Category Archives: Love in the Time of Corona Virus

Friday 22 May 2020

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Number of days since lockdown: 60

Number of times I have reread Brian’s note: at least 100

Number of people who have read my blog: 945

Before I found Brian’s note under the hedge, I wasn’t going to go out and clap for the NHS and care workers. It all felt a bit pointless, especially with the ones like Nurse Constance having to pay £624 to use the service they were risking their lives to work in.

But then the Prime Minister did a U-turn, another back-of-the-net for the very wonderful Sir Keir Starmer, and I found the note, and suddenly the world felt a much brighter, happier place.

Today I am mainly putting the finishing touches to my preparations for collecting Mum tomorrow morning. I’ve got to go over to Waylands Heath and beard the cross receptionist behind her plastic shower curtain to find out whether I need to register Mum with my GP as a temporary resident. I need to pick up my parents’ financial files and make sure there are no bills outstanding, and I’ve got to mow the lawn and check the house for the umpteenth time so I can answer Mum truthfully that it is all OK.

But before I do, there are a few things about lockdown that I feel the need to mention, mainly for posterity. Because this is such a strange time, and I think we need to remember it.

  1. Why are people constantly sending me instructions to post lists on Facebook with no explanation? I’ve had ten favourite albums, ten books, ten photos and today I got ten recipes. I don’t have time for all these lists, I’m too busy worrying about breaking the lockdown rules, running out of milk and whether I need to put a plastic sheet over Mum’s mattress, just in case. They are like chain letters, these lists, and I wish people would stop sending them to me. I have enough guilt already.
  2. And talking of Facebook, it is nice to see other people are going out for walks. But they can feel a tiny bit boastful. Maybe spare a thought for the people who aren’t able to leave their houses because they are in the highly vulnerable category. Or the ones still going out to work.
  3. We are all making sense of lockdown in our own ways. Let’s stop commenting on people who decide to invite a friend round for coffee in their garden rather than meeting in the park. Or whether to wear a mask on the bus. Or whether it counts as social distancing if you get up to mischief in a garden building rather than the house. These are personal decisions, OK?

That’s all from me today. My weekend looks set to be pretty full-on, so expect a bumper length edition on Monday. Have a good one, and never mind staying alert, please stay safe, in whatever way works for you.

To read my blog from the beginning, just go to the link on the menu bar above or click here.

Thursday 21 May 2020

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Number of days since lockdown: 59

Number of times Brian has been in touch: can you please stop asking me that question.

I have nothing to say about Bloody Brian right now. He has stolen my heart and made me feel like a love-struck teenager. He can go to hell. If he messaged me now, I would just ignore him. Probably.

Plus I have work to do getting everything ready for my Mum who I will be collecting from the hospice at 11.00 on Saturday.

I feel anxious but also quite excited at the prospect of dusting off my rusty nursing skills. Having Dad to stay was lovely, but he was just an elderly house guest. Mum is going to need a lot more input.

I spoke to her at the hospice again yesterday. She’s not up to Zoom so we just use her phone, which I suspect Constance dials for her – she was never one for new technology. She was her usual slightly imperious self, even with the breathlessness. I said how much I was looking forward to having her to stay and she said Really? And I told her how I had been over to Wayfield Heath to collect some clothes and other bits and pieces and how everything was all safe and secure at the house, and she said that she didn’t really care. And then I said how nice it would be for her to be able to sit in my garden and she said For God’s sake Sadie, I’ve got depression, not dementia, there’s no need to talk to me like I’m an idiot. I will sit where I like, thank you.

That told me.

The good news is that she is managing the stairs. She goes up slowly one step at a time using one banister, hand over hand, with someone walking behind her, in case she slips. And she comes down the same way, but with someone in front. They have even had her practising on a set of steps with the banister on the same side as mine. Luckily I have a downstairs loo. So there is no need for me to ask Toby to come round and break the rules and help me move the bed downstairs. Nobody in authority thinks of the practical things in lockdown, do they?

I think I have said before that my mother is a very private person. I have never seen any photographs of her as a child. I asked her once or twice and she was very dismissive and said they had probably all been thrown out. She didn’t get on with her family, and had stopped seeing them before she met my father, I think. I remember years ago when I was reading Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson and she picked it up and looked at the back cover and said, That was what my so-called mother was like. I said would you like to borrow the book, Mum and she said, God no, I don’t need reminding, thank you.

I think she must have been very unhappy as a child.

