had a phone call from her grandson Will in New Zealand, which really made her very happy. Will (who is Emma's son) met a woman from New Zealand and moved out there and some time after that his mother moved there too.

Apparently, Belle used to look after him when he was a boy (now around 40) and is very fond of him. It was Marilyn (just a friend) who suggested to the family that it would be nice if Will could ring her. You'd have hoped that someone in the family would have thought of that! Better news than I'd hoped for! Lockdown has been extended for another three weeks. I'm glad it has – would have been worried if not! Humour is playing a huge part in keeping people going – cartoons, jokes and funny videos flying back and forth across cyberspace and keeping us all sane. Met Robert on the way back from Sainsbury's. His wife is still staying with her mother, so he's still on his own. He talks to his wife every day and saw her the other day, but had to stay 2m away from her. His mother-in-law is over 90, so they're being very careful. Marilyn rang yesterday with news of Belle and it isn't at all good. Her organs are beginning to fail – liver and kidneys packing up – and she's only half-conscious (if that). Her sister Milly and niece Morine are ringing her every day and she did get at least a brief video-chat with some of the family a couple of days ago but I don't think she's likely to pull through this. She hasn't got a lot to look forward to anyway, so maybe it's for the best, but it's just so sad that no one can visit her (because of the virus) and is if she does go, we won 't be able to go to her funeral unless we get a video-link. And there must be so many deaths at the moment that getting a funeral slot must be quite difficult. We had two more Pilates classes this week (Monday and Wednesday). Still enjoying it and I hope Yvonne will continue doing them all the time the leisure centre is closed. She's charging £8 a session for them and usually we don't have to pay per class because we have annual memberships of the leisure centre which cover the cost of any classes. We have 'Senior' memberships which are very reasonable – about £260 a year – and allow free use of the gym, swimming pool and classes at off-peak times. I'm usually there five- six days a week (going to the gym or doing classes) so I get pretty good value out of it and am missing it a lot. We're having a longish walk every day – down to the River, through the nature park and the separate Park in the Woods and back. And our leisure centre membership should be 'frozen' so we won't be paying for it all the time the leisure centre is closed (I just hope the company survives). While Yvonne is charging £8 a session, dear old Carol is putting on free classes (also using Zoom) and people seem to be really enjoying them. Only half an hour at a time, I think, but it's very kind of her to do it and not ask for any money in return. She set up her WhatsApp group just before the leisure centre closed and I think she's finding it helpful in keeping herself positive and motivated. She does various classes including core stability (the one we go to), body conditioning and 'FitBeats' which seems to involve having two sticks and beating the hell out of something on the floor (I don't know, but it sounds hilarious and very cathartic). A lot of jokes, quips and positive comments flying around on her WhatsApp group! I haven't yet managed to join in with one of her classes as we always seem to be doing something else when they're on! Our second writing group meeting using Skype. I'd picked the theme for this month's story: 'A Ray of Sunshine' and we had some lovely stories. Mine was a diary written by a woman at home with her husband and pre-teen daughter on lockdown with tensions around her husband's work and the daughter's disaffection with life in general and parents in particular. The woman volunteers to talk to an older, isolated person on the phone and is put in touch with 84-year-old Chloe, mildly depressed since her husband had died, unable to leave the house and suffering quite bad arthritis. Chloe doesn't want to share a lot but when

the mother is called away to help a neighbour mid phone-call, and her daughter snatches the phone, a relationship develops between daughter Sophie and Chloe, who's been given a smartphone but doesn't know how to use it. On Thursday evening we went outside at 8.00 and clapped for the NHS again. Quite a lot of people out there – better than last week, I think. I wonder if we'll continue with this when things get back to normal (will they ever?!) Then (at 8.15) Jeff Hewitt's spiritual development group using WhatsApp. Only four of us this time – me, Grace, Helen and Hannah. An interesting parallel between Jeff's introductory meditation (which had us floating above our houses and up into space and on to another planet) and two of the stories from our writing group. Dot had written about a dream in which she floated over her house and over the hills and Gordon about a man who travels to another planet (which turned out to be Earth!) On Friday I went to Tesco's around 10.30 and had a relatively easy shop, buying food for us and Mum (and papers for Sarah as usual). We took Mum's food (and drugs which I'd collected from the pharmacy) to her in the afternoon and had another walk in the Park which is glorious at the moment with stunning banks and not too many people around. This is peak time for the Park which is the place to go around here to see azaleas and ironically I had a note in my diary to go there around now. Fat chance! The plantation is closed, although the Park remains open to walkers. Well, I'm not sure if that's still true – I've just looked online and the website says it's open until 8.15 p.m. The paths in the plantation are quite narrow so I can understand why they would close it, but it seems such a terrible shame when it's at its peak of glory! Managed to talk to Lewis at last. I knew his phone was only lasting half an hour on a full charge so haven't even tried to ring him, assuming he'd be ringing people and running it down every day. But having tried every avenue I could think of to get in touch with him (texting, emailing, sending a Facebook message and eventually writing a letter) and still not hearing from him, I eventually tried his phone. He's OK as far as the virus is concerned but in a lot of pain with his back and shoulder and relying on morphine. He's had trouble with his mattress for ages and has been asking for it to be changed for at least six months. Finally, he rang the manager of the home and issued an ultimatum. He wasn't going to sleep on that mattress for another night – either they changed it for him or he'd decamp to the lounge and sleep in there! It's shocking that it took all that time for it to happen. Some months ago, the home had started changing all the beds but Lewis had requested them to do some research before providing him with a standard one. With his still unhealed sacral sore and being completely bedfast, he needs a really good, pressure-relieving mattress. All that happened in response to his request was that all the other beds were changed and his was left as it was! But now, with him taking decisive action (I feel bad – I should have chased it for him!) something was finally done. The manager said she would get someone to remove his mattress and that a new one would be brought down from upstairs. Lewis decided to get himself out into the corridor (in his wheelchair) so they could do the exchange, and he must have been shocked at what he saw when he left his room. There were six rooms on his corridor (of probably 10 or 12 rooms) with notices warning staff that they must wear full protective gear on entering the room and one which was taped up with a notice stating that no one was to enter the room for 26 days. Lewis had already concluded that someone must have died (I suppose they could have been taken to hospital) in that room who'd tested positive for the virus or who'd had symptoms. That must have been scary for him – to see it had come so close – and it worried me a lot, too. He's in his early 70s, with quite fragile health. He has occasional chest problems, suffers a lot of pain and has non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He's been dropped from

the list of the hospital pain clinic because they sent him an appointment he didn't receive and he badly needs a steroid injection in his shoulder, but when I offered to ring them and try to get him an appointment, he (very sensibly, I think) said he'd rather not go to hospital at the moment. It's one place we should all be avoiding if we can, but somehow he has to put up with that pain. We got cut off because Terry rang after we'd been on the phone for about 35 minutes and when I went back to talk to him, he'd gone, so his phone battery had probably gone flat.

21 April 2020 Feeling unbelievably weary. The broken sleep is no worse but no better and I suppose it's cumulative. The years of broken sleep stack up. I get more tired and more irritable. Wish I could enjoy the beautiful sunshine. I can enjoy it, but can't lie in it like I used to because my skin is so dry and sensitive. Amazing weather, really. At least people in lockdown who have gardens can enjoy them at the moment. Our neighbours Collett and Jonathan, whose livelihood is not really under threat in the same way many people's livelihoods are (they rent out houses) were zonked out in their garden this morning, soaking up the rays. Twenty years ago, I'd have done exactly the same. I really miss it (get the sun on my back for 10 minutes a day which is something, I suppose). A brilliant cartoon in the Daily Telegraph a few days ago. A couple lying on sun loungers in the back garden of their spacious house, with their kids playing badminton. "Have you read about all these selfish people sunbathing in the parks?" says the wife. Behind their fence stand two high-rise tower blocks! Another Tesco shop. Pretty good today – not too many people and quite well-stocked, but no eggs and I gathered from comments made by a fellow shopper, no flour. Plenty of loo rolls – I bought some! An email from Mandy (in response to a 'pass-it-on' email I reluctantly passed on to her). She apologises for not being able to write a poem (that wasn't required – all you have to do is send your favourite poem or saying to the person at the top of the list and forward the email to 20 other people). The email was obviously initiated by someone wanting to cheer people up but I think most people will view it as an annoyance and either ignore it or forward it to some of their contacts very reluctantly. Mandy complains about the number of flights still going into Heathrow with people from abroad (including countries where Covid is rife) with no checks or controls whatsoever. It's true – the skies seem quiet but flights are still coming in. No idea if it's true that there is no checking on their health status. Not such good news about Allen's health status. The diagnosis is localised pancreatic stage I malignant tumour in the bile duct which needs to be removed. It will be a two-hour operation and he'll have to be in hospital for 3-4 days. Outcomes of the procedure are usually excSaraht. The operation will be done at a private hospital, Covid-free hospital as this is considered safer than the local College Hospital (paid for by the NHS). He hasn't got a date yet but should get one soon. I'm so glad they do plan to operate. Despite government assurances that all cancer treatments and operations will continue through the Covid crisis, there have been items in the Daily Telegraph written by doctors saying that they are being told to stop treating cancer patients. It seems the public is being lied to by the government on various Covid-related topics. An item in today's Daily Telegraph states that a huge consignment of Personal Protective

Equipment and respirators recently arrived from the EU in the UK and that the government has said it doesn't want it. Meanwhile, doctors, nurses and carers are dying for want of adequate protection.

