Writing this between the announcement last night from Boris, and the detail and clarification to be issued to Parliament this afternoon – which a cynic may say has given them time to adjust based on the feedback from what can best be described as a well articulated but meaningless speech from Boris.
I am no fan at all of either him or his merry men, but I will say that he has come over as more statesman like than I thought, although that in no way means I think he is good, or that he is doing a good job.
Good leaders identify and strengthen their weaknesses and they learn from mistakes and improve – he has done neither.
In many ways the mood and desire of the public and companies is irrelevant. You will never please all of the people all of the time, everyone will argue they are an exception, so what is really required is a firm but fair decision to be made, and communicated clearly and unambiguously – i.e. exactly the opposite of what is happening.
Save lives, then rebuild the economy. Reward those that comply, discipline those that don’t. Don’t assume people will understand or adhere, make them understand and comply.
But enough of that …..
Another OK week for us. I have said before that in many ways social distancing has had very little impact on us. Not that we have been untouched by it, or would welcome some sensible adjustments, but I have long said that I think that the first meaningful changes will come at the end of June, and then again at the end of August, with a return to ‘normal’ in time for Christmas. We are all working to those timescales and have no real issues: both our parents are coping well, our pets are coping well, we are coping well so all is OK.
It will be good to have my parents come for a meal once or twice a week, and to meet up with friends to walk the dogs, but honestly that is it. Restaurant, sport, pub, cafe, cinema can all wait as long as is necessary. I doubt either of us will be in a rush to fly to Spain this year, but I will drive over at some stage to do some maintenance on the apartment.
Talking of driving I did an emergency pet transport this week, to Pudsey of all places, a mile from my 90 year old Godfather so guess what? I went to see him! He sat in a chair in his garden and I sat about four metres away and we had a chat.
We were not alone, well we were, but we were not by any means the only ones enjoying the sunshine. I don’t think I have ever seen as many suntanned people in Yorkshire in May in all my life, and Pudsey was interesting.
Let me explain ….
Where we live we are part of a small barn conversion of 6 properties and the original farm house. Whilst not in the middle of nowhere we have no other neighbours and no amenities are within walking distance. We drive each day to a local area where we can walk the dogs, but this doesn’t take us through any built up area as such as we turn off before our local town. When we go to drop food at my parents we drive two junctions on the motorway and then A roads before a country lane to their property, which is a pretty quiet area as well …. so again, no built up areas.
Result is that we have had very little visual contact with the impact of COVID-19 (at best we get three households clapping the NHS), so to see that Pudsey was moderately busy was interesting. Most of the fish and chip shops were open for pick up (I mean it takes more than a virus to come between a Yorkshireman and his Fish n Chips), a few local food shops were trading, with no signs of Social Distancing guidelines been broken and I would say at least half the gardens had people in them just chilling out eating and drinking, chatting over the fence to neighbours and passersby. All very sociable. All very sensible.
My Godfather is doing well, but you would expect that from his generation, and he had a good point that he was really only missing a weekly church social with the people he has known all his life: they are all old, they are all self isolating, and to allow them into a church hall for a cup of tea and a biscuit whist maintaining social distancing would surely be no risk at all, and as one of his friends had commented; as COVID usually killed you off within 10 days at 90+ he was happy to risk that as a quick end far more preferable to a long steady decline or pointless fight with a terminal illness.
Am focussing at the moment on fitness and health, which is going pretty well. Hopefully the clarification this afternoon will allow us to take the dogs for longer walks each day and I am looking forward to the exercise bike arriving this week.
Apart from that we are trying to spend more time in the garden, and I am doing a little writing and contributing to a few podcasts. They have just started doing TRACES again so Sands is busy organising the paperwork for 25 cats that are going to new homes in Germany this month. Business pretty much as normal then ….
Stay Safe, Be Nice!