Sunday 2nd August 2020 – Keeping silent
Although small “live” services are now taking place at my church on a weekday, Sunday services are still Zoomed. Today about half a dozen local Methodist churches join together for one service. I now know that when over 50 people Zoom, you don’t get a screen with lots of tiny images – you get two screens, and can switch between the two. One advantage of Zooming is that we can share lively YouTube videos of hymns sung by young people accompanied by a modern band, made by churches across the UK and elsewhere in the world. We Methodists like to sing, or at least make a good attempt, and these “singalong” presentations leave us humming the tune after the service. Singing is not allowed during our live services during these virus-precautionary times.
Guidance for churches services keeps evolving. My church has met three times for services, the latest being last Wednesday, with social distancing, but no masks, since masks are not required by either Government or national church guidance. Those attending can comfortably remain over 2m away from others, all facing forwards, and the church is well ventilated. Another local Methodist church has decided that masks will be required in their building. Masks will be mandatory in all churches from 8th August.
Mum-in-Law was back for Sunday Lunch today, for the second time, and hopefully this will now be a regular engagement after four months of abstention. We asked about the regular clubs that she used to attend. Does she think that they will be meeting again soon? She doubted it – social distancing will not work. No matter how seating is arranged, or what lines are on the floor, members will inevitably be drawn towards each other. “Why?” we ask. “Because they are all deaf!”
Friday 7th August 2020 – The citizens of Leicester are released
Working in our city centre office today, and I shop briefly at lunchtime. I am not a fan of self-service checkouts, which usually takes me at least twice as long as conventional checkouts, and takes considerably more staff involved to undo my mistakes. The Covid-precautionary arrangements at WH Smiths ensure that great effort is required to get to a conventional checkout, and I resort to the easy-access self-service version. At least I am only purchasing a single newspaper, although obviously I have to scan it twice before waving my phone over the screen to pay for it. I have to queue to pay in Marks and Spencer, and I get even more impatient than I normally do in a queue, thanks to wearing a mask on the hottest day of the year so far.
It is a long day at work, thanks to people partying noisily in their gardens on a hot afternoon, and it is early evening by the time I wend my way back across the city centre to the car park. This will be the first weekend following the relaxation of the Leicester Lockdown, and the night-time economy is waking up and stretching in the evening sunshine, doormen chatting, owners checking social-distancing signs, and early customers having a beer. The streets are busy, and one or two bars are already noisier than they should be. After months of restrictions folk want to celebrate their freedom. For this first day of enthusiastic freedom after release from Lockdown, the City Council and Police have set up a Control Room, adjacent to our office, for a rapid response to whatever they feel needs rapidly responding to, and my colleague on duty has been warned that he may be asked to assist. I am glad that I am not on call tonight.
Thursday 13th August 2020 – Eat Out to Help Out
Working last night, on call for noisy neighbours and the like, on a night that was hot and sultry. My colleague and I toured the city in a pool car with inadequate air conditioning, and with open windows just drawing in warm moist air over our warm moist masks.
The Government has recently introduced the “Eat Out To Help Out” scheme, 50% off of restaurant meals from Monday to Wednesday, subsidised by the Government to resurrect the restaurant trade after premises have been closed for 4 months. Our first call took us along the main London Road that enters the city from affluent suburbs. As the road approaches the city centre it becomes lined with restaurants, and it appears that the scheme is a success. Queues stretched from one venue to the next, with only the intervening estate agents separating lines of expectant diners. The restaurants may be socially distancing customers when inside, but the queuing customers were most definitely not socially isolating. Some restaurants were close enough for the queues to meet, a continuous line of customers, mostly young, stretching along an entire block, with no attempt at social distancing. I commented that surely tables needed to be booked, and so why turn up early? My (much younger) colleague explained that most restaurants allocated half of their tables for pre-bookings, and the other half for walk-ins, hence the queues. He had queued at a favourite restaurant for almost two hours on the previous evening.
This first journey then took us into Spinney Hill, the densely populated area at the heart of the recent Covid spike in the City. Once again, we drove along a very busy road lined with restaurants, this time much smaller, most in premises that were originally terraced houses. Once again each had queues, but more noticeable were the gatherings of between 10 and 20 people, mostly, but not exclusively, young, standing at street corners and outside the restaurants, take-aways, and “sweet shops” (in practice ethnic bakeries), businesses that traditionally remain open until late in this part of town. The area was buzzing and lively, a good thing on a normal Friday or Saturday night, but not on a Pandemic-Wednesday.
Tuesday 18th August 2020 – Just as it used to be?
