Stubborn Optimism

Things are getting strange, very strange. Apparently a recent survey showed that almost half of us in the UK now hold some sort of conspiracy theory about this pandemic and I came up with one of my own. News breaking of Dominic Cumming’s unapologetic rule-breaking has had me wondering whether we’re being herded, dull as sheep. And like sheep, when we break loose we run aimlessly in different directions. Was that his intention, I’ve wondered - as a way to put herd immunity back on the agenda? 

There is a ‘Matrix’-like quality about it all, too. I’m trying not to be too fanciful about it, but when my window on the world is TV and Social Media, the view out shifts occasionally and I catch a glimpse of something odd. When the Cummings episode hit the news, at the same time my Netflix menu of “because you watched....” offered me ‘Brexit: the uncivil war’ with Benedict Cumberbach playing Cummings. Was it because earlier in the week we’d watched the 2011 film “Contagion”, a story spookily similar to the current pandemic? In our splendid isolations, are we being watched and herded in different virtual directions? Of course we are.

Listless and aimless one day, my morning cuppa accompanied by a browse on Facebook and a few short Messenger chats, l see a post pop up on Facebook that has the black dog baying at my door. It’s a photo of surgical masks being fished from the sea.  Our friend Nick tells me that it’s click bait, and so it is, but it had already plunged me into a pool of hopelessness, a feeling maintained by more stories of mindless littering now that people are venturing out more. Is my environmentalism being fed by Facebook? Undoubtedly.

The Net is reading us, watching us closely. At the time of writing this on my iPad working off-line, suddenly a notification popped up with reference to a Matrix. How spooky is that? 

Ok, I’m getting a bit paranoid. I’m also getting shouty. As my equanimity is disturbed by some new shock via the media I am likely to spring into Facebook with BIG WRITING and show how angry or shocked I am. I’ve given up my mad clapping into the emptiness on a Thursday night for the NHS et al and taken to being indignant about something on Social Media instead. 

There is an awful lot to be indignant about though, and I’m trying to figure out which things are worth getting my dander up for. A lot of people are talking about tyranny and oppression but if I let myself be herded into corners of indignation I could be letting myself be made a fool of. I am questioning what’s worth getting upset about, otherwise Gareth may as well sign me up for counselling when this is all over, adding me to the legions whose mental health has been impaired by this whole thing.

So what is worth getting on a soap box for? What about Cummings? It’s Boris’s handling of the situation that I am crossest about. I am informed by my Conservative cousin that whatever his inadequacies, Boris was the man for the Brexit job given his accurate reading of British feeling (not mine, I have to say). However, our PM’s lack of appreciation for how Cumming’s behaviour makes fools of so many is unforgivable. It is such a reflection of how little he does know about us Britons that the first unlocking was good news only for the affluent -  gardeners, golfers, tennis players and car owners. Does he care about the others? It doesn’t look like it.

 BUT! We live in a democracy, apparently. We all (I do anyway) cherish the freedom, like Cummings (though unlike him, I’m not the rule maker) to exercise our own judgement and whether to abide by a rule or to do what each of us personally feels is best, with the proviso that it doesn’t impinge on the rights of others. Unhappy as I am that Cummings believed himself to be an exception to the rules, being hounded by a mob of angry and aggressive protesters at his home is not ok to my mind. While free speech is a basic tenet of democracy we do need to keep it civilised. I will continue to make my feelings known about such issues, when I think it’s important to do so, but I will make an effort to address the issues, rather than attacking the person. 