4 May 2020 A long gap. Eight days of that time (22-30 April) was accounted for by the fact that I had an emergency admission to the Hospital following an oesophageal bleed. If you'd asked me before I went in to hospital to list the things I'd rather not do during the Covid crisis, "Go into hospital" would have been fairly high on my list. I don't make a habit of creating medical emergencies for myself but I really had no option. Various wards in the hospital had been designated Covid areas and had big warning signs on them. The ward to which I was admitted was, so far as anyone could tell, Covid-free when I was admitted. No warning notice on the door, some staff wearing masks but not all and doctors definitely not wearing masks on ward rounds. When I was taken for scans, the porters had to don face-masks, gloves and aprons and I was obliged to wear a face-mask too ("for your own protection"). My partner came up to the ward several times with stuff I'd told him I needed. Strictly no visitors, but I was able to talk to him from a few feet away at the main door of the ward. No Covid notices in evidence when I went in, but by the time I came out, a warning notice on the main door of the ward and one bay sealed off thanks to the virus. I just got out in time! One night I heard a patient coughing and coughing. Then a female voice – presumably another patient – arguing and angry. I imagined she was demanding to know why someone who sounded like they might have the virus was being allowed to remain on the ward. It all went quiet – coughing and anger subsided – but the coughing came another night. "Am I safe here?" I asked myself. The ban on visitors was difficult enough for me (my mobile phone was a godsend) but even more difficult for a Somali lady in the bed opposite mine. If she'd had family members there they might have been able to tell her what was going on, help her understand what the doctors were doing, choose suitable menu options and raise queries. As it was, she sat looking very anxious and unhappy most of the time and I only saw a translator talk to her just before she was discharged. Been home a few days now and I'm just hoping I didn't get the virus while I was there! Only time will tell. There's talk of primary schools going back in June and the word is that we have at last reached the peak, but I'm concerned that things are being rushed. Building sites are working again and there have been complaints on NextDoor of skip lorries driving at speed along local roads at all hours of the day (starting ridiculously early) with clanking chains and heavy thumps, waking people up. DIY stores are reopening, which will make Terry happy. I just hope the government isn't putting too much on limiting ecoElliec damage and not enough on avoiding risk. If we have a second wave it'd all have to go into reverse and Joe Public would not be happy!

10 May 2020 Sunday, so I logged on to watch part of the Spiritualist Church's morning service. Was really only half paying attention, but impressed at the number of names of people who were watching and making comments during the clairvoyance part of the service. They are signing up several new members every

week – probably far more than would have joined as Facebook friends before they started live-streaming services! Boris Johnson gave a long-awaited government update on plans to continue/relax lockdown and although it was clear he was trying to achieve a number of sometimes conflicting aims (appealing for continuing public support/showing appreciation of people's patience/giving comfort to people whose financial situations had been rendered precarious by the pandemic/offering hope to companies/keeping people's spirits up/keepin g people safe/avoiding a second peak/keeping the economy afloat) his speech has raised far more questions than it answered. He told us the emphasis was moving from "stay at home" to "stay alert" (not terribly clear)/ that we could now take unlimited outdoor exercise (so long as we maintained the 2m social distancing rules)/ that we should return to work if we really could not work at home – oh, but please avoid using public transport to get there!/primary schools to open on 1 June and a possibility (only a possibility) that hairdressers could reopen in July/measurement technology to be used to monitor the number of cases, area by area, and immediate action to be taken to reinstate restrictions if the index swings too high. Since then there have been floods of questions and comments, with reference to the many anomalies and conflicts that emerge from the government pronouncements. The restrictions continue to be stricter in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland than in England, so what is a man living in Wales but working in England supposed to be doing – returning to work or staying home? How come a teacher will be able to teach her primary school class (albeit with reduced numbers) yet not allowed to meet her own grandchildren? How is the government proposing to keep people safe on public transport? How can employees be sure their employers have done all they can to protect them if they return to work? Allen came out of hospital today having had his life-changing operation (which involved removing his duodenum, gallbladder and various other parts of his digestive system). Gordon drove to collect him (it was done at the private Hospital but paid for by the NHS). He had to come into our house for a while as he realised he didn't have his keys or wallet and we had to wait several hours for the hospital to courier them to him (they'd put them in the safe in his room and not told him or even reminded him to check he had them when he left!). I told him I wanted to give him a hug (strictly he shouldn't even have been in our house and Gordon shouldn't have collected him from the hospital!) and he chose to have a hug, so we were both breaking social distancing rules, but under the circumstances I don't feel bad about it (though I will if I end up getting symptoms and pass it to him, in his very vulnerable state!) He lives alone so it'll be quite difficult for him but Gordon bought him some food and we can get him more if he can't order online (he thinks he can but we're not at all sure he'll be able to do it because the demand is so high at the moment). He's been very lucky – in many parts of the country cancer operations and treatment have been suspended because the NHS is focusing on Covid patients. While Gordon went to collect Allen, I did my first bit of shopping since I came out of hospital – went to the local little Sainsburys to get newspapers for us and Sarah. There was a short queue but it moved very fast and I wore disposable latex gloves but no mask. Gordon has ordered a box of masks from Amazon (which we'll wear in supermarkets) and we have a few from Mum. I'm so used to walking in the road (to keep my distance from other pedestrians) that I almost got run over by a cyclist on my way back from Sainsbury's. Thankfully, he called out to warn me. I can never understand why so many cyclists don't have (or use) a bell!

The messages on Carol's WhatsApp group continue to flow in, with lots of jokes and videos (some terrible). In one, three versions of the Mona Lisa: in March as we know her, in April with her hair looking a bit straggly and in May looking very unkempt and with a desperate expression on her face. I decided she should be renamed Moaner. Loads of videos debunking and taking the piss out of Donald Trump. BBC News on television: calls for greater clarity on what we should be doing and more complaints about discrepancies and lack of coherent policy on lockdown. Anxiety among people living in popular tourist areas that now we've been told we can travel wherever we wish in England, they'll end up flooded with tourists, putting locals at risk and potentially overwhelming local NHS services.

16 May 2020 Gordon and I went to the shopping centre a couple of days ago (my first visit since coming out of hospital). Rather depressing. Before Covid, there were already a number of shops boarded up on the ground floor – albeit thoughtfully disguised by bright advertising hoardings. But now 'ghost town' is the best phrase I can think of to describe it. The normally busy café, the entrance is empty and silent and the only shops open are Holland and Barrett (because they sell some food-stuffs and natural remedies), Superdrug (presumably because it has a pharmacy which they can't keep open without making the rest of the shop available to the public as it's right at the back of the shop), Boots (similar to Superdrug), Tesco Metro (food) and Marks & Spencer food store. Our footsteps would have echoed if we'd had tappy heels on and there were very, very few people around. Three bored men (not sure who they were working for) standing much too close to one another and chatting in the central area. Debenhams has recently closed (before the crisis) so I guess pickpocketing and shoplifting have gone right down (Debenhams was always a big contributor to the statistics though their security staff were very on the ball!) My opinion that Boris let the leash slip much too early has only been bolstered by what I've been hearing on the radio and reading in the newspapers. The R-rate has gone up a bit (not yet over one), teachers are arguing that they won't return to work even with special measures to reduce contact between kids unless they can be assured it is safe for them and the children to do so. People are posting on social media (e.g. our NextDoor forum) that it's OK to have picnics in the parks and celebrating that we can now drive wherever we wish to take exercise and can have as much of it is we want. The caveats do get put in (usually) but could easily be overlooked. I gather that the day after Boris told people to go back to work, if they couldn't work at home, the underground was crowded (some lines, anyway) and I bet not everyone was wearing a mask. Several people on the radio expressing concern that we've relaxed too soon and run a serious risk of a second wave of the virus. Harsh conditions call for harsh measures and from where I'm standing, it looks as if the government isn't being harsh enough and is bowing to pressure from those who want to get people back to work. But I'm retired, relatively well-off, have no mortgage or rent payments to worry about and have no fears of losing a job, so my perspective is inevitably biased! I spoke to Lewis the other day. He seems to be virus-free still, which is a huge relief (given that the numbers dying in nursing/residential homes are so high). However, he told me he is having weekly visits from a female dentist who apparently approached the home because she was unable to work and very bored, to see if she could do anything to help them. "Oh, yes," someone told her, "you could talk to some of our residents." So this woman, who'd never met Lewis before, is allowed to visit him while his family and close friends (including me) are refused entry to the home. I was shocked when he told me and

consider it a matter for enquiry (if not complaint) but I probably won't do anything about it. My theory is that she had some sort of 'way in' – did some namedropping or used her medical-professional status to make herself a special case. I'm no more likely to give Lewis the virus than she is and I'm sure he'd like to see me, but rules is rules! We took delivery today of 100 disposable face-masks Gordon ordered on Amazon. They were supposed to come yesterday and Hermes (delivery company) claimed it tried to deliver them at 8.15 p.m. (after the 8.00 threshold for delivery, when I'd given up and gone up to the loft to do emails). No card in the door, so I don't believe them. Today they didn't even ring the doorbell. I was here and listening out for them (as they'd given a 2.00 to 4.00 delivery slot) and heard the letterbox rattle (no doorbell). Ran downstairs to find a 'Sorry we missed you' card. Dived out of the door – no van in sight but thankfully a parcel in the porch. So now I can go shopping with my mask and latex gloves and feel a bit safer! Think I'll try a Tesco trip on Monday!

