Groundhog day as the pandemic morphs into a general panic ........

Notes from a pandemic.

I text my children and grandchildren each day just to say Hi and to reassure them that I'm still around and planning to celebrate my 75th even if it's a Houseparty in lockdown city.

The other day I commented that we were living in limbo to which one response was that limbo was OK.

Not sure about that!

I don’t know how many of you have seen the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day?

The expression Groundhog Day is North American, in fact Groundhog Day is officially February 2nd.

It is the day that the Groundhog comes out of hibernation but should the animal see its shadow because of the sunshine it goes back into its hole and winter may continue for another six weeks.

I imagine that it is something like St Swithin’s Day whereby should it rain on July 15th tradition has it we can expect another 40 days of rain.

The other meaning of Groundhog Day, which formed the central conceit of the film, is a situation in which a series of unwelcome or tedious events appear to be recurring each day in exactly the same way.

As one quote reveals: ‘she lived an unrelenting Groundhog Day of laundry, shopping, and rearing us kids’.

It is beginning to feel that way as the lockdown will be extended for at least another month and for those of us who are over 70 and have underlying health conditions, possibly even longer.

Yesterday we heard an aeroplane fly overhead it was a strange almost foreboding noise, one we, under normal circumstances, take for granted but which, at first, sounded vaguely foreboding.

It is hard to say whether the improvements in the weather are related to the lockdown, less traffic and flights, but there is an eerie connection as the sun wakes us most mornings and whilst still cold, the days are sunny.

On our flight back from Sicily in January I sat next to a rather large lady who coughed and sneezed her way from Taormina to Gatwick, at the time I was concerned about Flu or a cold but now I am just relieved that it was not worse than that and that I didn’t present with either Flu or a cold when I returned home.

I find it hard to listen to the daily briefing as the procession of cabinet ministers walk to the podium and share the gloom for a moment or two. As many commentators have remarked, in the absence of the Prime Minister, it is clear that, at best, those who have represented him at the briefings would have been hard pressed to achieve a junior rank in any previous administration.

It is hard to say what the future holds given that, despite now having the highest death rate in Europe, the Government announce that its plan is working but already some are forecasting that this will be the first wave of deaths linked to the virus and as the lockdown is lifted there will be further deaths.

So the future continues to  be uncertain and a little precarious even if the general truth is that death and taxes cannot ultimately be avoided it seems that there might well be more deaths and the economic impact of the virus means higher taxes.

We can only hope that the highest paid pay their taxes as an act of social solidarity and don't simply stand on their balconies applauding the NHS.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Are you sitting comfortably then I will begin ........

  Do you remember  Listen with Mother  the programme always opened with the phrase "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin".   My memory of it brings back strong emotions as I recall as a young child how the ritual involved a sense of snuggling down on my mother’s knee to hear the story being read.   In our psalm today, psalm 34 we are invited to say with the psalmist at verse 8, Happy are those who take refuge in him.   The idea of taking refuge involves quite literally hiding yourself in God or in your parents love.   Which is why I found myself transported back in time to the memory of hiding myself in my Mother’s protection as I was asked ‘Are you sitting comfortably?’   This image of a small child wrapped in it’s Mother’s arms, protected, warm, loved, the sense of being happy, as the psalmist invites us to imagine the possibility of taking refuge in God.   Of being protected, warm and loved which brings with it a deep sense of cont...
Read more

To Theophilus friend of God ......

  People who like quizzes might prefer me to begin with a question such as: Who wrote a quarter of the New Testament? The answer is of course St Luke. Luke the Evangelist wrote both the Gospel that bears his name but also the Acts of the Apostles. As an evangelist Luke was writing from the perspective of a historian about events that he had not witnessed personally. However his writing in the Acts of the Apostles suggests that he was describing activities in which he was involved. Luke indicates that he was not an eyewitness to the events described in his Gospel he does 'repeatedly' use the word 'we' in describing the missionary journeys that he presumably undertook with Paul and which he describes in the Acts of the Apostles. In Colossians Paul writes: Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings.  A near contemporary historian, Epiphanious, suggests that Luke could have been one of the seventy we read about in the Gospel set for the Feast of St Luke. As ...
Read more

Conviviality and a personal history .........

  There are many synonyms:  friendliness, geniality, affability, amiability, congeniality, good humour, cordiality, warmth, warm-heartedness, good nature, sociability, gregariousness, clubbability, companionability, cheerfulness, cheeriness, good cheer, joviality, jollity, gaiety, liveliness, festivity, bonhomie. And one rather sad antonym: unfriendliness.   In interdiac the definition of conviviality has three elements drawn from an understanding of the social and community aspects of life in the Iberian Peninsula where Moslems were able to live freely and openly with their Jewish and Christian neighbours.   The conviviality of life in 19 th  Century Paris with its free and unconstrained conversation.   The work and writings of Ivan Illich in which he described the transformation of relationships between people and their environment and technology.   In Manchester in the early 1970’s I worked in an inner-city environment which was scheduled ...
Read more