Tuesday 17 March 2020

And I literally don’t know how I am going to manage without being able to read my stuff out loud, and get an honest critique, as well as encouragement and all the other benefits of being part of a writing class. The college have told us there will be a fortnightly online tutorial, and there’s the WhatsApp group. But you can tell that our class isn’t their first priority, when they have people needing to do essential things like beauty therapy courses and plumbing apprenticeships.

Does that sound mean? It wasn’t meant to be.

Not that this, the thing I am writing now, is my usual kind of writing. I’ve been at it with My Novel off and on since 2004, if you really want to know. Please don’t say anything rude, you don’t have to tell me that is pathetic and surely I should have finished it by now. I know that. Anyway, it wasn’t really going all that well, truth be told, as Ruth from Gavin and Stacey would say. I’m sick of it really. I have tried to dump it many times. At some point I may tell you about it. Or not. We will have to see.

What I’m going to be writing here is hopefully rather more relevant. It’s a little idea that came to me when I was lying awake at 3am the other night, which to be honest is what I seem to be doing most nights these days.  This bloody virus and its ramification have got everyone in quite a state, me included.  

My idea is this. I’m going to start keeping a diary. And when I finish writing each day, I’m going to publish what I’ve written online.

I’m going to be following Stephen King’s advice in his excellent book On Writing.

Yes, THAT Stephen King, the one who wrote Carrie, The Shining and Misery, along with 63 other horror/supernatural novels. It turns out he is a great authority on how to write. He says not to mess about with time structure and that you should write in a linear fashion. So that is what I am going to do.

He also says that your story will be there, hidden away in the rocks, and that you, the writer, are an archeologist, you just have to chip away and excavate it gently, so that you can get it out relatively intact. My plan is to do what he says, and to let my story unfold gradually, without forcing it, via the pages of this diary.

SK also talks about the discipline of writing. He says that you should write every day, before you do anything else. So that is what I am going to do from now on. Sorry, dog. You will get your walk later. From now on you will have to do your first wee in the garden. Like the cat. Although he’s more inclined to go next door – more on him anon.

Stephen King gives an amount of words you should write each day as well. 1,000. I nearly dropped the book in the bath when I read that bit because I thought he was going to say 500 or even 250. Anyone who has ever done any creative writing will know that 1,000 words are A LOT. I’m not going to commit to a specific number per day atm. Sorry, Mr King.

But I am going to commit to writing a piece each day, Monday to Friday, and to putting it online. I haven’t decided what time I am going to upload it yet, but I think it probably ought to be the same time every day. Just in case anyone out there is actually going to bother to read it.

I have already spent too long today talking about the writing, which most people will find rather boring. The first chapter in a book is meant to grab the reader, and I’ve not done much grabbing, have I?

But just to say, before I get around to actually writing* something about what happened today, I just need to point out that a diary is first person narrative, in case you hadn’t noticed. You only get my point of view. Unless I suddenly decide to change the structure and start writing from someone else’s perspective, you will only have my thoughts on what is happening in my life and the world of corona virus.

And, as we creative writers know, first person narrators can be a little bit unreliable.

Of course, with this particular project, you can check the contextual facts for yourself, given that I am writing in real time.

Today, as well as the cancellation of our beloved course, there were major announcements that vulnerable people have to stop going out, that if you think you have the thing you must self-isolate for 7 days, that if you live with others they need to do it for 14 days, that we must all stop going to cafes, pubs and bars or travelling anywhere that isn’t essential, and that they are putting lots of money into the economy so that the whole country doesn’t go down the toilet.

Confession time. I am finding the Prime Minister increasingly scary. He doesn’t seem to be able to take even the worst crisis we have faced since World War 2 seriously. His fake bumbling act used to annoy me. Now it is just terrifying. He’s still mussing up his hair before press conferences and smirking like the boy who is wondering when someone will notice that he’s just dropped a silent but deadly fart.

The Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientist are much more reassuringly serious. It appears that this government that fooled the country into thinking that we have had enough of experts now can’t get enough of them. We can do the recriminations later. For now, listening to experts feels like a very good thing.

And today we hear for the first time from the new chancellor, Rishi Sunak, who looks young enough to still be Head Boy at Eton or Winchester College or wherever it was he went to school. He says that he commits to the government doing whatever it takes to support businesses and individuals to get through this crisis. He says that he is allocating unprecedented billions to prop up the economy and support the NHS.  He talks about us all being in this together. He speaks in whole sentences, his voice calmly modulated. He is immaculately tailored and his black hair is beautifully brushed and shining. No glimmer of a smile crosses his earnest, chiseled face. He means business.

And I, a 62-year-old Labour voter, grandmother, and divorcee who likes people to think she is nobody’s fool, feel the stirrings of an inappropriate crush deep within my matronly loins.

* Yes, I know, spilt infinitive, but I think it was Stephen Pinker or maybe Kurt Vonnegut who said that they are alright after all. SP and KV are also experts on writing, btw.

Wednesday 18 March 2020

Shit. It turns out that uploading stuff to the internet is not as straightforward as it sounds. I’m going to need a website or blogsite to host my Corona Virus diary. And that is going to require computer skills that are way beyond mine, which usually comprise saving all files on the desktop in case I lose anything (which happens all the time anyway) and never closing any tabs for the same reason. And if all else fails, press Control Alt Del, ringing my daughter and be made to feel about 15 again. I hate IT.

I did have a go at setting myself up earlier today via what looked like an easy little programme or whatever you call it called Word Press. It started out well but then I got into a bit of a muddle and ended up having to send an SOS via the creating writing course WhatsApp group. Luckily, one of the other course members came to the rescue. And hurrah, he’s coming round on Friday morning.

Yes alright, it’s a he. Just don’t start getting excited – Candy and I don’t call him Boring Brian for nothing. He is rather earnest and is writing a family memoir, yawn. He carries his work in a National Trust rucksack. He also uses the rucksack to bring his own sandwiches. He even brings a little flask for his tea.

I will need to make Boring Brian stay two metres away from me while he works on my laptop on Friday, of course. These are the latest social distancing guidelines. Not that BB is much of a one for personal space invasion – he likes to keep his distance at the best of times, and if I’m right and he has a little bit of an OCD tendency, he will probably arrive wearing a HazMat suit. OK, I know shouldn’t joke. People are dying. That was in poor taste. Please ignore me, I’m feeling slightly hysterical. I haven’t actually seen anyone for two days.

Of course, we’re not meant to be socializing. But BB and I agreed that we would count setting up my website-thingy as essential work. And at least I won’t have to ask him to wash his hands, because even before all this he has always kept a little bottle of hand sanitizer gel in the front pocket of his rucksack. I know this because he uses it before he eats the aforementioned sandwiches, which are usually cheese and pickle with salad, wrapped in grease-proof paper and kept in a green enamel tin. We laugh, but actually they look rather nice.

So it’s going to be at least a couple of days before I can get any of this stuff online. Which means that tomorrow’s efforts are probably best concentrated on giving my readers (if I ever get any) a bit of the background stuff. Act One, Scene Two, the set-up, as described by John Yorke in Into the Woods, another one of our course books.

We are all still reeling from the last couple of days’ news, so I was planning to sign off by saying that not much seems to have happened today. But I spoke too soon. The death rate in Italy is continuing to rise, and we are apparently only a few weeks behind them. Shit and more shit. And then along comes the 5pm announcement from the Prime Minister, looking a bit more serious and less rumpled today, telling us that schools in England have now been ordered to close on Friday, like we heard yesterday about ones in Scotland and Wales.

Which means that I am going to be even more torn between my granddaughter and my parents – unless a freelance costume designer and a guitarist without any gigs can be designated as key workers. What do you think?

Thursday 19 March 2020

So what do I need to tell you about me so that you can read my diary and not wonder what the hell I am on about?

Ok, first of all, a few biographical details. My name is Sadie Robinson and I am 62 years old. Robinson is my maiden name – I decided to become a feminist when I got divorced and changed back from my married name. Sadie Stanley sounded OK, but it feels comfortable to have the surname I was born with again. I live in Beecham-by-Sea, Wessex, which is either where you buy a house because you’re a bit of a leftie and you can’t afford to live in the trendy city next door (where they have the only Green MP in the country) or because you were born there. I’m in the former category.

I have two grown-up children.Toby is 36 and Charlotte is 33. She’s a corporate lawyer and he’s a musician, like most musicians mainly out-of-work. And I have a wonderful little granddaughter, Kezia, who is the light of all our lives. Kez is six. Sadly, she lives with her mother, Marnie, who is very beautiful and creative but has been known to use her daughter as emotional blackmail (until she needs a babysitter). Mind you, Toby is not without his moments. Their poor child has always had to be older than her years. I love having her to stay with me, we’ve turned my back bedroom into a little den for her and we have the best times together, gardening and baking and talking about her favourite books. If this awful virus stops me from being allowed to see her, I don’t know what I’ll do.

And the reason I may not be able to see my lovely Kezia is that I am also blessed with two very wonderful but occasionally exasperating elderly parents, Helen and Henry Robinson. They lived through the war, you know, so they think all the fuss about the virus is a complete overreaction, and anyway they’ve had their flu jabs. But they are Tories, so they are also beginning to listen to the advice, and therefore I have been designated as their main carer and am now having to do their shopping, as well as all the other little jobs that elderly people still living at home can start to find a bit difficult in their late eighties. If we could get a regular online delivery slot we would, even though my mother thinks they are for feckless lazy people. I managed to get them one for this Saturday morning, but after that you have to register that you are vulnerable and she sees that as only one step from put into a care home.

Where do I start with the shopping? It is a nightmare. You can’t even get into the car park. When you do, there are no trolleys and when you do get into the shop itself, there is literally nothing on the shelves. No bread, no milk, no toilet paper, nothing.

I am a Waitrose girl myself, but my parents prefer Sainsbury’s. And they don’t live in Beecham, they are up the road in Waylands Heath, in the same house in which I grew up. It is 23 miles away and takes 40 minutes to get there by car, an hour on the train because you have to change, not that that’s of any use now they have cancelled most of them and anyway we are not meant to be using public transport any more, unless we are essential workers.

And I am not an essential worker. I am not even a worker these days. I was a nurse years ago but I gave it up when we had the children and Richard was earning a lot of money and I didn’t have to work. And then I did an Open University Social Science degree and my aromatherapy massage course. And I had quite a lot of clients. It was really good, working from home part time, I never felt lonely. As they used to say to us at college, you may be an aromatherapist but you are also a therapist. But then my father had his little brush with cancer and I had to stop taking on new clients so I had more time to take him to appointments and sit with my mother who seems to think if she frets enough, he will live forever. And then Kezia came along and I needed to be available to help out there as well, and somehow my last client came and went and now my table is folded away and the room I used to use has become Kez’s little nest.

Financially I live on various small pensions that Richard set up back in the day, and I’m gradually using up the savings I squirrelled away when we split the proceeds of the family house and I decided to get something cheaper than I could actually afford. I have made quite a few bad decisions in my life but putting a bit of money aside then was probably one of the better ones.  

One of my bad decisions may have been to marry Richard, my ex-husband. If I hadn’t married him I wouldn’t have had Toby or Charlotte, although there have been times when I have wondered if children are the blessing everyone makes them out to be. But Kezia is truly a blessing, and I wouldn’t be without her for all the world.  

Richard and I met when he was engaged to someone else. I had known him from school, he went to the boys’ grammar and I was at the High School. Not that he would ever have noticed me. He was a couple of years older than me and one of those boys that everyone talks about – captain of all the teams he played in, good at everything, with the gift of the gab, tall, gorgeous and generally way out of my league.

Anyway, off he went to university in London to study law and I went to train to be a nurse, at Guys Hospital, although God knows how I got in with my useless A-levels. And somehow, we met up at a party in a flat in Finsbury Park, the summer of 1977 that would have been. He was there with his very glamorous fiancée Samantha and a load of other posh lawyer-types who were all articled to various top firms. He and I started talking over the drinks table where he helped me to a glass of Merlot which he had brought with him – he said the wine at parties was always ghastly. I was a bit drunk and I told him I recognized him from school and he got rather taken by the image of schoolgirl me in a short skirt with plaits idolizing him from afar. And the next thing I knew, we were in a bedroom having a massive snogfest while Samantha chatted outside, sipping her own glass of Merlot and no idea that he was in there with me and his hand down my knickers.

We managed to untangle ourselves, swapped number and he started coming to visit me at the nurses’ home. The other student nurses were very impressed that fat mousey Sadie was secretly seeing this gorgeous lawyer, but to be honest it was mainly about sex – we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We never went out, just spent hours in my room doing things that I had never known were possible. Occasionally I would creep out in my coat with nothing on underneath to buy crisps and chocolate so we could keep going for another night before I had to go on duty or he needed to go to work. I’m not saying I was a virgin, but he taught me stuff straight out the pages of the Karma Sutra. Or was it Forum Magazine? It was the swinging seventies, and we certainly swung.

Richard and I carried on our little liaison for the next six months. Samantha eventually found out because I gave him a massive lovebite somewhere rather personal and she wouldn’t believe it was where his jock strap had rubbed from playing rugby. She’d already had her suspicions. I didn’t see him for a few weeks while he tried to make it up to her with flowers and romantic meals. But in the end he came sneaking back. We took up where we left off, but I had now admitted to myself that I was in love with him and found it impossible not to tell him so, which just made him laugh. And then I started getting jealous about what he was up to with Samantha, and eventually we had a blazing row when he said some really horrid things, including that I shouldn’t make assumptions that I was the only little tart he was seeing on the side.

That would have been it for me and Richard had his father not died suddenly. He then failed his articled exams, got a bit fat and depressed and eventually Samantha got fed up with him and dumped him. And he came round to see me the following year, just after I qualified as a state registered nurse, as we were called in those days. It wasn’t quite as exciting this time, he was rather serious and sad and studying hard. But before I knew where we were, it was us who were engaged! His mother wasn’t at all pleased, I wasn’t nearly posh enough for them and couldn’t open any doors for her beloved boy, unlike the wonderful Samantha.

We had quite quite a long engagement, nearly 3 years, not without its ups and downs. After the first few months, Richard started turning up late for dates, sometimes even not turning up at all. And when he did, he was often the worse for wear and smelling of some other girl’s perfume. I was so besotted with him and the whole idea of us as a couple that I was prepared to overlook his misdemeanours. I even told him so. And he would chuck me under the chin and tell me I was his silly, lovely girl.

In 1980, we bought a flat in Clapham Old Town and moved in together. Well, he bought the flat because he was the one with the money, but it was in both our names.

We had a massive wedding, the same year that Diana married Prince Charles. I dieted like mad, went down two dress sizes and managed to look reasonably bridal in a ridiculous white meringue of a dress. My mother was like the cat who had got the cream and his mother cried inconsolably. I pretended it was because she was missing her husband rather than disappointment that Richard was throwing himself away on me.  

And Richard himself was at his most adorable that day, dapper and jowly in his morning suit, and making a beautiful speech about how sorry he was that it had taken him so long to realise how special I was and only a few rude jokes about the bridesmaids.

Top tip, ladies, if you want to find a faithful husband, don’t steal some other girl’s boyfriend. If he’s played away from home once, the chances are he will do it again. It wasn’t until years later that I found out that he had shagged one of those bridesmaids during our own wedding reception.

Christ, I was just going to jot a few details for you and I seem to have written War and Peace. I may need to edit this later.

Meanwhile, back at Corona Virus central, our beloved Prime Minister is doing his jokey schoolboy act again. Does he think he’s Just William?  He says that we can turn the tide on the virus within 12 weeks. But then the Chief Scientific Adviser seems to contradict him and say that they simply don’t know how long this will go on for but we need to prepare for up to a year of this.

Does anyone know how all this is going to turn out? Things are getting scary now.

Friday 20 March 2020

The Queen has sent a message to say she stands beside us all, a bit like in the war, except she has been driven off to Windsor Castle because she is vulnerable. God save us all.

And this morning, Brian is coming round to sort out my website or blog site or whatever you are supposed to call the place where you post stuff you have written and want the world to read.

Do I want the world to read it? I’m not sure. Perhaps I will discuss this with Brian. I need to stop calling him BB in case I actually call him that to his face. He is actually a very nice man. Just not exactly an Alpha Male, as Candy would say. And she should know.

Candy is my American friend on the creative writing course. She writes poetry and is an amazing woman. None of us know how old she is, not even me. She looks incredible, in a New-Agey sort of way. She used to be a dancer and has a wonderful figure, all long graceful curves. She has perfectly shaped breasts. I assume they have been enhanced, although you can’t see any scars. I know this because we have been swimming together and she is very open about getting changed in front of people. Not like me, fumbling around under my towel because I don’t want anyone to see my massive bottom and bosoms and having to put my 34H bra on back to front and then having to fight to slide it round because I haven’t dried myself properly.

Candy often doesn’t wear a bra, but when she does, she puts it frontwards and just reaches round to do it up at the back. She wears lovely clothes, sometimes a preppy look but mostly flowing Indian silks and cottons. Her hair is shiny and dark brown with a hint of red. It comes down nearly to her waist, but she usually wears it up in a French pleat or sometimes a chignon with pieces coming down.   

Candy loves men. Like me she lives alone, in an architect designed house (very much unlike me) up on the Downs, with her three dogs. She has an elderly gentleman friend in Hampstead called Maurice, who likes taking her to the theatre, and a much younger one in Jamaica called Rodney who she visits 3 or 4 times a year and is very good in bed. She is totally open about the fact that she sends money to Rodney every month, she says it is the least she can do. She’s not going to be able to see either of them for the duration, and this is making her very unhappy, she told me last night, not via the group WhatsApp but in a private chat. She says she is going to have to self-medicate. I pretend to know what she means.

8pm

So now Brian has been round and set me up with Word Press. He says he has made it as easy as possible for me to upload my daily blogs. And he has also set me up on Instagram and Twitter – I already had Linked-In and Facebook as well as WhatsApp. He says it is important that I tell people about my blog or no-one will know it is there.

And then we had a very helpful conversation about what I am planning to blog about. He really is quite clever at this sort of thing.

Because it is all very well promising to blog daily about what is happening during the Corona Virus epidemic. And he said he really liked my title. But he got me to think about the wisdom of sharing my real thoughts, as they happen, online, and how I will be giving up any opportunity that other published diarists have of writing how they feel each day but then being able to edit it before publishing.

So I said, what about Dickens, he published his work as he wrote it, with no chance to go back and change it if he decided that something didn’t work after all. And Brian said, but that was fiction Sadie, you are writing a diary.

And he also made me think about whether I have the right to share details about other people without getting their permission first.

It sounds like he was being bossy, but he wasn’t, not at all. Brian has a way of asking questions and giving you time to think about what you want to say that makes you feel that he is really listening to you. I hadn’t noticed this about him before. I will go so far as to say that I rather enjoyed spending time with him, and that I was sorry when he had finished and it was time for him to leave.

I therefore spent the rest of the afternoon having a bit of a rethink. And I have decided that my online diary will still be going ahead, but that I am going to change some of the details so you can’t actually tell who I or anyone else is. That way, I can spare everyone’s blushes, my own included.

I do hope that’s OK and won’t make you stop reading my daily ramblings? (That wasn’t what I meant in an earlier post about unreliable narration, by the way. We will discuss that further in due course. Or not.)

And as if to reward me for my thoughtfulness, at 5pm I switched on BBC1 for the daily press conference and out came the Prime Minister, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer and, hush my beating heart, the Chancellor, Mr Rishi Sunak.

The numbers of people who are infected in the UK are now rising quite fast, so we have to keep up social distancing and encouraging people who are vulnerable to self isolate. And we have to do something about the economy, said the PM, trying to sound as serious as he ought to be feeling. Maybe it’s nerves that make him look so shifty?

There is no such problem when the Deputy CMO speaks. She is a doctor and she has seen it all. She is calm and sensible and non-alarmist about perhaps the most alarming thing any of us will ever have had to face. And instead of judging her for not having had time to do her roots (as I would have done even a week ago), I like her all the more for this sign of selflessness. These people are doing 18-hour days. And we are all going to have get used to letting our roots show soon.

Now it’s Rishi’s turn to speak. I feel ridiculously proud. He looks serious and handsome. He wears a bright white shirt and elegant dark suit. His hair is even shinier than on Tuesday. He says the government is pouring billions into the economy, and that companies will be able to keep their workers because they will be paid 80% of their wages for the next three months. There is a bit more technical stuff. And then he says what the Prime Minister really ought to have said, and which if I were only 30 years younger would make me want to have his babies, which is that we are all in this together, and that the government is there to help us look after one another. And I feel a swoon coming on.

Monday 23 March 2020

The day I upload and there is no going back. OMG.

But before that, I need to say something about the weekend.

Saturday was spent collecting emergency prescriptions for my father, because he suddenly got into a panic and decided that his WW2 we’ll-fight-them-on-the-beaches make-do-and-mend attitude wasn’t actually going to work as far as getting essential medication was concerned.

Both of my aged-Ps have a horror of hoarding food. They think it is greedy and selfish and that if you let as much as individual pot of fromage frais go to waste, you have committed a mortal sin. They have the same attitude to medication. They like to get down to the last few tablets in the blister pack before they will even consider ordering more. Then with much huffing and puffing, Dad fires up the ancient computer that Richard installed for them back in 2002 (just before we separated) and tries to remember the relevant password for the online system at their GP practice. He keeps all his passwords, written in quavering hand, in a small red notebook right beside the computer. The lack of security makes the children hold their heads in their hands. But it just makes me feel sad, because Dad used to have such beautiful writing. He still manages to get the passwords mixed up and after trying to use the one for the place where he orders his elasticated slippers, he gets locked out and is forced to ring me. Which is a joke as obviously I am the last person to advise on IT. Eventually, we work out how to request a new password, and once we have got over the stress of reopening email so he can receive the relevant instructions on what to do next (unlike me, he always shuts everything down completely before he logs out) he manages to access to the GP system.

That happened a week ago. Usually, having done the online order, my parents go to the surgery themselves to collect their prescriptions. Mum is still driving, despite her cataracts, and Dad is of the view that he would rather die than give up his license. He hasn’t actually sat behind the wheel of the Nissan Micra for a couple of years, which has probably saved a few lives, given his Duke of Edinburgh approach to junctions. They won’t allow themselves the luxury of a disabled badge (there’s nothing wrong with us) so one of them usually sits in the car with the engine running while the other one “runs” (i.e. hobbles) in to the pharmacy, inconveniently located inside the surgery (hence no parking other than for those who have selfishly availed themselves of a disabled badge.)

But their plans to go to the surgery in the car have been scuppered by the new rules on self-isolation for the over-70s. And if nothing else, my parents know how to obey rules.

Mum is only on water tablets and an aspirin a day to stop her blood from clotting too much. But Dad has a full panoply of beta blockers, ACE inhibitors, anticoagulants and some sort of liquid to keep his bowels moving after the cancer. It turns out that he ran out of most of them a few days ago, but he didn’t want to make a fuss.

I try to keep the exasperation from my voice when I say that of course I can get to the surgery before they close at 1pm. Which I do, leaving my freshly poured coffee and the diary open on the laptop, throwing on yesterday’s clothes and a rudimentary attempt at some make-up, and breaking the speed limit on the way over to Waylands Heath.

The car park near the surgery is full so I leave the car in a space marked “Parking for Doctors only”, hoping I will only be a few minutes, and then try to get into the surgery which is like Fort Knox until you get round the other side and see harassed reception staff trying to marshall a long queue of people to stand two metres apart, which is about a metre further than most of them seem to want to accept. Eventually I collect Dad’s prescription, and go back to the car, to find a typed note under the windscreen wiper:

Polite notice: To whom it may concern

You have parked in a space reserved for essential surgery staff. Please be aware that these spaces are needed AT ALL TIMES and that your selfish action may have endangered the life of someone in need of urgent medical help.

Please do not park here again.

Thank you.

And I feel my eyes filling up with tears. OK, I shouldn’t have parked there. But I wasn’t exactly in Hobbs trying on a new dress.

I drive round to Mum and Dad’s, determined not to mention the note. They will have no sympathy anyway.

I park in their tiny driveway, built for a time when Morris Minors were considered to be a good-sized family car. As usual, I scrape the door of the Golf on the hydrangea bush.

And as I get out, I am greeted by my mother standing at the front door, wearing an apron and rubber gloves, with a silk scarf tied round her mouth, bandit-style. Apparently, I am now an infection risk and must not come any nearer. She tells me, somewhat triumphantly, that the Sainsbury’s home delivery didn’t have most of the things on the list but that they can manage perfectly well without. I leave the bag of medication at the bottom of the steps for her to collect after I have gone. We have a brief chat but I can tell she is desperate for me to go. As I drive off, I notice my father waving sadly from the front window.

I feel very lonely on the way home.

Sunday starts out being a horrid day. It’s Mothers’ Day but I’m not going to be seeing either of the children or my lovely Kezia. I don’t get up until after The Archers has started. The dog is unimpressed.

After breakfast, I make myself go out to the greenhouse to pinch out my sweet pea seedlings and look for signs of life from the Cosmos seeds I planted two weeks ago. Nothing doing there, but in better news, the tomatoes have benefited from their time on the dining room window sill and most of the pots have a tiny first shoot.

I take the dog out for his walk at lunchtime, and when I get back, find a bunch of flowers in a jam jar of water behind the big pot by the front door.  A text message from Brian tells me that he picked them on his allotment. That man is full of surprises.

And then I get a WhatsApp video call from Charlotte and a Skype call from Toby and Kezia. And my day starts feeling a lot better. I go out to the greenhouse and water the seedlings, and after another few more hours on the diary, go to bed early with the Observer crossword, a cup of tea and the cat.

And now it’s Monday and time to make the blog go live. No press conference at 5pm but the PM is due to make an announcement at 8.30pm. People seem to think it means we will be in lockdown.

At least that means no-one will be looking at this stupid diary.

Tuesday 24 March and Wednesday 25 March 2010

Day Two of the diary going online and I have already broken my own rule to post every day. I am useless.

My only excuse is that I spent most of Tuesday in bed. No, I don’t have the virus. But the announcement last night to #StayAtHome was not very happy news for someone in my situation.

What I mean by that is someone who lives alone but can’t work from home because they don’t actually have any work. And who desperately wants to see her children, but one lives in London and is very busy, even when working from home, and the other may live nearby and not have any work but often forgets that he has a mother.

After the announcement, I felt sad and worried and distracted. It took a while to sink in that under the new rules, I wouldn’t be allowed to see Kezia either. And that was what really got to me. I just couldn’t get to sleep and had to keep reminding myself she hadn’t gone to live in Australia, that it was only for 12 weeks and that I could still talk to her on Skype. God, I love that little girl.

When I woke up on Tuesday, it was like after someone had died. Or Brexit. At first I thought it had all been an awful dream. But then I realised it was true. And that’s why I mainly stayed in bed. The poor dog had to make do with the garden. But the cat loved it.

Today (Wednesday) has been a bit better. There haven’t been any more awful announcements, apart of course from the rising death count and the need to follow the rules on social distancing and isolating. I went for a long walk on the Downs with the dog and most people seem to be keeping to the rules. I tried to smile and say hullo to everyone I saw; some of them would be feeling lonely like me.

I do of course have the option of going to stay with my parents. Mum suggested it when we had our daily chat this morning. She offered as if they were doing me a favour, which in their minds they probably were, given how much they hate having guests. I tried to turn down the offer as kindly as possible, and Mum and I ended up agreeing that it was a good idea as we would probably kill one another. But she did agree that it would be a help if I did their shopping this week after all, and I felt warm and wanted again.

Anyway, when I got back from the walk there was another little vase of flowers waiting for me, this time with a note from Brian suggesting that we have a WhatsApp video call tonight so I can update him on my blog.

So that is what I am going to do, after I’ve washed my hair. I’m quite looking forward to it.

Thursday 26 March 2020

I expect you are all wanting to know about my WhatsApp video call with Brian last night, aren’t you? All 27 of you who have looked at my blog, that is – or is it just me who’s looked at it 27 times?