What else? Well, while I’m on the topic of free speech, there’s Trump and I’m thinking about the contrasting assessments of him. He’s as entitled to free speech as anyone else, I guess, though he is the President and I’ve been shocked, angered, dismayed and amused by some of the things he has said. All I know of him is what I see and hear in the various media - his Tweets for instance. Of course I haven’t had the privilege of meeting him in person, not that I’ve ever wanted to, but if I had, would I be as concerned about his proximity to machinery that could extinguish much of the planet? Would I be as concerned about his sanity as I am currently about my own? He leads (if that’s the right word) the biggest, richest country in the world (Sorry, but this line from the song ‘Ernie’ popped into my brain -  “and he drove the fastest milk-cart in the West”). The US was built on the values of freedom and while historically those freedoms didn’t initially extend to everyone (slaves, women...) it has nevertheless been a beacon of freedom for the whole world as we’ve come through the years to today. BUT.....now the war between Trump and the Media is escalating. As I write, he’s threatening to shut down Twitter for fact-checking and obscuring his tweets that breach their rules (incitement to violence, for instance). What price ‘freedom of speech’ when it threatens harm? What a conundrum, especially when ‘harm’ these days can mean anything from murder to feeling a bit hurt by some innocent remark. I don’t want to be too ‘Woke’ and become fascist in my left-leanings, but I’m as worried about Trump’s often aggressive statements as I am about the mob outside Cumming’s home. Nor is the violence acceptable that has apparently exploded in the US following the death of a black citizen in Minneapolis, at the hands (knee, actually) of a white policeman, however much that anger is understandable. The death is a horrible story but if we are worried about tyranny and oppression we should not resort to being tyrannical ourselves or we just bring about further oppression.

Anger is spilling over, and it’s scary.

And now we have the ‘New Normal’ - all of us trying to move around the virus and get back to work, school, and being together. Rule followers need to know precisely what is and what isn’t allowed; others put their faith in common-sense, others are still in denial and others are flailing around looking for something to vent their frustration on (I may be one of those; poor blog reader).

After a lot of mooching about like a dark cloud one day, carefree the next, deep in anxious thought on another, so much of my activity has been pretty pointless. But, it has been the Hay Literary festival this week, “Imagine the World”. Being on-line this year has made it really accessible and how glad am I! The talks I’ve signed into have been very helpful in adjusting my balance as they have all been fascinating and inspiring. From watching a Ted talk I now also have a new mantra (did I have an old one?) - Tom Rivett-Carnac is a campaigner for the Climate Change emergency and worked for the United Nations. So many of his fellow campaigners are keeping hope alive in the face of so much obstruction to their agenda of creating a healthier planet. He speaks of having to maintain a ‘stubborn optimism’. What a perfect mantra. 

There may be troubles ahead but I must avoid being herded off cliffs. I have a choice. I could flock with the angry, the disillusioned and the fearful or I can doggedly continue from where I am, making my way with eyes wide open and treating my world with respect and loving care. I stubbornly and optimistically hope that everyone else does the same.

Dream on

Such weird dreams; such mood swings! My condition seems to be a common symptom of this pandemic related lockdown and many are finding that the enjoyment of an enforced holiday is starting to wear thin. Each morning I, for one, wake from a dream that I can’t relate to anything going on in my life. It’s a shame these dreams aren’t more fairy-tale-like or I could enjoy them.

Boris’s message last Monday was that now, instead of staying at home to help the NHS and save lives we are to ‘Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives’. I don’t feel very alert at the moment, preferring a nice nap on the sofa. The message was only for England anyway; Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland preferring the old one, and keeping the locks on for a while longer. Our much reduced police force now has the added duty of patrolling the Welsh and Scottish borders to stop the English invaders who’ve now been let loose to travel at will (provided they are back home by bed-time - the travellers, that is; not the police). Will the dreams get weirder as we emerge from our caves, I wonder? Will ‘staying alert’ mean constantly looking over one’s shoulder for the ‘invisible mugger’? There has been much derision over Boris’s bumbling delivery of his lifting-the-lockdown plan, and his new confusing message. For sure no one knows how to proceed safely from here.

In June, English schools are expected to take some of the children back. Now that has created quite a stir. While Michael Gove insists that it is perfectly safe (why is he always so ‘certain’ and ‘clear’ about everything?), many others are not convinced, so the Unions are involved. We are assured that children are statistically much less affected by coronavirus, but may nevertheless be infectious and therefore a threat to their older relatives. This pandemic is certainly fracturing human relationships, quite apart from its effect on economies around the world.