A gloriously normal trip to the pub last night. Five of us, with three dogs, walked down the slightly muddy country footpath to the village pub, and settled together at a table. I went to the bar, had a brief chat with the barmaid, and ordered the first round. We all chatted amiably, sometimes animatedly, occasionally talking over each other or interrupting, rejoicing in the natural flow of conversation after weeks of stilted talking during lockdown zoom-pub gatherings. Someone kindly went to the bar and bought a second round. It was a traditional weekly Tuesday Night “Dog Walk”. Just as it used to be.
Except, of course, it wasn’t just as it used to be. I had to text our details to the pub, and in reply I received a text reminding us of the rules – a maximum of six people outside, or two households per table inside. Despite damp seats after earlier rain, we settled safely outside, and stayed there despite the evening becoming cool. We scanned the “QR” code on the table to leave our details for track and trace purposes – my visit, and the subsequent visit, to the bar was only allowed because our texted order hadn’t been received, and the barmaid only realised our presence when I popped inside the pub briefly to sanitise my hands. Because, and only because, the pub was quiet, we were allowed to order from the bar.
Last week I went to church for the first time in months, seeing and greeting friends, settling onto my seat to listen to the preacher, with uplifting PowerPoint presentations and music, and afterwards we had cheerful farewell’s and “See You Next Time” as we headed for home. Just as it used to be. Except, of course, it wasn’t just as it used to be. We had all filed into the building one at a time, 2m apart, as our contact details were noted for track and trace. We sat two or three chairs apart, other than households who sat together, all avoiding chairs marked with an “X”, in the interests of social distancing. There was no hymn singing, and everyone wore a mask throughout the service, before being guided out one at a time along the one-way system to the exit door. Vulnerable church members stayed at home. The preacher noted that at least the church, with the congregation spread out, appeared to be full, and that it was the first time that he had seen people queuing to get into a church on a Sunday.
I have not had to queue at a supermarket for weeks, shelves are fully stocked, and customers and staff are relaxed and polite, and many stores no longer have a one-way system. Just as it used to be. Except, of course, it wasn’t just as it used to be. We all don masks as we approach the front door, sanitise hands and trolley handle as we enter, and keep our distance from others as we browse. The cashier greets from behind a high screen, and we hand-sanitise again after loading the shopping into the car boot.
When social isolation rules were announced in March everything was a novelty; staying local, working from home, pubs closed, schools closed, shoppers queuing, shelves bare, and the daily Government news conference reporting the latest death tally from Covid-19. All very unsettling, disconcerting, and frustrating, but surely, all we had to do was to live with the changes for just a few weeks, and then we could all get back to normal? Back to just as it used to be? It will a long time before everything is just as it used to be.
Wednesday 26th August – Testing times
My Wife and I make a daily report of our health on the St Thomas’s “C-19” phone app, a research project tracking Covid to track how fast the disease is spreading in local areas, and looking at risk factors. We answer two simple questions; Have you been tested? Do you feel physically normal? Last week my wife felt somewhat light headed and tired after a long car journey, and so told the app that, no, she wasn’t feeling physically normal. I’m not sure what further questions were asked, but she was not only invited to have a home Covid-test, but she also accepted an invitation for the other two of us in the household to be tested. Thanks.
The test kits duly arrived. I was the last one to test myself – the couriers delivered the kits at lunchtime, and I am sure that baked-bean contamination from my beans on toast would affect the result. Consequently, the others were packaging the swabs ready for return as I discretely popped upstairs to use the bathroom mirror to navigate the swab to my tonsils, as recommended. I was not discrete for long. As the swab approached to within 2cm of my tonsils I retched loudly in anticipation. I tried again and almost saw the baked beans for a second time.
I stomped downstairs announcing that I there was no way I could produce a sample, and in any case, I have no symptoms, and I am fine, thank you very much. My wife had other ideas, threatening to swab my tonsils herself, as I fled back upstairs, closed my eyes, held my breath, and tickled my tonsils for 10 seconds. There is no way that my wife was going to shove anything down my throat.
Having successfully scraped my tonsils without regurgitating the baked beans, I shoved the same swab up my right nostril, as instructed (although the choice of nostril is optional) and twizzled it vigorously, before placing it in the sample jar that I had remembered to take with me. Then all that remained was a battle with the card packaging, which was the fold-A-into-B-and-tuck-into-C type, which always causes trouble. Prior to testing I had no symptoms whatsoever, but thanks to enthusiastically rotating the swap in the depths of my nostril, I spent the rest of the day and most of the night sneezing vigorously
Our results arrived by text yesterday – my wife’s at 5pm, mine at 5.30pm, but my stepson had to wait until after midnight for his text. We are all negative, and so life can continue as normal, whatever that is.
CLICK IMAGE TO GO TO SEPTEMBER 2020 DIARY
Shops and pubs begin to open, but must keep to the rules. Living with Covid becomes normal, and less worthy of blog posts
CLICK IMAGE TO GO TO LOCKDOWN DIARY HOME PAGE
Life in the UK changed for everyone in March 2020.