24 May 2020 The sunny weather continues – at this rate we'll have another water shortage (this is the third year running we've had unusually long spells of hot weather). What this does for the virus – whether it strengthens weakens it – I'm not sure. The daily number of deaths in the UK has come down but seems to fluctuate quite wildly – e.g. one day it was 100 and something and the following day over 400. We definitely can't afford to relax! The ice cream vans are doing the rounds again. I suppose this is the time of year they normally start work but to me that tinkling of their bells signals a return to something like normality. They've been stopping outside our local gardens and must have done reasonable business because on some sunny days there have been a lot of families there, playing ball games, sunbathing, picNathaning and generally relaxing. On Friday I did my second 'family shop' since coming out of hospital. Went to Tesco's via the shopping centre and Superdrug and the shopping centre is still like a ghost town. Tesco Metro seems reasonably quiet when I go at my usual (lockdown) time (around 11.00 a.m.) but when Gordon went to the Sainsbury's Megastore in the Woods yesterday to collect a prescription for Allen and pick up some shopping for him, he was shocked to find a queue of over 100 people waiting to get in! That was around 2.00 p.m. and he came home and tried again around 7.00. Even then there were 30-40 people queueing but he did get in (after a 20 minute wait) and once inside shopping was relatively easy as they were only letting in a few people at a time. It is a bank holiday weekend and it was a Saturday but I'm asking myself whether this is the shape of superstore shopping for the foreseeable future! Estate agents were told by the government about a week ago they could get back to work and start showing people around houses again (so long as social distancing measures were taken and homes 'deep- cleaned' between visits). The effect was instant and I noticed because I had alerts set up (left over from my house hunting days – now just to keep an eye on the property market for houses in Eastbourne and Wimbledon/Morden/Mitcham). For ages there had been a thin trickle of homes advertised for sale on the Internet, but suddenly it was almost back to normal. I gather that people who'd been well advanced in the house-buying/selling process when lockdown began were allowed to proceed with their transactions but it must have been tedious and difficult finding removal companies willing to work and arranging an

acceptable level of home-cleaning before departure! I also noticed that a couple of days after the estate agents were given the green light, I got a copy of the contract renewal on my rented house in Morden to sign and (surprise, surprise) the estate agent's bill for its annual fee. It's money for old rope once it's set up, in my opinion! Spiritualist Church continues to attract large audiences through Sunday services and weekday events. Yesterday I logged on for a talk by Ashley Robinson on the birth of modern Spiritualism (in liaison with Poole church) and it's obvious that church events are reaching far larger audiences than they ever attracted when held in the physical church! Someone on Radio Four was observing this morning that churches all over the UK are reaching out to the wider community by streaming their services and events and that it seems that many people who wouldn't set foot in a church are interested enough to seek out church-related events online. Maybe this has important implications for the churches of the future and it will turn out that Covid-19 was actually a blessing in disguise for religion!

30 May 2020 I'm sick of hearing and reading about Dominic Cummings (Chief Political Aide to Boris Johnson). He travelled over 200 miles to his parents' home when he and his wife developed symptoms of Covid and needed help with childcare and then (after self-isolating at his parents' farm) drove a further 60 miles in a round trip which he now claims to have done to test his eyesight before risking driving back to London. It's his attitude that's maddened people – a "sod you all – I'm doing what I think best" attitude with no contrition whatsoever. Boris has been trying to hang on to him and say there, there, he wasn't that naughty a boy, was he? and the papers have been filled with arguments (nearly all calling for Cummings to be sacked). Angry comments from people who've put themselves through difficulties to stick to the social distancing rules, who are understandably angry that a government adviser can brazenly flout the rules and get away with it! Had a WhatsApp message this week from Rebecca, my friend in South Africa. They have five levels of lockdown there (with five being the most restrictive) and have just moved from level 4 to level 3. So, like us, they are relaxing a bit. There are noticeably far more people around and far more cars on the road. On 1 June, people in England will be able to meet in groups of up to 6 people, but it must be outside, they must observe a distance of 2m from one another and if they touch anything at all that could be touched by others in the group, they must cleanse it thoroughly. Yesterday, when Gordon and I did our usual 'Lockdown Walk'. In the Park, it was party time (and this is before the new rules come in!): bins overflowing, large groups of people (some with far more than six) and many definitely not observing the 2m rule. Eating, drinking and partying in the (continuing) hot sunshine. No doubt passing food to one another, passing bottles or glasses of drink. I groaned when I saw it. There have been photos in the paper of crowded beaches (people very clearly totally ignoring social distancing rules!) I find it hard to believe people can be so inane. The daily death rate was down at something over 100 for a couple of days but has gone back to over 300, so we really, really shouldn't be relaxing the rules! Garden centres are now open (with strict social distancing rules) and open-air markets and car salesrooms

can open from 1 June (ditto). From 15 June, ordinary shops will be able to reopen but only providing they meet pretty strict distancing/protection guidelines. I'm picturing women pouring into the clothes shops. How on earth are they going to be able to police handling of garments? Not only do you have to try things on, but you look through loads of garments on rails before finding one that you want to try on. I do have an idea how clothes shops could manage this – by ordering thousands of latex gloves to offer to customers (insisting that if they want to handle clothes, they must wear them). Only problem I can see is that thousands more latex gloves would be going into landfill! The Government is now trying to get companies to contribute to the cost of 'furloughing' employees (a scheme whereby the Government has – up until now – been paying 80% of the wages of staff who would otherwise lose their jobs). For many companies (especially small ones with low turnover levels) this just wouldn't work and I can imagine a huge increase in unemployment. Complaints from people living in rural areas of Wales and Scotland (where gatherings of up to 6 or 8 people will be allowed from Monday, with strict distancing rules applying) that the Government's insistence that people travel no more than 5 miles to socialise discriminates against them. I heard on the 1.00 BBC TV News yesterday that dental practices in the UK will be able to open from 8 June (shocking stories of patients resorting to taking out their own teeth with pliers!) and hope very much that my own dentist will decide to reopen. He'd been "trying to retire" (his phrase) for at least the last year and a half and has already (I think) persuaded some patients to go elsewhere, but I have gum problems which he is very good at dealing with and I really don't want to lose him so may leave him a phone message to ask if I can see him when (if!) he starts up again. Gordon has been to the big Sainsbury's in the Woods several times, to collect prescriptions for Allen (there's a pharmacy in the store) and to get food for him. The queues have been crazy – on one occasion he just came home (over 100 in the queue) and every other time he's had to wait quite a long time to get into the store. Once in, he says, you can do your shopping easily as they're being so strict on the numbers of people they're allowing in at a time. But it seems crazy that, if you just want to pick up a prescription from the pharmacy, you have to queue with everyone going to do their mega-shop! The local Tesco's is much quieter and I've resumed responsibility for twice-weekly food-shopping trips.

11 June 2020 People who have had to self-isolate because of old age or underlying illness have recently been told they can now leave their homes (so long as they maintain the 2m distancing rules). Very nice, but predictably – after weeks and weeks of wall-to-wall sunshine, it's now cold and wet! We spoke to Donna. just over a week ago and arranged for an her to come and sit in our garden and have a chat last Thursday. We had to call it off because of inclement weather and a second tentative date (for the Friday) also had to be cancelled. Gordon and I took advantage of a fine day to visit Mum on Tuesday. Hannah let us in the back gate and we all sat (well, I lay!) in the back garden and had a good chat (keeping the required distance apart, of course!) Donna must be very fed up. Having endured 11 weeks of isolation, she's now denied an opportunity for socialising! A text message from Anthea C. Says she's been to various barbeques and garden parties. Hope they all observed the rules about distancing and hygiene!