I need to make this absolutely clear. I do not fancy Brian. Not at all. He is just a very nice bloke who helped me to set up my blog and has given me a few flowers from his allotment, OK? He isn’t my type. Not at all. He is far too sensible and boring. Do I look like someone who would fancy a man with a flask?

My type, if you really want to know, is a bit more exciting than Brian.

Mind you, I have changed. My type used to be men like my ex-husband, who call you darling a lot and love you for your body even more than your mind and are maybe a bit unreliable but they make your heart beat faster when you think about them. Men who sweep you off your feet, like buying you nice things and taking you out for romantic meals and shagging your best friend…

Men like that. I used to be very forgiving back in the day. But Richard broke my heart so many times. And in the end, it was me that threw him out. I just couldn’t take it any more.

As I said, I have changed. I’m done with bad boys.

My type of man these days is someone gorgeous but reliable, who always looks stunning but doesn’t mind if you are a bit of a mess yourself. Like Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones Diary. Not in the later books, I thought they got a bit silly, but the first one, when she eventually realizes she loves him and then thinks he’s left her because he’s read the diary so she runs after him in the snow.

Or like our new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, although obviously a bit older. I’m not a cougar, for God’s sake.

Not that men who are a slightly older version of Rishi and by some miracle aren’t already happily married would look at me these days. Hence my singleton status.

And before you ask, yes, I have tried online dating. More than once. It is a very good way to meet people, if you like kissing frogs and occasionally other women’s husbands. Shock fact: some men lie, even online. I know some people find true romance via Guardian Soulmates and good luck to them. But it just hasn’t worked for me. Yet.

Confession time: I have been out with a few men since Richard and I finally separated. After all, it has been 18 years. And one or two of them were quite promising to start with. I may tell you more about them when the time is right. Or not. After all, this is my diary.

Anyway, Brian and I had a nice chat about my blog and he reminded me of another bit of advice from Kurt Vonnegut, which is this: create characters that your readers will love and then do terrible things to them.

And so I said, are you suggesting I kill one of my main characters off with Covid-19? And he said, no, he didn’t mean that at all, but just to allow the characters to develop so that my readers start to really like them and then just see what happens. To let the writing lead me.

I haven’t asked him what he thinks about the diary himself. But I’m hoping he thinks it’s ok. Because whatever else, Brian writes beautifully. I know I was a bit rude about him writing a family memoir, but he does have a fascinating family history, and we all look forward to hearing him read to our group, even Candy.

The creative writing group is now going to meet via Zoom, by the way – if I can get it working, that is. Brian says you just click on the link and it launches in your browser. I don’t know why, but whenever people start using technical words about computers, I pretend that I understand, but inside I am thinking that any minute, they are going to find out that I have literally no idea what they are talking about. And I feel guilty because I know I should have listened more years ago and done the online tutorials that I always skip past because I really do hate reading instructions.

After talking to Brian, I had a Skype call from my sister Lydia. She was looking a bit tired.

I haven’t mentioned Lydia before, have I? She and I get on OK these days, but that wasn’t always the case. She is much more sensible and successful than me, as well as being taller, slimmer, prettier and younger. People always used to assume she was older than me, which used to drive her mad. No danger of that these days.

She has had to close down her school but is still going in each day to look after the children of key workers and children who are at risk, which in her part of London is a lot, and show leadership to her staff. She always talks about leadership, and how important it is. Last night was no exception. I just wish she’d stop trying to lead me. She wanted to check that I hadn’t forgotten about Mum and Dad, and that I wasn’t taking any risks getting their groceries to them. I resisted the temptation to tell her that I was going to the supermarket and then unpacking the shopping without washing my hands first while coughing all over the work surfaces and then hugging and kissing them both. She laughed when I told her how Mum had greeted me on the doorstep with a scarf round her face and made me leave Dad’s medication at the bottom of the steps.

We also had a chat about our respective children. Hers are both doctors working on the front-line, which must be a massive worry. But she still managed to make me feel bad, either because mine aren’t working on the front-line or because I still should be. I said that Charlotte was working from home and that the world still needed lawyers, and I pretended to know what Toby was up to, and she said how good it was that the chancellor would be making an announcement about incomes for self-employed people tomorrow i.e. today.

I pretended to be surprised although obviously I have been glued to the news about what is going to be done to support the self-employed since all their work has dried up. They have an item on the Today programme about the hardship facing musicians most days now.

Not that Toby had a lot of work before all this started. I‘m really worried that most of his earnings were cash in hand – the announcement is bound to be that the income support for self-employed people will be based on previous tax returns. And that isn’t going to help him. In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t asked me for any money recently. Maybe his father is helping him out? (Laughs hollowly.)

Anyway, enough of all that. I am going to be taking Brian’s advice from now on and letting my characters develop organically.

Like his vegetables.  

Friday 27 March 2020

I slept a bit better last night.

But when I woke up this morning, I had literally no idea what day it was, and had to think really hard for at least 5 minutes about what went on yesterday. This is happening to me more and more. It feels rather frightening.

And then it all came flooding back that I can’t go to college and my parents don’t want me going into their house because they think I’m an infection control hazard and I can’t see the children or my darling Kezia.

I feel ashamed to say that I had a little snivel. The cat and the dog got on the bed and seemed quite worried, which was nice. I should stop calling them The Cat and The Dog, it might make you think that I don’t care about them. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are my furry babies and I literally could not live without them. A bone of contention between me and Richard was that he thought that animals should sleep in the utility room and I wanted them to sleep in our bedroom.

It was the same with the children.

My dear little dog is called Harvey, he’s an apricot cockapoo who looks like an adorable doggy teddy bear. And the cat is Mog, named after the one in the Judith Kerr books. She is tabby and white and until all this started, despite me lavishing her with love, she was the most aloof and unfriendly cat I have ever met. But she and Harvey have teamed up recently and taken to sleeping in the same basket during the day and on my bed at night. And this morning they looked after me while I was feeling sad with purrs and snuggles and quite a lot of licking. Thank God pets can’t get it.

Maybe they are worried that if I die there will be no-one available to feed them?

Finally I remembered that it was Friday, and that last night, my new secret crush, Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who I have just discovered is much shorter than I thought he was (and I don’t care) announced a new package of support for the self-employed. Although they won’t get it until June. And then we all stood outside our houses and clapped and cheered and banged saucepans in support of the NHS and care workers and all the other people who are keeping things going while we are stuck at home. It was really nice to see my neighbours, even just for a few minutes.

But when I went back inside I felt even more lonely.

So I plucked up courage to WhatsApp Toby to see if he had heard the about the announcement, and he was actually available to chat for a change. We did a video call, and I discovered that he’s growing a beard. I asked him if he’d seen the news and he said that he had and was going to apply for the grant. I asked him if he needed any money and he was a bit coy. In the end he said that his father had transferred him some cash and that he was OK for the moment. And then he said that he was missing me and let’s do this every few days so we could stay in touch with each other, Mum. And it was lovely.

Anyway, this morning, I have decided that I need a daily routine. I am going to stop lying in bed until the Today programme finishes and get up by 7.15, 8.00 at the latest. That will please Harvey. And as soon as I’ve had breakfast, I’m going to make myself a nice coffee and then sit down and write the diary. It might look like I just dash it off, but each entry takes several hours. There is a LOT of editing needed before you can see it online. All 33 of you, at the latest count.

Although I probably won’t post it until the early evening, just in case something interesting happens later in the day.

Then at lunchtime I am going to go out for a walk. I don’t know what I am going to do in the afternoons, maybe gardening or cleaning the house? And I’m going to do my parents’ shopping once a week and mine on another day each week, because they will only let you have 3 of anything at the moment and we need more than that between us.

It feels a bit bleak but at least it’s better than sitting around checking BBC news and Twitter all day.

This morning almost went to plan. I did allow myself a bit of indulgence to read John Crace in the Guardian online (yes, I do have a subscription). What a wonderful writer. He seems to have a crush on Rishi Sunak as well.

But then Candy rang and suggested we took the dogs for a walk up on the Downs. And I said, er, Candy, that would be lovely but aren’t we supposed to be socially isolating, and she said, but if we were both just walking up there and happened to come across each another surely that would be OK, as long as we keep at least 2 metres apart?

So we arranged to accidentally bump into one another at 12.00 near the clump of trees on the way up to the main path, and I had to rush around to get ready because when you are seeing Candy, you don’t want to be wearing dirty old clothes with no make-up and your hair unwashed for 6 days.

We had a lovely walk. Her dogs are greyhound rescues. You’d think would love exercise. But they just plod along, probably relieved to have a couple of decent meals every day and no more electric hares to chase. Harvey likes them but is a bit scared because they are enormous, so I kept him on his lead.

And Candy made me to tell her all about the blog and the help Brian that had been giving me. She says she is going to read it and give me her honest feedback. Oh God.

I thought she was going to start asking me if I fancied Brian, but I managed to get her onto the subject of Rodney. And she told me about the rather thrilling online sex they are currently having. And now I can’t get the image out of my mind.

In other news, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health have tested positive for Corona Virus, and the Chief Medical Officer has got symptoms. They are going to carry on working from home.

What a shame the doctors and nurses who get ill can’t do that.

And what an even greater shame that I, a nurse (albeit one who hasn’t practiced for over 30 years) can’t do my bit to help the NHS.

Or maybe I can??

Next post will be on Monday March 29 when you can hear about my weekend. In which things take an unexpected turn.

Monday 29 March 2020

Don’t know about your weekend, but mine has been a bit eventful, one way and another.

I wasn’t expecting it to be like that. I woke up on Saturday morning to the usual shock realization that the world had changed because of the virus and that almost everything I had taken for granted was gone. And that I wasn’t just facing two long days of being on my own but an infinite amount of time.

This was followed by the almost equally nightmarish thought of doing my elderly parents’ shopping in Sainsbury’s – no more home delivery slots available unless you register as elderly and of course, they don’t want to do that.

Supermarkets have now implemented a queuing system. Visions of growing queues eventually got me out of bed. Poor Harvey got a rather unsatisfactory walk during which my mother kept ringing with yet another instruction about the kind of bread my father doesn’t like and not to get those expensive fishcakes, the cheapest ones will do and to please not buy too much, they have lived through the war you know.

Finally at Sainsbury’s, I thought the queue wasn’t too bad until a man politely pointed out that I had joined the front and that it actually went all the way round the car park, down the up ramp and back up the down ramp again. They were operating a 10 in, 10 out rule and it was 1 ½ hours before my small cohort were finally allowed in, to be welcomed by smiling staff wearing overalls, plastic visors and gloves. It felt civilized in a military sort of way.

Shopping itself wasn’t too bad, they were out of a lot of things but there were alternatives. Except that I felt incredibly guilty because even with my mother’s instructions ringing in my ears, the trolley looked very full by the time I got to the checkout. But the lady was kind, with jolly stickers on her visor. She reminded me that people over 70 could register for home deliveries. Was it because I kept telling her which of the items were for my elderly parents or because I now look over 70 myself?

And yes, they can register but my parents think doing so will mean never being allowed to drive to the shops again. When you get old, your freedom decreases and this can make you cling on even harder to what you have left. I do understand this. And I feel mean to resent the fact that it is me who seems to be experiencing the downsides of what is left of their freedom.

We did a handover at the bottom of their steps. My mother was wearing a disconcerting pair of purple Crocks I had never seen before. It was as if we were conducting a clandestine exercise to smuggle illegal goods into the house. She spoke in monosyllables, muffled by the woolen scarf wrapped round her face. My father stood in the front window again, waving as she shooed me away. He looked even more forlorn 

When I got home, Mog had been sick and there was a note through the door from Marnie to say that she and Kezia were out for a walk, and to text her if I got back in time so they could come and wave at me from the front gate. Which I did, and they did and it was lovely. Kez sang me a little song that she had made up, about how the virus might be keeping her away from me but we would see each other again very soon, which of course made me cry. And then she cried, and I felt bad to have upset her, but Marnie was sweet, and hugged her and blew kisses at me and said it was fine and that they could pop by and see Nanna Sadie anytime, and that we would all be able to give each other a cuddle very soon. And they waved all the way down the street until they turned the corner. And I realized that I may have misjudged that girl.

Then on Sunday morning I was just settling down to a cup of coffee and The Archers which is thankfully still a corona-free zone when the doorbell rang and it was Richard.

He stood on the step looking all big and mournful in an old overcoat and asked if he could come in. So I said what about social distancing and he said that he had been social distancing like mad but that he just needed to see me. So I opened the side gate and let him in and we sat at the table in the garden. I made him a cup of coffee wearing rubber gloves and gave it him with some disinfectant wipes but he just started drinking it without using them. It was freezing and he said can’t we go into the house, I promise not to breathe on you. And he looked so pathetic and I started feeling sorry for him. But I said no, we have to stay out here.

And then he started on his usual story about how he had made some terrible mistakes in his life and that he missed me very badly and he realized that I was the only one he had ever loved and could I find it in my heart to forgive him?

Confession time: this is not the first time I have had such a conversation with my ex-husband. It happens every now and again. He has a row with his latest wife (there have been two since me) and storms off. And because we know each other so well, and he was the love of my life, it doesn’t take much for me to melt and before we know where we are, we are upstairs in my bedroom.

Does that shock you? They call it sex-with-the-ex apparently, and it is more common than you think. You’ve been together all those years, and old habits die hard.

The only person I have ever told about this is Candy, and she wasn’t shocked at all. She said it was quite normal, and sometimes we just have an itch that needs to be scratched. All she asked me to do was consider whether it was good for my well being long term and that maybe I needed to increase my efforts to find new pastures?

Anyway, back to Sunday morning. I was just beginning to think that maybe I was being a bit strict about social distancing and maybe I could let Richard into the house and did I have time to nip upstairs and shave my legs when he started talking about Boris Johnson.

I probably don’t need to tell you that Richard loves Boris. Boris stands for everything that Richard believes in – free markets, free speech, and freedom to judge the motives of people who don’t agree with you and make stuff up to suit your argument and be rude about experts. And freedom to exploit those who don’t have your connections or privileges and pretend you are doing it for the good of the country.

I know I said earlier that I was a lifelong Labour voter, but that was a lie. Another example of being an unreliable narrator. I voted Tory first of all because of my parents, and then because of Richard. And it was only as my own political views matured, somewhat late in the day some might say, that I gradually grew to detest the macho, privileged, entitled and misogynistic beliefs of my husband and his ilk.    

So when he said that poor Boris was doing a great job and wasn’t it marvelous how he was still leading the country even now he had the virus, he reminded him even more of Churchill, I felt something tiny inside me explode. I said that I thought his statement about having the virus was terrible.

And Richard said, What are you talking about?

And I said, he should have been much more serious about it. He should have said that he hoped he would still be able to run the country but that it was a very dangerous virus and even he was not immune from getting ill. And rather than saying all bullishly, we are going to beat this thing, he should have implored people to follow the instruction to stay at home and protect others.

And Richard said, that’s ridiculous, he’s a fit man and his immune system will fight it off in no time.

And I said, Richard, going to a posh school and being rich and having a positive mental attitude does not make you immune to a deadly virus. He hasn’t followed the advice and now he is ill and he may put a strain on the NHS and use up a bed that someone else needs.

And Richard said, God, you are a self-righteous little woman these days. That bloody Open University has a lot to answer for.

And I said Get out, you bastard.

And he stomped off, muttering. And I was angry but also relieved, and I made myself a promise that I would never, ever sleep with a Tory again.

Except maybe Rishi Sunak in my dreams….

And now it’s Monday and I’ve got a Zoom meeting with the creative writing group tonight.

More anon.

Tuesday 31 March 2020

The Zoom creative writing group meeting last night went OK. Everyone has been busy on their main writing projects, other than me. One or two were a bit sniffy about my descent into the chicklit diary genre, but others seemed to like it. Candy said very supportive things about the diary and I had a nice offline chat with her and Brian afterwards. And then he sent me a text message about maybe having another WhatsApp chat today.

So I woke up feeling quite jolly for a change. But now there has been a family emergency and so that will be it for my diary today.

All being well, I will post again tomorrow, Wednesday 1 April. No April Fools jokes this year please, we are all feeling too tense.

Wednesday 1 April 2020

As I said yesterday, no April Fool’s jokes please. Everything has been just too awful.

If you had told me that I would get a call from Wessex police to say that they had received a call from my parents’ neighbour reporting a potential domestic violence incident, I would have told you that it wasn’t in the least bit funny.

Except that is exactly what did happen. It was a lovely sunny morning. I was just settling down at the table in the garden to write the diary with the cafetiere and a little jug of warm milk, with the dog and cat contentedly sprawled in the sun beside me, when my phone rang.

At first, I really did think it was someone playing a joke. But the policewoman who called was deadly serious. She said that, given the Corona Virus situation and as it has just been raised voices and some banging noises and there was no suspicion of threat to life at this stage, they would not be paying my parents an emergency visit. But that I might want to stop what I was doing and check on them myself.

Indeed I would. I shooed the animals into the kitchen, grabbed my bag and keys and set off. I don’t remember the journey.

When I drove into their road, things seemed even quieter than usual. The man opposite was sweeping his front step. As I got out of the car he ignored me. Nothing unusual in that, people in Waylands Heath like to keep themselves to themselves. I rang my parents’ doorbell. There was no answer. I rang again. Then I lifted the letter box and called through it. Still no answer. I felt worried but also extremely self-conscious and stupid.

Eventually I went round to the side gate, which of course was locked, and peered through the slats. I called out Mum, Dad, it’s only me. And then I saw my father’s face slowly peering round the side of the house. He was wearing pyjamas. And he had a small cut on his head.

And I said, Dad, Dad, come here, what’s happening. And he shuffled slowly to the gate, peering over his shoulder, and tried to open it. And he has said Sadie, I’m really sorry. It’s your mother, she’s not right again.

I went back to the front door and began banging and knocking again. I could now see my mother through the letter box. She was leaning against the wall, little red circles on each cheek and a blazing look in her eyes. I couldn’t persuade her to open the door at first, but I discovered that by talking really quietly and calmly, I could get her to start inching towards the door. In the end she opened it and let me in.

By now, quite a few neighbours were outside their houses having a good look. The ward sister in me took charge and I shut the front door. Within half an hour I had my father snugly inside in his dressing gown, eating Marmite and toast, the cut cleaned and dressed, and my mother in the bath upstairs. When I offered her a cup of sweetened tea she gulped in down in a few seconds and held out her cup for more. Next, I phoned the surgery and got through the multiple hoops that they have created these days just to make sure you really are ill, and spoke to a receptionist who promised she would get the on-call GP to ring me back.

I helped my mother into a clean nightie, changed the bed and did a little tidy up. She had clearly been unwell for a few days. Then hurrah, the GP rang back, I went through my mother’s symptoms and we agreed that she almost certainly had a urinary tract infection, and that the GP would arrange for some antibiotics to be dropped round by the chemist. There are some benefits to the corona virus after all.

And in what felt like no time later, a little parcel from the chemist arrived, delivered by a man in overalls and blue disposable gloves. Mum took her first tablet and settled down sweetly to sleep. And I went downstairs and opened a tin of soup for me and Dad, bracing myself to call my sister.

As you can imagine, Lydia was extremely vocal and had very strong views about the incident. She wanted me to wake Mum up so she could speak to her. But I said no, and amazingly she accepted this. She spoke to Dad instead for quite a long time, during which he did a bit of eye rolling, eventually handing the phone back to me.

It would have been nice if Lydia had asked me how I was, rather than going on about the importance of thanking all the neighbours, calling the police back and safeguarding procedures.

But she did make an interesting point. She reminded me of something I am very good at forgetting, about a long time ago when our mother went off the rails for a very different reason.  

She said, I know you think she lost it with Dad because she was confused from the infection, but have you noticed what day it is? And I said Oh.

Because 31 March would have been our other sister’s birthday.

I haven’t mentioned her yet, have I? I will tell you about her when I have more time. For now, I’m staying in my old bedroom and remembering how lumpy the mattress is.

In other news, I rang Candy and she is making sure Harvey and Mog don’t starve. And I had a nice long chat with Brian via a WhatsApp video call. He listened to the whole story and the told me what a good daughter I was.

And that made me cry, but in a nice way.

Thursday 2 April 2020

Two nights on the lumpy single mattress later, and I am so, so happy to be home.

My mother is, thankfully, back to her old self. And my father is OK, just a bit more reserved and frail than he was before my mother hit him round the head with a spatula and locked him in the garden at 5 am.

The GP thinks the recent episode was mania, brought on by a urinary tract infection. The treatment, once she finishes her antibiotics, is to drink more fluids. Good luck with that.

In normal circumstances he said he would have liked to do a few investigations, but we agreed that at the moment, the potential risks outweigh the benefits. I phoned Lydia to update her after talking to the GP, and she got a bit excited and starting lecturing me on ageism. But eventually she agreed that hospitals had other things to do just now and anyway there wasn’t any other option. And then she gave me another lecture about the importance of getting our dear mother to drink more, and I resisted the temptation to remind her that I had completed the odd fluid chart in my time, but that she was unlikely to change her view that drinking more than two cups of tea a day was unladylike.

I am trying to see how hard it must for Lydia not being allowed to drop everything and come down to Waylands Heath. I just wish she would stop performance managing me.

I’ve agreed with Lydia that I am going to visit the Aged Ps every other day from now on, and that I will be even more careful to stay away from other people so I don’t pick up the dreaded CV. Life is so constrained now anyway that it doesn’t even feel like a sacrifice. One day, will we look back on this time and wonder how we managed to get through it? I think we will.

I was hoping for a bit of quality time watching Chancellor Rishi Sunak at tonight’s press conference to take my mind off parental duties. TBH, he is the only member of the government who gives most of us any confidence. Would it be weird to have a poster of him on my fridge, just to keep my spirits up? #AskingForAFriend .

So it was a huge disappointment that at 5.15 pm, the Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock took to the main podium. I felt furious. Apart from the fact that Mr Hancock looks like an excited guinea pig, he has been in quarantine for Covid-19 for barely a week.

What kind of an example do you think you are setting, Matthew? Go back to bed at once, you stupid boy.

Friday 3 April 2020

I keep having a recurring dream. I had it again last night, possibly brought on by the second Thursday of doorstep clapping for NHS and other essential workers.

In my dream, I’m working as an agency nurse in a hospital looking after very sick people. It is extremely busy and everyone is rushing around. But gradually it dawns on me that I am there under false pretenses – I am no longer qualified as a nurse and I am committing a very serious offence by pretending that I am. I feel panic stricken and don’t know what to do. I try to run away or hide. And then I wake up. I am relieved, but also worried and disturbed.

Does it mean I feel guilty about no longer being on the NHS front line, or am I just generally anxious? I don’t know. I just know I want the dream to stop.

It’s three weeks since I decided to start my corona virus diary, and two since lockdown, or what passes for lockdown in the UK. People are sending each other funny videos of how they are coping without going to the hairdresser or gym.  More people are wearing masks outside.

I’ve just seen the death count as reported over the last 24 hours, and it’s the highest yet. 684 people. Each one a tragedy for the person themselves and those who love them. It includes two nurses. It is almost unbearable to think about this scale of loss.

Like you, I’m trying to stay calm. Brian sent me a link to a very good article in The Times Literary Supplement. https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/some-thoughts-on-the-british-response-to-coronavirus-essay-alexander-van-tulleken/

Do read it, it’s free. It has helped me today.

I got up this morning absolutely determined that I was NOT going to watch today’s government press conference. I got so cross about the one yesterday. Yes, Matt Hancock seems to have realized during his very short time in sick bay that the British public deserve more honesty, which is good news. But his promises about increasing testing are still only promises. Plus he really ought to have stayed in quarantine for the amount of time everyone else is expected to observe. And now I have just heard he will be back doing the conference today. What has happened to Rishi Sunak, I’d like to know? I think we should be told.

And it is the weekend, the weather is nice and people are being told not to go out in the sunshine. Oh dear.

In more positive news, I am unbelievably thrilled to have secured a Sainsbury’s online delivery slot for my parents next Wednesday – hurrah!!! I don’t know if it’s because I have at last managed to get them on the government’s frailty register or what, the whole process is extremely complicated and frustrating, but I am hugely pleased. My mother is of course adamant that they don’t need any shopping, but I have looked in their larder and they are down to a few tins and some ageing Ryvita.

My mother has never been interested in food. When we were children, she preferred cigarettes and vodka. Now, she seems to live on air. My poor father has become terribly thin, and I have vowed to myself that I am not going to let him starve. That would just be too awful, given all that has happened in our family.

More on Monday. I hope your weekend is OK. And if you are working in the NHS or somewhere else essential, like a care home or a food shop, thank you. I wish I could do something more to help you than staying at home. But if that’s all I can do, I promise to do it to the best of my ability.

Monday 6 April 2020

It has been a very long weekend. Can it only be two days since I told you about my recurring dream of practicing nursing again illegally and had a bit of a moan about my mother not letting my father have enough to eat?

Over the weekend we’ve had to put up with wall-to-wall Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock having a go at the very small number of people flouting the lock-down rules. Thank goodness for HM The Queen who very calmly told us we were all in this together and that one day soon we would be able to see our friends and families again. I don’t know who writes her speeches, but they could give a few tips to the person who writes the ones Matt is giving us at the moment.  

And still no sign of Chancellor Rishi Sunak. It is a challenge to maintain a crush on someone who has become virtually invisible. Is he ill? I think we should be told.

There was an inevitability of Boris Johnson getting really ill with the virus. I’m such a flake that I almost wish I had never said anything horrible about him. All I can do now is wish him better and tell him TO STOP TRYING TO RUN THE COUNTRY WHILE YOU ARE IN HOSPITAL, SOMEONE ELSE CAN DO IT FOR A FEW DAYS.

For the benefit of my mental health, not to mention yours, I am going to list a few of the good things to have happened in my world.

1. I did some gardening for my parents. And despite me getting a mild electric shock from the lawnmower flex, they seemed pleased with the results. I also took them some homemade cauliflower cheese. My mother toyed with hers while my father finished his in about 30 seconds. When we were children I remember her telling me: Your father eats like a Labrador, and you take after him. And at first, I thought this was a compliment, because we had a Lab called Monty and they are such lovely dogs. And then I realized it wasn’t. Anyway, both Aged Ps seem OK at the moment. No more domestic abuse to report. Touch wood.
2.  I was doing a bit of tidying up in my own small front garden when I heard a familiar voice calling up the street and it was Kezia, this time out for a walk with Toby. We had a lovely chat and she told me how she is putting a different teddy bear in the window of her Mum’s flat each day and that I should do it so that children could spot them when they were out for their daily exercise . Something to do with Michael Rosen’s book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. (Get well soon, Michael, please.) And I went into the house and got one of the small bears she keeps in the back bedroom at my house and popped it on the window sill and she was delighted and so was I, and now I am going to put a different one out each day (I’ve only got three others, so it will have to be in rotation) and send her a picture via WhatsApp. And she skipped off down the street, and Toby waved goodbye and ambled after her, and I went into the kitchen and bawled my eyes out. It’s all very well for the Queen to say we will see our families again, she has so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, she probably gets sick of them all. I’ve only got Kezia.
3. The Labour Party announced that their new leader is Sir Keir Starmer. This seems like the right result to me, although I also feel a bit guilty because I feel that somehow I should have been supporting one of the female candidates. It’s just that Keir is so much better than either of them. Everyone says that it is going to be a very difficult path for him to tread to be relevant whilst in opposition at such a time. But he seems to have started well. I like what he said about constructive criticism, scrutiny and not being in opposition for opposition’s sake. I also like his nice white shirts. And he has great hair.

In other news, Harvey and I had another accidental dog walk with Candy and the greyhounds. She is a bit down. She thinks Rodney is seeing someone else. And Maurice is staying with his sister in Golders Green and never answers his phone. I hadn’t realized how fond she is of him. She says he is the nicest man she has ever known, and if he dies of the virus she doesn’t know what she will do.