I went to the supermarket and tried to get all the things she likes, although I think I have said before, she is not all that interested in food. I got Shredded Wheat and Heinz tinned tomato soup and Jacob’s Cream Crackers and Marmite and ginger nut biscuits and very small Cox’s apples and Robinson’s Lemon Barley.

When I got back, I mentally made a note that I must tidy up the front garden before Mum arrives. She hates to see things in a mess. There has been an east wind and the path up to the house is full of leaves and paper and other rubbish and it looks awful. I need to do a spot of weeding out there too, it is dandelion city.

But the inside of the house is more pressing so I started on that. I made her bed and cleared out three drawers and all the surfaces in the spare room and put a nice lamp and her alarm clock and a bottle of water and a new box of tissues and my Roberts radio by her bed. And I hauled the armchair out of my bedroom and put it by the window in her room so she can sit there and look out onto the garden with a flowery cushion from home for her back. And then I cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen and the sitting room and walked around all the bits of the house she would need to get to imagining I was using a Zimmer frame and moving furniture out of the way which I piled up in the dining room. I created a cosy corner for her in the sitting room with a footstool and a side table and a reading lamp just for her, and I put the TV remote and the house phone on the table so she would feel connected.

And then I did what I had been dreading all day, and phoned the hospital to get news of my Dad. And there has been little change, so they will be moving him to a rehabilitation hospital, probably also on Saturday. My poor father. I couldn’t get to sleep thinking about him.

And the latest from our ridiculous government is something about picking fruit for victory over Covid? And still only promises about test, track and trace whilst most of the rest of Europe have their systems up and running, even Greece. I’m going to give up the daily briefings and listen to The Archers when it comes back in lockdown mode starting next week. It will be much more enlightening

I woke up ridiculously early and surprised Harvey with a walk on the Downs while the ground was still wet with dew and there were a satisfying number of rabbits for him to chase. As early as it was, other dog walkers were still wearing masks. This is such a strange time.

And when I got back, I grabbed a coffee and set about clearing up the front garden.

And that was when I found Brian’s note, which he had apparently left on Saturday afternoon with a glass jar full of flowers that must have somehow blown under the hedge. The jar was broken and the flowers were in a sorry state, and the note had got wet and then dried but was still legible.

Dearest Sadie

Thank you for letting me break the rules with you.

I will be tied up this week as you know. Will be in touch on Saturday. I cannot wait.

Good luck with all your challenges, my darling girl. Know this: you are amazing.

Brian xxx

Queue tsunami of deleriously happy sobbing.

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Wednesday 20 May 2020

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Number of days since lockdown: 58

Number of hours I was awake in the night worrying how I am going to manage to look after my mother when she comes home from the hospice: 4

Number of times Brian has been in touch: still zero

How dare Boring Brian from the creative writing class seduce me with his website wizardry and his allotment bouquets? How dare he spend the last two months inviting me on walks and pouring me tea from his little flask and listening to me really intently like no-one else ever has and making me fancy the very sensible pants off him, only to dump me after our first and probably only night of passion? How could he do that to me? What a complete and utter bastard.

And to add to my woes, last night’s Zoom call with Nurse Constance was rather more worrying than our previous discussions. Don’t get me wrong, Constance was still amazingly kind, but her honesty about what my mother will need when she comes home from the hospice made me reel. She reminded me that Mum is recovering from a fractured hip, Covid-19 and she has now been diagnosed with depression. I do know all this so I should not be surprised. The hospice staff hope she will be able to manage the stairs by the time she is discharged, otherwise I will need to move her bed downstairs. She will need help with washing, dressing, going to the toilet, eating and drinking. And she shouldn’t be left alone for more than very short periods of time.

I think I must have gone a bit quiet, because Constance then asked me if I was worried about whether I could do this. And I said, is there any other option? And she said, only a care home. And I thought, I cannot do that to my mother, not now with my Dad in hospital and her having nearly died herself and now so sad and low and still grieving for my sister who died all that time ago. I’m a retired nurse, for God’s sake. I don’t have any responsibilities other than the cat and the dog. If I can’t look after my own mother at such a time, who can?

So I said don’t worry, Constance, it will all be fine. I just need to get organised. And she said good, because we need her bed by Saturday.

To take my mind off all the above, I went to give blood at the Community Centre this afternoon. I’ve got my 50 donations badge. It’s an easy thing to do, if you don’t mind needles. The tea and biscuits afterwards may look quite ordinary but they feel like a massive treat. Plus they tell you to take it easy for the rest of the day, which for someone like me is welcome advice.

