Page 29 - Through a glass brightly

Something has happened. There are people everywhere outside. They are shouting ‘It’s over!’, ‘End of lockdown’. I don’t understand what is going on. I am going out to see....Sh*t, I can’t remember how to open our front door...I am out and am breathing deeply....
DAY 51
In A&E. Apparently, I fainted outside our door - too much oxygen.
DAY 60
Friday 22nd May. Back at work for a few days. Ruth, Felix and Thea are fine. Life has gone back to normal, although my cholesterol is sky high, I’m diabetic, and apparently, I’m suffering from schizophrenia (my alter ego only speaks in the simple past and tries to divide everything he can). But at least we came out of it alive!
Tomorrow, family appointment with a psychologist at 3pm....
From Val M. at 13.58
Oh dear, I did laugh at that, Jenny. I never look to the French for humorous writing, but I think my ideas about French writing are a bit out of date. More than fifty years probably. I got burnt out by that degree and never read anything in French since.
I’m back in action with a new computer and a proper keyboard, though it does seem a bit irritable and keeps moving things to draft when I’m halfway through. The cursor seems very irritable too, just as I’m getting. I’m glad to be back with a full screen though as it helps with all these zoom classes and with watching NT live as well. (Was shocked to hear on the radio that someone had watched it on their television. Now that really is beyond my capabilities.) I’m coping with Zoom, though it too has its hiccups. The choir rehearsal on it is fun because we can see all our faces and when he unmutes us we can all talk to each other, or shout rather. I’m new to the choir so I don’t know many people and just listen to them all. It’s a younger demographic than most choirs - I’m the only one who had never heard the Grease lyrics before - but maybe that’s just me rather than my age. And we belt out rousing songs from Abba and Elton John, which is great fun. It’s held up on the edge of Dartmoor, in the town hall of one of the ‘stannary’ towns, and photos of whiskered long gone worthies bedeck the walls. The participants all seem to know each other, and their families have lived in the area for generations - lots of farmers. The first woman I sat beside told me how much she hated Chris Packham because he was against the countryside. I was so surprised I hardly knew what to reply - that’s not an opinion I had ever heard before. The other choir I belong to sings a classical repertoire and few people are under 60. Last year we sang - or tried to - Handel’s Dixit Dominus, which flushed out those of us coasting along in the first sopranos who probably should be tenors but couldn’t hold the tune (speaking for myself) to such an extent that the choirmaster appointed a special group to sing anything above a top F - the sound before must have been dreadful. He is giving us a singalong on You tube, so all we see is him, playing the keyboard and singing bass. This is really tricky, trying to pitch myself an octave up all the time, and there’s no sense of community as we don’t see each other. The Pilates group on Zoom was a lot more fun, for the participants at least - the teacher said we had angled our screens to see her but all she could see of us was our ceilings which invalidated her insurance! The peace of the class was in any case shattered by the eruption into my room of an excited fairy in face paint and full regalia, announcing that Grandma had to come at once as the fairies’ annual ball was about to begin! A very disgruntled fairy was hastily ushered through the door!
In other news, my son is one of those unfortunate people with a small business, all of whose work has of course disappeared. He runs courses, facilitates courses for other companies and rents out his woods to people running courses. All courses cancelled. Plus the difficulty, that it’s all gone for a year - the whole season has gone so even if the lockdown stops in a couple
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