And I had WhatsApp video calls with Lydia, who I foolishly told about the electric shock from the lawnmower and now thinks I need to get an emergency electrician out to look at the wiring in our parents’ shed, and Charlotte, who was as evasive as usual when I heard a woman’s voice in the background and asked her who it was, and Brian, who is becoming a really good friend. He’s helping me think about why I keep having that dream about nursing and whether there is anything I can do about it.

Brian wondered if I had looked at how many people were now reading my diary and I said I hadn’t looked because it was probably hardly anybody and so he made me and it was 295!

And today it is 335. Thank you all so much. I really don’t know why you bother.

I’ve got a new pin-up photo on my fridge, btw. I wonder if you can guess who it is?

Tuesday 7 April 2020

I’ve been awake all night again. And now I’m sitting at the kitchen table, still in my PJs, which I haven’t washed for over a week BTW, listening to the Today programme and writing my diary much earlier than usual. And I am going to post it as soon as I have finished it. There is simply no point waiting until 6pm. Because whatever time I choose to post, something else awful is bound to happen.

Last night we heard that the daily death rate had reduced slightly. Extraordinary that I should feel pleased that “only” 439 people were reported to have died on Sunday 5^th April. I had to remind myself that every one of those is a tragedy to some poor family. Never mind the person themselves. And anyway, these daily reports give us false hope. The weekends always show a dip, to do with reductions in reporting rather than any true reduction, apparently. Also, the deaths reported often happened several weeks before. The true number for that day is likely to be several times more, until we reach a plateau.

To think about so many deaths was surely good enough reason to lie awake worrying. But I had something more pressing on my mind.

After my argument with my ex-husband Richard last weekend, when he said that his hero Boris Johnson was a fit man and would fight off the virus and that he reminded him of Churchill, and I said going to a posh school and being rich and having a positive mental attitude does not make you immune to a deadly virus, I have been worrying that I may be a witch.

Every time the PM has appeared subsequently, he has looked increasingly unwell. And now he is in intensive care. Which, whatever positive spin Michael Gove, Dominic Raab or a Number 10 spokesman try to put on it, is desperately serious and worrying.

Edith Cavell was shot for nursing the enemy. And although I am no longer a practicing nurse, I would gladly die for doing the same. May the Prime Minister receive the treatment and care he needs from our amazing NHS and get well as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, please can someone in a position to do something about it recognize that he is not going to be up to the job of running the country now for several months? We need a more experienced hand on the tiller than one of his have-a-go Brexiteer brigade. There are 5 living ex-PMs available – John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May. I honestly don’t care about their politics and nor should anyone else. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Surely?

But that wasn’t what kept me awake either.

What did keep me awake was the news, via our mutual daughter Charlotte, that the aforementioned Richard with whom I had the argument the previous weekend about the appropriateness or otherwise of Boris Johnson’s positive mental attitude, thinks he too has the virus. And that he has been ill since last Tuesday or Wednesday. Which means he would have been infectious when he came round to see me. Oh.

Obviously I am worried about him. I have been in touch and he sounds OK, just pretty miserable, given that he is now living alone in a small rented flat in Peckham having been thrown out by his third wife Alana for the usual misdemeanors. But I am also worried about who he might have infected.

So at 3.30 am I was out in the back garden with a tape measure to see how far apart we sat when he turned up unexpectedly the previous Sunday and I let him in and made him coffee. And it turns out that two metres is a great deal longer than my small garden table.

Oh shit.

And that is why I haven’t slept.  

Wednesday 8 April 2020

Where was I?

Oh yes, the Prime Minister is in intensive care and my idiot ex-husband came round the weekend before last to try and persuade me to reduce my social distancing measures and now he’s got the symptoms of Corona Virus and therefore I may now be brewing it myself and I’m supposed to be looking after my elderly vulnerable parents.

Not surprisingly given the above, I had another sleepless night. This may also have been partly because I fell asleep on the sofa watching The Great Celebrity Bake-off for Stand-Up for Cancer (I assume Carol Vorderman won?) and only woke up during Wife Swap USA 3 ½ hours later.

As I lay awake, I thought of all the different excuses I could give my parents about why I’m not going to be able to visit them for the next 14 days. Not that my mother would mind, she is increasingly suspicious of everything I do to try to help them at the moment. But my poor father would probably starve. And anyway, she could get ill again.

If I tell them the truth, my mother will think that I have at last seen sense and that the wonderful Richard and I are getting back together. But my father would be disappointed in me; he never trusted Richard and he thinks I am much better off without him. He is a good judge of character, my dad.

I could tell them that it’s me who’s ill, but if I mention the virus, my mother will probably never allow me over the threshold again. She views me as a walking infection hazard at the best of times. Maybe I could be laid up with something else? It would have to be major enough to stop me from driving, but also something that wouldn’t need medical attention. But I don’t want to worry them, the poor things have enough to contend with as it is.

Or could someone else be ill? One of the children maybe? But then I’m involving them in my web of lies, and in any case, I don’t want either of them to know about Richard’s visit either. He and I tend to keep our occasional sordid little liaisons very much entre nous.

Just as it was getting light, a couple of thoughts occured to me. First of all, thank goodness Richard started banging on about Boris Johnson being so brave and fighting off the virus, because before he said that I was getting ready to let my guard and a few other things down as well. And then I would almost certainly have caught whatever he has now got.

And then I remembered that the advice about 14 days of social isolation applies to someone who lives with someone else who had just started showing the symptoms. I don’t live with Richard. And only time we have been in contact, across that wretched garden table which I must remember to bleach (in fact I should have done this yesterday, my mother is right, I probably am an infection hazard), was actually 10 days ago.

Therefore I need to stay in isolation for just 4 more days. (Not that I have been in isolation because I didn’t know he was ill until yesterday.)

Or is it 14 days from when Richard started showing the symptoms, which was last Tuesday, and therefore 6 more days?

Or even 7 days from when he first started showing the symptoms, which would mean I am actually now clear?

Worse case scenario, I need to stay away from my parents for 6 days. Which feels doable, as long as there are no more calls from the police.

And then I started reading social media, and fell back to sleep and didn’t wake up again until after Today has finished and the dog was whining and the cat was staring out of the back door making little miaowing noises at the birds that have filled the garden now that all the traffic has gone.

My plans today, after writing my blog, are to clean my grubby little house. And to put something on Twitter like this:

Because that is what I think.

And to the 382 people who are now apparently reading my blog, thank you.

Thursday 9 April 2020

Chancellor Rishi Sunak was in charge of last night’s press conference. He was very good until he got a question from a journalist about Brexit when he went all swivel-eyed, as John Crace from the Guardian puts it. And now my short-lived crush is well and truly over.

And then we had another Zoom meeting of the creative writing group. If you think we meet rather a lot at the moment, you are right. Not that I have all that much else to do right now, but it is still getting a bit much, especially as Smug Suki has used the lockdown period to power on through and finish the first draft of her 16^th century historical literary novel. And now we are expected to be really pleased for her.

I don’t know if our creative writing group is typical, but our members are a bit like the competitors in MasterChef or Bake-Off. On the surface we are all delighted for one anothers’ successes. But underneath we seethe with rage and jealousy if someone gets a short story published, receives a small grant or, in Suki’s case, not only finishes her first draft but even finds herself a literary agent.

An agent. Unbelievable.

I can tell from Candy’s face that she is furious, even though she is smiling sweetly while lying on the sofa with one of the greyhounds. I don’t know how she manages to look sexy even during a Zoom meeting.

Suki’s novel, My Lord Buckingham is Without, is, in Candy’s and my humble opinions, a very poor-woman’s Wolf Hall. The story wanders about all over the place, missing not only a decent plot but also Hilary Mantel’s attention to historical detail and witty dialogue. And it is 850 boring pages long.

Nonetheless we all pretend to be thrilled for Suki and listen attentively while she reads aloud from Chapter 128.

While we stare fixedly into our computer screens simulating interest in the adventures of My Lord Buckingham who at this point is trying to escape from the Tower of London, I notice that I have a WhatsApp message from Brian.

It says this: Kill me now.

I snort and pretend to have a coughing fit to cover it up. Brian asks me via Zoom if I am ok and Suki looks annoyed that the attention has shifted from her. She resumes reading.

Then I get another message from Brian.

Fancy a proper chat after this? Shall I call you? (Accompanied by a little icon of an old-fashioned telephone.)

And suddenly everything feels better and I decide that I am going to share my self-isolation dilemma with Brian and hang the consequences.   

But before the meeting ends, I am interrupted by a call on my real life old-fashioned home telephone. The only people who use it are the ones doing scams or my parents. So I have to answer.

And it’s my father, sounding very anxious because my mother has locked herself in the bathroom and won’t come out.  

I make my excuses to the group, leave the meeting, jump in the car and set off. On route I am followed for about 8 miles by a police car driven by a young policewoman wearing a surgical mask. Luckily when I take the Waylands Heath turning, she continues north. One day we will look back on this time and find it hard to believe such things actually happened.

Dad is waiting by the front door when I arrive.  He looks agitated. I decide that the risks of passing on the virus are outweighed by the situation we now face, and follow him inside. He looks badly in need of a hug but that feels like a step too far. Poor Dad.

I ask him what’s happened and he says this:

She’s upset about your sister, Sadie. She thinks it was all her fault. I’ve tried to tell her but she won’t listen. I don’t know what to do.

And he looks so forlorn I could weep.

So I trudge upstairs and knock on the bathroom door and after a few minutes my mother lets me in and we sit down next to one another leaning against the side of the bath and she says she is dying for a cigarette and it turns out that she has got an old packet in the little drawer of her dressing table under the mirror plus some matches. And the next thing I know, we are both smoking and flicking ash out of the bathroom window like teenagers.

It turns out that she has always blamed herself for the death of my sister Ruth, her first child. It is the first time she has ever said this. Initially I try to persuade her that she is wrong. But in the end, I realize that she just wants to talk about Ruth and what happened. Which she does for the next two hours, while smoking the rest of the cigarettes. I didn’t smoke any more myself, because the first one made me feel sick. My mother says that I never was a proper smoker, not like her.

I am going to tell you about Ruth properly tomorrow, as this entry is already long enough, and after getting my parents some supper, persuading them to go to bed and driving home again, I am exhausted and therefore get up even later this morning.

Moving back to wider events, I do just want to say this. It is truly excellent news to hear that the Prime Minister is holding his own in ICU. But sitting up in bed in ICU, as I know from my time working in intensive care, is not quite what people might be imagining. They sit you up so that your lungs can fill up better with oxygen and to help avoid a chest infection. Not so you can eat grapes and chat to the doctors and nurses.

When he comes out of hospital, the PM will not be able to pick up the reins of government as though he’s just had a few days off with a cold. He will need time to recover. Anything else would be cruel and very dangerous.

We are in a national crisis and our government needs help, from civil servants, ex-Prime Ministers and opposition party leaders.

Speaking of which, did I mention that Sir Keir Starmer reminds me a little bit of Brian?

Friday 10 April 2020

Good news, the Prime Minister is out of intensive care. His spirits are, we are led to believe, not just high, but extremely high. How Dominic Rabb knows this when, as he had to admit under close questioning at last night’s press conference that he hasn’t spoken to him since before he was admitted to hospital at the weekend, is anyone’s guess.

But it does also feel that there is a change in tone. Could it be because they have listened to the fabulous Emily Maitlis on Newsnight on Wednesday – click here if you haven’t seen her debunking myths about Covid being a great leveller.

Anyway, I was going to tell you about my sister today. Not Lydia, the one who is a head teacher and likes to performance manage me from a distance. But Ruth, my older sister and the one who is dead.

I talked to Brian about this particular blog for quite a long time on the phone last night – after we had been a bit horrible about Suki’s awful novel and then admitted it was actually quite good in places and that we were probably just a bit jealous.

I have noticed that Brian is very good company, but he also seems bring out a better, kinder version of me.  

Brian and I agreed that I needed to tell the story about my sister now, because I keep mentioning her, but to do so carefully and respectfully. And that because I don’t have my parents’ permission and it is their story as much as hers, I need to change quite a lot of the details about her and them and what happened.

Not unreliable narration exactly, more fictionalized memoir. Nora Ephron did it brilliantly in Heartburn. Another good example is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, if you want a grittier fictional memoir. And my favourite of all, The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford.

I hope that helps?

So here we go. My parents got married in 1954.  It was a registry office wedding, being not long after the end of the war. In the photos, which are black and white, my mother looks like a Dior model in a tightly-fitted suit and hat with spotty veil.  My father wears a rose in his buttonhole and horn-rimmed glasses. He was a trainee engineer and she was a private secretary.

Their first home together was a rented flat above a shop in Kentish Town.  A year later Ruth was born. Two years after that I came along, and Lydia was born four years later.

In 1965, my father got a job as chief engineer in a small manufacturing company in Waylands Heath. And we moved out of London to the 1950s housing estate where my parents live to this day. Ruth loved it, because there was a big garden with a swing and we could have a dog and some rabbits. Lydia had no memory of our London life. But I missed the local shops run by people from Turkey, Pakistan and Poland. I missed the library where they read stories on Saturday mornings, the red buses and the tube that could take you anywhere you wanted to go. Waylands Heath felt stuffy and boring compared with Kentish Town. I used to pore over the tube map and ask my father about the areas served by the different stations, planning where I would live as soon as I grew up and could move back to London.

Ruth and I shared a room. In many ways she was the perfect older sister. She was well-organised, trim, neat and beautiful like our mother. She gave the impression of being taller than she really was because she had very good posture – she did ballet and tap after school, as well piano. She was good at athletics and gymnastics too. And she would come top in most subjects but only because she worked harder than everyone else. Lydia says she was what they call today an over-achiever. And our mother adored her and was always telling everyone about her achievements. It was as though Ruth was fulfilling all my mother’s ambitions that had been thwarted by the war. But the most important thing about Ruth was that she was extremely kind.

I was the opposite of Ruth – lazy, short and chubby. I loved my food, like our father. My school reports said things like “Sadie should talk less and listen more” and “Could try harder.”

Lydia was a sort-of cross between the two of us, just smaller and more annoying.

I think you can guess what is coming next. Ruth didn’t like what started happening to her body when she was 12 or 13. She would get upset and embarrassed when friends of our parents commented on her “lovely figure” (people would actually say things like that to young girls in those days.) She hated that boys had started to notice her. She started wearing baggy clothes, hiding food and making herself sick. She swore me to secrecy. This went on for nearly a year and it wasn’t until she was seriously underweight that the teachers at school noticed and asked to see our parents. Anorexia wasn’t very well known back then. She ended up in hospital being fed through a tube, and Lydia and I didn’t see her for many months.

When she came home, she seemed OK. But gradually it all started up again.

The next time she was admitted to hospital, she only stayed for a few weeks and then discharged herself, and our mother said she didn’t have to go back. And we would have the most horrible mealtimes when she would sit with a tiny portion of food going cold, crying, while we all had to wait for her to finish.

Gradually, she gave up school and all other activities and just stayed at home with our mother. She gave up mealtimes too. And she got thinner and thinner until she couldn’t walk, and then she just stayed in bed.

And eventually she died. She was 19. We had a very small funeral, family only. It was horrible.

And then our mother had a breakdown and had to be admitted to hospital and Lydia asked me if she was going to die as well and I said I didn’t know.   

Meanwhile I did my O-Levels and A-Levels, got mediocre grades, applied to be a student nurse, was accepted and achieved my escape back to london plan. I didn’t mention what had happened at home. And my mother was discharged and Lydia started doing really well at school and Dad plodded on, just looking a little bit smaller and older than before.

And my parents never really talked to me about Ruth.  Until now, that is.

So now you know.

I’m posting this a bit later than usual today. It is Good Friday and this evening I need to plan how to do an easter egg hunt without any actual eggs and while staying at home. I do one every year for Kezia, and I can’t let her down. Thinking caps on.

And Brian has got something important he wants to discuss with me.

More on Bank Holiday Monday!

Monday 13 April 2020

Only a few words today, it has been quite a weekend and I will be doing a proper post tomorrow to update you.

But hot news, I seem to have 450 people reading my blog. Thank you so much. I don’t know how you are getting through at the moment, but for me it is literally one step at a time.

Anon xxx

Tuesday 14 April 2020

Well, I hope you have plenty of time to read today’s diary entry because I have had quite a weekend.

I usually write chronologically but I am going to jump about a bit this time for dramatic effect. Stephen King says that unless you know what you are doing, always write about things in the order that they happen. Does he always do that – no! So why should I?

The Easter egg hunt was quite a success in the end. On Saturday, I thought it was going to be a disaster because when I eventually got to Waitrose, I couldn’t find my usual selection of nice, reasonably priced eggs with Kezia appeal. The effect of stockpiling or just my bad planning, IDK, but the shelves were pretty empty other than some ridiculously massive Thorntons creations (I would have bought one, I was so desperate but their chocolate is really nasty) or some very small Lindt bunnies. None of her favourites with chocolate buttons or Smarties. So I got 12 bunnies in packets and thought about hiding them round the garden. But when I tried it, they looked rather small and sad. So then I decided to write some clues to augment the occasion. Brian and I had fun writing them on Saturday evening via Zoom and a glass of wine each. Or maybe two.

Sunday morning was gloriously sunny and I hid the clues in the garden attached to the various teddies and other toys we keep at my house, with the final one leading to a basket of chocolate bunnies hidden in the shed. Marnie and Kezia arrived at 10.00, coming in via the side gate which I had left open as arranged. Marnie helped with the hunt, and seemed to enjoy it almost as much as Kez, who was very quick at solving the clues and didn’t really need any help at all. And I watched from the house with the French doors open. And then we sat on the chairs I had arranged 2 metres apart and they drank the drinks Marnie had brought with her, and Kez played with the bunnies and decided if it was alright to eat just one, and I had a lovely cup of coffee.

And then Marnie dropped her bombshell. I probably haven’t mentioned that Marnie’s parents are Jamaican, have I? Her mum was born here and her dad was born in Kingston. They both have huge families back in Jamaica, and Marnie has often talked about going to visit them. Obviously it would be lovely for Kezia to go too, and learn about that side of her family.

But Marnie was not talking about a holiday this time. She has an uncle who has some land on the outskirts of Kingston and he has offered for her to go and look after it and live there rent-free for six months. And meanwhile Toby has got some sort of residency in a club in Kingston and so he is going too.

I said: Are you two getting back together again then? And Marnie rolled her eyes and said, who knows, but it would make life easier wouldn’t it?

I cannot believe they are thinking of doing this during the virus. It is just so irresponsible to go to a developing country without comprehensive healthcare at a time like this. I am speechless.

Toby rang me later and we had a horrible argument and he accused me of racism and I said, it is not racist not to want your son and granddaughter to die during a global pandemic and he put the phone down on me.

So that was my Easter Sunday.

Roll back to Saturday morning. The reason I was late to the party Easter egg-wise was that I had another small incident with my parents. Or perhaps not so small. My mother rang me at 8.30 on Saturday morning.  (Very unusual for her, as she likes to leave it to me to call because she still doesn’t understand that phone packages these days include unlimited free calls in the UK). And she rang me on my mobile, which is even more unusual, and meant she was using her mobile because she thinks you can only call mobiles from mobiles.

She sounded rather muffled.

I said, where are you Mum, and she said she was sitting in the car in the garage.   

And then she told me that she was thinking of leaving my father.

She is 88 and he is 89, for God’s sake. But apparently she has been feeling this way for a while.

I ask how long and she says about 46 years. Which of course dates back to when Ruth died. And I go round and we sit in the garden and she asks me if I’ve got any cigarettes and I remind her that I don’t smoke and she asks me to get her some and I say that I will see what I can do, and she cries and talks some more about Ruth and I realize that she has 46 years of sadness pent up inside her. And I promise to listen to her whenever she wants to talk and she says thank you, and that’s the trouble with your father, he just bottles things up, and I think, that’s rich coming from you. But I don’t say it.

And that is why I nearly didn’t manage to get any Easter eggs this year.

But roll back again. If you remember, Brian said he had something important he wanted to discuss. I mentioned this to him on Saturday night while we were getting all hilarious writing the clues, and he said that actually he would like to talk to me face to face, and would I be available for a socially distant walk on Easter Monday morning.

So I said yes. And we accidentally bumped into each other on the Downs and Harvey frolicked about and we started walking and I told him about my parents and the egg hunt and my worries about them going to live in Jamaica and he listened.

And eventually I remembered that this walk was so he could say something to me. And then he began telling me that he really liked me as a friend, a very good friend and that maybe in different circumstances our friendship could turn into something else.

And I started to get anxious because I hadn’t exactly envisaged Brian (who had after all only very recently stopped being Boring Brian) declaring undying love at this stage.

And then he told me that he was married.

So that’s why I didn’t feel like writing much on my blog yesterday. More tomorrow, because it doesn’t end there.

Wednesday 15 April 2020

If there were an Olympic event for lying awake all night worrying, I might have a chance of getting on the podium.

I feel like death this morning. Not even the soothing words of Chancellor Rishi “Ken-Doll” Sunak on last night’s daily briefing could allay my anxieties. Not that he was very soothing, he just says difficult things in a soothing way.

I am worried about

1. Kezia, Toby and Marnie going to Jamaica and getting the virus and dying
2. Kezia, Toby and Marnie going to Jamaica and never coming back
3. Kezia, Toby and Marnie going to Jamaica and staying for six months as planned and me missing them very badly
4. My parents getting the virus and dying
5. My mother starving my father to death
6. My mother showing more signs of losing the plot
7. The economy crashing and having no money
8. Not knowing what is going on with my daughter Charlotte any more
9. Being useless and even though I’m a nurse not doing anything to help anyone during this crisis
10. Brian being married

And to be brutally honest with myself, it was the last one that I find is the most upsetting of all.

Isn’t it strange? Candy has been accusing me of falling in love with Brian ever since he came round and helped me to set up my blog. She teases me mercilessly whenever I mention his name. I have been telling her PLEASE DO NOT BE SO RIDICULOUS and reminding her that it is Boring Brian we are talking about. Boring Brian who brings a flask to the creative writing class even though they have lovely coffee shops at the university, who has a National Trust rucksack and is reliable and well-organized and rides a meticulously maintained Raleigh bicycle with a leather saddle and belongs to the Green Party and wears old-fashioned tortoiseshell glasses and always smells of nice soap. How could I possibly be in love with someone like that??

And then I realise that I have been kidding myself. Brian is actually the ideal man for me to fall in love with at this stage of my life. He is the antidote to everyone I have ever loved before, but most of all Richard, my ex, the untrustworthy lying Tory sexy bastard.

And this rather major revelation dawned on me up there on the Downs in the sunshine when Brian was telling me that he had grown very fond of me, and that in normal circumstances he would like us to become more than friends. And I stupidly thought he meant normal circumstances being if we didn’t have the virus. And then he told me he was married.

I think I must have gasped and stumbled because he caught my arm and the next thing I knew we were standing close together and social distancing went out of the window for a moment because he held my face very gently in his hands and said he was very, very sorry.

And then we plodded on and he told me about Stella.

It is no ordinary marriage. They met at Oxford (did I mention that Brian is very clever?) She was very glamorous and popular and the life and soul of their college, and he was really surprised when she took an interest in him. They had a hippy sort of wedding straight after university and then went travelling and he settled down to his training as an engineer (I know, just like my Dad) and she trained to be an English teacher. They bought their first house and were beginning to talk about having children.

Then she had to have her wisdom teeth taken out. Something went wrong during the anaesthetic and she ended up in intensive care. They thought she was going to die. A priest gave her last rights, because her family are Catholic. But she pulled through. And she has been in a persistent vegetative state ever since and lives in a specialist care home. She breathes on her own but is completely unresponsive and has to be fed via a tube and have everything done for her. She is now 62, the same age as me, and has been like that for the last 38 years.

Her parents spend all day every day at the care home and it sounds like things are quite difficult because they think Brian should go every day too. He says he used to visit more often, but now he just goes once a week.  

I am ashamed to say that I cried while Brian was telling me this. It wasn’t so much that I felt sad for Stella, although obviously I do, even though I have never met her. But it was the way Brian spoke about her. He was so kind and patient. And stoical. I think that is a good word to describe him. He is stoic.

Brian said it was OK to tell other people about Stella, it wasn’t a secret although he didn’t want to talk about it with anyone else.

So last night I confided in Candy and she said oh my God, Sadie, he is Mr Rochester with a wife hidden in the attic and you are Jane Eyre. And I told her not to be so ridiculous, I can think of no-one less like Mr Rochester than Brian.

But although he is not in any way like Mr Rochester, she is also right. Because I am like Jane Eyre. I have stupidly allowed myself to fall in love with a man who is married to someone else who they can never leave.

And now my heart is broken.

Friday 17 April 2020

When I woke up on Thursday, I had stop feeling ashamed and just felt really sorry for myself. How bloody typical of me to fall in love with a man who is unavailable in such tragic circumstances.

Of course, Candy has some advice on the subject, apart from her Jane Eyre references, which are quite funny, in an awful sort of way. She says she is sure that Brian can’t have been as pure as the driven snow for the past 38 years and why not just have an affair?

She has a point. It is not as if it would hurt Stella. But I’m not sure I want to be Brian’s bit-on-the-side, I’ve done enough of that with my own ex-husband not to mention one or two other unchivalrous characters (which I may or may not tell you about at some point, depending on how honest I’m feeling.)

The thing about my relationship with Brian, if you can call it a relationship, is that it has always been so lovely and respectful and honourable. I wouldn’t want to demean it by suggesting we have an illicit fumble.

Although to be honest, I am thinking rather a lot about fumbling with Brian. He has got such lovely hands. And a nice neck.

In other news, I visited my parents to help them face the latest Sainsbury’s online shopping delivery.

As you know from previous posts, my mother isn’t keen on food. Having someone else select her groceries and hurl them carelessly (in her view) into the sort of thin plastic bags that she has read somewhere can kill turtles is not her idea of a positive retail experience. But we managed it, with only minor expressions of disgust at the replacement of the cheap skinless sausages she favours but were out of stock for some that looked a bit more appetizing, if you like eating dead animals that is, and the wrong sort of washing powder. If it weren’t for the lockdown, I would suggest they Click All on no replacements for anything, but they can’t get to the shop, and making sure they have food has become a daily concern of mine, and of my father, who looks increasingly like a hungry fledgling left crying in the nest. His hair is all fluffy because he hasn’t been to the barbers. And although he isn’t exactly skinny, his clothes are getting rather loose. At least his head wound has healed.

Anyway, we put all the Wretched Shopping away and then sat in the garden and played a nice game of scrabble. Which probably isn’t a good idea as we were picking tiles from the same bag, but we did wash our hands before and afterwards and nobody has any symptoms and I really do wonder whether they have got the rules right on the lockdown – if I am not seeing anyone and nor are they, how can we infect one another?

When I got home, poor Mog was mewing in a very distressed way and trying to be sick. She felt very floppy when I picked her up. Surely she can’t have caught corona virus??

I rang the vet in a panic and they said she had probably eaten something in the garden. They would need to examine her but of course because of the virus it isn’t straightforward. I had to take her to the main surgery 10 miles away and stand in a long queue of other people with sick animals in baskets, socially distancing ourselves of course, and when it was my turn, hand her over to one of the nurses. It felt most unnerving. I sat in the car feeling worried but also hoping I was overreacting and they would say she was fine.

But she wasn’t fine. They think she may have been poisoned by picking up a toad. So not a frog after all! And that she is very sick so they need to give her a drip overnight.

As I sit at the kitchen table writing this early on Friday morning after another sleepless night, waiting for the vet to ring and tell me whether I still have a cat, I realise that I have been keeping this diary for 5 weeks. I think I have already written 30,000 words. Someone in the creative writing group said I could turn it into a novel, but if Dominic Raab and co are right and we are in this for many more months, it would be longer than Gone with the Wind. Not quite so dramatic as Scarlett O’Hara’s experiences, but it hasn’t exactly been plain sailing so far.

Please keep your fingers and paws crossed for Mog. More on Monday.

