Tuesday, November 03, 2020

How are you feeling?

'What's the matter? Are you depressed? I'm amazed how many people are depressed by lockdown,' Dave has been saying to me since Saturday night.

But I'm not depressed. Lockdown doesn't make an appreciable difference to me since Sheffield was put into Tier 3 and seeing my family there has been off the cards.

Also, my reading about WW2 is having the desired effect of making me see that things could be a hell of a lot worse. This year I've read The (unexpurgated) Diary of Anne Frank, All the Light We Cannot See (set in WW2), A Chelsea Concerto (about living through the Blitz) and now I'm in the middle of reading Nella Last's War, a housewife's account of living through WW2 in a shipbuilding town, which was subject to bombing. 

It's rather that I am upset. Yesterday Cece (8) in Colorado and I Facetimed and she showed me a short video that we used to watch together when she was 2, and I found I was crying. What's that about? 

Yes, I'm upset. If the situation is now so bad that even B.Johnson Esq thinks we need a lockdown then it must be absolutely dire. He has dithered since March, doing too little too late, every step of the way. 

I am upset that because of his dithering, employees who could now be getting furlough payments have already been made redundant. I am upset for all the care workers and NHS staff who are working under immense stress. I am upset for all the families who cannot pay their rent, who are having to turn to foodbanks, who are depending on Universal Credit and having to wait five weeks for payments. 

What this country needed in a time of national crisis was a firm and solid leader. I can't imagine Margaret Thatcher being so useless. Good grief! Things must be bad if I'm coming out with stuff like that.

Let's change the subject. 

Here, for your delectation, is a view of our village which I took on my bike ride this morning.



Keep well, friends, keep cheerful, and be kind.


 

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