Allen, who is recovering from his operation, has told us he's decided to order his food from Sainsbury's online (Gordon had been buying him some and a neighbour had also been helping out). He should qualify for special priority as someone who's been told by his doctor to "shield" (because he's had a serious operation and is over 65) (and was also at risk of needing chemotherapy, though that's been put on hold for now). He had to apply through a government website and when I spoke to him a couple of days ago, he was still waiting for a decision, so I don't know what he's going to do in the meantime. Even when/if he does get the necessary go-ahead, he might have to wait quite a while for a delivery slot. Before her fall, Mum was an existing Waitrose customer and used to go into the store, select her food and get it delivered the following day. Waitrose seems to have stopped offering that option but now, as a lady of very advanced years (she'll be 95 in August) she is on their priority list for home deliveries. Even so, when she and Hannah put in an online order, they had to wait at least two weeks (if not three) for delivery. Hannah's ankle is giving her a lot of trouble, but between her shopping trips and help from a friendly neighbour, they are managing. Their first Waitrose delivery came last week and another one will come in a week or so's time. Dentists were told they could return to work this week (on Monday 8 June). Mine rang me about a week ago and said he would not be ready to start seeing patients again yet. The Government has told them to go back to work, he says, but his professional association has warned him that, if he does, they will prosecute him! The Government is telling people there is adequate PPE for dentists, yet he cannot get what he needs and PPE prices have soared unconscionably. "Especially given your history," he said (cancer in 2008 and I don't know what else, apart from my back problem) "I can't open until I'm satisfied that you will be safe. I hope you'll understand." I was hoping that his phone call would be good news. I really need my teeth looked at every four months because I have quite bad gum disease and prior to Covid, was visiting him every four months for a clean. I'm doing my best – continuing with the fairly rigorous cleaning regime I'd been following for several years (using floss and inter-dental brushes alongside frequent brushing) but really do want to see him and will be anxious until I do as a checkup is well overdue. He and his wife are on their own in their practice and had been "trying to retire" for some time before the Covid outbreak and my biggest fear is that, if they can't get the equipment they need, they'll just give up and I'll be left without a dentist. It's now nearly a year since my tenants took up residence in the Morden house. They've renewed for a further year, which I'm very glad about, and would be happy for us to go over and check that all is OK with the house (landlords usually reckon to do that at least once a year). There are a few complications, though. They now have a very young baby and, strictly-speaking, I "shouldn't" enter the house. It seems a bit hazy! I can't meet people from other households indoors, and if we do meet them outside, have to maintain a 2m distance between us. Yet estate agents are now allowed to take people to view homes for sale! I know Joshua and Larraine accept that we probably want to check the house and they've told us they will be happy to see us at a time convenient to us. However, I'm not rushing over there (much as I want to see their baby!) because I do trust them to look after the place and I don't want to put them at any risk. Joshua is a critical care nurse and has been working with Covid patients, so he's already at high risk and probably considers the risk of having us in the house a relatively small one. I suggested we do a WhatsApp call and they seem very happy with that, so I must go ahead and arrange a suitable time for a talk. School is in, or maybe it's not! The Government decreed that primary schools should reopen on 1 June, but it hasn't really happened because there are so many fears (among parents and teachers) that this could just lead to a second wave of Covid cases. Our local primary school (just over the road) had a note on its

website a couple of weeks ago to the effect that it would only be taking children of key-workers and 'vulnerable' children (who'd continued at the school for the whole Covid period but had been sent home for two weeks during half term so the school could be thoroughly cleaned). It was possible, they said, that Year 6 might be accepted back at some point before the official school holiday period began (mid-late July) but the situation would be reviewed and they would only be allowed back if it was deemed safe for them to do so. The Government's being accused of back-tracking and there are now headlines suggesting schools could remain shut beyond September! A huge number of young people who would have gone to university this year have deferred because so many universities are saying they will be running courses online (depriving students of the all-important social aspect of going to university) so there must be a real crisis in the higher education sector. Parents struggling to work from home as well as entertain and home-educate their kids must be at their wits' end!

13 June 2020 Absolute disaster for Marmite fans (and a strange and unfortunate side-effect of lockdown in the UK). Because pubs and bars have not been buying beer (they've been closed since lockdown began) beer production has slowed and there is a shortage of yeast extract, which is the essential ingredient of Marmite. You now can't buy the large jars at all and I gather buying Marmite at all is a problem! Boo-hoo! I love it! Mum's gardener, Guy, hasn't been for weeks (probably not since lockdown began). He says he’s suffering from lung problems caused by inhaling a noxious substance at work but we're wondering if in fact he's taking the opportunity for a paid holiday and claiming the government support available for self-employed people. Gordon helped Terry fill in an application online and told me they ask about your earnings in the relevant period in the previous two years, but don't ask how much you are expecting to earn in that period this year. Sounds odd to me and the system could be open to abuse. I do wonder, though (whatever his reasons for not working) whether he risks losing some of his customers. Rang Ethan and Martha today – just to keep in touch, see how they are and say that of course, we'd love to come and use their flat for our usual two weeks if and when it's possible to do so. The Welsh government is being much stricter than the English one. Our 'non-essential' shops can open (given strict social distancing and hygiene rules) from tomorrow but that's not happening in Wales. They are still not supposed to travel more than 5 miles from home, but their son Robbie and his wife had a second baby around the time lockdown began and Martha has travelled up to London three times since then to help with childcare as Robbie had to return to work. No one stopped her on any of her journeys to challenge her, she says, and the motorways were blissfully quiet.

21 June 2020 There are clear signs that lockdown is easing but thankfully, most people are being wary when it comes to returning to 'normal' life. Our leisure centre is still closed and there has been no further word from the management to let us know about plans for reopening. So Gordon and I are still having our daily walk by the river and doing Pilates classes at home when we can (I wasn't able to do any for a week and a half or two weeks because of a significant worsening of my back pain but yesterday we both did a 'gentle' class our teacher recorded for us before going to Ireland to be with her terminally ill father).

The Friends of South Park Gardens held its AGM on Zoom this week. The meeting had originally been scheduled to take place in the garden room, which is very small so there probably wouldn't have been room for me lying at the back. Of course, it had to be cancelled because of the virus, and with so many people now using Zoom for meetings, a decision must have been taken to do it that way. It must have excluded quite a few people (probably mainly older people who aren't regular computer users) but we did get a quorum and from my point of view it worked much better. They used to have it in the Club, in a huge upstairs room. I was always able to lie discreetly at the back but could never see who was speaking and it was difficult for me to raise questions. This time, I was able to see people perfectly (even though I took part in the meeting lying on the bed) and I asked a question without any difficulty. Terry has Raymond this weekend and very fortunately the local playgrounds are open so he was able to take him to the nearest one. Raymond's awareness is so limited that he hadn't been able to understand why they haven't been able to go to the playgrounds for the whole of the lockdown period. This weekend, Raymond obviously wanted to go to the playground, so Terry took him up to the gate to show him it was locked but to his delight found it open! At 15, Raymond is now too big to fit into the 'babies' swings and Terry is trying to get him to use the 'ordinary' ones (without safety rails). It could take a long time to teach him to use them safely, but maybe with persistence…! Terry said the playground was extremely quiet. I imagine that's partly because people didn't know it was open and partly because of parents' caution. The local shops were allowed to open from 15 June, and I went up to the shopping centre on Tuesday fully expecting crowds and queues. It was actually rather depressing, with very few more people than 'normal' (lockdown 'normal') and – at least downstairs – very few shops open: Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Holland and Barrett and Superdrug had been opening all along and I was hoping WH Smith's and at least one of the card shops would be open, but no such luck. It's impossible to know why shops that remain closed have failed to open. It could be because of a) lack of available staff, b) lack of preparedness (strict social distancing and hygiene measures have been imposed) or c) financial failure (or very likely other reasons). Really rather depressing. The Government is urging people to spend money to help the economy, but many people are in financial difficulties because of the crisis and not in a position to spend a lot of money! I walked along the Broadway later and noticed a few shops open, including Robert Dyas and Waterstone's. At the creative writing group meeting on Thursday, Kaila said she'd been into department store and had found it a very depressing experience, with very few customers and no one daring to handle any of the clothes! I noticed one of the charity shops on the Broadway will be opening tomorrow (only three people allowed in the shop at a time) and how they will monitor handling of items in the shop I've really no idea. It was proposed that bookshops should 'quarantine' books handled by customers for 72 hours, but that would be almost impossible to police and I imagine not too many people will be going into the local Waterstone's unless they know exactly what they want! Not sure what we're going to do for Mum's 95th birthday in August. For her last 'big' birthday (90th) we did a meal at a local hotel for family and friends, but this year the hotel has been forced to close and there's no way we can plan anything at all. Even if hotels and restaurants are open (and social gatherings allowed) a lot of Mum's friends are in the 'vulnerable' age group and would probably be wary of going to a big social event so soon after a pandemic! Hannah and I suggested to Mum we could have a 'Zoom party' and have asked her to think about who she'd normally invite to her party and which of them are likely to have (or

should be able to download and use) Zoom. We could at least arrange for us all to sing 'Happy Birthday' to Mum and raise a glass of whatever we have handy (Prosecco, wine, beer, tea, coffee, water, gin, vodka…) Big concerns about education at all levels, from primary schools to universities. I had a good chat with my friend Jenny during the week (a retired university lecturer). She says Roehampton has announced a major redundancy programme which was the first in a series of similar announcements from other universities. The number of foreign students enrolling to study at Roehampton had declined drastically prior to the Covid crisis (probably because of Brexit) but with most universities moving to online courses, many young people have chosen to defer this year. Goodness knows how universities are going to survive! Obviously, no enrolment problems with primary and secondary schools. Well, I suppose that's not true! I understand that some parents are refusing to let their children return to school, even if their classes are 'open', for fear their children will be put at risk. I did hear that the government is guaranteeing that all children will be able to return to school in September but how much credence can we put on such a promise?

