Crisis? What crisis?

I’ve been reflecting on this for a while now. The year began with Australia burning. The amount of water that fell on the UK in the space of three weeks was almost unheard of. There is a locust swarm that has been ravaging east Africa for the last few weeks and is continuing heading west eating all in its path. And now, we have a new virus attacking mankind causing global mayhem. Think on, we are only a fifth of the way into the 21st century. 

I won’t see it out. I’ll be over the moon to get another 20 years but I might have been too sinful since my youth to pin too much hope on that. My grandchildren might, though. Perhaps Greta Thunberg has something. I don’t mean climate change per se, but is it time for the young to mobilise communities and cultures to change the way we do things. Humanity is greater than profit. 

That’s a great sound bite and when I was 16 I believed it. Now, whilst that simple optimism sits at the bottom of the layer cake that is my brain, I know that it is much more complicated than that. I line up with whole raft of sociologists on that one.

The silence outside our window belies the chaos I’ve just described. This is Day 1 for us in self isolation. At the end of a week where we saw one of our brides get married in front of 3 people instead of the 100 she’d been expecting and our booking calendar wiped out for the next three months we are having a Sunday morning lie in. Probably our first in a couple of years. Suddenly there is nowhere to go, nothing that needs doing. 

I’ve made coffee and toast and we’re sat up reading our books. Fi is non-fiction, something about Edward 1st, and I’m into a collection by Flannery O’Connor.

Tux, our black cat, thinks that the opportunity to lie on a duvet with a warm body beneath it is too good to miss and pokes his head first under one book then the other in order to dislodge it from his preferred lying down space. Finally he shoves my iPad away and settles on me.

We both know that our combined body heat will become too much for one of us and our communing will be over but for now, even though I want to read, his purring is melting.

Meanwhile, Edward spends thousands on another war and Fi goes back to dozing.

We have all been thrown into something we’ve never experienced before and people will find their own ways of dealing with it. I’m glad that my kids are grown and that I don’t have the challenge of entertaining youngsters, at least. And though the news may be gloomy you must stay informed. Another wartime reference though might tip me over the edge. The only thing lacking soon will be radios playing Vera Lynn.

A car slips by. The first for ages. I sit and think of all the projects I can get done during the coming weeks and it bouys me somewhat. You know, the fun stuff at last. I might even get to blog more. Write more, draw and paint more, build another guitar – wouldn’t that be something ! Read more. Watch the movies I’ve missed out on. Ride my bike – woo hoo!

Tux has overheated and jumped down to the floor. I am released. Suddenly there’s so much to do.