Strange Times...

*Long rambling post warning*

I just read something in an email - 'this week has been a very long year' and I totally, 100% get that. Anyone else feeling that right about now?

Pulled pork and stuffing in a yorkie wrap, veggies and gravy

Back to my last post of nine days ago, and my musings as to what point do I panic.

Mother's Day. The most bittersweet Mother's Day I think I have ever had in my life. I had already written off the day, if I'm being honest. Pandemic aside, Mr G was working until 7 am that morning. I do consider it to be a bit of a Hallmark Holiday. I'm not one for too much fuss, so I picked myself up a new candle (Hot Cross Bun scent, £2.99, Home Bargains FYI - I'm a very cheap date) and Mr G bought me cards, as he always does.

Saturday night, one of  his co-workers contacted him, asking if he would do her a favour and come into work a little earlier, so she could drive the twenty miles home and get to Tesco before it shut at eleven as she had forgotten it was Mother's Day this week. I said to Mr G, she does realise that Tesco is shutting at ten tonight...? And it was twenty to ten at this point? So, he phoned her and told her, and she was upset. So I said that I would give up my Mother's Day card so she had one for her mother. She was then stressing about where she would find a gift at that time of night. So, while Mr G quickly got himself dressed to go into work early, I raided my Christmas cupboard, found a gift set that I had bought in the sales, and packed him off to work with that, thinking it would be better than nothing, if his co-worker couldn't find anywhere open at that time of night. My good deed for the day done, he said she was so touched she was nearly in tears.

One of my children wasn't with me, as it wasn't sensible for him to travel here to spend the day with me. I don't know when I will see him again, now. Months? My own parents are in the at risk category, and the only way that I would agree to go and see my mother was:

She opened the side gate to the garden so that I didn't enter her house, we sat outside in her garden metres apart, and I took my own soft drink down with me, so I didn't contaminate her crockery.

Over the top? I think she thought so, but I'm not taking any chances. Because it's not just me. It's not just them. Mr G was at work until Sunday morning, my daughter finished college on Friday, my son finished school on Thursday. My youngest has been socially distancing since last Sunday. I wasn't just taking me there to visit, I was taking each and every single person that everyone who lives in my household has been in contact with recently, with me to visit. 

I came home and I cooked my own roast dinner. I dropped an oven tray of food over the floor. I was stressed to f*** in the kitchen, trying to make this perfect Mother's Day lunch, not for my benefit, but for everyone else's. I was determined I was having a dessert of sorts, so I made some pineapple baked oats for Mr G and I.

Later, I announced that we were having a Movie Night. Popcorn, junk food, chocolate. We couldn't find the handset for the DVD player, and so we watched Stepbrothers, subtitled, together. Not one of my children protested at this, and although one son buggered off the moment it was over, the other two stayed downstairs watching a box set together, even after Mr G and I had gone to bed.

We adults are scared, so how it's impacting on our children I can't even begin to imagine. My daughter hasn't seen her boyfriend for about a fortnight, as he is self isolating as his parents both work for the NHS and came down with symptoms. When she will see him again, who knows. She's not a kid kid, she's nearly eighteen and she knows exactly what this means. She is also a social butterfly. The middle one is worried about his GCSE results and what this means for the future. It's unlikely that his estimated grades will be high enough for sixth form. Will he be given a chance, considering he didn't get a chance to revise for those exams? And my youngest, who has really surprised me with his maturity. He chose to socially distance last Sunday, he didn't attend that last week of school, even though he knew chances were he wouldn't see his friends again for a long time. He has been out in the back garden with his football. Played his FIFA game. Found new things to binge watch. Said that he would do some cooking this week for his siblings.

But it's what he said last night. He is a wind up merchant, just like his father. Looks like me, winds up like his dad. And he said, utterly seriously. 'Mum, you know how Dad is older than you, significantly older than you too, and I'm not being nasty but he is, he's closer to Nain and Taid's age than he is yours. Does this mean that he's more at risk?' Bloody heartbreaking, what do you say to that? Because you can't say no for definite, can you? All I could say was that he was fitter than he'd ever been after losing weight, we knew that his heart was in tip top condition after all the testing he had done, and that he didn't suffer from asthma or any breathing problem.

Yesterday morning we had a SW meeting via Zoom. Understandably all SW groups are now cancelled until further notice. It was bound to happen, and it was the right thing to do under the circumstances. Our poor leader was heartbroken, it was horrible to see her so upset. Upon hearing this news, Mr G decided that 'we are not going to let her down' and got the treadmill, sit up thingy and mini bicycle out of storage. Upon hearing this news, I ate a Creme Egg. I shit you not. I ate a bloody Creme Egg.

I weigh in kilos at home, and despite the Creme Egg and the fact that the other day, Thursday I think, I ate 41.5 syns worth of crisps and chocolate, I seem to have lost a kilo this week.