7 July 2020 Seems ages since I wrote anything directly Covid related but as I have lots of things dating back to 23 June, I thought I'd better shift myself into action. Museums, galleries, hairdressers On 23 June, I heard that museums and galleries will be allowed to open from 4 July and hairdressers on 6 July. I badly need my hair cut but decided not to try ringing the salon. There probably wouldn't have been anyone there at that time anyway, and I imagined that they'd be absolutely inundated when they did open. My mum and I use the same hairdresser and as she used to be his bookkeeper, we both get a substantial discount. In recent years, Steve hasn't blowdried my hair – just cut it once every three or four months (partly because I prefer to leave it to dry and partly because I can't cope with any more sitting. As it is, I stand up once he's cut the top!) Mum has his mobile phone number and when we heard that the salons were due to open in the near future, she rang him. He said he'd be happy to do a home visit to cut my mum's, my sister's and my hair, but it hasn't happened yet – hopefully it'll be later this week. He and his work partner Archie are doing different days at the salon to comply with social distancing requirements and no doubt will be wearing visors, masks and gloves. I understand that blow-drying hair isn't going to be allowed because it increases the spread of the virus and I imagine some women won't be too happy with the idea of having to walk up the road with their hair wet! Even shampooing may be outlawed because of the necessary proximity between the client's mouth and the shampooist's face (although I'd have thought masks would deal with that problem!) Man caught peeing in supermarket On 23 June, my sister Hannah told me she'd been in Sainsbury's in the town centre and seen a man peeing in a jam jar! I assume the poor guy (whom I guessed was elderly, though I didn't ask about that!) was 'caught short' because public toilets remain closed thanks to the risk of spreading the virus. I

haven't yet had a problem with that but it would certainly stop me doing anything that required me to be away from home for more than an hour. Our local Spiritualist church (which has been very active online during lockdown) is opening for a 'real' service on Sunday but with a very limited (by application only) congregation, definitely no refreshments/socialising afterwards and very likely no toilets. I hadn't considered going anyway but lack of toilets would have put me off! U3A diaries I imagine there are numerous organisations around the UK which have recognised the opportunity offered by Covid 19 for individuals and organisations to record an important piece of British social history. I'm writing this diary partly to submit to Michael Ward for his diary project at Swansea University, but Mass Observation has also asked people to submit diary entries and U3A is running its own project (in collaboration, I understand, with Mass Observation). A few weeks ago I was approached by Jo Livingston (whom I know through my former membership of the U3A National Research Subcommittee) to ask if I'd be interested in working on some of the U3A diaries material. She and Jennifer Simpson are pulling together the submitted material and as well as making it available online, they've also been asked to edit it into a book. I'm one of a team of about 10 people with connections to U3A research who are going through the submitted material and selecting passages which will fit into a chapter structure already devised by Jo and Jennifer. I've just completed my first batch (about 30 typed A4 pages) and there will be more to follow, though I've no idea how much more! I'm having to do it on paper as I can't sit at the computer and that will mean more work for Jo and Co, but she seemed happy for me to do it this way. It's really a simple task of coding using a straightforward coding frame someone has already drawn up. There are some topics people have covered in the diaries I've read that are not included in the chapter specifications, which I'd like to include, but I think it should make interesting reading when all the editing is done. 'Open' Day On 4 July, everyone went mad (apart from us!) On that day, pubs and restaurants were allowed to open again, albeit with strict social distancing measures in place. When we went for our usual walk on Sunday (5th) we could hear a lot of noise (people talking and laughing) coming from the pub just outside to the Park in the Woods. We couldn't see how many people there were there, but it sounded like a lot and I can't imagine how social distancing would work when the world and his wife are desperate for a pint! I imagine a lot of people have felt really deprived of social life during lockdown, and I can understand why some would be willing to put their own and other people's health in jeopardy by going to these places but I certainly wasn't one of them. I can't do it anyway, with my back, but even if I was fit and able, I'm not sure I'd have rushed back into it again! Statistics Until about three days ago, the Daily Telegraph had been giving figures on its front page every day, including the running total of Covid 19 cases in the UK to date (recorded cases, of course), number of deaths from Covid 19 and the number of Covid-related deaths on the previous day. I'd been looking at it every day to see how we were doing as a country, but now – when we need it most (a very sensitive time when lockdown is being eased) – they decided not to display the figures any more. Mum is annoyed (partly because she'd been keeping a record of figures since March!) and I'm now having to look it up online. Why

they've withdrawn the figures I don't know, but Mum noticed they'd made a mistake on the last day they appeared (with the total number of cases being lower than it had been the previous day).

18 July 2020 Seems ages since I wrote anything in the diary. Not that long, actually, but a long time since I typed anything up. Things are beginning to get back to normal – in my view, much too quickly. Restaurants and pubs have reopened, non-essential shops have been given the green light, self-catering holiday accommodation and hotels been able to accept bookings and our local leisure centre is due to reopen on 25 July. In all cases, strict hygiene, cleaning and social distancing measures have been put in place. Many of our local shops and restaurants remain closed, which is quite worrying, and there is no way of knowing whether that's because they have gone bust, are still in the process of putting special measures in place, cannot put special measures in place or some other reason. The message the public are receiving is that the virus is receding, but if you don't continue to act responsibly, it will come back with a vengeance and lockdown will have to be put in place all over again. The issue is that many people are not acting responsibly. I've lost count of the number of groups I've seen in parks (specifically our local Park Gardens), blatantly ignoring the latest social distancing guidelines (one and a half metres plus). I'm not sure whether all schools have now finished for the summer holidays. We saw loads of kids out in the Park Gardens yesterday (one of the occasions on which social distancing wasn't happening!) and guessed our local primary school must have officially closed. A glance at its website confirms that and I can also see that one of the local secondary schools has finished so I guess that's it for them all. Not that they were exactly 'open' anyway! I went to the dentist for the first time in seven months last week and was very relieved to come away somewhat lighter financially but feeling relatively good about my dental health. Usually I see him every four months because I have quite bad gum disease. I don't know why I have it but it probably wasn't helped by the colon cancer with which I was diagnosed in 2008. My current dentist is a private one (I gave up on the NHS when I had a gum infection and they gave me antibiotics and said all they could do if I got the infection again would be to take the tooth out!) That was before I knew I had colon cancer and when I signed up with Gordon's private man, Mr Loo, he was shocked at how bad my gums were. Had I smoked a lot? (never), neglected my teeth? (no), had a serious illness (no – in fact I had one I didn't know about!) He's been looking after my teeth since then (with extra input from the Hospital) and I was really worried that with the enforced longer gap between cleaning sessions (he does it all himself) my dental health would have declined. In fact it was no worse than usual, and I was very chuffed when he congratulated me on keeping up my usual standard of cleaning (he's not exactly generous with compliments – likes to keep up the incentive for me to work hard at it!) Now I can go back to 6-monthly maintenance. I'm very relieved, not only because my gums and teeth are relatively OK but also because he's back in business and hasn't taken the opportunity to retire (which he's been threatening to do for ages!) The Covid crisis has had a big effect on outpatient hospital appointments and GP appointments. In the last couple of weeks I've had three telephone appointments. One was with my GP to discuss medication for my back pain which has worsened in the last six weeks. The procedure for getting GP appointments is now totally different. Previously you could book an appointment on the day by going online or ringing the surgery at 8.00 a.m. or you could make one by phone for a future date with a specific doctor (but that would

probably be several weeks away!) Now you can't make appointments online. You have to ring the surgery on the day you want to talk to a GP at 8.00 a.m. If you get a slot, the GP will ring you later in the day (no choice of who you talk to). They can a) deal with your problem there and then if it's straightforward, b) do a video call to look at you (in a limited way, obviously!) or c) arrange a time for you to go to the surgery. The GP who rang me spent quite a while with me (probably half an hour) and part of that time was occupied with a video call in which she looked at my mobility (bending sideways and forwards) and got me to show her where the pain was located. She prescribed Co-Codamol and said there were other drugs they could offer if that didn't help (they're certainly not kicking the pain!) She also referred me to the local physiotherapy service. I'd self-referred to the physios a while ago but all they offered was exercises – she said they could do a lot more than that (manipulation, injections). I got an email about that fairly quickly and had a telephone consultation with a musculo-skeletal doctor the same week (impressive, but they have nothing more to offer me, so it didn't come to anything). The third phone consultation was with a doctor at the sleep clinic at University College Hospital. I was referred there some time ago and had an appointment booked this month, but because my back's been so awful, I rang to postpone it as I couldn't possibly get up there at the moment. Covid has worked in my favour there! Like so many other clinics, the outpatient sleep clinic has switched to phone appointments and that was my third medical one in a short space of time. I find attending hospital outpatient clinics very difficult because of my sitting problem so have been delighted all this can be done on the phone. My liver clinic appointment (set for the last week of July) has been postponed so I can have blood tests and an ultrasound scan first and (by special request from me) the clinic appointment should be on the telephone! Unless a doctor really needs to see you (to palpate part of your body, listen to your heart, stare into your eyes or whatever) I imagine a lot of clinic appointments could be replaced by telephone appointments and I hope the trend towards this way of working will continue. In a time of Covid it makes a lot of sense. Many patients would have cancelled outpatient appointments for fear of catching the virus at the hospital and a lot probably did that before they hit on the idea of telephone appointments! As self-catering holiday accommodation has been given the green light, we've booked a two-week stay at a cottage at the farm we visit most years. That'll begin on 26 August and we just hope there won't be a second wave of the virus leading to another lockdown which could prevent us from going! The Leisure Centre is reopening in a week's time. However, there will be a lot of restrictions. Many classes won't run and we know that Anne, our favourite Pilates teacher, has now moved out of London and will presumably not be returning to the centre when it opens. Our other teacher, Carol (whose Core Stability classes we used to attend) has been running classes for free on Zoom and will probably go back when the centre reopens. But numbers in classes will be restricted and it's really hard to get in as it is! There'll be restrictions on the numbers of people able to use the gym, too, and I'm seriously considering keeping my membership frozen, especially as there won't (as far as I know) be any showers available! Anne is restarting her online Pilates classes next week (which we've been paying for) and with my back still pretty bad and with no certainty of getting in to use the gym or getting into Carol's classes when I want to, I'm not sure it'll be worth going back at the moment! I will, eventually, but not sure now is the right time.