Monday 20 April 2020

There were several points over this weekend when I thought I would have to write a post that just said “Sadie Robinson is away”.  So much has happened. But in this uncertain world, the routine of my daily blog has become a lifeline. So I’m at the kitchen table again on Monday morning, snatching a few moments.

Saturday started well. The vet called to say that Mog had not only made it through the night, but pulled her drip out and eaten two bowls of biscuits, and that as long as she stayed away from toads, she could come home. She was like a new cat when I collected her and miaowed loudly all the way back. What a relief, because I realise that I love that little animal very much.

Later that morning Kezia came round with Toby and we had juice and biscuits in the garden and she told me about her online lessons which she is doing even though it is really the school holidays. No more news on the Jamaica trip. If I hold my breath and say nothing maybe it won’t happen? Toby asked me if I’d spoken to Charlotte and I said we were planning a video call on Sunday. There was something about the way he asked that made me a bit suspicious; what is going on with that girl and why won’t she talk to me about it?

After they left, I took Harvey up onto the Downs and tried not to think about Brian. I haven’t heard from him all week but I’m not surprised. He’s got enough on his plate without a 62 year old dumpy lovestruck woman hanging around like a bad smell.

Candy has a theory about love. She thinks we fall in love with all sorts of people, suitable or otherwise, throughout our lives. But only if we are very lucky, and we keep our eyes and our hearts open, at some point we might meet someone who is The One. It can happen any time. And they may not be obvious at first. But when we meet them we will realise that all the others have just been practice. She met hers a long time ago and says that very sadly it didn’t work out. But she thinks I have now met mine. And it is Brian. 

Which is lovely but it doesn’t really help.

I was just settling in for a sad but cosy Saturday evening in my PJs with scrambled eggs on toast watching Casualty when the phone rang. It was my parents’ nosy neighbour who wondered if I was aware that my father had been wandering around in the street all afternoon looking for my mother and I really ought to do something because they were causing a nuisance and it wasn’t safe. 

I thanked her through gritted teeth, threw on some clothes, grabbed my phone, bag and keys and set off on yet another mercy dash to Waylands Heath. What now?

I was just turning off the bypass when my phone rang again. This time it was a doctor from A & E at North Wessex Hospital. My mother had been found four miles from home with lacerations and a suspected broken hip. She was conscious but confused and distressed. No, I couldn’t visit because of the virus. She or one if the other doctors would call me again once they knew more. 

My poor mum.

When I got to the house, a police car was parked outside, the front door was open and Dad was in the kitchen, very cold and upset, talking to two very young police officers bristling with radio equipment and wearing surgical masks and gloves. 

One day, we will look back on all this and wonder if it really happened. 

The police officers were trying to tell my father that my mother had been found. But he wasn’t listening. I told them I would take over and they left, looking relieved. 

The house was a bit of a mess. I was making Dad some tea and doing a quick tidy up when the doorbell rang and it was the same neighbour who helpfully suggested that my parents were becoming a danger to themselves and perhaps I ought to be thinking about them going into a care home.

This intervention reminded me about why I had hated growing up in Waylands Heath. Everybody knows everybody else’s business. But instead of being kind and helpful and looking out for one another, they watch through their net curtains in judgement when someone else seems to be in trouble and say things like “It shouldn’t be allowed” or “Somebody ought to do something.”

So I slung a few of his things into a case and bundled Dad into my car. He cried all the way back. But when we got inside he perked up, managed three slices of cheese on toast and two more cups of tea and snuggled down to sleep in my bed. I tried to sleep in the tiny bed in Kez’s room, because the bed in the middle room is covered in stuff I have been meaning to take to a charity shop. But it was a long night.

And now I am a carer. 

The next day, a different doctor called from the hospital. Mum has been admitted. She has a compound fracture of her right hip and needs surgery. And she has another urinary tract infection which may or may not be adding to her confusion. We can’t visit but they will ask the nurses to ring us so we can speak to her. 

I told Dad over breakfast and he seemed to take it in. And then a nurse rang and we were able to speak to her and she sounded slightly excited but quite normal and told us that she was going to have an operation later that day. It turns out she has her mobile with her but no charger so we can keep in touch with her if I can get one delivered to the hospital, which I promised to do on Monday.

The rest of the day was taken up with making calls to my sister, who of course was very upset that I hadn’t called her the night before and had a great deal to say about the psychological trauma of incidents in old age and how Mum and Dad may have PTSD, which I felt was stating the bleeding obvious and what about my PTSD? Plus letting the children know about Mum, sorting out the spare room for Dad and makings lists of things that needed cancelling or rearranging or collecting or dropping off while he was staying with me.  

It was 11.00pm before I put the milk bottles out. And I found one of Brian’s jam jars full of flowers from his allotment plus a card in an envelope. I read it in bed. And it said this:

Dear Sadie

I am so sorry that I have upset you. It wasn’t what I meant to happen at all. I long to hold you in my arms but I realise this may not be right for you. I will wait to hear from you.

With all my love

B xxx

And I went to sleep and dreamt of having illicit sex with Brian.

Tuesday 21 April 2020

I woke yesterday just as it got light and re-read Brian’s card for the umpteenth time. 

Could I have misunderstood? Was he really saying that he wants me and that we can be together if I want that too?  Or did he mean that he wants to be with me but it would be wrong because of Stella? And what kind of a selfish amoral bitch would I be to encourage him to do something he feels would be wrong even though it feels so right to me? 

I was just snuggling down to try and shake off these thoughts and recapture a very naughty dream in which such considerations had gone right out of the window when I heard a little noise coming from the spare room and remembered Dad. He was sitting up in bed crying, like a sad dishevelled owl.

I can’t bear being without your mother, he said. I know she will hate it in that hospital. Why can’t we go and see her?

And I tried to explain the rules but had to agree with him that they felt cruel and arbitrary. And so we ended up sitting in the kitchen drinking tea and eating toast at 6 am. It was going to be a long day. 

But actually the day didn’t turn out to be so bad. There was a lot to do, including driving over to WH to collect things for Mum including nighties, toiletries and the phone charger to take to the hospital, shutting up the house and getting enough stuff for Dad so that we didn’t have to keep going back and forth making unnecessary journeys. Lydia had been very clear on the need for good planning so as to avoid unnecessary travel. I don’t know why we are worrying about Boris Johnson still being at Chequers. My sister could run the country lying on her bed via her iPhone. 

It transpired Dad had run out of most of his medication, so we had to go to the GP surgery. This time he sat in the car and I queued to get in. After lots of harrumphing and comments on the situation being very unusual, all conducted at top volume across a row of back-to-front chairs and through see-through plastic shower curtains that had been erected to protect the reception staff from our germs, a repeat prescription was procured and I had also completed the essential admin to order online in future. Phew.

And when we got back to my house, I left Dad pottering in the garden and went to Sainsburys to get some of his favourite things, like Frosties, mini Milky Ways and instant Gold Blend coffee. And when I got back, he made me a lovely cup of tea which we drank sitting in the sunshine. And the hospital rang to say that Mum’s operation had gone OK and she was back on the ward and that we could speak to her later that evening.

I know this is all hardly fascinating, but it is my life now. And while I know there are now over 550 people looking at my blog, the primary purpose of writing it is therapy for me.

I will end by answering a few questions people have asked me.

Q1: What made you decide to write the blog?

A: I needed something to give this strangely frightening time a bit of structure.

Q2: Are the characters based on real people?

A: Possibly. I doubt you would recognise them, or rather I hope you won’t.

Q3: What parts of the story are true?

A: It is based in truth, but the specifics are created. That’s why the genre is called creative writing.

Q4: Why, apart from the obvious pun with the Garcia Marquez novel, have you called it Love in the Time of Corona Virus?

A: When I started writing it, the love part of the title was slightly tongue-in-cheek. Now I realise that there are many sorts of love that blossom and fade and blossom again at such a time.

Tonight, I am going to try to find out what Brian really meant by his note. And I will definitely be having that long-awaited chat with my enigmatic daughter Charlotte. You can read about it tomorrow, unless something else happens meanwhile, that is.

Wednesday 22 April 2020

Last night, Secretary of State for Health and Care Matt Hancock took to the 5pm podium again. He looks less like Tigger and more like Piglet every time we see him.

Or maybe he is that boy at school who was incredibly keen to be Milk Monitor, when everyone else realized what a poisoned chalice that role was. And now all the milk has gone sour or it hasn’t been delivered or he forgot to order any and people are starting to point the finger of blame at him.

It is interesting living with my Dad for the first time in 40 years. Lockdown is more fun with him than on my own. His view of Matt Hancock is uncomplimentary. He says he’s a boy drafted in to do a man’s job.  He thinks the same about Rishi Sunak. I blushed when he mentioned Rishi, but I don’t think he noticed. I don’t want him thinking his daughter is a cradle snatcher, even if only in my imagination.

Anyway, that was all in the past. Since Rishi there has been my fleeting dalliance with Sir Keir Starmer. But now there is Brian.

Speaking of Brian, we had a WhatsApp video call late last night after Dad had gone to bed. I spent ages getting ready. I wanted to look casual but also a little bit sexy. He looked lovely in a navy tee-shirt. Have I mentioned that he’s got a very nice neck?

We talked about my Dad and Mum and the uselessness of various members of the government and what he’d done that day on his allotment. We managed to avoid the subject of Stella. But eventually we got round to Us.

It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime conversations. While it is happening, I kept thinking it couldn’t be true and that I needed to remember this moment forever.

Because Brian loves me. He told me so last night. He says he doesn’t know if we can ever be together, because of him still being married, but he hopes there is some way that we can, after all the corona virus stuff is over.

And I found myself telling him that I loved him too. We both cried. I felt so happy and yet so sad.

In other news, I finally had that chat with Charlotte. And guess what, she is in love as well. With a woman called Jane, and she would like to introduce us to one another. Wow.

I asked her how long they had been together, and she said about six months but that she hadn’t felt able to tell me before now because she thought it would be awkward for me, given that her father is homophobic. And I said, I don’t think he is really, darling.

And then she reminded me about a time when Richard and I were still married and he was a bit drunk and somebody said a woman we knew was a lesbian, and he said he hadn’t met a lesbian yet who he couldn’t turn, if he wanted to.

And I remembered it too and winced. And I said that maybe she was right. But that I didn’t care what her father thought, I was very happy for her. And I was.

But what she said made me think. And I realized that, in my efforts never to slag off their father, plus my occasional shameful dalliances with him when he was at a loose end, I have perhaps given my children the impression that I still love him.

And maybe until recently I did still love him. But now I don’t. Now I love Brian.

Five things I have learned about my Dad since he came to stay:

1. He really loves my mother, but life with her is not always easy.
2. He swears much more than I realised.
3. He snores.
4. He watches a lot of TV, especially ITV quiz shows at eardrum bleeding volume.
5. He may be a Tory, but he is a Ken Clark rather than a Boris Johnson sort of Tory. He thinks the current government are out of their depth and need to bring in some heavyweight political advisers ASAP.

I wonder if I should tell my Dad about Brian?

Thursday 23 April 2020

Another broadcast and another day of being disappointed in the people who are supposed to be running our country.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not into a blame game. I don’t really care if the scientists were pleading with the government to take notice of the warning signs about the virus back in January and they just ignored them.

Because we all did. I can remember saying to Candy as late as the first week of March that corona virus was only another sort of ‘flu and if there wasn’t a vaccine, best to catch it early so that you became immune and then ignore all the fuss.

I feel ashamed of having said that now. So I don’t blame the government for what they didn’t do back then. I just blame them for what they don’t seem to be able to start doing now.

And whilst I was cheering on my erstwhile slightly-less-inappropriate-than-Rishi crush Sir Keir Starmer when he took to the dispatch box yesterday for the first time as Leader of the Opposition in the new locked-down House of Commons and made complete mincemeat of poor sitting duck Dominic Raab (do read this piece in the Guardian by John Crace for a much better description that I can give), I really do want the government to get a grip.

Here is mine and my Dad’s five-point plan, in response to Matt Hancock’s ever-increasing list of pillars:

1. Get enough tests so that you can test every health care and other frontline worker once a week at their place of work, not some random out-of-town shopping centre car park two hours away that is only accessible by car. And then actually get on and bloody well test them.
2. Get enough tests so that you can test anyone who shows any symptoms at all immediately. Test them and if they test positive, isolate them safely for seven days or however long it takes, then test them again.
3. Set up the contact tracing systems we keep hearing about and create a map of where all the infection hot-spots are so that future lock-downs can be done intelligently and with purpose.
4. Create safe havens for people who are high risk or vulnerable, preferably at home.
5. Stop talking about stupid irrelevant things like whether people should wear masks in public and make sure the people who need to wear masks actually have them, like doctors, nurses and the wonderful people working in care homes.

Sorry, this is more of a rant than a blog.

But it is Thursday and we will be outside our houses tonight clapping all the front-line workers. And of course it is wonderful to do that and it makes us feel we are doing our bit. But doing our bit currently is simply holding the tiger by the tail, as Brian puts it. Now we’ve caught the tiger we, or rather our government, don’t know what to do next. And people will keep on dying, not just from the virus, but from all the other diseases we are ignoring while we are in this hiatus. Not to mention the effects of the global recession which is about to engulf us.

Penguin are currently publishing a series of essays by its top authors which are worth a read. Here is the one by Philip Pullman, no lover of our current political system, who thinks the virus could lead to complete political reform. And here is the one that came out today by AC Grayling on what the Stoics can teach us to help us cope with this benighted time.

I have Brian to thank for these references. Brian the Stoic. He always has an unusual perspective on things, informed by something he has read which I have never heard of. He is the first man I have been in a relationship with (if you could call it a relationship) whose mind I have admired as much as his body.

I have told Dad about Brian, although not Stella, and he says he likes the sound of him. They are both engineers, after all.

Back at the hospital, Mum has apparently been making good progress and we have grown better at not overreacting to her more alarming texts.

Some are just funny: Please send hairbrush, I look like Worzel Gummidge.

But others have caused consternation: Help, I am being starved and poisoned to death.

And: If you don’t send your father to get me out of here TODAY, I am going to kill myself.

When we speak to her, she is grumpy and non-committal. The nurse-in-charge says she is mobilizing well and that she should be able to come home within a week. I am wracking my brains to think of how we are going to manage, and whether it would be better for me to go and stay with my parents in Waylands Heath for a few weeks or have her to stay here, leaving Dad in the spare room and putting her in my room or on a bed downstairs.  

Lydia has many thoughts on the subject, and in my less generous moments, I wonder why she can’t just break the lock-down rules, get in her car and come down here to actually do some of things herself that she is advising me to do.

But she is running a school, even though it is the Easter holidays, and she has vulnerable children to support.

Charlotte offers to come down instead, she says she can work from my house just as easily as hers. But then we count up the beds and realize that it would just be too crowded. She is being very supportive, and calls at least once a day to chat to her grandpa. I’ve told him about her and Jane, and he and Charlotte have an ongoing joke when he pretends that he thinks that being a lesbian is the same as being vegetarian. It is probably very un-PC, but they find it hilarious.

So that’s it from me for today. Tomorrow is Friday, and I will be writing my 28^th blog. Let’s hope it’s a quiet one.

Friday 24 April 2020

It’s almost as if Matt Hancock has been reading my blog. Hurrah for the start of much wider testing and (at last) setting up of contact tracing and testing. But a massive boo for the fact he’s asked his friends at Delloites to organise the testing centres and they’ve got into a mess because it isn’t exactly within the skill set of management consultants to actually do anything. And now the trusts and the army are having to take over. 

Dad is so disgusted with him that I think he might even not vote Conservative at the next election, if we ever have one that is. He says he likes the look of that Keir Starmer. Don’t we all??

Closer to home, at 6pm evening I told Dad I was going out for my daily walk but actually I had agreed to meet Brian at his allotment. It is so lovely and peaceful there. I left Harvey at home in case he decided to do any unwanted digging, and sat on a little camping stool watching Brian preparing a bed for his sweet peas. The sun was still shining and I could see the sweat slowly appearing through his tee-shirt (dark green this time) under his arms and across his back. I must have been staring at him really hard because suddenly he looked up, leaned on his beautifully maintained stainless steel fork and stared back at me, slightly narrowing his eyes, and I felt extremely funny , in a very nice way, inside. Perhaps he is more like Mr Rochester than I had previously thought? And I was just about to make an inappropriate suggestion about wanting to have a peek inside his potting shed when my phone rang.

Before I tell you who it was on the phone, I just need to say something about my approach to social distancing. One of my old school friends messaged me last night about it. She’s been reading my blog which she says she enjoys  but she thinks I’m a bit laissez-faire about following the lock-down rules.

Maybe she was just her way of being witty, but I felt a bit stung by this. I have done no unnecessary car journeys, unless you count driving over to my parents on various mercy missions as unnecessary. And I haven’t spent time with anyone without maintaining a minimum of 2 metres between us, apart from that time on the Downs with Brian and it was him who touched me, not the other way round. Yes, OK, I’ve had Kez and Toby and Marnie round to sit in the garden, which is possibly stretching the point about no gatherings, but they walk here and I’ve even measured out the distance between the garden chairs in advance. And when I meet Candy to walk the dogs, we could just as easily have bumped into one another accidentally. 

I just wanted to set the record straight. And I have no intention of discussing the time that my idiot ex-husband turned up and nearly gave me corona virus. That was an aberration.

Anyway, back to the phone. It was the hospital. And speaking of corona virus, my mother has been showing symptoms so they’ve just done some swabs and now she has been moved to a side ward and is being barrier nursed. We will know the results tomorrow.

And as I make my excuses to Brian and rush home, I can’t decide if it is going to be worse telling my Dad, who will be distraught, or my sister, who will make it her business to somehow make me feel that This Is All My Fault.

Monday 27 April 2020

I don’t know about you, but I have been waking earlier and earlier recently thinking WTF as soon as I come to my senses.

Today is the start of Week 5 of lockdown. Boris Johnson is back in Number 10 and people are getting excited that we might actually catch a glimpse of the person who is supposed to be running our country in this time of crisis.

Even I was starting to feel slightly kindhearted towards Boris until I gave myself a good talking to. For God’s sake, get a grip please. He is not the risen Messiah and he will not have had a road to Damascus experience about allocating proper levels of funding to the NHS in the future. Like others from ultra-privileged backgrounds, he is used to being looked after by others less fortunate than himself. His time in ITU will have been just another experience of lesser mortals doing essential, intimate things for him. He may have thanked them charmingly, and he is of course grateful in his own way. But it won’t make him think that the people who saved his life deserve to earn a living wage, or that the ones who come here from abroad to work in essential services like the NHS should actually be welcomed rather than treated with hostility and suspicion and used as political collateral by his horrible friend, Priti Patel.

My Dad doesn’t agree with me. He thinks we should give Boris a chance. But he is also not thinking straight. Because Mum’s test results came back. And she has of course got the bloody virus.

I know you are probably thinking that you can see where this is going. And I am thinking the same. But I really, really hope not.

We have spoken to Mum by phone and she just sounds like she has a terrible cold. It is early days, apparently. They will be keeping her in hospital for the time being so she can be isolated and treated. I have had a discussion with a very young-sounding doctor about resuscitation, and he says that my mother seems reasonably fit for 88 and that they will do all they can for her. However, if her condition deteriorates, she may need to be transferred to another facility, which sounds like a grim code for being sent somewhere else to die. My sister Lydia then spoke to the same doctor, and made her feelings clear regarding my mother being very much For Resuscitation. She seems to think she has achieved a tremendous breakthrough. I am saying nothing.

Dad is like a faithful dog lying in wait for his master to come home from the war. He won’t eat and only takes sips of tea. He just sits in the garden or on the sofa with his coat on.  It is heartbreaking.

I have been so preoccupied that a photo in Saturday’s Guardian of Richi Sunak in one of those thin long sleeved tee-shirts that only men who are completely ripped would think of wearing caused only a passing flutter.

And what about Brian? As well as being focused on my parents, I was also worried about talking to him after the near-miss incident at the allotment on Thursday evening. I felt that I might have overstepped the mark, even though nothing actually happened.

In the end we had a WhatsApp video chat late last night with us both in bed. He asked me how I was feeling and I found myself crying and telling him how sad and weary I was and that the future felt really uncertain. And he just listened and helped me to understand that what was happening with my parents was even harder than I was giving it credit for, and that getting myself and Dad through each day relatively intact was probably the best I could do just for now.

In the end I told him he was the best listener I have ever met. And he smiled and said he’s had a lot of practice and I said what do you mean, and he said that he had been meaning to tell me about something he has done for a long time as a volunteer. And I said what is that? And that’s when he told me about being a Samaritan.  

You can say one thing about Brian. He is full of surprises.  

Tuesday 28 April 2020

One of the things about sharing a diary online is that some days, nothing much happens. The sort of days when you are hanging around waiting for news or just feeling completely overwhelmed. Yesterday was one of those days. This morning I’m a bit better, although not much.

I can’t stop thinking about Mum being in that hospital all alone. To start with, when she had her broken hip after going AWOL, I was just relieved that she was safe. But now she has the virus, it feels unbearable. I know there will be nurses with her most of the time. But she must be feeling so scared, especially now they will all be wearing protective gowns and masks and visors. I can’t bear to think of it. And yet I can’t stop thinking about it. 

And it is just awful to see Dad so bereft. I think he is one of those men who would die of a broken heart. Obviously none of us live forever, and at 88 and 89, my parents are no spring chickens. But even with Dad’s cancer and other health conditions, and Mum’s occasional worrying episodes, until recently I have allowed myself to think of them as immortal. 

But now everything has changed. I wake up wondering what I will find when I gee myself up to go into the spare room and offer the first cup of tea of the day in a bright and cheery voice. Whether he will have had a stroke or heart attack or just pegged out from frailty overnight. In some ways I wish he would, because the current situation being kept away from Mum is killing him slowly anyway. 

We have been told not to keep ringing the hospital. I blame Lydia for this. She has been trying to manage them from afar, just like she does to me. They call most days around 12.00 after the ward round. Yesterday Mum was stable but needing oxygen. She won’t like having to wear a face mask. This morning she is the same. Is this good news? I want to cheer Dad up but I also do not want to mislead him. Anyway, he’s a clever man. He knows how serious it is.

We fill the time trying to do crosswords and walking round the garden. Dad has been helping me in the greenhouse. But our hearts just aren’t in it. In some ways this morning’s heavy rain was a relief because we could just stay inside, moping. 

I haven’t had much time to think about Brian’s Sunday night revelation that he volunteers at our local branch of Samaritans. It wouldn’t have felt such a surprise had I not been thinking about applying to be a Samaritan myself for as long as I can remember. I did actually fill in the forms when the children were teenagers and I felt I had a bit more time to offer. But Richard poo-pooed it. He said they were a bunch of do-gooding lefties and why not do some fundraising for the rugby club charity instead. I wish I had ignored him. But Richard had a way of making me feel that my ideas were completely ridiculous. So I never sent the forms off. 

Of course, I could have had another go after we got divorced, but by then I was doing my counselling and started the creative writing group and then Kezia came along and I guess I forgot about it. 

And now Brian has made me think. Maybe once all this is over, I could give it another go? After all, on the website it says that they always need new volunteers. 

Would I make a good Samaritan? Could I learn to listen to others? Or am I just thinking about it because I’ve got the hots for Brian?

And as if to taunt me, there are herring gulls having noisy sex on almost every chimney pot in our street. The racket they make is obscene. I find it embarrassing because Dad is here. He doesn’t mention it and nor do I. 

I wouldn’t mind being a seagull just now. They mate for life, apparently. I’d like to be a seagull and mate for life with a seagull called Brian. 

Wednesday 29 April 2020

Quite soon after I started writing this blog, someone very kind told me via Facebook that they loved it and that I should turn it into a novel.

I don’t know if that person is still reading it and what they think now, but my feeling is that an online diary is simply a series of posts. A novel needs structure and plot and character development and a narrative arc not to mention all the other things that wonderful writers do to make us keep turning the pages. My blog is just life events captured by me plus a bit of stream of consciousness stuff on corona virus, politics and other things that have been keeping me awake over the previous 24 hours.

Yesterday I started reading Margaret Atwood’s book On Writers and Writing, as recommended by Candy during our last creative writing group Zoom session. I loved Atwood’s novels Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin, but I have to admit I was less keen on her dystopian works such as The Handmaid’s Tale. So I wasn’t sure how I was going to get on with her on writing and writers. But she is an extremely clever and erudite woman, and I am pleased to say that I am learning a lot, including that writing about the process of writing within a creative piece, as I seem to be doing here, has a more illustrious pedigree than I realised. Of course I knew Virginia Woolf did it, but so did Dante in The Divine Comedy. And so does Atwood herself. I’m looking forward to the discussion next week. I think I might have something to offer, just for a change.

That’s if I make it to the meeting.

Even finding an hour for a scheduled session on Zoom can be rather difficult at the moment. It’s not that Dad needs a lot of physical care. I’m just worried about him staring into the distance all day, so I try to spend as much time with him as I can, even if it means another afternoon watching ITV quiz shows at top volume while he snores and I write this stuff. Otherwise, I am fully occupied keeping up with calls from the hospital about Mum and relaying updates to Dad, my sister and the children, plus queuing to get the shopping, keeping the house a lot cleaner and tidier than was my wont pre-getting my new lodger, and cooking tasty little meals to try to tempt Dad’s non-existent appetite. The people who post on social media about spending lock-down watching box sets, choosing 10 albums that had the greatest impact on them growing up or doing marathons around their gardens are obviously a lot better organised than me.

As for Mum, things are not as good as I have been making out to Dad, but nor are they as bad as my catastrophising sister seems to think. Or at least, that was what I thought up until now.

This morning, I told Hannah, the very nice junior doctor who is usually the one to ring after the ward round and give the daily update on Mum’s condition, that I am a nurse and have worked in ITU. I could tell she was hugely relieved because she immediately started talking about peak flows and oxygen saturation and vital signs and GCS scales. It was slightly overwhelming, but at least I now know for sure that I’m getting the full picture.

And the full picture is that Mum is very sick. She is in the second phase of the illness, which means that she must have had the virus for at least a few days when they tested her 5 days ago. Not everyone goes into the second phase, which is when breathing gets more difficult because the lungs have become affected. Hannah says that Mum’s lungs are not in great shape because of her age and because she smokes. I mention that she has only taken it up again quite recently, and she says that is good to know, but that it doesn’t really change anything. They are nursing her on her front for some of the time, to help drain the lungs. And they are giving her oxygen under continuous pressure.

Please feel free to ignore the next couple of paragraphs. But I do know quite a lot about continuous positive airways pressure, or CPAP. The first commercially produced machines to deliver CPAP were introduced in 1981, but we’d actually been using CPAP since the 1970s using various cobbled together bits of tubing held in place with clamps, spigots and bulldog clips, and driven by noisy old Engstrom ventilators. CPAP is less invasive than full endo-tracheal ventilation, because it is delivered via a mask rather than a tube down the nose or hole in the throat and then into the top of the lungs. It works well for those whose lungs are already damaged. It also means you don’t need to be fully anaesthetised.

I also know that when Downing Street said that Boris Johnson wasn’t being ventilated, they were probably being somewhat economical with the truth, and that he would almost certainly have been receiving CPAP.

And finally, I know, from reading various articles in the BMJ and New Scientist, that CPAP is becoming the preferred method to look after the lungs of Covid-19 patients while they need breathing support. And that increasingly, the recovery rates for those who receive CPAP, even if they are as ill as those being ventilated via endotracheal tube, seem to be better.

So in some ways I am relieved about Mum. She is getting the best possible care. But in others I am bloody terrified.

Today’s blog has turned out to be a bit clinically technical, for which I can only apologise. Sometimes nurses need to talk about such things. Especially when the patient is their own mother.

In other news, Mog and Harvey have got fleas and I have had to collect an emergency supply of Advantage from the vet. It is expensive and they hate it so I don’t use it as regularly as I should. I am a bad mother.

Plus Brian has gone very quiet and I wonder if I have done something to upset him.

Thursday 30 April 2020

Hands up who hasn’t been thinking about Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds and their new baby boy? I’m not going to start gushing on about it because, whether he nearly died of corona virus or not, he’s still a privileged fat cat Tory bastard who played the country over Brexit.