This is, without a shadow of a doubt - the most surreal time that I have lived through. And I won't be alone in this realisation. Life as we know it is cancelled. Every football match. Every rugby match. University. Schools. Glastonbury. Euro 2020. The Grand National. Eurovision Song Contest. Concerts. Pubs, clubs, shops and restaurants have closed their doors. Soaps stopped filming. Life is closed, cancelled, postponed for the foreseeable future. Everything, just everything is unknown. And if there's one thing we hate more than anything, it's uncertainty, isn't it?

Our lives have become little more than questions that don't have an answer. 'But when...' or 'What about...' We just don't know any more, and even more worrying, neither do the experts.

I genuinely cannot believe the reaction that I have seen since this virus started to take a grip. And it's not just the UK, it's happening in other so-called civilised countries too. A global shortage of loo roll. I can understand the panic buying of food and necessities to an extent; it's fight or flight. People are scared, uncertain about what is going to happen to the food supply. We all want to feed our families. And we are supposed to listen to and believe politicians when they tell us to stop panic buying, that the supply chain is there and won't be broken? Specifically Boris Johnson? After all the lies that he told during the Brexit campaign and the last election? The man who hid in a fridge rather than be interviewed? A person living alone is worried about feeding themselves. There are five in my family. I would starve sooner than see my children go without. But as I've said to so many people - my weekly shop looks like a panic buy. And nine times out of ten, I have to go two or three times to top up. How privileged we were to be able to do that.

But it's the sheer selfishness of those who got into a car this weekend, with their families and friends and drove here, drove to Cornwall, Devon, Norfolk, Lake District - it wasn't just Wales I know. Whether it was for the day, or to go to their caravan. What is wrong with these people? Especially here, we have one hospital with eleven ICU beds. Eleven. And the area our hospital covers on a map, it's huge? People were trying to register with GPs on the island? 'The busiest ever visitor day in living memory' according to Snowdonia National Park. Let that sink in. Mid pandemic - not a mere epidemic, oh no - a global pandemic, people actually travelled from their homes to climb a mountain. A total of three, I believe, also needed rescuing by the mountain rescue service. One pillock in jeans and trainers from Birmingham who wanted some photos, and unbelievably, if it wasn't so effing tragic it would be hilarious - upon being rescued asked where they recommended he go to tomorrow to take some nice pictures. I'd have taken him back up there, and left him. He was told to go home.

My children are housebound, I am all but housebound. Despite hotels not being mentioned last night on the announcement, according to the gov.uk website, they are closed too (unless housing people as a permanent residence or keyworkers - which they do have NHS staff staying there...) Mr G is the only one leaving the house. For prescriptions. For vital shopping. For work. No other reason. And we don't mind. This is our part in this nightmare. This is what we can do, right now, to help. And it's a small ask, really. Stay the hell indoors. And we don't mind doing it. Because it's the right thing to do, it's the sensible thing to do, and we didn't need a bloody government lockdown to know to do it. We are not doing this, so people can come and have a bastard holiday at our expense! We can't take our kids to the beach? We can't sit outside coffee shops and fish and chip shops, we can't even go for socially distanced walks any more to our local parks, in our own villages and towns, because they're now closed.  Who the hell are these people? What is their reasoning? What train of thought did they possibly follow, that made them think their actions were acceptable? I can't understand it?

Memes circulate social media - some good, some bad, some funny, some downright ridiculous and the one that stood out for me at the start was the one, I can't find it now, that gave things to do if you have to self isolate. And it made my heart leap. Binge watch box sets. Read books. Cook a meal. Clean out a closet. Bake bread. Crafting. Do some gardening. Learn a language on Duolingo. Oooh, I thought. That doesn't sound too bad? Big box of wool upstairs? Films and box sets I've never watched on Amazon Prime and Sky? Kindle full of books. Seven of my own that still need editing.

And then I remembered I am a housewife and mother, and I laughed and laughed and laughed. My life will remain unchanged, no doubt. It's going to be like an extension of the summer holidays, only without the constant, incessant badgering for money and lifts to places and with the added worry of everyone's mental health. Including my own. And I have absolutely nowhere to escape to now, apart from a brief walk, for exercise, near to my home once a day.

What is keeping me going, is that every morning when I wake up, I'm a day closer to life going back to normal. Mr G said today, when this is all over, we are having one almighty party. Our family, friends, neighbours. The gazebos are going up, the tents, so people can stay and camp over if they want, the shed pub is getting stocked with alcohol and we are all getting shitfaced and celebrating.

I've come to the realisation that this is a deathbed moment. You know how they say about the regrets of people on their deathbeds? How they never did this, or that, how they held on to grudges, how they didn't forgive, how they worked too hard and didn't enjoy life enough? It has taken the loss of everything, every privilege, every hobby, every place we could have gone to, every person we could have spent time with to realise how much we actually want to do with our lives. And hopefully, we don't have to die in order to do it. So I am going to work on my bucket list. The one I started and then tailed off from. There are places I want to go to. Artists I want to see in concert. People I want to spend more time with. Not being able to do anything has thrown up so much that I actually do want to do. And I will want to do once this is over, God willing. I just hope that everyone I love makes it through this unscathed.

So, am I panicking? No, not yet. Am I scared? Very. Very scared.