Black mark for the Government! Some months ago, Mum (who'd been keeping a record since March) noticed that the Daily Telegraph had stopped putting figures for UK deaths from Covid (running total of deaths from the virus plus daily number of deaths) on the front page of the newspaper. Now Gordon tells me the Government has stopped giving official figures! I'm appalled – surely we need to know those figures now as much as (if not more than) ever before?! How will we know if all is well – that the number of cases and deaths is going down? OK, we have that magical 'R' number to fall back on – if it goes over '1', we need to start worrying. But I'm really missing seeing those figures on the front page of the paper and I'm sure a lot of people listened out for them on the radio or television every day. Maybe I'll write to my MP to complain (no doubt many others will have done so!) (A Google search today suggests that the Government has "paused" reporting of statistics because of possible problems with exaggeration of numbers compared with other countries. I do wonder if this is the real reason for non-reporting!)

1 September 2020 Another long gap. Schools in England will be opening their doors again from Monday 7 September, which will be a relief to some parents (who have had nervous breakdowns trying to educate their kids and keep them entertained since the start of lockdown which seagued into the summer holiday!) and an anxiety to others (who worry that travelling to school will offer an opportunity for their children to contract and pass on the virus). I haven't been checking what the daily death-rate has been recently, but I gathered there was a threat of a second lockdown in London because the 'R' rate was creeping up over one. Various areas of Britain have had second lockdowns imposed because of an increase in cases and the whole situation seems to me to be very volatile, with a lot of people acting as if the danger has passed (when of course, it hasn't!). Travellers to other countries are having to be very careful because Britain has been imposing 14-day quarantine rules on people returning from various countries (i.e. if you come back from a country on the government's list, you have to isolate yourself for 14 days on your return and even minor transgression of this rule – e.g. stopping off at the supermarket on the way home to pick up essential food supplies – can be punished by a fine). We're currently staying in a cottage for two weeks. We come here most years, usually in June or September (to avoid school holidays) but this year, partly because self-catering accommodation had been forced to close for months and partly because we had to be in London for the weekend of 12/13 September, we booked to come for two weeks starting on 26 August. There are lots more people around and we especially noticed it when we visited the Reservoir for a walk a couple of days ago. It was probably a combination of several factors including: a) The fact that school holidays are still on, b) Lack of opportunity for people to go abroad this year because of Covid, c) The fact that it was a weekend, d) A surge in the popularity of paddleboarding (loads of people doing it on the river) – partly because of Covid and we've never seen so many people in that beautiful spot we always visit when staying in this area. On and around 22 August my sister and I arranged various events for our mother's 95th birthday, including four Zoom meetings for family and friends, a takeaway lunchtime meal and a theatrical performance in her back garden. But for Covid, we'd almost certainly have organised a big party (either at her home or in a

hotel) but that wasn't possible this year. She did get a chance to talk to a lot of friends and relatives and she very much enjoyed the one-man performance in her garden. We've noticed that quite a lot of people are not wearing face masks in shops (as they are supposed to do by law). There are some exceptions (e.g. people with breathing difficulties, people with mental illness) but I suspect some people just aren't taking the requirement seriously. My leisure centre reopened quite a few weeks ago but I still haven't been back and I suspect that and other sports facilities will be suffering financially because people have found other ways to keep fit over lockdown (e.g. walking, jogging and water-sports). I suspect that the recent huge increase in the popularity of paddle boarding owes something to Covid (as well as the hot summer we've been lucky to have). I've paid my subscription to the leisure centre (which had been due to expire within weeks when lockdown happened and was 'frozen' for the duration of closure of the centre) but my partner hasn't renewed his membership and I wouldn't be that surprised if he didn't get round to it as he's enjoying our online classes and the only thing he was doing at the leisure centre before lockdown was one Pilates class a week (for which the teacher has now left) and one core stability class.

28 September 2020 Second lockdown? I said when the Government decided to ease lockdown that it was all happening too soon (me and half the adult population of the UK, I suspect!) Some twit on 'Next Door' posted an inane message (removed by the moderators but only after a bevy of surprisingly polite replies and one or two messages of support) suggesting that we should have a referendum to decide whether we wanted to follow these "stupid rules" or not! This man has posted previous unhelpful comments (e.g. inviting people to join him for a drink in a pub during lockdown) and to my mind should be banned, but the moderators have to manage a fine line between allowing free speech and protection of members! The number of cases is increasing alarmingly, though the number of deaths is not, as far as I understand it. The Government is doing its best to avoid imposing a full second lockdown, but in the end it may be necessary. Mum has written-off this year and obviously does feel very aggrieved about the way Covid has deprived her of what looks like being a whole year of social interaction. Care homes I caught part of a very sad item on 'Weekend Woman's Hour' (BBC Radio 4) yesterday. Various women talking about their feelings regarding their elderly spouses who were in nursing homes and whom they had been unable to visit because of the Covid restrictions. One lady said her husband was very distressed and angry that she had not been able to visit him and another said that her husband did not understand why she wasn't able to go to see him and thought she was doing it deliberately. Why, asked one woman, when carers are interacting with residents (and presumably with other people) on a daily basis and having regular Covid tests, could relatives not do the same? The level of distress among the care home residents these women were describing was dreadful, and one lady said her husband had not been able to have visits from a chiropodist so was unable to wear shoes because his toenails were so long. I haven't been to see my

friend Lewis in his care home for ages now, though I'm keeping in touch regularly by phone. He's had a few outside visits, but the weather is now much colder and it won't be long before that becomes impossible. Students I feel sorry for students – especially freshers who've been denied the normal fresher experience (which includes a lot of socialising and partying). Some students have been subjected to lockdowns within their residences but at other universities students are reporting a much more normal interaction with others (though even this is really nothing like normal!) One student spoke on the radio today about students putting up notices in their windows to connect with others – asking their names so they could connect with them on social media (I think!) Our friend Terry's daughter Meg went to university this year and has been stuck at university because Terry lives in a tiny studio flat and she really, really doesn't want to go and stay with her mother! Most of the other students have gone home (because there's a local lockdown) but she wants to stay. Our neighbour (her great aunt) would be happy to offer her accommodation but she prefers to be on her own. Psychiatric problems I know an NHS psychotherapist who does some private work as well as seeing NHS patients and providing supervision of other therapists. He is now having to work extra hours in the NHS because demand for psychotherapy services has greatly increased. I suppose it's hardly surprising, with so many people facing job uncertainty and many having acute financial problems (quite apart from all the issues involved in being cooped up at home with people you're not normally with all day long!) A sign of the times, I'm afraid! U3A book The U3A book (U3A in the Time of Corona) is almost ready for publication. There were 10 of us sub-editors selecting material to include in the book, one main editor to put it all together, and each of the sub -editors proofread a chapter. I did a proofread of the whole lot (as that is what I do quite a lot) and we have a Zoom meeting tomorrow to discuss publicity. The question occurs to me of whether we would have had this meeting at all if Covid hadn't happened (well, we wouldn't have done, because the diaries wouldn't been written! But using Zoom and other online forums for meetings has now become normal practice).

3 October 2020 President Trump and his wife have both tested positive for the virus and the timing isn't exactly brilliant as he's in the middle of an election campaign! He is in a 'vulnerable' group (over 70 and overweight) and he is the president of the USA so maybe it's not surprising he's been taken into hospital as a precaution. Covid, time and 'doing' I wanted to write something about Mum and her experience of Covid-19. She celebrated her 95th birthday in August this year and has written-off 2020 as a year out of her life. To her, activity and doing has always been extremely important. When we speak on the phone, Mum always wants to know what I've been doing, and tells me all the things she's been doing, often blaming herself for not having done more and referring to

a lot of things remaining on her 'To Do' list. At her 90th birthday party, she asked everyone never to let her "stop doing things". I assumed she said that because so long as she continued to "do", she would know everything was all right with the world. Mum has always been a 'doer'. When my father died in an accident in his 30s, leaving Mum to bring up two very young children on her own, she threw herself into activity – looking after us, earning a living and taking care of her parents (who lived with us). She never stopped 'doing' but Covid-19 stopped her in her tracks. She had a lot of friends, hosted two U3A groups and her life was marked by regular and frequent outings (to play bridge, to join Spanish groups and to join in a singing group at a local church, among other things). Suddenly, with lockdown, it all had to stop. In April this year, Mum fell and cut one of her legs badly in two places. She should have gone to A&E but, scared of catching the virus, didn't do so and hoped it would heal up naturally. After several days she had to call the GP and was off her feet for about three months, getting regular visits from the District Nurses. "It's just such a waste of time," she said, several times, reflecting that the only silver lining was that at least she wasn't missing anything as there was nothing to miss! At her 95th birthday Zoom meetings with friends and family (which my sister and I arranged in lieu of a party) Mum expressed herself "resentful" of what Covid had done to her life. It had, she said, taken away the things that gave her life structure and meaning, by which she meant activities. She hasn't lost touch with the people she'd been interacting with before Covid struck and my sister has spent a lot of time living with her to help her since she hurt her leg, but her life now seems devoid of meaning. A couple of months ago, I spoke to an elderly neighbour who is nearly 90 but in good health. "This seems to be going on rather, doesn't it?" I said (referring to the problems caused by Covid). "It doesn't worry me, dear," she said. "When you've been alive as long as I have, it's just a little bit of time!" She lives on her own, very seldom goes out and claims to be very happy in her own company. I find it interesting that while my mum views this year as 'lost' our neighbour doesn't even notice the difference. I don't remember my mum ever being so negative about anything relating to her life. She is now taking a few chances with her health by going to visit groups of people. To her, continuing isolation is pretty unbearable and I feel this has as much to with her valuation of 'doing' (over 'being') as to do with loneliness (she could, after all, keep in touch with these people by phone).