But I do feel sorry for Carrie and that little baby. He is 55 and she is only 32, and we already know the relationship is tempestuous.

She’s a bit like a modern-day Princess Diana, isn’t she? She even loves badgers. I imagine there will be lot of pressure on her just to get on with things on her own up in their Downing Street flat. Although come to think of it, maybe the timing is good with him being so busy right now. Because even though he’s a lot of children already, I imagine Boris could be quite a nuisance in the nursery.

In more local news, Mum has made it through another 24 hours. Hannah the Junior Doctor was at pains to say that we mustn’t start getting our hopes up, and that Mum was still really poorly, but at least she is hanging in there.

Dad is hanging in there too. We stayed up late last night to finish a jigsaw puzzle. He likes to put the last piece in. And when he did, he said that he had made a promise to himself that by the time we finished it, Mum would be home. And I said, maybe you are right, but it just wasn’t this puzzle. And he brightened up a bit.

So this morning after breakfast we started another one. This one is a Beryl Cook painting which he says he hates. But he is plugging away and has already finished the border.  

With everything else going on, I forgot to mention that the Jamaica trip is now officially off. When Toby came round to tell me at the weekend, sitting a responsible two metres away on the front garden wall, I tried not to sound too pleased. Apparently they aren’t issuing any work visas and anyway they don’t want people from countries with higher rates of the virus coming in.

And the even better news is that Toby and Marnie appear to have got back together. If you had told me a few months ago that I would be pleased about this, I would have been extremely surprised. But just recently I have grown much more fond of Marnie. Either she has changed or I have. Or maybe it’s a bit of both?

But I still haven’t heard from Brian. I have taken Harvey for his walk past Brian’s house two days running now. The first time I waited until it was getting dark and walked by really fast on the other side. But this morning I crossed over and looked in.

Brian lives about a mile from me in one of those lovely fishermen’s cottages down near the harbour. It only has a tiny front garden so you can see straight into the living room and through that into his garden. I’ve never been inside and I only know a couple of rooms from our WhatsApp chats.    

And guess what, I could see Brian sitting in the garden at a little round table with a checked cloth. And there was a very attractive woman of about 40 with short dark hair sitting right opposite him.

So now I know why he’s been avoiding me. And my heart is truly broken.

Friday 1 May 2020

Day One of Life without Brian.

It’s pretty hard to have a broken heart when you are a full time carer. But I am making a good fist of it. I cried most of yesterday, in between putting on the next load of washing, ironing Dad’s shirts and hankies, helping him get in and out of the bath and choose what to wear, encouraging him to eat just one Weetabix for his breakfast, and sitting with him on the sofa while neither of us watched Homes Under the Hammer as we waited for the latest call from Hannah at the hospital.

And it’s actually not all bad news. Because for the second day running, Hannah tells us that Mum is holding her own. And I ask a few technical questions and she says that, as long as there are no changes in the next 48 hours, the doctors now believe that there is now room for some cautious optimism.

Apparently, this is not unusual. There are stories we are not hearing from all over the country of very old people, admittedly more women than men, defying the odds and slowly recovering from the virus, thanks in part to their stalwart constitutions but mainly a huge amount of skilled care from the NHS.

I start crying again and Dad is very sweet and cries too and we decide to celebrate with a second cup of coffee and a chocolate biscuit. Dad can afford it but I will be the size of a bus before this is over.

At 5pm Dad and I watched the Prime Minister blustering his way through his first briefing since being ill. We agreed we would give him the benefit of the doubt, and that he was clearly not really well enough to be back at work. But we also found it infuriating that he was trying to present 26,000 people dying as a huge success. I thought the Chief Medical Officer looked very uncomfortable about the upbeatness of the message.

Later last night I talked on the phone to Candy about Brian and she said that all men can be bastards. But we mainly talked about Maurice, because she has now managed to get hold of him, or rather his daughter, and it turns out that he is also in hospital with the virus, and unlike my Mum, is not showing any signs of improvement. Candy is terribly upset, she thinks she may never see him again, and she says she realises that she loves him very much. She has written to him but she says she feels really awkward that someone else will have to read it to him, so she couldn’t say what she really meant. It is very sad.

When I woke up this morning, I felt happy for a moment about Mum but then I remembered Brian sitting in his garden with that woman. And I started crying again.

And then at 11.00 this morning I get a WhatsApp message from Brian, all breezy, which says he is sorry he hasn’t been around much this week, and he hopes things are improving with my mother and that my father is keeping well, and would I like to go over to the allotment on Sunday afternoon? WTF??

And now I can’t decide what to do.

Monday 4 May 2020

When Bridget Jones wrote her famous diary, she used to start each entry with statistics such as 9 stone 2: VG. 20 cigarettes VB, number of times Mark Darcy has phoned, zero, VVB. 

People thought it was funny. They didn’t realise that such recordings were taken very seriously by young women at the time to measure themselves against some imaginary yardstick of perfection. And on bad days, some of us still do this sort of measuring.

So this was my weekend, Bridget-style.

11 stone 8: V bad, and yes, I am quite fat. But given how many biscuits I’m currently eating, not as bad as it might be.

Number of cigarettes: 2, but could have been more so actually quite good.

Bottles of wine drunk: 2. Quite bad.

Numbers of hours I’ve spent stalking Brian on Facebook trying to find out who that very attractive woman I spotted him having breakfast with in his garden is: 5. Very, very bad.

I woke up on Saturday determined to put the week behind me and have a lovely weekend with Dad. It was a glorious sunny day so we took Harvey up onto the Downs for some air and to take our minds off waiting for the daily phone call from the hospital. We were just back and settling down to coffee and scrambled eggs on toast in the garden (two can play at that game) when a new doctor called Damian called. I don’t why these people don’t have surnames. Anyway, Damian wasn’t as jolly as Hannah. He said that Mum had had an unsettled 24 hours and needed more oxygen and they were thinking of transferring her to a hospice. And I said to die? And he said well, that might be the outcome but she wasn’t on a ventilator and they needed the bed for someone who was and I asked about CPAP and he said it was no longer indicated. 

And then I had to tell Dad. 

He just sat there for a bit not saying anything. And then he got up and went inside and up to his room and shut the door and wouldn’t talk to me all afternoon. And I just sat in the garden and cried and drank wine. When I was feeling drunk enough I rang my sister Lydia to tell her about Mum being transferred to a hospice and she ranted and raved about ageism and that she was going to ring the hospital and how could I just have accepted it without arguing that Mum deserved proactive care just like everyone else.

So altogether a pretty horrible day.

I woke up on Sunday morning feeling very grim. I got up to go the bathroom and my head was spinning and Dad was in there and I had to go out into the garden and be sick in a flowerbed. Quite a shaming moment for a woman of my age.

Then we got a call from the hospital. It was the consultant in intensive care, Dr Malik, and he said that he needed to apologise for the call we received the previous day and that my sister had just rung and clearly we had got hold of the wrong end of the stick. It was actually good news that Mum was being transferred to the hospice, because they were running an active rehabilitation programme and they had already discharged several ladies in Mum’s age-group there and the reason she would be going was because they thought she would be an ideal candidate for the programme. And that he was very sorry for the misunderstanding, and that Damian was quite a new doctor and would be receiving support to reflect on his communication skills.

And I told Dad, and he just put his head into his hands and wept and said he didn’t think he could take much more of this, but he was very relieved because he had been worried because didn’t know how he was going to arrange a Jewish funeral.

And before I had a chance to say what are you talking about, Lydia rang, and she was completely triumphant and it is an awful thing to say because my mother has had a reprieve and I should be grateful to my sister because if it hadn’t have been for her, we wouldn’t have known, but all I wanted to do was tell her to fuck off.

Anyway, Dad and I had coffee to celebrate and I decided this was a good omen for the Brian situation and that I should therefore take a stroll up to the allotments in the afternoon and see what he had to say for himself.

Which turned out to be not a great decision. Because although Brian seemed quite pleased to see me, he was also rather distracted. I didn’t know how to raise the matter of me having seen him having breakfast in his garden with another woman without sounding like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. So I didn’t say anything. And he went on planting his runner beans in his usual meticulous fashion, and I watched the sweat patch on his back slowly growing, and had to resist the urge to rush over and shove my hands up his tee-shirt. Or worse.

And then he said he needed to get back to do some work, and we said goodbye as though we hardly knew each other and went our separate ways. And I cried all the way home.

And then much later he sent me a WhatsApp message to say that he was sorry if he had seemed a bit off, but that he was in the middle of a very difficult discussion with Stella’s family. Apparently her parents want Stella to live forever. But her sister Lucinda, who is a human rights lawyer, thinks that it is cruel to keep her alive when she has no quality of life. And that he is stuck in the middle.  

And I immediately looked Lucinda up on LinkedIn and she is indeed the woman he was having breakfast with sitting in his garden on Thursday.

Phew! Or at least, I think it is phew.

And in other news, I have given up wine.

Tuesday 5 May 2020

Do you remember me mentioning that annoying woman on the creative writing course called Suki and her even more annoying historical novel My Lord Buckingham is Without, and her unbelievable luck at getting herself a literary agent?

Well, I had a personal WhatsApp message from Suki yesterday. It sounded rather conspiratorial. She says she has been reading my blog and feels it might be beneficial to have an off-the-record chat.

And I thought, oh God, she is going to tell me all the things that are wrong with it structurally and that it is littered with typos and ask why am I not putting my energies into my novel like everyone else in the group.

But then my curiosity got the better of me and I replied and said that I was quite busy looking after my Dad but that I could probably do something after supper and she replied and said great, just message me when you are free and I will video call you and I said Thank You.

And then I thought, oh shit, because one of the things about spending most of your life with only your 89 year old Dad for company is that personal hygiene standards can slip and although I’d managed to cover up the fact that I hadn’t washed my hair for 5 days when I went up to the allotments for my abortive meeting with Brian on Sunday by wearing a hat, this tactic was unlikely to work on a WhatsApp video call. Unless I pretended to Suki that the only place I could talk properly was in in the garden and that was why I was wearing a sunhat. Plus it was now 6 days and my fringe was looking rather greasy.

In the end I made a bit if an effort and had a shower and put on some make-up and clean clothes. And I was actually very pleased I did, because Suki looked even more like a contestant on the Great British Sewing Bee than usual. She is tiny with amazing thick black hair that is usually cut very precisely, but because of lock down she is tying up with brightly coloured scarves. She always wears black tights and little skirts and tops she makes herself on her mother’s old sewing machine. I told her I loved her necklace and of course she had made it using old buttons and a ribbon she found somewhere.

Anyway, she wanted to know if I had read an article that weekend in the Guardian on How to be Creative in Lockdown and I said that I hadn’t and she said you should, Sadie, and I thought she meant that I needed advice because my blog wasn’t creative enough. And I started to feel my hackles rise.

But then she said that when she read it, she immediately thought of me and that I could have written the article myself because I was doing exactly what Marian Keyes and Richard Osman and Michael Frayn and all the other contributors said you should and using the time of lock down to tap into a new creative energy. And she said she hugely admired my work and that she had pointed out my blog to her agent and that the agent loved it too and WOULD I LIKE AN INTRODUCTION?

And you could have knocked me down with a feather, to use a cliché which us creative writers are supposed to avoid like the plague (yes, I know, another cliché, tick).

So I said yes please, and she said she would send us an introductory email. And I realized what a very nice woman Suki is and how Candy and I have misjudged her and that whilst My Lord Buckingham is Without may not be entirely my cup of tea, Suki has a very original mind and an ability to write erotic historic fiction without descending into the gutter.

So now I am waiting for the introductory email.

Which at least takes my mind off waiting to hear from Brian.

On the parental front, plans for my mother’s transfer to The Hospice of St Cuthman in the Wold are progressing, and she looks set to be moved there on Thursday. They have apparently allocated a whole floor to people with Covid-19, and have already had several success stories. I decide not to ask out of how many patients in total. There are some things it is better not to know.

But I do know that her Primary Nurse at the hospice is called Constance Alice Grant. I have already spoken to Constance briefly, and she sounds just lovely. She will be ringing us again first thing tomorrow morning to talk about the transfer arrangements in more detail, and to find out from Dad and me what advice we would give to help Mum to settle in. And that Mum’s room overlooks the garden, where the lilac is in flower.

And I don’t know why, but the thought of my mother lying in bed looking out onto a beautiful garden makes me feel extremely sad. But also very happy at the same time.  

Wednesday 6 May 2020

Dad and I have had our video call with Nurse Constance Alice Grant and I think I am in love.

Constance has that slow, gentle, lilting Caribbean way of talking that makes everything sound so nice and easy. She seems to have all the time in the world for us.

She asks us:

1. What Mrs Robinson likes to eat for her breakfast.
2. Whether she is a tea or a coffee sort of person
3. Is she alright with a duvet because some older people prefer the weight of a sheet and blankets?
4. Does she like a hot water bottle?
5. And does she like animals because they have a cat and a dog at the hospice but only the dog is allowed to visit patients on the Covid side and she hopes that will be alright?

And she makes some suggestions about things to bring in for Mrs Robinson’s creature comforts, including her favourite nightgowns, a pair of comfortable slippers, some nice bubble bath or shower gel so they can make her smell lovely, and a photograph of Mr Robinson to put beside her bed.

She also talks about the rehabilitation programme Mum will be on, including learning to breathe again without oxygen, which is apparently much harder than it sounds, walking, probably with a frame to start with, remembering how and when to go to the toilet once the catheter is out, and learning how to concentrate on simple tasks like reading or knitting.     

I’m beginning to want to book into the hospice myself, it all sounds so nice. They even have their own hens who lay brown eggs which are apparently delicious boiled for patients who like them.

Dad wonders how long Mum will be there, and Constance is straight on it and realizes how much he is missing her and says all the right things about getting her home as soon as possible. But in the meantime, she will be helping Mrs Robinson to make video calls to us at least once a day. And I say that will be lovely because we haven’t seen her for 15 days. And Constance clucks and is more sympathetic than I can possibly describe. She is our very own angel.  

And after the call, Dad cries and I cry too because we are both just so relieved that at 88, someone somewhere actually seems to believe that Mum has a future.

Only one more day and she will be moving. We can’t wait.

Meanwhile, Candy has managed to track down Maurice and he is still very much alive, thank goodness. But only just in time because she also found out that he was about to be transferred into a care home in Hendon which given the current news could be a death sentence. His daughter said what else are we supposed to do and Candy said, I will look after him. And then she loaded up all her stuff into her car, including her aromatherapy oils and the three greyhounds, and set off for Belsize Park to turn Maurice’s flat into a new-age care facility. If she gets stopped on route, I just pity the poor police officer who ask her where she’s going.   

And Brian has been in touch via WhatsApp, to say that he has been thinking about me and wondering how things are with my parents.

And that is enough for now. It has to be.

Thursday 7 May 2020

• Lockdown Day 45

• Days since Dad moved in: 16

• Number of times I have had to watch Homes Under the Hammer: I cannot bear to count

It’s a funny old business living with one of your parents when you are my age, ie old enough not to act like a teenager. It can bring out the best but also the worst in you. Some nights, when I have kissed him goodnight and he has told me yet again that I am a wonderful daughter and he doesn’t know what he has done to deserve how beautifully I am looking after him, I feel a warm glow because I know I am doing it to the best of my ability. And that although he is desperately worried about Mum, I am keeping him company which is the thing he needs most of all right now.

And then other times, such as when he spends ages deciding whether today is a Weetabix or a Shredded Wheat sort of day and then waits until I am downstairs before calling me back up again to tell me that he will just have a piece of toast, or when I have to miss Killing Eve or the Great British Sewing Bee because he wants to watch an ancient episode of Midsummer Murders, or says there doesn’t seem to be much in the news these days other than the virus for about the millionth time, or asks me why I keep looking at my phone, I feel a very tiny urge to push him down the stairs.

(Yes, I know I could watch it again on catch-up but if you had ever looked after an elderly relative you would realise that the only spare time you get is when you are sitting with them watching Tipping Point or Escape to the Country. Because all the rest of the time, you are running round like a blue arsed fly cleaning the house, putting on another load of washing, ironing their hankies or shirts or heavy cotton pyjamas or whipping up a delicious little shepherds pie and trying not to gag over the smell of the mince, being a vegetarian.)  

It is a privilege but also a penance, that is all I am saying.

And I think it was because the wonderful Constance Alice Grant was so kind to both of us yesterday that I cracked up a bit after our video call. I am in such desperate need of someone telling me I am doing an OK job. It is all very well Dad doing it, he doesn’t have any choice in the matter. Either he is sucking up to me so I let him go on watching ITV3 and don’t give in to my occasional patricidal feelings. Or he has Stockholm syndrome and has fallen for his captor. Either way he is not an objective judge.

And I am missing Brian. God, I am missing Brian. I know he has personal business to attend to right now, and I need to give him space. I have been fantasizing that he and the gorgeous human rights lawyer sister are going to arrange for Stella to slip kindly and gently away. May she rest in peace of course. Leaving the path clear for us, after a suitable period of mourning, to start our intellectually stimulating but also rampantly horny relationship.

But then I also start to imagine that he and the lawyer are getting very close over all the human rights paperwork they are having to plough through together late into the night. And I remember that she was in fact in his garden having breakfast when I spotted them through the window last week, which may mean that she has already started staying the night with him. The bitch.

Staying the night is something I may now never get to do with Brian. And I want to, so so much. I know he would look great in just a pair of boxers.

No news from that stupid agent of Suki’s, by the way. I knew it was too good to be true.

I must go, Dad has pressed the red button by mistake.   

Friday 8 May 2020

Lockdown Day 46

75^th Anniversary of VE Day

Number of times Dad has said he is glad Mum has settled at the hospice but he really wishes we could go and see her: countless

Number of times I have dreamt I am in bed with Brian who then morphs into Sir Keir Starmer: only once. But I wish it were more.

I’m not going to go all political on you, don’t worry. But I do just have to say that our current government, who got elected mainly for their gung-ho attitudes and Brexit quotient, and are now in charge at a time of national emergency, are looking increasingly out of their depth. Their communications are woeful, as my daughter Charlotte says. Matt Hancock’s unfortunate reaction this week to Dr Rosena Allin-Khan asking a perfectly sensible question is a case in point.  And was it just a little bit racist as well as sexist? Shame on you, Matt. You can do better than that.

Sir Keir, on the other hand, is a breath of fresh air. Calm, forensic, serious, probing and most of all, polite. No bluff or bluster about him. He oozes facts and evidence. Just what we need at the moment. As regular readers of my diary will know, I am a sucker for politicians of any political persuasion showing competence at this time. I’d probably fall in love with Nigel Farage if he ever said anything sensible. No danger there, thank goodness.

Back to more parochial matters. We had a very brief but reassuring video call via Zoom with Mum last night, with Nurse Constance at the controls. Mum seemed bemused and Dad was terrified so there wasn’t a lot of small talk. But at least they saw one another for the first time in over 2 weeks.

Mum’s condition remains stable. She is still needing oxygen all the time but Constance is teaching her to cough properly and that is the main priority right now. At the end of the call I asked Constance how long Mum would be staying at the hospice, and she said weeks rather than days, which I hope will help to lower Dad’s expectations. I can tell he is hoping that Boris Johnson is going to announce something on Sunday that will mean we can go and visit her, rather than just giving people longer to go out exercising and it being OK to have a picnic. I don’t know about you, but I can’t even find time to go out to exercise for an hour most days. Must get more organized…

I can’t remember if I have already mentioned this, but a couple of weeks ago I heard another of my favourite writers, Hunter Davies, on the radio saying how, at 84, he was furious that his life was being constrained by lockdown because he only had a limited amount of time left and it just wasn’t fair to consign old people to being shut away from society indefinitely. You can read something he wrote about it here.  

And I agree with Hunter. If lockdown is lifted for the rest of us, hopefully slowly enough so that the virus doesn’t come back in a massive rush, older people will still be expected to stay away from public places until a vaccine is found and possibly never be able to hug members of their families again. That can’t be right.

Nor can it be right that on VE Day, the very small number of people who can still remember the celebrations that took place 75 years ago, tinged with sadness about all those lives lost from the bombings and in combat, are now at greater risk of this awful virus here in the UK than anyone else because we haven’t managed to control it in our care homes.

We are rubbish at looking after old people in this country. I am going to watch the Queen’s broadcast to the nation tonight with my Dad, who was 14 on VE Day 1945, with more respect for all that he and his generation have faced than I have ever had before. And we will be raising a glass of something to Mum, who was 13 on that day, and will hopefully be sitting up in bed watching the same programme at the hospice with Constance.

And I will stop looking at my phone to check if that agent of Suki’s has emailed because she obviously doesn’t really like like the diary after all, and instead concentrate on looking forward to meeting Brian up at the allotments on Sunday, where I will get a little bit excited watching him plant out some seedlings and we will then sit on the wall and have a cup of socially distant tea together from his adorable little flask.  

Monday 11 May 2020

Lockdown Day 49 – although do we still have lockdown? Who knows??

Number of times I have checked to see if Suki’s literary agent has emailed – 0

Number of times I have taken Dad his cup of tea in the morning and been unable to wake him and thought he was dead and called 999 and when the paramedics arrived, they said he had had a stroke – 1

Not the best of weekends.

Dad is now in hospital, unrelated to the virus. He has had a massive stroke and is not expected to recover. Mum is still at the hospice and we haven’t told her yet. And my sister Lydia arrived last night and is sleeping in my spare room. The bathroom is full of gorgeous stuff from Clarins and Neal’s Yard and she is bossing the life out of me. And do you know what? It is actually quite reassuring.

Let me rewind. Saturday was an ordinary sort of day, if you can call any day ordinary at the moment. Dad woke up with a headache so decided to stay in bed. After I took him his breakfast, I sat in the glorious sunshine in the garden trying to ignore Harvey’s pleading looks to be taken for a walk, and drank a whole cafetiere of coffee and polished off three slices of toast and marmalade while talking rubbish to Charlotte and Jane via Zoom.

I’ve still only met Jane online, but I feel like I know her really well. She could not be more different from my serious-minded lawyer daughter. Jane sings in a choir, loves clothes and make-up and is a massive fan of the kind of slightly naff retro music like Take That and Queen that I also love. I honestly think we would be friends even without the Charlotte connection. She says that as soon as lockdown ends, we are going to have an evening out in a karaoke bar and get totally wasted. And she loves cats. She has an enormous cream British Shorthair called Lord Snooty who sends me pictures of what he is doing every day on WhatsApp. I can’t wait to meet them in person.

Eventually I went to check on Dad, who was asleep. So I took Harvey out for his walk, came home and did some chores and made some little cakes that Dad loves. In the afternoon, I got Dad up and we sat in the garden and he didn’t look great and I ate most of the cakes. So I rang 111 and they said they would get a doctor to call back and the doctor did, and we went through a few checks including whether he had any numbness (he hadn’t) and to give him paracetamol for the headache, to make sure he had plenty to drink, and if he still had the headache the next day, to call back and they would send a doctor round.  

In the evening we watched The Darkest Hour, in which it was good to see Gary Oldman doing a proper impersonation of Winston Churchill, unlike the lacklustre Boris Johnson version. And Dad was quiet but seemed OK.  And we went to bed.

Then Sunday morning came.

When you get to my age, and both your parents are still alive, you don’t realise how lucky you are. Because not only do you still have them in your life, but, despite the occasional hairy moment with Mum, they are able to keep one another company. I cannot imagine how worried I would have been about lockdown if one or other of them had been no longer with us. Loneliness is a terrible thing for old people. And most people of my parents’ generation are too proud to admit they feel lonely.

The government needs to think about this very carefully as we move into the next phase of lockdown – if anyone could actually tell us what that was, of course. I thought this from Matt Lucas summed up the lack of clarity perfectly.

And now I am facing both my parents’ mortality at once.

The paramedics arrived really quickly and were wonderful. They treated Dad with great kindness, and within no time had put up a drip and taken him off to hospital, sirens blaring, after making sure I had rung my sister. They told me I wouldn’t be allowed into the hospital so there was no point following the ambulance.

So I was left at home to clear up. It was a truly horrid day. After speaking to Lydia, who was surprisingly sweet, I called the children, who were both also really lovely. One of them must have told Richard because an hour later he rang, and offered to come round, and I was feeling so sad that I nearly said yes, but then I pulled myself together because he is at a loose end and we all know where that can lead.

I sent Brian a message to say that I wouldn’t be coming for tea at the allotment after all, and at 5pm he turned up with a bunch of beautiful flowers and said he wanted very much to hug me and I said I wanted that too, and I think we were edging towards some social non-distancing when fortunately I spotted my sister getting out of her electric car across the road and told him that he had better go. She is like a stealth bomber in that thing.

Lydia immediately asked Who was that man.

I said that it was Brian. And she said Is he your new partner? And I said No, just a friend. A very good friend.

And then I threw social distancing to the winds and flung my arms around my sister and we both burst into tears and cried and cried. And even though she is probably the most annoying person in the world, it feels so good to be together at this terrible time.

Tuesday 12 May 2020

Lockdown Day 50 – or is it, now we don’t need to stay at home, we just need to stay alert?

Number of times I have wondered why it is OK for some people to go to work, but not OK for me to see my beloved granddaughter – countless

Number of times I have nearly killed my sister Lydia – you don’t want to know

Lydia and I were up very late last night debating how we were going to break the news to Mum, who is still on continuous oxygen so it is not exactly easy for her to talk to us, that Dad is now in hospital after a massive stroke and unlikely to survive. And to only be able to do it via Zoom. And for her then not to able to go and visit him and hold his hand. And for us not to be able to do so either.

This is a cruel world. You will forgive us for getting rather drunk, me on white wine and her on gin and tonic, and then just gin when the tonic ran out. We also ate the rest of the cakes. And we both feel like death this morning.

But then, as I was stumbling around in the kitchen trying to make her some tea and toast while she lay groaning in the spare room but still managing to look amazing in her yoga outfit, answer emails from work colleagues and do a video call with all the other headteachers and the Director of Children’s Services, my phone rang.

And whilst it is not a miracle, because as we all know only too well, miracles do not happen, the nurse who called wanted to let me know that Dad has shown some small signs of improvement and is now responding to voices and they think there is a chance he could make some sort of recovery.

I waited till Lydia had finished her work stuff and then I made coffee and we went out into the garden and I told her about the news from the hospital. And she said, that is great but where does it leave us in terms of their ongoing care?

And I thought, oh my god, this is awful, we want our parents to live forever but we also want them to be as independent as they always were and now that they might not be and it might cause us, ie me, a bit of inconvenience, we are not so keen.

Lydia is very single-minded. Whilst she is happy to be here for now to support me in a crisis, she lives in London and will be going back to run her school as soon as there is more news about opening dates. And she will therefore not available for daily or even weekly visits to help our parents. That will be down to me and whatever care we can pay for.

And then we started thinking about the practicalities of them both needing rehabilitation as well as care and their house being a death trap in terms of loose carpets, no downstairs loo, vertiginous steps and so much furniture that there wouldn’t be room for one Zimmer frame never mind four of them, two up and two down.

And I had to admit that it might just be a step too far to get them both back home at once. But that if it was what they both wanted, and deep down I knew it would be, then I couldn’t see how I had any choice but to at least do all there was within my power to give it a go.

And Lydia said, more fool you, Sadie. And I thought, how can you be so callous? But I also felt jealous. Because she doesn’t lie awake at night worrying about them like I do. And that must be such a relief.

In other news, in turns out that Suki’s agent has been off sick with the virus and won’t be looking at emails for at least another couple of weeks, so I can forget about my imaginary publishing contract for the foreseeable future. Just as well, as the stuff I am writing is mainly drivel. Yes, it is true that 827 people have looked at it and I seem to have over a hundred regular readers. But that’s not exactly in Charles Dickens league, is it?

Candy has messaged me. Things are looking up with Maurice, and he is only needing his oxygen intermittently and is now able to make use of the Viagra she bought on the internet. The poor man is 77 and has high blood pressure. But at least he will die happy.

