Blog 40. Four Weeks in and beginning to get restless now.

I first became aware of a problem when Jane gave a lee lurch and listed over to starboard, like a frigate over-pressed with sail caught in a squall.  Confirmation was received when she then heeled over to port after bouncing off the dressing table, and flopped onto the bed.  Clearly, she was either in a state of loll, had been hitting the cooking sherry, or was suffering from some form of vertigo.  The last diagnosis seemed most likely, Jane not being a vessel on the high seas and normally being frighteningly abstemious when it comes to alcohol these days.  

So began the day in the Shacklepin household two days ago, and I greeted it with a sense of dread and concern.  Could this be the start of CV19 for Jane?  Could it be something worse?  How would we know and what could we do?  Well, a check on her temperature and a revision of the symptoms of CV19 on the internet fortunately ruled out the The Virus, which was a considerable relief.  What, in fact, she had was labyrinthitis, a condition of the ear that causes severe dizziness and nausea.  I know this because she has had it three times before and I have had it twice.  The treatment is to take seasick pills (it’s true) and rest until the situation improves.  Jane hates it.  Not just the dizziness and nausea, but because she cannot abide being idle (or, indeed, anyone else being idle, but that is another topic).  She is more-or-less resting and convalescing as I write, but the incident flagged up a worrying aspect of the collateral damage caused by CV19: what do you do if you are ill with something else?  GP appointment bookings on line were stopped weeks ago and the GP phone lines were seemingly permanently engaged the last time we rang, even before the present quarantine. The last time we went to the surgery, two weeks ago, to collect a prescription the queue stretched half way around the car park.   I wonder how many people, worried about a pain in their chest or with other physical concerns, are just struggling on with their symptoms and adding to them the stress of worry and uncertainty.  These truly are difficult times.

On a lighter note, the Tottering Jane incident has had its challenging moments, for me if not for her, poor soul.  On Day One I virtually had to carry her to the lavatory and, worst job of all, I had to give her a bath and shower.  It was tough, very tough, but someone had to do it.  It is a shame that shore-side domestic lavatories do not have grab handles on the bulkhead, such as may be found in the heads of HM Ships, for – as I left her one morning – Jane could be observed swaying gently on the seat of ease, as if coxing a sailing cutter close hauled into a Force 3.  Like the true sailor’s wife she is, she held steady.  As I write, she is a little better and – you will be pleased to know – can manage slowly under her own steam.

KADUNK. KADUNK. KADUNK. So the THUMP, THUMP, THUMP of the music a few days ago has been superseded by the children next door playing on an artificial ramp in the driveway with their scooters. Bless their little hearts. The noise started last night at 1845 and was still KADUNKing 1½ hours later when the sun set. And here it is again this lunchtime, more of the same. “They’ll soon get bored with that”, said Jane. I wouldn’t bet on it. Actually, you will be surprised to know that I feel the greatest sympathy for the children as they must be bored stiff with this enforced confinement; it must be equally hard for the parents who are trying to keep their children occupied, or self-taught, while perhaps trying to work at home themselves. In the Great Scheme of Things the KADUNK, KADUNK, KADUNK is the last thing that I should be worried about. But I do wish it would go away. [Post blog note: it did stop. They got bored]

The children with the scooters, by the way, belong to our neighbours who were having their garden rebuilt and a hot tub installed all those weeks ago when life was normal.  The work was suspended at lockdown, but it will – no doubt – continue some day.  There was one point, during the aforementioned work, when I wondered whether the contractors were indulging in open cast mining or exploring an alternative way to emigrate to Australia, such was the quantity of soil being excavated and taken away.  Hot tubs.  Hmmm.  I wonder if they realise just how much they cost to run and I wonder how long the novelty will last.

I have just taken a break from writing to provide some attention and comfort to the invalid, holed up in the Garden Control Tower on the deck below.  A few weeks ago she expressed some disquiet with the time I was spending on the computer: not a concern for my tired old eyes, you understand, but rather, I suspect, a concern for the time I was spending away from her, unsupervised,  and doing non-productive tasks (ie a blog) rather than work that she could be directing (finishing the fence has been mentioned).  So I went down to make her a cup of tea, only to find that she had cleaned and polished the sink and was half way through the process of dusting the drawing room, such process being undertaken with a lurch and occasional stagger as if the house were meeting an Atlantic swell.  Yes, I did try giving her a direct order to sit down and rest; no, it didn’t work.  My wife simply cannot sit still for five minutes, sick or well.

You remember how I wrote ( Blog 36) that Jane’s garden hates me? Well here is proof positive. The invasion has started. Plants have infiltrated the house and are now forming a Fifth Column in the Garden Control Tower. It seems Jane invited them in. I tried to protest: to warn her that, like vampires, plants should never be invited to cross the threshold, but – no – she had to do it. Trays of Things are now scattered around the windowsills, blocking the correct operation and function of the window blinds and smearing dirt on the blinds themselves. Jane coos and talks to them, and trickles water on them every night to the neglect of her Master and Commander who is waiting to be fed. So far no thorns or barbs have appeared and I am uninjured. But I am not fooled: soon I will brush against a tray and knock the whole lot on the floor. And there will be hell to pay.

We have not had the evening briefing yet, but the prediction is that lockdown will be continued for another three weeks despite the UK deaths from CV19 having plateaued.  This is bad news for the economy and I do not envy the government in balancing ‘death by virus’ against ‘death by poverty in a poor economy’.  Nevertheless, I think the time has come to ease the restrictions if we are not to suffer the consequences for generations to come.  The method of coming out of it all will be an interesting challenge.  There may be difficulty in persuading the workforce to return to their jobs, the government having done such a good job of scaring the bejesus out of everyone.  Already, and predictably, I see that the Teachers’ Union is opposing the suggestion that – as a first step – children should go back to school.  At least an easing of restrictions is supported by the Press and this may help in persuading the workforce to act for the common good.  Those fickle creatures, the journalists: the same ones that criticised the government for delaying lockdown are now carping that it should be lifted.  The little tinkers.

By the way, I have broken up my previously combined blogs about Australia back into their original short form so that reading them can be done in bite-size chunks. I hope that makes things easier for the reader. I have also managed – with some difficulty as a new blogger – to arrange all the blogs in chronological order. These monumental tasks cost me a great deal in angst from the memsahib, who maintained tartly that it took me six hours and that no one read the blogs anyway. Perhaps not, but it was fun writing them.

And so to the farm across the road to buy some fresh milk.  Life could be a lot worse.

16 April 2020