5 November 2020 Lockdown (2) begins Hardly a typical Guy Fawkes Night. Since yesterday, England has been in lockdown (2) and there can be no big public firework displays of the kind that have become popular in recent years. In a 'normal' year, we hear odd bursts of fireworks let off by people in their gardens over a two-week period beginning in the week before Bonfire Night, and there are big public displays around 5 November itself, including one in our little local park. This year, Friends of South Park Gardens has done its best and has asked local children to paint appropriate pictures to be displayed in the pavilion in the park and that's really all they can do. Boris Johnson was determined that England should not go into lockdown again (I said it'd been lifted too early!) but dire forecasts suggesting that the NHS could be overwhelmed as it struggled to cope with admissions of Covid-19 patients and those with the seasonal flu led him to take drastic action. The whole country is now in lockdown for four weeks, with some small concessions over the last lockdown.

Educational establishments, dentists and garden centres will remain open and stores that can provide a 'click and collect' service (where customers order online and collect their goods at a specified time) will be allowed to do this. Non-essential shops are now closed and hairdressers, beauty salons, massage parlours etc are shut so I guess all of these were inundated in the period between the news of the lockdown being announced and midnight on Wednesday. Funerals can still go ahead with a limited number of mourners but anyone hoping to get married any time in the next month will have to put their wedding breakfast on ice! I just watched BBC1 News and learnt that register offices were open until just before midnight yesterday and packed in as many weddings as they possibly could. My sister's godson Malcom just made it – he and his partner got married two weeks ago and must be very glad they didn't book it for a slightly later date! Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will make their own decisions about whether or not to impose a lockdown and I'm not clear at the moment what the situation is in these parts of the UK. Writing the Journal I was going to stop writing this journal and just integrate Covid-related things into my 'normal' Journal but felt that in the circumstances, I should continue a bit longer (though I could imagine this dragging on not just for months but years!) Managed to email Michael Ward (who asked people to submit Covid diaries for his project at Swansea University). I got the email address wrong first time and it bounced but I've got hold of him now and he's still collecting submissions. What Christmas? It's increasingly looking as if Christmas will have to be cancelled this year – or at least drastically scaled back. Part of the reason for imposing the second lockdown was apparently to "save Christmas" but at this point, I'm extremely doubtful whether anyone will be officially allowed to celebrate Christmas with more than those in their support bubble, so those who usually have to cook for 16 or 17 people should get a break this year! Mum is very gloomy about it and says she thinks we'll have to forget the idea altogether and celebrate it when all this blows over, but will it ever blow over? At the moment, I find that hard to believe! Testing One major city (Liverpool) has brought in a universal testing scheme – all residents can be tested for the virus and, if they wish, take repeated tests. Whether the swabs will be tested in a laboratory or whether the results will be available at home, I'm not sure, but I can see advantages and disadvantages in each. If you can get results at home, people should be able to get the results more quickly and could be more likely to take a test. If you have to send the swab away to a laboratory, there would be an official record of test results. On the other hand, home testing won't necessarily lead to people who test positive taking the legally-required precautions and lab testing would presumably be more expensive and time-consuming. It'll be interesting to see what comes of the experiment. EcoElliec consequences of the new lockdown

Probably the main reason why Boris Johnson wanted to avoid a second lockdown was the inevitable ecoElliec impact it will have. Rishi Sunak, our beleaguered but resilient Chancellor of the Exchequer, today announced that he is extending the 'Furlough' scheme (which pays employees 8% of their usual income) until March 2021. With what? I ask. The country is so heavily in debt I'm surprised we're not all surrounded by water and struggling to keep our heads above it, and I keep hearing about all these enormous bailouts. I can't get my head around it, I'm afraid. Maybe you get to the point where (as Chancellor) you say "Oh, well, what does another £6 billion matter? when it's a tiny amount compared with the size of the national debt. Surely we can't carry on like this? I feel so sorry for all the businesses that were struggling to keep going and were just hovering on the edge of bankruptcy. This latest lockdown could sound the death knell for them. Social, psychological and other effects of the virus It keeps hitting me how devastating this virus has been and will be for every aspect of our lives: social, psychological, physical, emotional, spiritual, financial. One thing that's popped into my consciousness several times is how it's affecting our experience of personal space. We are social beings and most of us enjoy doing social things – mixing with our friends, doing things in groups, entertaining, being entertained… But most of us have at least some desire to maintain personal space in some areas of our lives. I love being with Gordon, but quite enjoyed the times when he went out to classes or on courses or (occasionally) on trips abroad. It wasn't that there was anything I wanted to on my own – it just gave me a chance to be with myself in a different way. Some things I choose to do on my own. For example, I don't like de- fuzziing my legs when he's around. I'm not sure why – I just choose to do it when he's out. And now he's hardly ever out, it's hard to find the time to do it. We get on really well and can be together 24/7 for months on end without argument, but I do feel the need for an occasional bit of solitude. I realise how much more difficult it must be for people who don't get on well. Couples who, in 'normal' times, lived virtually separate lives. Or people living in abusive relationships, who need the safety of solitude to escape psychological, emotional or physical trauma. And what about people who are conducting clandestine extramarital affairs which they haven't been able to keep up because of lockdown or having counselling unknown to their partner? I think there must be potential there for a study – maybe it'd make a good Ph.D. topic (but I sure as heck ain't going to put myself forward for another one of those! Property rentals and sales Mum's friend Rita has been trying to let her house for the last couple of weeks. She's buying a flat to move to and was a bit despondent when (despite a lot of people looking round) she had no firm offers in the first week. When I heard we were due to have another lockdown, I thought she could get stuck, unable to open it for viewings for at least another month. Apparently, she does have a couple interested in renting it so I just hope that will go through. I've just read that estate agents are able to continue with viewings, providing they take the necessary precautions, and I think that's an improvement on the last lockdown. Brexit What on earth happened to Brexit? Prior to Covid-19, all we heard about was Brexit. Since then, it's been conspicuous by its absence from the media. Somehow, the global problem has relegated our all-important

negotiations to a backwater and now, with the deadline looming (or has it already gone?) I gather at least one of the UN negotiators is out of action because of the virus. I'm dreading us leaving without a deal but it's looking more likely, I'm afraid! Life was already complicated enough with Brexit looming and Covid-19 has made it several times more challenging.

22 November 2020 Had a Skype call with Robert, Scarlett, Jonathan, Jamie and Stuart32. Jamie (who manages international drug trials) has been switched from his usual work to Covid vaccine trials. He isn't worried about side effects, but is concerned about levels of efficacy. We asked him how on earth the drug companies were managing to conduct trials in such a short time-period (usually it takes years to develop drugs) and he said that under the present circumstances, phases 2,3 and 4 of the trials were all being run simultaneously. I'm not sure what implications this has for safety-testing!

26 November 2020 Do you want the good news or the bad news? The good news (various bits):

• Our second lockdown ends on 2 December.

• Shops will be open just in time for us to do our Christmas shopping.

• Three good vaccines have been developed against Covid-19 and are expected to be distributed worldwide very soon.

• We can get together with two other households for five days over Christmas.

• It hasn't snowed yet.

The bad news:

• After the end of national lockdown, we'll all be in tiers (and very likely in tears!) The country will be divided up into risk areas, with those where the virus is rifest having stronger restrictions imposed.

• The let-up over Christmas will possibly send the number of Covid cases soaring (my view).

• The UK is facing the worst recession in 300 years.

We had an interesting chat with Jamie, Gordon's nephew's partner, who is working for an international company that runs major international drug trials. He's been working on vaccine trials and says he'll be happy to take the vaccine when it's offered. If he's happy, I'll be happy to take it myself. Last I heard, there were various priority groups, with people in residential homes and those working in residential homes at the top of the list followed by people aged 80 and over and social and health care workers. Gordon and I (both

in the 65+ age group) will be about fourth in line. I think the groups may be tweaked a bit as some people are arguing (quite sensibly) that younger people with serious health problems should be in a higher priority group than they would be if banded simply according to their age.

15 December 2020 Bleak news. London is about to move into Tier 3 (the most restrictive tier) and the virus has developed a new strain which may or may not be prevented by the vaccines that are currently being rolled out. Mum had a call from her GP surgery a few days ago to book her in for her first of two doses of the vaccine and has to go to the Hospital next week for that. A lot of emails on TEMSmail33 about the pros and cons of the vaccine, with at least two people saying they don't intend to accept it when it's offered. Conspiracy theories are rife in the media, with some pushing around an alarmist notion that what we'll actually be getting when we do get the shot is something designed by the Government to control and manipulate us. That debate will run and run, but the news at present is depressing, with the number of people suffering with the virus increasing in many areas of the UK and other countries. It's been a hard year for everyone and with the threat of a no-deal Brexit hovering over us and a clouded Christmas (when temporary relaxation of the rules seems almost certain to lead to a hike in numbers of Covid cases) I don't suppose anyone feels like celebrating. The U3A book (U3A in the Time of Corona) is out – I ordered three copies and got them last week – and the initial print-run of 500 has already sold out and the Third Age Trust hasn't even advertised it yet! (The sales so far came as a result of publicity sent out by the editing team). It looks good, but a typo leapt out at me almost as soon as I started looking at it, and I'm supposed to have proofread the whole thing!