Brian has been sending me lovely messages, and he says he has some news he will share as soon as we can see one another. Who knows when that will be?

And I have apparently been using Lydia’s Clarins Bust Beauty Firming Cream. As if I would do that. Honestly.

Wednesday 13 May 2020

Number of Days since Lockdown was first announced: 51

Number of days we have meant to be staying alert rather than staying at home: 3

WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS RANTING

I’m not in favour of bashing the government just for the sake of it. After all, I married a Tory. I even had children with him. And government ministers do have an almost impossible job balancing keeping people safe from the virus with making sure the economy doesn’t tank, which in the end could negatively affect many more people than the virus itself.

And the message now, in this lockdown-or-is-it-phase, probably does need to be more nuanced.

But the more I think about the communications since Sunday, the crosser I get.

Because other countries are managing to introduce testing, tracking and tracing alongside their reduction of lockdown. And to give out clear and unambiguous messages about what it is OK to do and what it isn’t.

While we are just asking people to creep slowly back into the shark infested waters again.

I know people are likening President Trump to the Mayor of Amity Island in Jaws, encouraging people to get back in the sea with the shark. I think he might even have said he was his hero in one of his less deranged tweets.

And now Boris Johnson is doing the same. The sight of those packed tube trains and the story of the poor lady who worked at Victoria and got spat on by a passenger and has now died from the virus are simply heartbreaking.

It’s all very well for our privileged Prime Minister, who can afford to drive a Tesla and anyway gets driven everywhere in a government limo these days, to tell people to go to work by car. Either he is so out of touch that he doesn’t know that the majority of those who work in the sort of jobs that can’t be done from home, i.e. frontline jobs, also can’t afford a car. And even if they could, there is nowhere for them to park where they work. And that they have no choice but to risk their lives while the virus is still active and travel on public transport.

Or he does know but he doesn’t care.

And anyway, if public transport is so dangerous, why is it still running?

The only people who are happy are used car dealers, whose sales, I have read, are expected to rocket.

But the thing that is making me most cross is that the more I hear about the testing that is going on, the more of a mess I realise that it is. One nursing friend who runs a care home told me that they have only just got testing kits for their staff, and that the results take 36 hours even if they are fast tracked. And another nursing friend said that she got sent three different results from the same test, two negative and one positive, which apparently means that it was probably positive.

And we haven’t even started tracking and tracing.

I don’t blame Matt Hancock, he is just the fall guy for all this. He looks more terrified every day. But I do blame Jeremy Hunt, who simpered while the NHS received massive cut after cut from 2012 – 2018 and now has the audacity to chair the Health Select Committee. And I blame Andrew Lansley, who introduced the most complicated and stupid set of reforms of the NHS ever. Amongst other things, he created Public Health England as a separate body from the NHS. And he sliced very small public health teams in two, with half joining Public Health England and the other half being transferred out of the NHS and into local government, but just to make sure of maximum chaos, separate from environmental health teams. When the eventual enquiry takes place into why test, track and trace has taken longer to put into place in the UK than for any other country in Europe, it will be interesting to see what part this structural chaos had to play. I’d like to bet it lies right at the bottom of it.

But what would I know?

Anyway, the fragrant Rishi Sunak came riding over the hill on his charger yesterday with more money to keep the economy going. At least someone is doing something.

And back in my world, we have broken the news to Mum that Dad has had a stroke and is in hospital and she seems to take it in. Both of them are holding their own. And so my sister thinks she will go back to London on Friday, which is good news because the sisterly solidarity is breaking down and there is only so much advice on the right way to do social distancing I can take.

Plus I have invited Brian to come round and have a socially distant drink in the garden with me on Friday night.

I will miss her lovely Clarins bosom cream though. I was starting to feel quite pert.

Thursday 14 May 2020

Days since lockdown: 52

Number of days till I see Brian: 2. But only one more sleep.

Number of days till my sister Lydia stops telling me what to do and goes back to London: the same

I’m sorry about my blog yesterday. I know I went on a bit. Sometimes I surprise myself with how much I need to rant about this bloody awful situation. But although I am truly sorry for moaning, I do also need to remind you of the point of my blog. After all, it isn’t meant to be high quality literature. It is just my writing practice plus an opportunity to express how I’m feeling at the moment. Some of you are baking industrial quantities of sourdough bread or doing jigsaw puzzles. I’m writing a fictional online blog in the style of a Chicklit novel.

If you hadn’t realized that, it’s my fault for not explaining properly. I will try to do better from now on.

One or two readers (OK, my daughter Charlotte and her adorable girlfriend Jane) have messaged to say how much they like the bits of the blog when I write about writing. They think they are funny and quite post-modern. I have never understood what that means, but as I have been dipping into various books on writing this week, in between lusting after Brian/Kier Starmer and stealing my sister’s cosmetics, I am going to mention something that feels relevant this morning.

Which is the vexed question of when does one do one’s writing and what discipline is needed to get it done?

This is important to me because whatever routine I now pretend that I used to have has been shot to pieces by lockdown and various emergencies with my parents, leading to me becoming a carer to my father and landlady to my sister.

And let me tell you, having guests in your house is both terrible but also good for the creative process.

Terrible because you are constantly flying about between the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner and the fridge, trying to make your slapdash approach to housekeeping look even vaguely competent. I feel increasing admiration for women in the war years who would spend all day queuing to buy food, with paltry results because of shortages and rationing. Queuing in the supermarket car park for half an hour and then finding that Waitrose has run out of your favourite type of muesli is not really the same. But food shopping is definitely more of a mission than it used to be. And when you have guests, you are forced constantly to think about what you are going to give them next, rather than just eating cheese on toast as you would do on your own. It was easier with Dad, as all I was doing was trying to stimulate his appetite. But with my sister, I feel I have to stay one step ahead, or she will start advising me about what I ought to keep in my store cupboard. And I may then have to kill her.

And it is good because out of adversity comes creativity. I would never have thought of this blog if it hadn’t been for corona virus, would I? The discipline of writing daily started out feeling like a chore, but it is now a part of my day that I actively look forward to. Sometimes I write when I wake up, sometimes mid-morning and sometimes I don’t get round to it until later in the day. But I can honestly say that I love doing it. It is my escape, which might seem strange given the subject matter.

Do I plan what I am going to write? Not really. I let my characters do that. For example, early on someone said how much they loved Kezia, and given what I reported that Kurt Vonnegut had said that writers should create characters their readers will love and then do terrible things to them, to please not to kill her off. And I haven’t. Not yet anyway.

Kezia is a beam of light shining in all this grimness. She is funny and lovely and I know that I am probably breaking the lockdown rules because she is coming round this afternoon to sit in my garden two metres away from me so we can do a quiz about cats that I have created just for her. But we will both stay very alert while we are doing it, so surely that is alright?

My father continues to make progress after his stroke and is now allowed tiny sips of water. And my mother has walked a few steps using a frame with her very own angel Constance at the hospice.

And I am now thinking about what to wear when Brian comes round to sit in the garden and drink wine with me tomorrow night. Something warm but which also shows off my well- moisturised cleavage.

But which also covers up the fact that I have been eating rather a lot of biscuits recently.

Friday 15 May 2020

Days since lockdown: 53

Number of days till my socially distant date in the back garden with Brian: 0

Number of hours I slept last night: not enough.

After finishing her packing last night, Lydia said shall we have a late-night drink for old times’ sake?

So I opened a bottle of wine and we sat in the kitchen and she told me about the man she has been seeing recently. He’s called Terence and he is a professor and senior government adviser on education. He’s small and geeky-looking and loves cycling. They met at a conference where he was the keynote speaker and she was running a plenary session. He is very well-connected, which is also very Lydia. Initially he told her he was divorced, but after they had been seeing each other for a few weeks, she got suspicious about various things he’d told her that just didn’t add up. And she found out that he was still married. So she chucked him. But after another few weeks, he messaged her to say that he couldn’t stop thinking about her. And because she loved his clever mind and his wiry cyclist’s body and having sex with him was the best thing that had ever happened to her, she thought What the Hell. And now he will never leave his wife because she is a Christian and they have a disabled child plus a gorgeous house in Chiswick with a huge mortgage. And she hates herself but she is madly in love and there is no-one else as wonderful as Terence in the whole world.

Poor Lydia, she is as bad as me really.

I opened another bottle of wine and it turns out we both still like smoking while getting drunk. We then started talking about our parents and how lovely it must be to find your soul mate when you are young, even if one of you is maddeningly sensible and the other one is a bit bonkers. And how utterly horrible it must have been for them when lovely Ruth, who was always the perfect oldest daughter and big sister, got anorexia and died. And we wept on one another’s shoulders for her and our parents and ourselves.

And then one of us thought it would be a good idea to open a third bottle of wine.  

And now I feel like death.

Lydia got up early and clattered around in the bathroom having a shower and collecting up all the lovely stuff I am going to miss. Then she put her bag in the car which she had left charging on the only charge point in our road overnight. She said she would just grab a coffee and go. She doesn’t hang around, my sister. We hugged and she said Good luck tonight, Sades, I give you permission to break all the rules, OK? And then she thanked me for all I was doing for our parents and drove silently away, like a milk float. And I cried my eyes out because I am going to bloody miss her.

Then I took Harvey up on the Downs and it was a glorious crisp morning and I felt the sort of alive that you only feel when you’ve had too much to drink and not enough sleep.

And when I got home there was a package in the porch from Space NK full of gorgeous stuff, and a note inside that said:

To my lovely big sister, you are already beautiful inside.

This is just for the outside. I hope B likes it.

Love from Lydia xxx

I made coffee and sat in the garden for a bit and cried some more.

And then I went back to bed with the cat and the dog. I’m not getting up until it’s time to get ready for my tryst tonight with Brian.

Monday 18 May 2020

Number of days since lockdown: 56

Good news: There is the possibility of a vaccine for this awful virus being available in September.

Bad news: I am a wicked evil trollop.

If this were really a novel in the making, rather than just a creative writing project, I would be reaching the midpoint, having written circa 40,000 words. Time for something of significance to happen to one of my main characters, leading to a plot twist and the second half of the book in which the problems set out in the first half are resolved, although hopefully not in the way my readers might have have expected.

In John Yorke’s Into the Woods, subtitled How Stories Work and How We Tell Them, he explains the essential shape of all classic stories. Each involves the protagonist going on a journey, actual or metaphorical, to solve a problem. Finding the solution involves jeopardy, facing demons of a real or internal nature, and eventually accepting truths that may be hard to swallow but resolve the problem satisfactorily.

For example, Jane Eyre seeks a better life after the loss and cruelty of her childhood. She finds Mr Rochester and, against her better judgement, falls in love with him. Halfway though the book she discovers that he has lied and made a fool of her. She leaves, brokenhearted, and meets a supposedly better man, but comes to realise that the flawed Mr R is her true love. She goes to him, only to find he has become physically disabled by fire but spiritually renewed. They marry and live happily ever after.

But this isn’t a novel. It is a fictional diary. If you are tired of the comparison to Bridget Jones, and I certainly am, try instead The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield, an enchanting book which I promise will make you laugh out loud. Like the fictional lady who wrote that diary, I am writing mine chronologically day by day, and thus far have made very few revisions. (Thank you to my lovely readers who have pointed out inconsistencies or typos, which have been corrected. You are very kind.)

Thus today’s entry will simply be what happened at the weekend, starting from where I left off on Friday. If you recall, I had retired to bed because I had been up half the night drinking with my sister, and needed to get ready for my long-awaited tryst with Brian.

A rather obvious plot twist would be to tell you that I slept all evening, missed Brian’s text message to let me know he was at the side gate, he went away thinking I didn’t like him after all and my heart was broken.

But of course that wasn’t what happened. I woke up when my alarm went off feeling almost normal and then spent a luxurious amount of time washing and drying my hair, exfoliating, depilating and generally sprucing up the parts of my body usually only seen by me. I had already decided I was going to wear a lacy stretch camisole under my long thin black cotton cardigan with black leggings and flip flops. I was aiming for curve skimming and casual, with a hint of being ready for bed, should the need arise. I spent nearly an hour doing my make-up. And I was quite pleased with the result, albeit I had been sipping some lovely chilled rose for quite a while by that stage and my spectacles may well have become slightly rose tinted.

Brian arrived bang on the dot of 8.00 and I met him at the side gate as agreed. He said he wanted to go for a walk together first, if I didn’t mind, and then perhaps sit in the garden and watch the sun go down. He seemed nervous. But he did bring me some roses from his allotment in a beautiful glass vase that he said had been his mother’s. Apparently they are very early this year.

So we set off. He didn’t say anything for a while, and I started feeling nervous too, and wishing I had drunk less of that wine, and that I had gone to the toilet before leaving home. We wandered slowly through the old churchyard. It was clearly meant to be a seminal moment but I just couldn’t concentrate. He had started telling me about how he had been working with Stella’s sister, Lucinda on a statement they were going to be using in court so that the judge could consider what was in Stella’s best interests, when I blurted out that I needed to do a wee. I was mortified, but it was that or something even more embarassing. When I came out from behind the big oak tree, I thought he had stormed off. But luckily he had just wandered over to read some inscriptions.

Eventually we got up onto the Downs and he seemed to relax a bit. And that was where he told me that Lucinda had been amazing, and I thought Here we go, he’s dumping me, and he said, because she had helped him to remember how much Stella loved him and that she would have wanted him to be happy.

So I waited a bit and then i asked him what would make him happy.

And he said you. Meaning me.

And I am very sorry to say that he held my face again and kissed me in the most unself-distancing way imagineable, and then we looked around for somewhere private but there wasn’t anywhere so we rushed back down the hill and through the church yard and into my garden. On the way I said i was sorry about the wee, and he said that he had never seen anything more beautiful than my bottom behind that tree. OMG he had peeked!

This is not pornography, so all I am saying is that it is amazing what you can get up to in a summerhouse. Three times. And that if he has Corona Virus, I definitely now do as well.

The rest of the weekend was quite dull by comparison.

And tonight I have a Zoom call with Nurse Constance because we need to discuss my mother’s mental health.

Uh oh.

Tuesday 19 May 2020

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?

Wednesday 20 May 2020

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.

Thursday 21 May 2020

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.

Friday 22 May 2020

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.

Monday 25 May 2020

Number of days since lockdown: 63

Number of days since I became a 24/7 carer: 2

Number of times I’ve felt like screaming “You lying, privileged bastards” at Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson: how many do you think?

I was up half of Friday night putting the finishing touches to my preparations for Mum’s arrival on Saturday. I wanted everything to be perfect, even though, with my mother, that would be impossible. She will either complain that I haven’t done enough or that I have gone way over the top and that she hates a fuss. We specialise in the double-bind in our family.

Plus Brian said he was going to be in touch on Saturday. Being a carer is going to make things a bit more complicated on that front, but love will find a way. Or so I hope.

I got up really early on Saturday and took Harvey out for his walk. I was back in the house for one final round of wiping surfaces and plumping up cushions before it was time to set off to collect Mum, when my phone pinged. I leaped across the kitchen to answer it, feeling all girlish and thrilled, only to find a text from my ex-husband saying he was at the side gate and to please let him in as he needed to talk to me urgently.

He sat down at the garden table and said what about a coffee, Sades, and I said Richard, I’ve only got ten minutes before I need to leave to collect my mother, and he said never mind that, did you know about our daughter? And I said what, and he said, did you know that she’s now batting for the other side, and I said for God’s sake, do you live in the 19th century, she is 32 and who she goes out with is up to her.

And then it all descended into a stupid argument when he accused me of indoctrinating his children and I said he was a fascist. And then we seamlessly got onto the subject of Dominic Cummings and I said he should resign and Richard said he was only trying to make sure his child was alright, and I said tell that to the single parent who looked after their children alone in a tiny flat while ill with the virus because they were following the quarantine rules. Or the mother and father whose 13 year old son was dying in ITU and they weren’t allowed to be with him or even to attend his funeral. And he said don’t be so dramatic, Sadie.

So I said Cummings is like one of those parents who park their SUV on the zigzag lines outside schools because they think the safety of their own child is more important the safety of everyone else’s and Boris Johnson is like a headteacher who says it is OK for one parent to break the rules because they are a personal friend. And he said Did you read that in the Guardian, Sadie? And I threw my coffee at him and the coffee went all over him in a massive arc and the cup hit him on the head and cut him over his left eye.

So I ended up having to ring Constance at the hospice to say I would be late, before going in search of plasters and apologising for my violent outburst.

To be fair to Richard, he never holds a grudge. He tried to grope me while I was cleaning his cut which made me want to hit him again, and then he said, I’ve left her, Sadie. And I said who, and he said Karina.

Karina is his latest partner, or is it wife? I can’t keep up. Anyway, it turns out that, surprise surprise, he has been shagging someone at the office and Karina found an incriminating text and threw him out and he has been sleeping in his car for the past three days and now is in desperate need of a shower and somewhere to stay.

I said why not go to a hotel and he said insufficient funds, old girl. And I nearly cracked and said OK, just for one night. And then I remembered all the times he has let me and the children and his subsequent wives and girlfriends down, plus the lockdown rules and what it would look like to the neighbours and that my Mum would also be there and the small matter of Brian. But mainly his support for Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson. And I said no, Richard, you will have to make other arrangements.

After a bit of chuntering, he left and I drove to the hospice and collected Mum.

I will be honest, being a full time carer is not going to be easy. Although at least it took my mind off Rishi Sunak’s fall from grace, when he followed orders on Friday night and tweeted support for the odious Cummings. Sorry Rishi, but it’s over. You are a puppet after all.

Sunday morning:

7 am Take Mum cup of tea. Explain (again) why we can’t go and see Dad today. Empty dishwasher.

7.30 am Take dog for very quick walk.

8 am Deliver Mum’s breakfast in bed. Accept admonishment for excess number of Weetabix (She only wanted one and I gave her one and a half.)

8.30 am Help Mum to have bath and get dressed. Make bed, tidy her room and bathroom. Put on load of washing.

9.30 am Help her downstairs. Settle her into least uncomfortable chair in sitting room. Deliver coffee, one digestive biscuit and newspaper. Accept admonishment that it is the Observer rather than the Sunday Times.

10.00am Sweep kitchen floor, wipe down surfaces, load dishwasher. Remember I haven’t had breakfast yet. Make toast, about to start eating it standing up, respond to urgent call from sitting room that she needs the loo, offer assistance, help her back to sitting room, return to kitchen to find cat licking butter off toast.

A long day. But my mother and I are at least in agreement that Boris Johnson needs to sack the odious Cummings or he will turn all the attention to his own lack of leadership skills. Which he then does very successfully at the 5pm press conference. For someone who’s main asset is meant to be communication, it is a PR disaster of monumental proportions. The country is full of fury, with Tory MPs, bishops and people who have missed the funerals of loved ones lining up to express their disgust.

And the wonderful Sir Keir Starmer plays a blinder in not mentioning Cummings, but waiting for the PM to fall into the trap of supporting his man just as even more incriminating evidence starts to appear. He has asked for a cabinet secretary led enquiry. Which given that Cummings has been trying to oust the cabinet secretary has a nice symmetry to it.

In other news, I had a lovely long WhatsApp chat with Brian on Saturday night after I had settled Mum into bed. He seems to have resolved all the stuff about Stella and feels that things are as good as they can between him and her parents. And he now feels he can concentrate on his own life. We are going to try a late night tryst in the garden/summerhouse tomorrow night, ie Tuesday, after Mum has gone to bed.

I feel like a teenager. What could possibly go wrong?

Tuesday 26 May 2020

Number of days since lockdown: 64

Number of days since I became a 24/7 carer: 3

Number of times I’ve wondered if we are living in some kind of Kafka-esque version of The Truman Show: quite a few.

Ten things about the Dominic Cummings Debacle that I am still seething about:

1. He went home knowing he had been in contact with people who had tested positive for Covid 19 AND THEN WENT BACK TO WORK.
2. He went home again and then DECIDED TO DRIVE 260 MILES to another part of the country so he could avoid the media and/or get help with child care.
3. He thought his eyesight was affected so he decided to test it by taking his wife and child FOR A 60 MILE ROUND TRIP IN THE CAR.
4. He thought he was better so HE DROVE 260 MILES BACK TO LONDON AGAIN. Apparently he doesn’t know about working remotely.
5. He can’t remember when he discussed any of this with the PM.
6. He can’t remember whether he stopped for petrol. So not quite as tech-savvie as we have been led to believe, because as well as not knowing how to use Zoom, he hasn’t heard of internet banking.
7. HE HASN’T EVEN APOLOGISED FOR CAUSING ANGER AND DISTRESS ON AN UNPRECEDENTED SCALE.
8. He was allowed to hold a personal press conference in the garden of No 10, Downing Street. For which he turned up HALF AN HOUR LATE.
9. THE GOVERNMENT IS STILL DEFENDING HIM.
10. HE THINKS HE DID NOTHING WRONG.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

When I was still trying to stay married to Richard and the children were at their expensive private schools, we mixed in the kind of circles that include people like Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson who think they are better than other people. People who believe they are really clever and important and that it is OK to make fun of the little people. People who get angry when questioned, because whatever they think or do is obviously right. People who talk about themselves at great length but show no interest whatsoever in what you have to say. Who travel business class but put their badly-behaved children at the back of the plane in the cheap seats for the crew to look after. Who moan about expensive school fees but condemn people who send their children to state schools for being cheapskates who don’t care about their education. Who work in family businesses and inherit family properties but consider people without such advantages to be wasters and no-hopers. And who think that homeless people are scroungers and can claim extra benefits if they get a dog.

And who am I to judge? I used to go along with all this. Sometimes I even joined in. I was proud of Charlotte’s excellent results and her brilliant career. I might even have crowed about them to friends whose children hadn’t done so well. I was embarrassed when Toby dropped out of the Royal College of Music because his band had got a recording contract – short-lived, as it turned out – so I kept quiet about that. And I did nothing to stop Richard when he employed a clever lawyer at vast expense to get him off his latest drink-driving offence and avoid a lengthy ban. We were just a provincial, lower-key version of the elitism and lack of humility that has been on display all weekend.

I cringe when I think about it.

Not that I have much time for cringing. Looking after an elderly person who is recovering from a fractured hip and Covid-19 and who is also my mother is a full-time job. By rights, there should be 3 of us here working shifts. But there is just me, and I am only just keeping my head above water. My mother watches a TV quiz show every afternoon called Tenable. This situation is only tenable in the short-term.

The hardest part is that she keeps asking to go and visit Dad. I don’t know if she understands how ill he is. I certainly don’t think she appreciates the lockdown rules, even though she watches the TV news in between all the quiz shows. It is hard to comprehend the cruelty of it, that an elderly woman who nearly died from the virus and has an uncertain future is not allowed to visit her husband who she has been married to for over 60 years, has had a massive stroke and lying semi-conscious in hospital being looked after by people he doesn’t know. And who may die any day.

I decide to get Lydia onto the case. She is extremely busy working out how to open her school to more pupils. But she says she will call the hospital and make special pleading for Mum to visit Dad, given she is now probably immune from the virus and therefore hopefully not a risk to herself or anyone else. If anyone can persuade them, Lydia can.

And Lydia and I agree we will only take her if we can do so without putting other people at risk, even though it is heartbreaking to listen to her pleading to see him.

To all those people thinking about breaking the lockdown rules because Dominic Cummings did, please don’t. We are better than him and his privileged, out-of-touch, I’m-alright-jack-pull-the-ladder-up ilk. We are in this together. Dominic Cummings and the odious man he helped to inveigle us and become our Prime Minister are not.

And yes, I am meant to be seeing Brian tonight. If I can stay awake that long.

Wednesday 27 May 2020

Number of days since lockdown: 65

Number of people who have visited my blog since I first started writing it: 1,028

Number of times a day I check the above: once or twice (but remember I am an unreliable narrator.)

I may have mentioned in the past that my sister Lydia can be quite annoying. She is one of those people who always knows best. And who is never backward in expressing an opinion. She is also usually right. And most irritating of all, she tends to reach the right conclusion much quicker than me.

So when she started saying on Saturday, the day that Mum left the hospice and came to stay with me, that we need to arrange for her to visit Dad in hospital, I thought that is all very well for you to say, Lydia, but they will never agree to it.

And all through the weekend, during which our WhatsApp messages became increasingly peppered with disgust at the sheer audacity of Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson taking us all for mugs, we talked about how Mum was doing and how sad it was that she kept asking to see Dad. And all I could do was think about all the things I had to do to look after her and the difficulties of getting her there.

But all of a sudden yesterday I came to the same conclusion as Lydia. Which is this. That Mum has had the virus, therefore she must at least have some immunity. And therefore a visit to Dad in hospital is not a highly risky thing for her to do. And that whilst there is a shortage of gowns and masks etc, what better use could be made of just one set of them so that our mother could spend just a few minutes with our father, possibly for the last time. And that if she doesn’t see him, she may never be able to accept that he has had a massive stroke and is unlikely to get better. And while seeing him like that will be very, very upsetting for her, not seeing him will be even worse.

And when I reached that conclusion, I didn’t feel cross with my sister for a change. I just felt cross with myself with not having realised all this sooner.

I don’t know what Lydia said to them at the hospital, or how many times she had to ring and threaten to go over people’s heads and not accept no for an answer. It may have helped that everyone working in the NHS must be feeling furious about the fact that so many people had missed meeting new grandchildren or holding the hands of dying loved ones because of lockdown, while the odious Cummings swanned around breaking the rules and making excuses that would be laughable if they weren’t so self-serving.

Anyway, at 3pm she rang me and said that we could go. She said that we were to get there at 6pm and that a nurse would meet us outside A and E.

So Mum and I discussed what she should wear, and she muttered about the state of her hair, and I tried to persuade her to have something to eat and she of course refused. And I helped her get into my car and we drove to the hospital and got there far too early. But eventually on the dot of 6pm, there was the nurse waiting outside A and E with a wheelchair. It was a bit like exchanging a prisoner on a bridge, except I didn’t get to take anyone in return. I will never forget seeing her being wheeled away, looking tiny but determined.

The nurse had said she would text me when it was time to collect Mum. So I parked the car – hospitals have plenty of parking spaces at the moment – and went for a little walk and thought about my parents and how my mother is lost without the slightly anxious but at the same time steadying presence of my father. And about him being all alone in that hospital.

And I cried for them both.

And then my phone beeped and I went back to A and E and there was my mother sitting in the wheelchair looking even smaller.

I helped her into the car and we drove home in silence. When we got in she said she thought she would go to bed. So I helped her upstairs and to get undressed and she got into bed and lay on her side facing away from me.

I said I’d go and make her a cup of tea. And she said, thank you Sadie.

I was going to message Brian and tell him not to come round after all, but in the end I forgot. So we sat in the garden and I told him about my day and he listened in that really intense, thoughtful way of his. And although I was desperate for him to hold me, we agreed that we were better than Dominic Cummings and that we needed to work out a way to see one another without breaking the lockdown rules. And that for now, sitting in the garden two metres apart would have to do.

And then he went home and I went to check on Mum and she was still just lying there wide awake. So I got onto the bed next to her and put my arms round her and stayed there all night.

Thursday 28 May 2020

Number of days since lockdown: 66

Number of times I have thought about Dominic Cummings today: hardly any. Because he is not the story. Or at least, his trip up North and related dodgy excuses aren’t. Possibly his fomentation of discontent and anti-establishment feeling which led to the Brexit vote are. But we are supposed to have moved on from that.

Anyway, never mind him.

With hindsight, sharing a bed with my 88 year old mother might have been an act of loving kindness after the day she had yesterday, but it wasn’t exactly an aid to good sleep hygiene. While she gently snored, I lay awake for most of the night with a crick in my neck thinking about her and Dad.

When you get to my stage in life and both your parents are still alive, it is tempting to start thinking of them as immortal. Intellectually you know that one day one of them will die, and eventually the other one too. But emotionally you can’t quite believe this will ever happen. The longer they last, the easier it seems to be to indulge in such magical thinking.

