Monday 23rd March 2020

In the mid-80s, there was a book published, something like The Encyclopedia of the 20th century, a day by day history of what happened between 1900 and the current day. 1985 was an odd year to chose to publish, as this required annual update to bring it up to date. I read the first ten years, and learned about the opium wars, the Boxer Rebellion among other things.

Big stories happened, which we have largely forgotten about. A decade later the Spanish Flue pandemic happened, killing maybe hundreds of millions of people.

I wondered what it would be like to live through such tumultuous times. I read that upon seeing the City of London ablaze in 1666, Samuel Pepys buried a whole cheese in his back garden for safe keeping. He had just lived through an outbreak of the Black Death so he knew bad shit when he saw it.

So, we will all know what it is like to live through a pandemic, the sheer panic of not knowing how to deal with an unseen foe, not knowing who is and who isn't infected, trusting no one. Each night the infection rate and fatalities climb ever upwards, in an ever steepening slope, proving in real time that the policies our politicians have followed were the wrong ones and have signed death warrants. And there is no outsider or exterior organisation to blame, the buck stops with them. Teough Johnson and Trump will claim otherwise, they fiddled whilst the virus strengthened, infected and spread.

The next ten days will get grimmer, as numbers rise and rise. Only in ten days will we know if the lockdown, as it is, has worked.

So, to Monday. And at first it seemed a normal kind of day. For a Monday.

Up just after dawn now, as the year gets older. Sit with Jools to drink coffee, then once she left, go to do a session on the cross trainer.

We now have an early morning meeting on new MS Teams to catch up on news and for each to give a health update. We are jolly, but there is fear too. One of my colleagues has her partner work in the ICU at Aarhus hospital, she is pregnant and from Tuesday he is going on shift and they will not be able to meet again until, well, who knows when? So her unborn child is not affected.

We are cheery, but also know that for others it is serious. They are all missing not being in the office seeing each other, as we all are now working from our homes. I always work from home, so am unique in the team that the crisis hasn't really changed my life that much.

It will stop the church crawling and orchid hunting for sure, but otherwise, being an only child, I am comfortable with my own company. I do miss the footy though, that goes with out saying. But I'll say it anyway.

And outside it is a glorious day. Tough very cold. Or colder than it looks. I turn the heating down and am soon cold. But if I have it too warm, then the afternoon session on the cross trainer would be unbearable. It could be that I am just running hot so would get all hot and bothered no matter how cold it was.

I make soup for lunch, boiling veggies leftover from two weekends, then whizzing them up into a kind of mush, flavoured with curry powder and turmeric. It is very good.

But then I cooked it. And I made enough for two lunches.

I eat well.

And I work on, keeping on top of my tasks, listening to old Desert Island Discs and keeping an eye on Twitter, which isn't good for one's mental health to be honest, but knowing what is going on is also important. Its like watching a car crash in slow motion; you know how it will end, but can't help being fascinated.

For Jools there is no yoga, so she comes home at normal time. I make dinner and open a cheeky bottle of 2015 elderberry wine, home made of course. It is very drinkable.

I was happy enough.

We were listening to the radio when news came in about the lockdown.

Did this mean Jools could not go to work the next morning?

Is the a key worker as her employer is making parts for ventilators?

She texts her boss, and waits for an answer.

None comes before we go to bed, and we lay in the dark contemplating 21 days of lockdown, not being to walk in the woods or on the downs.

Its gonna be a long, long wait.