Gareth has been spending his furlough time learning about economics and stock markets. The US is about to go down the pan, apparently, and are busy shoring up stocks artificially using Federal (i.e., taxpayer) money in order to give the billionaires time to get out before a crash. That’s going to be a fun scenario! Where will they place their billions, I wonder, assuming their dollars are still worth anything? And will there be any tax-payers left to pay back what has been filched from the Federal Reserve? How will it affect us here in the UK? Quite severely I suspect, given the importance of the dollar in global economics.

I’m doing a lot of wondering and not a lot of doing nowadays. I read a bit, sew a bit (a little super-hero outfit for my grand-daughter Ivy’s birthday, for instance), a bit of crochet, planting a few things in whatever pots we can cobble together (we might achieve a couple of lettuces if we’re lucky), a bit of walking to the extent that arthritic hips allow, a bit of mediocre cooking, surfing social media...... In terms of social contact there is so little to talk about, other than the pandemic. Phone and Zoom chats are getting fewer and further between and TV is having to find ingenious ways to entertain and inform us (production of “Line of Duty” is on hold! Oh, no!!) It all makes me wonder about the ‘old days’ when info about the outside world came by word of mouth only and entertainment was around-the-fire storytelling.  What would we have known about a situation such as this?

Well, I continue with this ‘bloody blog’ so that I, or maybe my descendants, if they survive, can look back on this time and be reminded of how it felt to an ageing grandmother.  Someone, somewhere suggested at the start that we should all keep a journal so I’m on board with that idea. It’s a bit different from the travel blog, for sure. 

I’m off now for a snack followed by a nap and probably another weird dream. Let’s see what week 8 (or is it 9?) brings.

Patience

Brace yourselves! Boris will address us this evening (or already has, depending on when you’re  reading this). He will tell us how they plan to unlock us, though here in Wales, Mark Drayford, our First Minister has already told us that it won’t amount to much - a bit more exercise and open garden centres. Hmmm, I’m not sure what the logic is of that. 

We are ten days into May. How many weeks have we been locked down? The weather has been glorious and everyone is chomping at the bit to get to the beach or countryside, or go shopping, or go to a football match, a picnic, a pub, visit family and friends. I’m not sure how many are as keen to go back to work, though. VE Day on Friday gave people a reason to party at two meters distance from each other. The flags were out and there was a lot of virtual celebration through the media. Here at the caravan park you wouldn’t have known it was VE Day. We haven’t hung up any Union Jacks or bunting and Gareth would have looked at me askance if I’d suggested we have a 1940’s style tea party and dress up to dance to Vera Lyn. Each day for us is like any other, the greatest excitement being the appearance of sheep escaped from the field.

Yesterday was a bit of an event, however. The sound of cars coming down the lane signalled that something was occurring (a bit of Ruth Jones there for you, if you know ‘Gavin and Stacey’). Three cars pulled up on the grass across the way and a bunch of lads emerged noisily and with bags that looked to contain bottles and cans. I told them politely that they shouldn’t be here as the site and car park are closed. After trying to convince me that they were here because their mothers had chucked them out with nowhere to go, but refusing to report to the site owner as I advised, they all walked off determinedly, heading for the beach. Jan, of the other couple staying here, informed them that the police have been patrolling but nevertheless, off they all clanked, muttering expletively.

After a few minutes the clanking wanderers returned, got in their cars and drove off again, presumably because they expected us to call the police (which we didn’t; should we have?). I spent the rest of the afternoon feeling sorry for them; a bunch of young men who have each presumably been cooped up with family, the sunshine strong and hot, and patience run out. Young men their age have historically been the cannon fodder of war; the WW2 veterans are now at risk of being defeated by an invisible enemy, this bonkers coronavirus. Yesterday’s young reprobates may well have great grandparents who fought, died or survived to remember that war. I wonder what they would say to these boys. It has struck me how many of the wartime memories are of the sense of adventure presented by the opportunity of enlisting and of the camaraderie of fighting together. How does this war against a virus; the call to “Stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives” capture the imagination of young blood?