And that was where I was when I started writing this diary. I thought that Mum and Dad would always be there, in cosy, old-fashioned Waylands Heath, the house crammed with familar knick-knacks, my father watching Countdown and my mother chuntering on about the neighbours.

No danger of that now, given their recent brushes with mortality. I realise that I have been living in a state of perpetual anxiety for the past seven weeks. I’m not sure I can keep it up.

As it got light, I made a promise to myself. I promised to try a lot harder simply to accept what life has thrown my way and to go with the flow a bit more. I want to appreciate this enforced time caring for my mother, because it is so precious. Even though so much of what is happening is desperately sad and worrying, I want to find a way create some good memories amongst the sadness. And I want to be generous and share the best bits with Lydia too, even if I am doing the lion’s share of the caring. Because she loves our parents just as much as I do and it isn’t her fault that she’s the youngest and still working full time. And I want to help us all face whatever is going to happen next to the love of our mother’s life, our beloved Dad.

So at 7am I went downstairs, shoved on a pair of trainers, took Harvey out briefly (that dog will literally faint if he ever gets a decent walk again), fed him and Mog and made tea and a plate of toast and Marmite for me and Mum.

Hers was strong English Breakfast with a dash of milk, mine was weak Early Grey. She sat up in bed and we munched away companionably, watching Breakfast TV. Dominic Cummings is gradually slipping out of the news, just as Boris Johnson and he must have hoped. It’s now all about Emily Maitlis who apparently said too much on Newsnight, and the new Track and Trace app, which isn’t the full monty but Matt Hancock still says it is our civic duty to lock ourselves away for 14 days should we get the call to do so.

I thought we were still in lockdown, but never mind.

Do they think we are mugs? Yes, probably. And are we? What do you think?

Then Mum had a nice bath and we chose some clothes to suit the warm weather and talked about what we planned to do today, which was not very much other than sitting in the garden doing crosswords and watching old episodes of Call the Midwife on my laptop.

Mog has become very attached to my mother. I am slightly worried she is going to get between the legs of her zimmer frame and cause a terrible accident, but Mum says not to shoo her away. She says she likes seeing her sitting on the garden wall watching over her like an owl. It makes her feel safe.

So that’s what we did. It was a little holiday from reality. We avoided the news for the rest of the day and we didn’t even watch the 5.00 briefing. Instead, we watered the tomatoes and admired my sweet peas and I made a jug of sangria using an old bottle of Beaujolais and some homemade lemonade. We even had crisps.

And then I got a call from the hospital.

Friday 29 May 2020

Number of days since lockdown: 67

Number of cigarettes: 2

Number of times in the past 24 hours I’ve hoped this is all a horrible nightmare and that any minute I will wake up: too many.

There are a few ways I might have imagined Mum reacting when I broke the news to her that the hospital had just rung to say that Dad had very sadly died. Weeping, shock, even denial that it had happened. Or anger that she hadn’t been allowed to be there with him. All of them were possible.

But instead, she just said: typical of him, the selfish bastard. I always knew he’d leave me one day.

And then she asked me if I had any cigarettes and stumped off on her zimmer frame to sit in the garden.

I rang Lydia and told her about Dad and we had a little cry together. She said she would come down to visit us the next day, ie today, so we can get started on all the admin. And then we had that ridiculous sort of discussion that grieving families are having to have these days, about whether it would be alright for her to stay on the sofa and would we be able to have a funeral and would she even be allowed to hug Mum.

Just to clarify, I don’t think the rules to stop the virus spreading make losing someone any worse. That isn’t possible. They just get in the way of all the things that you would do naturally to comfort one another. And yourself. It’s one of the reasons why the behaviour of the Prime Minister and his odious advisor has caused so much anger and distress.

After I spoke to Lydia, I rang the children. They both adored their grandfather and were very sad and upset, and somehow that was a very soothing. Toby said he would like to play something at the funeral and I said that would be lovely, even though at that stage I wasn’t even sure if we would be having a funeral. And he said he would come round and see Grandma over the weekend, and Charlotte said she would come down in the week, now that the rules for visiting in the garden have been relaxed.

It was getting dark when I took Mum out a cup of tea and some biscuits. I sat down next to her and said If you haven’t smoked all those cigarettes, please may I have one? And she handed me the almost empty pack in silence. We sat there for a while and then I said that Lydia would be coming down tomorrow.

And she said, I hope she spares me one of her bereavement lectures.

And I said, oh Mum, she loves you very much.

And she said, I know that Sadie. I just find kindness very difficult to accept.

And I thought, yes I know you do, Mum, and that is the hardest things about being one of your daughters.

And then she said, I have been thinking about Ruth.

And I said, oh?

And she said, yes, and I have been wishing I had a faith because then I might believe that she and your father had gone to a better place. But I don’t. And now I’m going to bed.

Which she did. And I remembered someone once telling me that losing a parent is actually a double loss, because for a while, the other parent is lost to you too, at a time when you need them most. But that with any luck they will be back one day.

And I wondered if Mum would ever be back.

In the morning I went to the hospital and collected my father’s death certificate from a lady wearing a mask and blue disposable gloves. And then I went home and waited for the cavalry to arrive in her electric chariot.

Monday June 1 2020

Number of days since lockdown: 70

Number of cigarettes: I’ve stopped counting. Therefore very bad.

Number of times I’ve thought that things can’t get any worse, and then they get worse: you don’t want to know.

When I got back from the hospital, I made Mum a cup of tea and went and sat with her in the garden. I said that I’d had to nominate a funeral directors, and had chosen the Co-op and I hoped that was alright, and she said what if it wasn’t and I said I could ring the lady and change it and she said not to bother.

And then she said are we allowed to have a funeral then? And I said yes, but it would need to be small, with a maximum of eight people. And she said good, because I’m not going.

And I thought, I’m going to wait for Lydia to get here before I fight that battle. And I started making lists of things we needed to do next, such as ring the funeral director and look at Dad’s will so we could start to sort out probate and check all the finances to make sure that Mum could pay the household bills, and contact all the people we hadn’t yet let know about Dad having died. Which when you get to 89 is sadly not a very long list.

And I made some supper which neither of us wanted, and then I took the dog out. I decided to walk to Brian’s house because I really desperately wanted to see him, even though hugging still isn’t allowed. But he wasn’t there. And I felt so sad and empty. I decide not to leave him a note.

And then I walked home and there was a message from Lydia saying Ring me. And it turns out that she has got a sore throat and a cough and a terrible headache and she thinks she has corona virus and she has sent off for a test and is going to have to self isolate which means not driving here to see us because she isn’t like Dominic Cummings. She says can I talk to Mum and tell her and I pass the phone over and it isn’t a good conversation.

And I think, I don’t think I can do this on my own.

And then just when you think things can’t get any worse, they do. Because on Saturday I did something very stupid.

On Saturday morning the doorbell rang and there was a beautiful bunch of peonies and roses from The Real Flower Company with a note from Richard to say how sorry he was to hear about my Dad. And I thought how kind of him. I showed them to Mum but she wasn’t really speaking to me. So I put them in a vase and sent Richard a text to say thank you. And he replied and asked if he could come round and see me later. And I said no, because of Mum being there, and he said what about after she had gone to bed. And I said OK.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

So he came round to the side gate at 10.00 as arranged and he had brought a bottle of really nice wine with him and we sat in the garden talking quietly about my parents and our lives together and we drank the wine and he told me I looked very beautiful in the moonlight. And I said would you like to sit in the summerhouse and we did and it was like putting on an old comfortable pair of shoes except that instead of wearing shoes we took off most of our clothes and did things we haven’t done together for a long time.

And now I hate myself.

And on Sunday my mother said, was that Richard’s voice I heard in the garden last night, and I said oh yes, he just popped round and she said you can do better than him, Sadie and I said I know I can. And I spent the whole of the rest of the day crying.

So how was your weekend?

Tuesday 2 June 2020

Number of days since lockdown: 71

Number of days since Dad died: 5

Number of days since I ruined my own life: 3

I’ve been having really awful dreams. The sort in which you do something absolutely terrible like accidentally killing someone and then you try and cover it up. But then you get found out. Or you do something you shouldn’t with someone completely inappropriate and the person you really love finds out and your life is ruined.

Then you wake up. And for one or two seconds you feel a massive sense of relief because the horrid dream isn’t true.

But this is real life, or what passes for it in my blog. So after the joy of realising that the dream was just a dream, I remember that Dad has died. My dear, dependable, kind, funny, anxious old Dad. It is like being smashed in the face. I cannot bear to think of him dying all alone in that hospital or of life without him. He may have been 89. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t precious and adorable or that I am not going to miss him every day for the rest of my life.

And then I remember that poor Mum is really struggling and I simply don’t know how to help her. Everything I do or say is wrong. I am useless and the worst sort of daughter possible.

And just to cap it all off, in an instant I also remember that I have indeed done something inappropriate. With my ex-husband, just to make it even more sleazy and embarrassing. And that when good, honourable, kind, loyal Brian finds out, everything will be ruined.

I hate myself more than it is possible to put into words. I am a stupid, selfish, weak-willed useless fat ugly cow.

Brian has been sending me lovely messages, just to say he has been thinking of us. And there have been several bunches of his allotment flowers, including some gorgeous pale pink roses. I put some in the hall and the sitting room, and the rest in a jam jar on the kitchen table. I have thrown that other bouquet into the garden recycling bin. I couldn’t look at it. It made me feel sick.

I try to reply to Brian but I just don’t know what to say. So I put things like Thank you, with a heart emoji, or Bearing up with a sad face emoji but only the one with one tear because even though I can’t stop crying, I do not deserve his sympathy. Not in these circumstances.

I also got a message this morning from You-Know-Who. It said this:

Dear Sades, I think I might have been a bit out of order on Sat night, probs the wine, you know what I’m like. I really can’t remember much. The good news is that I’m no longer an ageing sofa-surfer, Karina has taken me back under her wing. She is a marvellous girl and I couldn’t be happier. I’m sorry things are tough for you right now. Look after yourself, please.

All my love, R x

And although it should be reassuring that either he really can’t remember much about our fumbling, or that even if he is pretending he can’t remember, he is unlikely to spill the beans because of Karina, somehow it just makes me feel even worse.

To take my mind off the awfulness, once I’ve got Mum settled in the garden with a book she doesn’t like and a cup of coffee she says she doesn’t want, I turn my attention to unloading the dishwasher and washing the kitchen floor, which is filthy. The mop head is long past its best, so I decide to make a last minute adjustment to the Sainsbury’s online order that is due to be delivered tomorrow afternoon. And just as I think I have successfully chosen a new mop head for £3.50, I accidentally click the wrong button and realise I have totally deleted the order and there are no slots available now until Sunday. And I find myself putting my head in my hands and weeping with frustration.

When I look up, Mum is sitting next to me. She puts her hand on my arm and says:

Sadie, I am a terrible mother, I am so sorry.

And I say, No please Mum, it is me who should be sorry. I should be comforting you.

And she says, Shall we stop being sorry and just be sad instead?

And I say OK.

And we put our arms round one another. And for the first time I can ever remember, Mum and I face up to what has happened and cry together.

Wednesday 3 June 2020

Number of days since lockdown: 72

Number of days since Dad died: 6

Number of cigarettes Mum and I smoked yesterday: 23. Very bad. But at least we are now talking.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel the need to make myself cry. I mean at times when life is just a bit shit but there is nothing specific I can put my finger on. And at such times I turn to my favourite books. Growing up, I would re-read the part in Good Wives (the sequel to Little Women although in some editions, they publish it as one book) when Jo March’s sickly little sister Beth dies. I would be sobbing in minutes.

Later I turned to Linda’s death towards the end of The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, which if you haven’t read, I urge you to order a copy online right this minute. Or the penultimate chapter in One Day by David Nicholls. If you’ve read it, you’ll know why. And if you haven’t, you should. Just make sure you have tissues.

Obviously I don’t need such triggers at the moment. I am more than in touch with my feelings, hence the many episodes of uncontrolled crying recorded on these pages. But I am thinking of you, my small but trusty band of followers. And I hope that if you have a general feeling of sadness brought on by lockdown and all the other awful things in the news and are in need of a jolly good weep, that you might find my recent ramblings useful?

Anyway, that’s my justification. But I am also aware you read my blog for the humour and there hasn’t been a lot of that recently. I will try to do better from now on.

Not least because I have actually been talking to Suki’s agent by email at last. Her name is Ericka. She has read my blog and has a few thoughts to offer. To wit:

1. How long am I planning to make it because novels in this genre tend to be between 60,000 and 70,000 words and she has noticed that I have already written 45,000. (47,584 to be precise)
2. She says she appreciates the sad parts of the blog but she thinks I need to balance them with the humorous parts. (Obviously not a follower of Kurt Vonnegut, then.)
3. She likes Brian but thinks he is a bit one-dimensional. (What?)
4. And she thinks I should keep Richard in play because people can relate to him. (Can they??)

During our email exchange, I asked her if she was interested in representing me. Which was obviously a complete faux pas – apparently you have to wait for the agent to ask you, unless you are a Name. Which I clearly am not.

TBH, I’m not sure about Ericka. As Candy says, how can you trust someone who spells their name with a C AND a K when either would do just as well. She says I need to play it cool and see what Ericka comes up with.

Speaking of Candy, we chatted on WhatsApp last night and things sound really good with her. She is taking the greyhounds up onto Hampstead Heath every morning, which she loves. I feel a twinge because I do so love that part of London, I don’t know why. Maurice is feeling much better and he has given her an absolutely gorgeous ring made of diamonds and emeralds that belonged to his mother. I asked her if that meant that they were engaged and she said Oh Sadie, you are so old fashioned. Which I think means yes.

And she gave me some great advice re the small matter of last Saturday night with Richard. Which is this. I am in a vulnerable state because I am grieving for my Dad and caring for my Mum and he took advantage of me. Therefore the fault for what happened lies mainly with him. And that what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over, so it would be pointless and stupid to confess all to Brian and just upset everything for no purpose. Best to draw a line and learn a lesson never to let my guard down with my ex-husband again. Which is unlikely to happen in any case now he is back being all loved up with Karina, who is BTW young enough to be our daughter.

And I agree. Sort-of.

In other news, I’m watching the news about the riots in America and the response of that joke of a president and I have a few thoughts which I will maybe share with you tomorrow. For now I will just say this. As the grandmother of an adorable mixed-race little girl, and the mother-in-law of a proud young woman of Jamaican heritage, I feel very scared and worried. I want to stand alongside them and protect them and for them to feel safe wherever they go.

And I also know this. There is far more that binds us than divides us. We are all members of one race, the human race.

Thursday 4 June 2020

Number of days since lockdown: 73

Number of cigarettes Mum and I have smoked in last 24 hours: nil. Hurrah!

Number of times we have watched Midsummer Murders in the last week: don’t ask.

Yesterday I said I was going to say something about the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in America and the UK following the tragic killing of George Floyd. Who was much loved, innocent and an upstanding pillar of his community. But who should not have died that way even if he had been a hardened criminal. I have wracked my brains and been struggling to know what to write without sounding trite or holier than thou or muscling my way in simply because I have a mixed-race granddaughter.

And then I saw this online and I thought I would just say instead that I agree with every word of it. I used to think James Corden was a bit too pleased with himself. Maybe he still is. But on this important matter, he speaks for me. So I don’t need to say any more on that subject.

In more local news, my mother has discovered that I have been cheating. No, no that sort of cheating. Can we move on, please? I mean the sort of cheating you do to an elderly parent when you pretend to be watching something ghastly on TV with them like the aforementioned Midsummer Murders, which seems to be available as a rolling programme of the same five episodes every night on ITV3. Or Doctor Foster, ditto. When in fact you are watching Killing Eve on your phone with only one headphone. That sort of cheating. My mother is disgusted. She thinks that everyone in the household must watch the same thing at the same time or the sky will fall in.

I hate to mention this but it already has.

It is seven days days since my lovely Dad died in hospital after a second major stroke. And with none of us beside him because of this bloody virus.

But there is a small bit of good news. Because at last Mum seems to be drawing a tiny bit of comfort from having been allowed to visit him the day before he died. This is a tremendous relief to me. And to my sister, whose own brush with Covid-19 seems to have been minor compared with most. Lydia hopes to arrive here next week, in time for the very small funeral we have been organising for 11.00 on Friday 12 June.

Here are the rules for funerals these days, as explained to me in various Zoom calls with the kindly but perhaps rather abrupt funeral director Mr Heap from the Co-op.

• First off, there is no chance to be choosy. You take the date and time slot you are given.
• You can’t hold the funeral in a church because they are still all shut, only at the crematorium, or cemetery if the person is to be buried.
• Only 8 people may attend, and you all have to sit 2 metres apart, even the ones who live together, because the staff can’t tell who is a risk to whom so they have to apply blanket rules.
• You can have one small wreath but otherwise no flowers.
• If you want someone to take the service, such as a priest or celebrant, they are included in the eight people.
• You can film the service for people elsewhere to watch live, but you have to do this yourself or get a professional to do it and they will then be included in the eight people.
• In the case of a cremation, which is what we have opted for, you may collect the ashes a week later, but if you want them interred, you will have to hang onto them for the time being as they are only burying bodies at the moment.

Lydia and I would like to put his ashes where Ruth is buried, and have the stone changed to include him, with space for Mum in due course, but we haven’t discussed this with her yet. In the past, mention of anything relating to her mortality would have her hissing vituperatively that we just wanted her in the ground next to our sister. We would like to avoid such remarks at this time if we can.

When Mum first told me she wasn’t planning to attend Dad’s funeral, I will admit I was not surprised. You can always count on our mother to take the road less travelled. Since then, Lydia and I have been using reverse psychology when talking about the funeral. We have been involving Mum in all the plans and just ignoring it when she says she doesn’t care what we do because she won’t be there to see it.

And this morning there was a breakthrough. I was helping her to get dressed when she said that she needed to go over to Waylands Heath to pick up some more clothes.

I said You’ve got loads of clothes here, Mum.

And she said, But I need something for next week. I can’t go to your father’s funeral wearing jogging bottoms and a pair of slippers.

And I thought, Get in. But I knew better than to say so.

And then she said something that gave me a massive jolt, because it chimed with what Dad had said when she was in hospital with Coronavirus and we thought she might die.

She said, When I die you will have to do things differently.

And when I asked why, she said, Because I was born in the Jewish faith, Sadie, and I shall die in the Jewish faith.

And I said What are you talking about, Mum?

But she just turned and stumped off to the bathroom on her frame. And now I literally do not know what to think.

Friday 5 June 2020

Number of days since lockdown: 74. But that seems almost irrelevant now, given the stupid decisions being made by our government to let everything return to normal before we have a functioning test, track and trace system in place. So I’m going to stop counting and instead give you some more relevant stats.

Number of days since I started writing this blog: 80. Bloody Nora.

Number of words I have written so far: 49,494

Number of days since Dad died: 8

I was awake most of the night thinking about what Mum had said about being born Jewish and dying Jewish. To be honest, it made a nice change from lying awake worrying about being unfaithful to Brian with that bastard Richard. Or whether Brian really loved me and what he would do if he found out. Or just lying awake feeling lonely and sad, knowing my mother was probably lying awake next door feeling just the same but having no idea what to say that might comfort her.

All families have secrets, don’t they? Or maybe they don’t. As Tolstoy said, all happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

And being brutally honest about it, ours has never really been a happy family. There were happy times, of course. But there was always been an undercurrent of sadness, of Things that Must Never be Mentioned. And when we did ask questions, we would be told by Dad that we had better ask our mother. Which we rarely did because doing so risked having one’s head bitten off with one of her famous non sequiturs such as:

Really, Sadie, why do you want to know that?

Or: That’s for me to know and for you never to find out.

Until recently, I have always told myself that things started to go wrong for the Waylands Heath Family Robinson when my older sister Ruth died. Graceful, kind-hearted, hard-working Ruth. Who wanted to be a doctor or a concert pianist or a prima ballerina and could probably have done all three, had she not simply stopped eating when she was 15.

But in all honesty, Ruth was just a salve to our mother’s rage about the unfairness of what life had thrown her way. She was the perfect daughter, unlike me and Lydia who were naughty and annoying, and in my case, fat, greedy and untidy to boot. I think Lydia was generally less of a disappointment than me, but that wasn’t saying much. Ruth kept her bedroom in immaculate condition, and loved helping our mother with the household chores which so enraged her. Until I went to visit other children’s houses, I didn’t know that laying the table could be done without banging every item down so hard that it made all the other things rattle, or that hoovering didn’t necessarily involve smashing the vacuum cleaner into the skirting boards whilst smoking furiously.

Ruth was Mum’s alter-ego, an excellent little housewife without an angry bone in her neat little body. She would hum softly while she dusted the sitting room, always putting everything back exactly where it belonged, unlike me. She was baking excellent Victoria sponges by the time she was ten, as well as making all our packed lunches, and never skimped her piano practice or forgot to do her homework. Every school report was excellent. And the other parents adored her.

We weren’t told what had happened to our maternal grandparents. All I knew was that Mum never saw them again after she left home. After leaving school, she trained to be a secretary. She met Dad shortly after starting her first job. Their wedding photos are in back and white, and as I have mentioned before, Mum is wearing a suit rather than a white dress. There are no guests, not even Dad’s parents. When I have asked Mum why not, she has said variously, Mind your own business, and that they didn’t want to come.

I don’t know what Lydia knows. I dread mentioning Mum’s latest revelation in case it is just me being stupid old Sadie again. But I decide there is no option, so ring her just before lunch when I know she will be free. And I can tell that she is completely pole-axed by it.

We decide that I need to look through my mother’s private papers back at Waylands Heath, in case there is something in there that will affect the decisions we are making about Dad’s funeral. We agree that I must go tomorrow, ie Saturday, afternoon. It will be the first time I will have left Mum on her own and I will be gone for several hours, given it is over 20 miles each way. We make a few Dominic Cummings jokes and then agree this is actually totally within the rules, and Lydia says she will call Mum to check on her while I am out. I say I will text her when I set off.

Mum seems to have forgotten what she said last night and is sitting in the garden complaining about the lack of shelter from the wind when I come off the phone. I feel incredibly guilty that I am going to be snooping through her things tomorrow, and try to make it up to her by offering to do her nails, which she refuses huffily, even though she was bemoaning how awful they looked only an hour earlier.

And that’s it from me for today. I’m supposed to be meeting Brian on Sunday for an early evening walk. He is bringing wine and strawberries, apparently. I’ve also got a Zoom call with Ericka on Saturday morning. Busy busy!

Monday 8 June 2020

Number of days since I started this blog: 83.

Number of days since I lost my literary agent: 2

I think I mentioned I had a planned Zoom call with Ericka on Saturday. Suffice to say it didn’t go well

She doesn’t like what she calls the new plot twist with Mum. She says it is contrived and that it is not a good idea to introduce something so significant at such a late stage in the novel.

I’d already had quite a few positive comments about this aspect of my blog from regular readers, so I told her so.

And she said, Who is the literary expert here, Sadie, them or me?

And then she said, Where do you see this novel going?

And I said, Do you mean how will it end?

And she said, Well no, obviously you have storyboarded the ending. I mean where do you see it going on the shelves at Waterstones? Is it chicklit or fictional memoir?

And I said, I have no idea, Ericka, I thought that was what you would help me with.

And she said, To be honest, Sadie, I’m not sure I can help you. You started out well, but many of your chapters read like you have just written the first thing that came into your head.

So I said, Well, that may be true.

And she said, I think we had better leave it for now. When you’ve completed your second draft, you can send it to me and I will see if I can think of anyone who might be able to help you knock it into shape. It’s not for me, though.

And with that, our Zoom call finished.

To be honest, my mind was on other things. There was a lot riding on my trip to Waylands Heath to go through our mother’s private papers and find out more about her (and therefore our) Jewish heritage.

And I was feeling really guilty about snooping on her. It reminded me of when I was about ten or eleven and went through a phase of being absolutely obsessed with poking through her things to see what I could find. I used to rifle through her handbag when she was hanging out the washing, looking for love letters I suppose. There were none. Or delving into the mysterious carrier bags she kept in the back of her wardrobe, only to unearth old evening gloves and scarves.

But one day I sneaked upstairs and had a rummage through her bedside drawer. And I struck gold. Because there, wrapped in an old nightie, was a vaginal douche set, complete with orange rubber tubing, funnel and plastic nozzle. There was even a small plastic jug and a tube of something greasy. I had no idea what it was for, but I knew at once it was intimate and forbidden. And then, just as I had got the whole lot spread out across her bed, my mother came in and found me. I don’t know who was more horrified, her or me. I can’t remember what she said, but I know she made me feel that I had committed a mortal sin against her privacy. It was unforgivable.

This new intrusion felt even worse. Luckily Saturday was a slightly wet, windy day, so she didn’t want to sit in the garden. I settled her down in the sitting room after lunch with a cup of tea, some biscuits which I knew she wouldn’t eat, a crossword and another interminable episode of Inspector Poirot. I told her I needed to get some urgent things for the garden. I said I’d be back in under two hours, and that Lydia would call while I was out to check she was OK. I could tell she was suspicious.

And then I drive over to Waylands Heath. WH is the sort of place where, if you paint the front of your house too often, your neighbours judge you for showing off. But if you don’t do it often enough, they worry that you are bringing down the value of the other properties in the street. Or take masks. In Beecham where I live, hardly anyone is wearing them, even in Sainsburys. In Waylands Heath, even people out walking their dogs have got them on. And they observe the two metre rule with venom.

I parked in the small driveway, aware of the curtains twitching at the sight of my old Golf bringing down the tone, and let myself into the house. The hall smelt of my Dad, and I let out an involuntary sob. I had forgotten to bring any milk, so I made myself a cup of weak black tea and set about my search.

Earlier this year, Deborah Jane Orr’s memoir Motherwell was published posthumously. The contents of the family bureau is a central theme, and she writes beautifully about the importance of each item.

The Writing Desk, our family equivalent, used to be downstairs but is now kept in the third bedroom, once my sister Lydia’s room but now known as The Study. The Writing Desk is packed with small items I remember from my childhood such as Dad’s metal hole punch and a little wooden Scottie dog with a pencil sharpener in his tummy. Plus old chequebook stubs, jars of paperclips and old postcards sent by us to our parents from long forgotten camping trips to France. But mainly it contains their paperwork. Opening the desk feels like that time with the douche set. I keep expecting to hear my mother asking me sharply what the bloody hell I think I’m doing, looking at her private things.

For a while I leaf through folders of old credit card statements, my father’s pension payments, water rates, gas bills and so-on, all neatly clipped together in date order. There is a folder containing family documents – their wedding certificate, passports, driving licences and his birth certificate. But strangely there is no birth certificate for my mother.

I go through it all again, just to make sure I haven’t missed anything. I’m stumped. And then I remember the bedside drawer. And this is where I find what I am looking for. Possibly it was there the last time I went rifling through it all those years ago. But I am a better detective now. I find an old manilla foolscap envelope slipped under the drawer liner. It contains a faded photograph in sepia of a family of five, two adults and three children, with names written on the back in pencil. A very old letter written in a foreign language I do not recognise, and a naturalisation certificate.

And I learn that my mother, Helen Robinson, nee White, was born Hannah Ruth Weiss in Amsterdam on 13 February 1932 to Jakob and Ruth Weiss. She travelled to England in 1939 aged 7 on one of the last of the kindertransport trains, and was placed with a family in Hampstead Garden Suburb. And given what we all know, I assume that she never saw her parents or her younger sisters Sadie and Lydia again.

I rang Lydia and told her. It was a long phone call. I sent her a snap of the photograph and the writing on the back. We both cried and agreed I would not to tell Mum that we knew until Lydia arrived on Wednesday.

In other news, I wanted to tell Brian about the discovery. But it felt too momentous and I didn’t know where to start. So instead I drank too much wine and found myself confessing how much I regretted having sex with Richard.

And now I am newly single.

Tuesday 9 June 2020

Number of days since I started this blog: 84

Number of times I’ve cried since the weekend: 8

Number of cigarettes: 9. Very bad.