Actually, small confession, there is another reason I like to give blood, which is that the staff make you feel that you really matter. Right from the minute you arrive, they are asking you questions and nodding and smiling and being incredibly professional and solicitous. The whole thing makes me go into a sort-of trance. I have been known to leave my plaster for on for up to week, like a talisman.

The staff were as lovely as always today, even when asking me at the door if I’d been in contact with anyone who might have Covid 19. It was all very jolly and normal, with Radio 2 playing loudly, and only the spacing of the chairs and the fact that there weren’t any older donors to show we were still in lockdown. You could see the staff were smiling, even behind their masks.

My donor carer today was Sharon. She had lots of tattoos and a very gentle voice. It was all going well until I was nearly at the end of my donation and she asked me how I was doing. It must have been something about the way she said it because the next thing I knew, tears were pouring down my face.

It was really embarrassing. They had to help me out of the special tipping chair and find me somewhere to sit behind a screen. Sharon sat with me. She asked me if anything had happened to upset me today, and I couldn’t decide whether to tell her that my father was in hospital close to death’s door after a stroke, or that my mother had also nearly died after going missing, breaking her hip and catching the virus, and was going to be staying in my dining room for the forseeable future, starting on Saturday, or that the love of my life had ravished me in my summerhouse, then the next day had disappeared and I didn’t know if i would ever see him again.

So I said not really, it’s just that lockdown is getting to me a bit. And she said you and me both. And we had a bit of a laugh about it and I got to drink my tea and eat my custard creams in private with her telling me about her next tattoo, which was going to be a massive dragon on her side, but she would have to wait until the tattoo parlour was open again, which was very annoying, because she had got herself all psyched up for the pain. And I asked does it hurt a lot, and she shook her head and said you don’t want to know, Sadie, you just don’t want to know.

And then I went home and Marnie and Kezia called round and we sat in the garden and Kezia reminded me that she had eight grandparents (Marnie’s mother, her partner, Marnie’s father and his partner, me, Richard, his ex-wife and his soon-to-be next ex-wife.)

I said gosh, that’s quite a lot. And she said yes it is, but you are my favourite grandparent, Nanny Sadie.

And it was all I could do not to start crying again.

After they left, I went inside and moved some furniture.

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Tuesday 19 May 2020

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Number of days since lockdown: 57

Number of times I have relived Friday night in the summerhouse with Brian: far too many

Number of times he has been in touch since then: zero

Number of times I have very nearly WhatsApped him: I am ashamed to tell you

It’s all my own fault, isn’t it?

If I hadn’t

  • a) allowed my passion to get the better of me, and played a bit more hard-to-get or
  • b) written about Jane bloody Eyre yesterday,

I might now be in a relationship with Brian, rather than having him disappear out of my life the day after we went completely over the top in breaking the social distancing rules.

And in any case, I have other things to worry about. Because that Zoom call with Nurse Constance was a bit different from our previous chats. Constance says that the staff at the hospice think that Mum is very depressed. She says that she has turned her face to the wall, which is nurse-speak for giving up on life. It is a syndrome they are seeing a lot at the moment in care homes and hospices, especially amongst the elderly. Here is an article in the Guardian that Constance recommended.

I found myself getting very upset. Constance was lovely. We talked about Mum, and how she is a very private person and doesn’t ever talk about her feelings, but that how family is everything to her, and not being able to see any of us is causing her great pain. Constance asked about her background, and I explained that we know very little about her life while she was growing up, just that it wasn’t a happy time. In fact we know almost nothing prior to her meeting Dad at a Young Conservative dance in 1950, when she wore a yellow dress and he couldn’t take his eyes off her because she was so lovely. And how he has been her rock, especially when Ruth died and she lost touch with reality for a while. And then again more recently.

And we agreed that she must be missing Dad very much, but that we had no way of knowing when or even if he would be ready to go home. And even then, how he was going to be and how much care he would need. It all must feel very uncertain, especially as we can’t be with her.

And after a bit more discussion, Constance suggested and I found myself agreeing that the best thing would be to work towards her coming to stay with me for the time being, rather than remaining at the hospice until she was ready to go home. In Constance’s world, this is what daughters do.

So now I will be opening up my house as a very small care home for one sad lady resident. Lydia is delighted and the children think it is great.

But I can’t help feeling that my life is slipping through my fingers. And anyway, without Brian, what else do I have to do?

To read my blog from the beginning, just go to the link on the menu bar above or click here