And it really was a glorious day, yesterday, but with much less pleasant weather threatened; such a temptation to head for the beach. Also, news has been circulating that lockdown would be eased from this weekend so people are getting ahead of it, thinking that the worst is over. But, apparently we’ve been too previous and lock down will continue for another three weeks. I’m not the only grandparent worried that the grandchildren will have forgotten us.

Last night we watched “The Darkest Hour”, a film about Churchill. We watched with the doors and windows wide open for the balm of the evening and the birdsong serenade to accompany our last bottle of red. Thoughtful and thankful for the massive sacrifices made for the freedoms we now take for granted, and the current sacrifices being made for our health, I took a night-time walk. Above the beach and looking out across the water, the lights of human habitation twinkled and glowed back to me. It’s a beautiful Earth and it deserves our respect. In a fanciful moment I flashed the torch a few times into the dark dunes. I had such a shock when something flashed back! I flashed again, and sure enough I received a reply. Oo-er!

Rather than check it out any further (a vagrant? a resentful evicted teenager? just another night walker?) I turned around and walked back through the caravan park. Unoccupied caravans, their windows eerily reflecting the dying light wait stoically. Some are accompanied by solar fairy lights,  like glow worms, softening the darkness and adding magic to the peace of the night. My own caravan, aglow and with life inside, beckoned me. ‘Where are those young lads now?’, I wondered.

Well, I hope they got something out of their system somewhere and gave some thought to the wisdom of their escapade. I fervently hope, too, that they aren’t infectious!

The ‘bloody blog’

Yes, this is my continuing and probably fruitless effort to make a difference and my son referred to it as my “bloody blog”. Nice. But all I have is words.

We’re still in lockdown but our government is this week putting together a plan for how to lift it. Meanwhile, we’re either getting really tired of having to comply, or we’re getting so used to it that we aren’t in any rush to be unlocked. Many of us have had plenty of time to think about who and what we are, where the world is heading and how we got here. I for one have been up hill and down dale in my head; top of the world one day and deep in the shadows the next, depending on who and what I’ve been reading, watching or listening to. And do I have any answers yet? Of course not! 

Well, that’s not exactly true. One thing I do know - we can do so much better.

‘In what way better?’, you may ask. We are clever and can solve so many things with the development of better technology; apps, vaccines, green energy (whatever that might be - see Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans” on YouTube and discussions of it), but that’s not what I mean. I mean that we can do better in terms of self-restraint instead of voraciously munching our way through our planet’s resources. We can do so much better in terms of giving instead of taking. We know it’s possible; we see it in the self sacrifices at the front line of the pandemic and in the streets of our communities. We can all do SO much better.

How do we proceed from here, I wonder. What are the important changes we each need to make if we are to create the better world so many of us are dreaming of? Instead of identifying ourselves as humans we’ve got accustomed to being identified as consumers. The word “consumption” was a word used in times past for a wasting disease. Funny that we have all succumbed to a new wasting disease - wasting energy, wasting food, throwing away stuff that cost good money but was built to be quickly obsolete. What if we made more effort to make-do-and-mend? What if we all eat locally, seasonally produced food, not overbuying, not throwing food away, growing at least a few herbs and salad leaves and composting instead of throwing vegetable matter in the bin? What if we try harder to shop plastic-free? Shouldn’t we all be doing more to reduce, re-use and recycle?

What if we think twice, or even three times before falling for the seduction of a new outfit, trinket or gadget? Could we live like that, or have we been so suckered in to consumerism that we can’t imagine how?

Lately, there have been so few people around in this seaside hideaway that on our daily beach walk, the only sign that others of our species exist is the tide of litter spewed up on the sand. Now, bit by bit, after six weeks of lockdown, people are starting to emerge. When we are unlocked will there be a surge of beach-seekers; towns emptied as everyone heads off for a long awaited picnic or holiday? Will the snack and tat stores open wide to greedy gaping mouths and shopping bags followed by a fresh tide of discarded plastic to decorate the wonderful outdoors?

Trepidatiously I await. 

And this is the ‘bloody blog’ that hardly anyone will read anyway.