I just can’t stop thinking of those little girls in that photo I found in Mum’s bedside drawer at the weekend. And how she named us after them but never told us anything about them. I want to talk to her so much but I just don’t know what to say. Anyway, I’ve agreed to wait till Lydia gets here tomorrow.

My mother has always been an enigma, protected by her own peculiar angry spikiness. It wasn’t just that we knew nothing of her childhood. She has always been secretive about so many things, and yet curiously open about others, especially when she was about to go off the rails. She often told us how annoyed she was with Dad about something he had or hadn’t done, and her recent announcement that she was going to leave him was just one of many that the poor man had to endure during their marriage. I think Dad must have represented stability to her. And now I think I know why she needed someone stable.

I find myself feeling desperately sad. I am unable to concentrate, which makes writing a bit difficult. Therefore this will be just a short entry today. You will hopefully get a longer one tomorrow. I’m going to make some fairy cakes for Mum, and do her nails.

And to the two people who have commented on the structure of the diary and given me advice on how to improve it, I would like to say thank you. But I can’t be totally grateful because as you know, Brian helped me set the blogsite up. And I have rather blown things there. So it is going to have to stay the way it is just for now. Sorry about that.

Mind you, I did get a very sweet message from him last night to say that he would be thinking of me this week and that he hoped that Friday goes OK. Maybe he has forgiven me because he thinks that I did what I did while overcome by grief?

And he would be right.

Wednesday 10 June 2020

Number of days since I started this blog: 85

Number of times I’ve tried to think of something funny to say: Many. But sadly without success.

We live in the strangest of times. There are people going to work risking their lives to help others on a daily basis. Obviously I’m thinking about doctors, nurses, health care assistants and all the other health care professionals who are still working during the pandemic. They are the ones at the highest risk and we owe them so, so much. They saved my mum and they tried to save my dad. I was once one of these people but I never had to face anything like this. I can never thank them enough.

But I’m also thinking about the people working in food shops and supermarkets, chemists, on buses and trains, emptying our bins and serving in the increasing number of cafes and pubs that are now doing takeaways. They used to get taken for granted, but recently we have all realised how much they matter. And they are putting themselves in harm’s way on a daily basis so that the rest of us can continue to live our lives relatively untroubled.

And then there are volunteers working in food banks, women’s refuges and on help lines like Samaritans. They are prepared to take a higher level of personal risk than the rest of us because they know the lives of others depend on them doing so. (And I’m not just saying that because of Brian BTW.)

At the other end of the spectrum, there are people who are able to work from home or who are not working at all. I know they are very worried about their futures. And most of them are doing their bit to help others where they can. My children fall into this category.

But it isn’t all peace and harmony by any means. I feel an increasing threat looming, and it is not about the economy. I don’t know about you, but I find it troubling that there are so many people walking around wearing surgical masks and gloves, acting as if everyone they come across outside their house has got smallpox, leaping off pavements and snapping at small children for accidentally walking too close. And writing really horrible things on social media about other people who aren’t quite as meticulous about observing lockdown rules as they are, in their opinion.

I am growing every more worried that this virus, while it is bringing out the best in some people, is bringing out the very worst in others. That it is encouraging us to judge other people and find them wanting. The rules, as we saw with Dominic Cummings, are less than explicit and can be interpreted in many ways. But there are some people who seem to think that their way is the right way and the only way. And that doesn’t feel good to me. Not at all.

I’m only writing this to take my mind off that little black and white photo and the pencilled names on the back that are burning a hole in my consciousness. Tonight Lydia arrives. And tomorrow I guess we will talk to Mum. I’m dreading it. But it has to be done.

More allotment flowers from Brian today. They are the brightest part of a gloomy day. Mum is re-reading Howard’s End. And I’m looking for the little pile of cat sick that I know Mog has left for me somewhere.

Anon.

Thursday 11 June 2020

Number of days since I started this blog: 86

Number of days since Dad died: 14

Tomorrow is Dad’s funeral. There will be eight of us – me, Lydia, Toby, Marnie, Charlotte, Emma and Freddie (Lydia’s two). And Mum. It has been a bit touch and go but she has finally decided that she will attend after all. And she will be wearing a black jacket and her purple crocs.

In other news, Lydia is trying to social distance from me and Mum in my back bedroom. She’s back running her school so that obviously that makes her a potential carrier, despite their stringent rules. Although Mum has had the virus and I’m apparently low risk. She takes her social responsibilities very seriously, does my sister.

And we have decided that talking to Mum about you-know-what before the funeral would be very bad timing. So we are going to cross that bridge on Saturday. I’m dreading it.

Also, Brian has invited me to meet him at the allotment for a cup of tea on Sunday, despite my stupid confession of last week. That man is a saint.

Ok, not totally. #SmileyWinkingFace.

Friday 12 June 2020

Number of days since I started this blog: 87

Number of hours since Dad’s funeral: 4

Number of glasses of wine I have drunk since coming home: more than 4. I think.

When someone who is quite old dies, their funeral should contain an element of celebration, shouldn’t it? A chance to be sad about the person’s passing but also to mark a life well-lived. To get together with other people who knew and loved them and to tell a few stories, share something to eat and drink and raise your glasses in honour of the one who is the reason for you being there but sadly cannot be with you on account of it being their funeral.

And then we had the corona virus. Some of you reading this will have been to funerals during this time. And you will know how strange they can feel. How the rules about sitting two metres apart and not being allowed to touch one another, and the attendance limit, 8 in our case, makes them feel more like a court hearing than a celebration of life. How every attempt you make to introduce a bit of joy seems to be stymied by the rules. No printed order of service, it has to be up on a screen which makes you feel that the lovely photo of your parents you wanted to include might look inappropriate. So you leave it out and then spend the whole fifteen minutes wishing that you had followed you instinct and left it in after all. Yes, you can have music. But it has to be sent in advance, so you lie awake the whole night before the service worrying that they will use the wrong version of Beyond the Sea and play the one by Frank Sinatra rather than the one your mother eventually chose, under duress, sung by Bobby Darrin, having said that she hated the Sinatra version. No flowers, apart from one small wreath, which you spend ages on the phone choosing and costs £120. And then it arrives looking so mean and bedraggled, it is as if you had picked it up from Tescos five minutes before the service. And you know everyone thinks how useless you are, that you had one job etc.

And because of the shortage of time, there is only time for one reading, which Emma reads, being the eldest grandchild, and one address, which obviously your sister Lydia has to do, given she is the one with the most public speaking experience. And she does it beautifully, but you sit there thinking awful thoughts that it should have been you. Because after Ruth died, you became Dad’s oldest daughter.

And then afterwards you stand around in the car park in the rain, talking awkwardly to your two nieces who you haven’t seen for ages and can’t think of anything to say to, 2 metres from your beautiful daughter who you haven’t been allowed to hug in three months even though during that time your mother has nearly died and your father has actually died and she has come out as a lesbian. And your lovely son is standing on the other side of you, and you are really pleased he is now back with his partner Marnie, but because you have your Mum living with you this means that you can’t form a social bubble with them and therefore you will still have to maintain a 2 metre distance from him and your beloved Kezia. And not being able to hug them when for a moment during Boris Johnson’s speech about social bubbles you thought that at last you could feels almost more upsetting than losing your dad.

And all the while your mother is sitting forlornly in a borrowed wheelchair not saying anything to anyone and you realise that your job now is to take her home so that she can be bereaved in private.

So we went home, and Lydia followed on later, by which time Mum and I had polished off a bottle of cheap Merlot and I was rummaging in the cupboard for some crisps. And then Lydia plonked a Waitrose bag for life on the table and pulled out two bottles of expensive English sparkling wine, a sourdough loaf and some wonderful cheeses. And we sat there for ages, gorging, swigging and burping. Dad would have absolutely loved it.

And when I eventually went upstairs for a pee, stumbling slightly it has to be said, I found my phone. And there was a message from Brian. And it said:

Thinking of you, dearest Sadie. I hope today went as it well as it possibly could. Looking forward to tea at the allotment on Sunday afternoon and a discussion about social bubbles. B xxx

Is he thinking what I am thinking??

Monday 15 June 2020

Number of days since I started this blog: 90

Number of times I have felt like deleting the whole lot: at least 90

Number of times I have been glad I haven’t: at least a few

I have said this before, but lockdown and what comes after lockdown brings out the best and the absolute worst in people.

Take Saturday night.

Lydia, Mum and I had a bit of a lie-in on Saturday morning after the funeral. And then we sat in the garden having a late breakfast and Lydia broached the subject of the little photograph. Mum got a bit huffy about me poking through her stuff, and I apologised and said that what she had said about being born Jewish and wanting to die Jewish had bothered me and I just felt that I needed to know. And so she relented.

And for the first time in 62 and 58 years respectively, she told us about her childhood.

Hannah Ruth Weiss (Mum) was born in the Jodenbuurt (Jewish Quarter) of Amsterdam in 1932. She was the oldest child of Jakob and Ruth Weiss, both Ashkenazi Jews whose families had moved from various parts of Eastern Europe to Amsterdam during previous persecutions of Jewish people. Hannah/Mum went to a small school near The Rembrandt House. She had two younger sisters and a baby brother called Isaac – he was either not yet born at the time the photo was taken, or too young to be included. Photos were a big deal in those days; this one was apparently taken by a neighbour who worked as a photographer. Mum thinks there were several prints, and that her mother put this one inside a tiny copy of the Torah when she packed her things into a brown cardboard suitcase ready for the big journey to England.

Mum’s father was a clerk, according to what was recorded on the census, and her mother was a housewife. They did not have much money, and buying a place on the kindertransport was not only dangerous but expensive. By 1939, thousands of Jewish children had already been sent to safety in England to stay with strangers, and Mum said she remembers her parents discussing what they could sell in order to be able to afford to buy a place for one or more of the children. But time started to run out and in the end they sent Hannah on her own. According to the only letter that Mum received from her parents after she arrived in England, the one I had seen in the drawer, there was a plan for her parents to follow with the younger children when they could raise the funds.

But in 1940 the Nazis invaded Amsterdam, and the Jewish Quarter was shut off.

Then Mum said, and if you are going to start talking about Anne Frank, I don’t want to listen. And we said why not, and she said that she was sick of hearing about her, because most people didn’t get the opportunity to hide like her family did. And I said but she was captured in the end, and Mum said yes, but not like my family. They were just sent by train straight to the death camp.

And then Mum told us about a visit she had made to Amsterdam in 1978 to look up her family records. This was when she found that her parents and sisters had died in 1941 only 2 days after arriving at Belzec, an extermination camp in Poland where half a million Jews were murdered by the SS. The reason why camps like this are not as well known as the more famous Belsen and Auschwitz, where Anne Frank and her mother died, is because their sole purpose was extermination, rather than concentration. In other words, there were no survivors, and therefore no-one to pass on the horror of what happened there.

And there was no record at all of baby Isaac.

While Mum was talking, Lydia and I took turns to hold her hands. The little hot circles that appear on her cheeks when she is excited or unwell burned brightly, and her eyes were shining but not in a good way. She didn’t cry once. But we did.

And that wasn’t everything. When Mum got to England, she was allocated to a family from East London who had been hoping for an older girl to help with the housework. They were devout Christians, or as devout a Christian as you can be if you take someone else’s child, refuse to allow her to follow the religion she has known since she was a baby and which is the only thing she has to connect her with her parents, change her name so she doesn’t sound Jewish, half starve her and turn her into your unpaid scivvy. And when she is 13 and some disgusting family friend starts interfering with her and she finds the courage to tell you, choose to believe him rather than her and send her away as a punishment to a very nasty Christian boarding school. It is no wonder Mum wants nothing to do with them and won’t even tell us their names.

It was now past lunchtime. Mum said she wanted to show us some more photos and copies of the Weiss family records. And as Lydia was due to go back to London, we grabbed a sandwich and decided to drive over to Waylands Heath in convoy. When we got there, Lydia helped Mum upstairs while I took on the job of clearing out the fridge and making the kitchen a little bit less of a health hazard. (I should have done this weeks ago, but I’ve been a bit busy.) They were upstairs for ages, by which time the dustbin was full of environmentally unfriendly plastic bags full of out-of-date food and I had started clearing some of the other cupboards, where I came across an ancient carbon monoxide detector which I tried to dismantle using the wrong sort of screwdriver. It seemed to be fused shut, and was obviously defunct, so I slung it in the bin with the other rubbish.

We then sat around the dining room table and peered at a couple of tiny photos of Mum’s parents when they were young. Her father was dark with glasses, and we thought he looked rather intellectual. And Mum was almost identical to her mother who was tall, fair and rather beautiful. The other Ruth.

Eventually we bade a tearful farewell to Lydia, and Mum and I set off home.

Later that evening, we were watching Gardener’s World on catch up when the phone rang. It was one of Mum’s neighbours, who was phoning to report that there was something in Mum’s dustbin that had been going off for three nights and it had kept the whole neighbourhood awake and if someone didn’t come and sort it out she would have to call the police.

I knew immediately what it was, of course. I said who am I speaking to please, and she said I am not prepared to give you my name. So I said, but you have phoned me up and you seem to know my name. And she said, are you going to come and deal with this bin and I said, did you know that my father has just died and my mother who is 88 has been in hospital, and anyway, the bin can’t have been going off for three days because I was only there this afternoon and I know what it is, it is just an old carbon monoxide monitor. Maybe you could get it out of the bin and deactivate it? And she said, I work in healthcare and I know how dangerous dustbins can be, especially with the virus. I’m not touching it.

So I said, Thank you. And put the phone down.

It was nearly 10pm so I helped Mum upstairs and said please don’t move and I drove over to Waylands Heath and only broke the speed limit once or twice, and I emptied the bin on to the driveway and found the carbon monoxide monitor which seemed to have been brought back to life by a very smelly bag of potatoes that had gone slimy from being left unopened for 10 weeks and was emitting a very small beep every ten seconds. And I stamped on the monitor until I heard it go crunch while hoping the horrid lady was looking out through her nasty net curtains. And then I drove back home again and went up to see Mum and sat on her bed and we talked about her mean-spirited neighbour who had nothing else to think about other than a slight beep emanating from a dustbin. And then we started laughing and we laughed and laughed and the next thing I knew, we were both crying. And we cried for quite a while.

The next day I messaged Lydia and told her about my late night dustbin drama and she said, look Sadie, I think you need a rest, I am going to take next week off and I will come and collect Mum and bring her back to stay with me. You have done more than enough, OK? And I was going to say no, I am fine, but then I thought about having a lie-in and maybe being able to have a long leisurely bath, not to mention whatever Brian means by creating a social bubble.

So I said yes please.

And as for Brian, I was going to write about what happened when we met on Sunday but then I noticed how much I have already written. So you will just have to wait until tomorrow.

Who says I don’t know how to do suspense, Ericka the Literary Agent??

Tuesday 16 June 2020

Number of days since I started this blog: 91

Number of weird things that have happened during this time: where do I start?

After my rather long blog yesterday when I told you how Lydia and I persuaded Mum to tell us about her childhood and the other Ruth, Sadie and Lydia, I promised to update you on what happened with Brian on Sunday, didn’t I?

And I will, I really will. I just need to write down a few other bits first, so I maintain my online diary discipline. 91 days equals three months, and as you can see, this daily blog has become rather a habit. I wonder when I will stop, and whether I will even know how to recognise the right time to stop when it eventually arrives?

Beyond my small world, this weekend we saw thousands of far right thugs intent on causing mayhem in London and other cities. They were pretending they were there to defend statues of Churchill and Nelson. As David Lammy says, the statues are a distraction. People support Black Lives Matter because they want to see an end to institutional racism.

Anyway, the people who said they wanted to defend the statues just succeeded in getting drunk, being photographed attacking the police and doing Nazi salutes. One got arrested for urinating on a memorial to a policeman who gave his life saving others in a terrorist attack, and another had to be carried to safety by a group of black personal trainers who had gone to the event to try and prevent young black people from getting into trouble. It is probably completely inappropriate to say that Patrick Hutchinson, the PT who was photographed carrying the other man was to safety, was seriously fit. So I won’t mention it.

And today, footballer Marcus Rashford, 22, has managed to persuade the government to extend free school meals over the summer in response to the extraordinary hardships that the poorest families will face caused by the pandemic. I don’t know what I think about this, except that it shouldn’t be necessary. But I do think Marcus has put his fame to good use and that he shows the very best of young people.

Lydia arrived back at my house last night and this morning we packed up her car with all Mum’s things, including her two zimmer frames, one for upstairs and one for down, and I waved them off.

And I felt a bit flat. But then I remembered that I have a rather interesting week in prospect.

So back to my Sunday. In the end, Brian said he would like to come to the garden and say hullo to mum and Lydia before our walk to the allotments. I felt really nervous, and nearly said no. But then I thought why not? And so he did.

And when he arrived he said hullo to Lydia and they did the social distancing version of shaking hands which seems to be an awkward smile and funny little wave.

And then he turned to my mother and said Hullo, Helen. It’s lovely to see you again.

And she said Hullo, Brian. How are you doing these days? It must be at least ten years, mustn’t it?

And I said, hang on a minute, do you you two know one another?

And they both looked a bit sheepish and I felt really cross but then they came clean and it turns out that being Jewish and having escaped from the Nazis was not the only secret our mother had been keeping from us. Because it turned out that she had been a Samaritan too. And back in the day, when you rang Samaritans, you called a local number and were quite likely to be answered by someone who lived near you and who you might even know. And so to keep the service confidential, volunteers were sworn to secrecy. They never told anyone other than their closest relative, in Mum’s case Dad, about being a Samaritan.

Mum said it was something she decided she wanted to do after Ruth died. And she had done it for over 20 years. She even helped to train Brian!

You could have knocked me down with a feather. After they had had their little reunion and talked about the old days, Brian and I went for our walk. I found myself feeling really shy with him. But we did talk about social bubbles. And we have decided, given that we are both effectively single, that it is something we could think about. We are going to think about it during this week and meet again on Thursday night.

And now I am really torn. Because there is also the potential of a bubble with Toby, Marnie and Kezia. And surely they are where my priorities should lie?

Wednesday 17 June 2020

Number of days since I started this blog: 92

Number of times I’ve decided to choose Brian as my social bubble partner: 26

Number of times I’ve realised I have a responsibility to be in a bubble with Toby, Marnie and most of all Kezia: 27

Number of times I’ve thought about Mum and how her courage to keep on going despite everything makes her braver than I could ever have imagined: infinite

Number of hours I have slept: 2?

I don’t mind admitting it. I am a mess. I can’t stop crying. I wish Lydia hadn’t taken Mum to stay with her because now I have nothing to take my mind off how sad I feel.

I miss Mum and Lydia. It is very quiet here without them.

But I miss Dad more than I have words to describe. It feels that so much has happened since he died that we haven’t paid proper attention to losing him. And that makes me feel bad as well as sad.

And I want to talk to him. I want to ask him to tell me about meeting Mum back in 1955. I want to hear it from his side. I want to find out how he managed to see past her hoity-toity stand-offish exterior and discover the brave, unusual and lonely girl underneath. It cannot have been easy. I want to thank him for persevering and for loving her for 65 years, through thick and thin, despite everything that had happened previously having taught her that she didn’t deserve to be happy.

Because otherwise none of us would exist.

And I want to ask his advice. I want to tell him about my Brian dilemma and ask him whether I should follow my heart and start really being with this lovely man, rather than occasionally breaking lockdown rules in the summerhouse and then feeling bad about it afterwards. I want to tell him that at last I have met someone who is forgiving, funny, unusual and wise and who loves me for myself. A bit like Dad really.

Or whether I should instead accept Toby and Marnie’s rather tentative offer to form a social bubble with them, which is probably what I ought to do. That way, at least I will be able to hug my adorable Kezia not to mention helping them out with the babysitting. It’s what I should do. But is it what I really want to do?

Most of all, I want to hold my dear sweet Dad and tell how much I love him and tell him how he has been the rock at the centre of all our lives, especially when Ruth died and Mum lost her bearings once or twice. And when Richard left me and Lydia and I fell out over some shitty stupid thing and when I was worried about the children and when my car broke down on the motorway and I’d forgotten to pay the RAC. And all the other times I’ve needed him and he has been there.

Please don’t worry, I’m just having a wallow. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow. I promise.

Thursday 18 June 2020

Number of days since I started this blog: 93

Another sleepless night. Poor Mog, she tried to send me to sleep with her soothing purrs but her furry presence on the bed just made me hot.

And it doesn’t help to read what friends have been doing on Facebook. Not to mention the creative writing course WhatsApp group. When they aren’t signing petitions about Black Lives Matter, all-year free school meals or Save our Theatres, they are running marathons round their gardens, taking funny photos of their grown-out fringes or moaning about people who fail to observe the correct (according to them) interpretation of social distancing or face mask wearing etiquette when in Waitrose.

Meanwhile I have been dealing with:

1. A mother who has always been a bit scary and aloof, who hit my Dad over the head with a spatula and locked him in the garden so that the police had to be called, threatened to divorce him, then absconded, fell and broke her hip, nearly died of Corona virus, came to stay with me. And finally, aged 88, got round to telling us she had been a Jewish child refugee.

2. A father who faced all the above with great love and fortitude, plus survived cancer, only to be felled by several strokes and die 3 weeks ago.

3. A dead sister who is almost always on my mind. And a living one who means well and is mainly lovely but makes me feel inadequate.

4. A Boris Johnson loving ex-husband who won’t leave me alone.

5. A daughter who has recently come out, much to the annoyance of said ex-husband And a son who has a lovely partner and an adorable daughter but who is in a precarious profession. Which is good, because when I can’t think of anything else to worry about, I worry about that.

5. A lovely new man in my life who is far too good for me and who I don’t deserve. And who I am meant to be seeing tonight for an important discussion about our future together but I am a tired, crumpled, fat old crone.

Longer blog tomorrow, I promise. I’m off to smother myself in Clarins Beauty Flash Balm and hope for the best.

Friday 19 June 2020

Number of days since I started this blog: 94

Things have been a bit strange since I blogged yesterday.

It started with the moths. I’ve been noticing them for a few weeks, now I come to think of it. Tiny little ghostly grey creatures that appear in ones and twos during the day and then a lot more at night. Mog catches them but she won’t eat them. And Harvey is frightened of them.

I’ve seen them all over the house but they seemed to be coming from the little back bedroom. You know, the one that Kezia used to sleep in before she wasn’t allowed to stay here anymore, and where Lydia slept until she realised that the bed in there is even smaller and more uncomfortable than the sofa. It has become a bit of a dumping ground in recent weeks, to be honest.

So yesterday afternoon, when I should have been doing something about my Thelwell pony fringe and generally woeful state of personal grooming prior to my date with Brian, I decided I had better investigate. I had a horrible feeling that I knew what I was going to find, which is probably why I have been putting it off.

And after half an hour of piling everything from the shelves, cupboard and little chest of drawers onto the bed and dragging each item of furniture away from the walls, I was dripping with sweat but had found the source. A massive nest of carpet moth larvae were wriggling away underneath where the chest of drawers had been. They had eaten most of the carpet that lay hidden from view and were through to the crumbling rubber underlay. As I looked on in horror, one after another moth hatched and flew off, presumably to find more carpet to lay their disgusting little eggs in and ruin. It was revolting.

Feverishly I looked up carpet moth treatment on the internet. It turns out that you have to get rid of the carpet AND have the house fumigated. And the treatment is dangerous to pets.

And I don’t know why, but of all the things that have happened recently, this was the one that I just could not think how I was going to handle. Instead I put my head in my hands and howled.

And then as if by magic, a WhatsApp message arrived from Charlotte to ask how I was doing. And I said Not good. And she said What’s happening, Mum? And I told her I was overrun with moths and I’d had enough. And she said, Hang on, help is on its way. And I said, Please don’t come, I’m a mess.

And she said nothing which meant she was already in her Fiat 500 coming to the rescue.

So I just sat there all filthy and sweaty and cried some more and eventually she arrived and made me have a bath and go to bed with a cup of tea and some toast. I didn’t wake up again until 10am the next morning.

By which time my wonderful girl had somehow managed to let Brian know I wasn’t in a good way, and he had delivered one of his jam jars of flowers, sweet peas this time, and his best note ever which just said this:

I love you Sadie and I am here for you when you need me. B xxx

And like an overnight miracle, Charlotte had also moved all the furniture in the back bedroom, cut the moth-infested carpet up into manageable pieces, as well as the old crumbly underlay, loaded it all into bin bags and put it safely round the side of the house ready for a visit to the tip. And then she had scrubbed the floor, cleared up all the junk that had accumulated since I had starting using the back room as a dumping ground, put the furniture back and cleaned everything until it sparkled. And she had made the bed and sat Kezia’s teddies along it all nicely. It looked lovely in there with bare floor boards actually. Maybe I could just get a pretty rug?

She had also cleaned the kitchen, bathroom and sitting room, checked the whole house for moths, bought some spray to deal with the only tiny patch she could find underneath the bed in the spare room, put a load of washing on, taken Harvey for his walk and bought coffee, milk, croissants and strawberries so we could have a delicious late breakfast.

When I was sipping my second cup of coffee, Charlotte asked me something that really surprised me but then made me think.

She said: Do you think it might be an idea for you to consider having some therapy, Mum?

And I said, oh my God, no, darling. Do you think I need it?

And she said, What do you think?

And I said, Well, come to think of it there are probably a few things I should deal with.

And she said, Mmmm?

And I said, Like Grandma being a bit odd as a mother, because of what happened to her, and my sister dying, and your Dad leaving me but keeping on coming back.

And she said, And maybe having Grandpa to stay while Grandma nearly died, and then having Grandma to stay while Grandpa was ill, and then him dying so suddenly? Not to mention finding out Grandma was a child refugee and that you have Jewish heritage?

And I said, Oh yes. There is that.

And she said, Of course, officially you and I are Jewish too.

And I said Are we?

And she said, Yes, because it is meant to be matrilineal. But I think we have a choice. And I also think we should learn more about it before making any decisions.

And then she said, so what about the therapy idea?

And I thought about it and said that I would look into it. And she said Good.

And so that is what I’m going to do.

I’m also going to let things develop slowly with Brian. There is no rush. Who knows whether we will make a go of it together. He has his issues, what with Stella and everything. And I have mine. But he is a wonderful listener as well as a great kisser, which is a good start.

(I haven’t mentioned my theory about kissing, have I? It goes back to school days, when I realised, via empirical evidence, that the boring nice boys are mainly pretty useless at kissing, but the exciting bad ones tend to be rather good at it. Probably because they get more practice? Anyway, I had Brian down as a nice boy until the first time he kissed me in the summerhouse.)

And of course he grows wonderful flowers, fruit and vegetables. He brought round some gorgeous beetroot as well as the sweet peas. Char and I are going to roast them for supper.

I’ve also made another big decision, which is that I am going to stop writing this blog. I think it has reached its natural conclusion anyway.

Also, I have heard from Ericka again. Thank goodness this is a fictional diary and I didn’t use her real name. Or even her correct gender. Because he/she/they have come up trumps. And there is apparently a publisher interested in producing it as an actual book.

Which means I need to take the blog down from the internet at some point soon and start doing what “Ericka” calls my first edit.

And so this will be my last post. If you know anyone who has been dipping into my blog from time to time, please let them know that it will only be here for another week or so, and then it will be gone. And they will then have to wait for the book, which may take a long time and it may look nothing like this. You know publishers.

It has been good for me to have to write something every day for 94 days during lockdown. I know I haven’t always managed Stephen King’s requisite 1,000 words, but I only write from Monday to Friday so it has actually only been 67 days. And I’ve written just over 60,000 words. So on average I came pretty close.

I’ve got another project to think about now. Having been rude about people who write family memoirs, I plan to go to Amsterdam once lockdown ends and do some serious research about the Weiss family. Charlotte says she would like to come with me. What I write won’t be for publication. It will be a gift to my mother Helen Robinson, nee Hannah Weiss. And it will be written in memory of Jozef, Ruth, Sadie and Lydia Weiss.

And for my Dad and the other Ruth.