19 December 2020 I've just finished reading this diary to date, to edit it for confidentiality and add footnotes. Came out of it reeling, a bit confused and having a sense of losing my grasp on reality (a mixture of pain, broken sleep and the most bizarre year I can ever remember!) I'd just put it all in the folder, ready to type up the amendments and additions, when I found a message on NextDoor that London is now in a new Tier 4. We will only be able to meet other families for one day over Christmas (instead of five) and from tomorrow, we're going back into another lockdown with hairdressers, gyms and (I think) non-essential shops having to close. At first I thought any meeting at Christmas was off and was about to ring Mum to let her know (I'm going to her place to be with her and Hannah on Christmas Day and Gordon is going to his brother's – a family tradition). The Government is so worried about the new strain of the virus that it's had to take drastic action. Ah… Gordon is on the phone to his brother, who thinks we won't even be allowed to share Christmas Day with others. I think we need to watch the news!

20 December 2020 So that's it for Christmas! I found a message on NextDoor suggesting the intended relaxation over Christmas had been revoked, that all of London and the south-east was now in a new Tier 4 and that only

support bubbles34 could meet on Christmas Day. Elsewhere in the country (England) people will be allowed to meet with two other families/bubbles on Christmas Day but the five-day 'throw it all to the winds' jollification was to be cancelled. As you can imagine, this has led to chaos, dismay, anger, resignation, confusion, rebelliousness and many other states of mind. Anyone planning last-minute shopping for Monday-Thursday (or even today) will have had their present intentions scuppered (unless they go online and it could be too late for that!) Shops must be dismayed – or at least, the people running them – because they must've been counting on big sales in the run-up to Christmas. And people planning big dinners for themselves and two other families will be left with enormous amounts of food they can't share. Travel plans are in chaos – what on earth people are supposed to do if they followed advice and booked trains in advance, I've no idea. People who've had a miserable, lonely year on their own and were clinging to the prospect of seeing family and grandchildren on Christmas Day will be pushed back into darkness. This step has been taken because a new "very virulent" strain of Covid-19 is pushing up case-and death- numbers – it began in the south-east, in Kent, I think. We are, as far as I know, the only country to have managed a mutation (typical of us, stupid Brits!) but I gather some people who'd been in contact with new- strain sufferers have travelled abroad, and that is very bad news. It's just occurred to me that if someone could organise it, all the excess, unusable food could be collected and given to people in financial difficulty. It's true most people here have freezers, but some food is going to go to waste – and an enterprising person could maybe do something with it. When I first heard the news, I thought we'd at least have Christmas Day to celebrate with family, but Gordon rang his brother, who said we wouldn't even get that and he was right. I rang Mum (as usual) last night and we agreed it was just one of those things and for the best. Re Christmas, we plan to do a Skype with Stuart, Jamie, Rob and Scarlett at 4.00 on Christmas Day and a Zoom session with Mum and Hannah at another time. Hannah's organising two Zoom sessions for family members just after Christmas, but I haven't got dates yet. I certainly don't plan to buy meat for us – I would if Gordon wanted it, but he doesn't. When we first got together he was a dedicated meat eater and vowed he would never give it up. Since he started developing spirituality/psychically, he's given up both meat and alcohol, and I was very happy not to eat meat as I was eating very little anyway and preferred fish. I suggested we put a Charlie Bigham's fish pie we bought on Friday (eat by 21 December) in the freezer for Christmas Day and have something else tonight.

1 January 2021 I think it's time I drew this journal to a conclusion. Covid-19 has been with us now for nine months, affecting our lives in ways that no one would have believed possible this time last year. If you'd told me back in March, when the first lockdown was brought in, that at the beginning of 2021 we'd be in an even worse situation in terms of the number of cases of and deaths from Covid than we were at that time, I'd have told you not to be so pessimistic and sent you on your way – of course it'd all be over by the summer and our lives could get back to normal! This could go on for a very long time. To date, there have been 2.49m reported cases in the UK and 83.6m worldwide (with 1.82m deaths). Vaccines have recently been developed to protect us against this dreadful disease, but around the time it was announced that these vaccines had been approved and could be rolled out, new variants of the

disease started to rear their ugly heads. One has been identified in the UK (also reported in several European nations as well as Canada and Japan) and another one in South Africa, and in both cases they spread more easily than the original virus. Health services around the world are being pushed to breaking point and there is no sign that things will ease up in the near future. London went into Tier 4 (with the toughest English restrictions) recently and now 90% of the country has been forced into Tier 4 in a desperate attempt to control the spread of the disease. The only good national news is that, just in time for Christmas, Boris Johnson was able to announce that he had agreed a trade deal with the European Union. It is well over 1,000 pages long and the details have yet to be pored over, but MPs have voted for it and hopefully the UK can move ahead with a small degree of confidence. The ecoElliec situation for the UK is bleak, with many businesses having sunk beneath the waves and with huge numbers of citizens in financial difficulties. Education is in turmoil and whether or not children will be able to return to school this month is an unknown. Testing is supposed to have been rolled out to schools but in many cases they are not yet ready to go (that's as far as I understand it). Our health service is under levels of strain that would have been hard to imagine (they were already under severe strain before all this started) and the emotional and psychological health of the population have taken a nosedive. Where will it all end? My mum wrote off last year. Perhaps she has already written off this year as well! I will continue to write about the Covid situation, but plan to incorporate it into my regular weekly journal. Keeping two journals isn't a great idea, though it will be useful to be able to look back and find a lot of the Covid references all in one place. Let's just hope that this time next year, we're all feeling more hopeful!

18 January 2021 I suppose to round things off I should sum-up where we are now, 10 months from the UK's first lockdown. According to a source on my smartphone (not sure who published it) 95.1m cases of Covid have been recorded in the world to date and 2.03m deaths. In the UK, there have been 3.4m cases and 89,261 deaths. Of course, these figures are not accurate (e.g. these represent only notified cases and – at least in the UK – Covid deaths include deaths of people who have died of any cause a set number of days after receiving a Covid diagnosis). The figures are not levelling off in the UK – in fact the number of daily deaths has been much higher this month that it was in the autumn. We do expect an increase in the number of deaths during winter, but as I understand it there have been far more deaths than would be predicted from usual patterns. New variants Just as we had news of various effective vaccines, new variants of Covid-19 were identified in various countries including the UK, South Africa and Brazil. At least some of these spread more readily than the original strain. I don't think we know yet whether they are prevented by the vaccines now in use. Economy and businesses

Many UK businesses are failing, putting people out of work and putting huge financial strains on families. The arts are really suffering and some well-established providers in this sector (including theatres, orchestras etc) have collapsed or are in danger of doing so. Some businesses (e.g. social media, manufacturers of personal protective equipment, online retailers) have experienced a boom in business but for the majority, the situation is extremely bleak. Many of those who do still have work are having to work from home. Education In the UK, all schools are closed (although I believe key workers' children and some children with special educational needs are still receiving education). What teaching does go on is being done online. Universities have had to adapt to doing all their teaching online. Obviously, this has severe limitations for some courses and it means that students are being entirely prevented from enjoying the very important social aspects of the 'student experience' and are having to spend their days physically isolated in their rooms. Shops and shopping In the UK, only essential shops (e.g. food stores, chemists and hardware stores) are allowed to open. Banks and building societies remain open but only for limited hours daily. Many more people are now having to shop online. Hospitality, fitness etc Hotels, restaurants, pubs, gyms, hairdressers, beauty salons and massage establishments are all closed. Health Dentists are allowed to provide services but only with strict anti-Covid precautions. GPs are doing as many consultations as possible by telephone and outpatient clinics are also operating telephone appointments where possible. Hospitals are at the point of being unable to cope, overwhelmed by cases of Covid, cancelling important investigations and treatments (e.g. for cancer) and having to rely on staff who are more stressed than ever before. Social life The entire British population is forced to stay at home, leaving only for specific reasons (to do essential shopping, to go to work if they are unable to work from home, to attend medical appointments or go to a pharmacy, to provide care to someone or for exercise). People are relying on social media such as Zoom, Skype, Facetime and WhatsApp to keep in touch with friends and family. This is having very serious effects on mental health and those who have no computer access and those in abusive relationships are facing particular difficulties. Many grandparents cannot meet, let alone hug their grandchildren, many people living in nursing and residential homes cannot have visits from their close relatives and people are dying alone because of the danger of spreading the virus.

Holidays and foreign travel No one can have a holiday either in this country or abroad – not even a weekend break to relieve the gloom. As far as I know, people with second homes have had to opt for one or the other – they cannot flit between the two or even make a single journey to their second property. Prospects At the moment, it's hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel. We do now have vaccines and work has started in earnest to ensure that the whole population is vaccinated. But this is going to take many months and meanwhile, the number of cases in many countries continues to rise.