28 Days Later…Day 81… Turning 95 in Lockdown

Happy Birthday Jomammy…

Jo’s mother has lived with us for the last 5 years. Today she turns 95. What an age. It is something we would normally have celebrated but in the current crises we cannot really mark the day with a gathering of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren as would be approximately. Joan was born in 1925, 8 years after the Spanish flu pandemic and right in the middle of the roaring twenties. Maybe there’s hope for a repeat and we might roar again in the 2020’s.

Some people refer to reaching such an age as an achievement. It is still unimaginable in some parts of the world while in some counties, such longevity is more common place. I still think it is a landmark to be celebrated. I lost both my parents 26 and 28 years ago, both died at the relatively young age of 60.

The coronavirus has been tough on Joan. She is still relatively mobile, although not as much as she used to be, nonetheless, her weekly visits to some of her other daughters, and the odd trip to the supermarket or post office, broke up her days and weeks to some extent. Now she is ‘cocooning’ unable to leave the grounds of our house and meet people or visit family, go to the supermarket etc. In theory she could go for a walk, but it would be a challenge to keep her from interacting or getting too close to people so she has been pretty much a prisoner of our house and garden.

There was a time when she would spend all day pottering around the garden with a spade, clippers or rake, but those days are gone. Luckily, we have had an unusually warm and sunny spring so she can spend much of the day outdoors basking in the sun, snoozing or looking at her flowers and counting the pears developing on her pear trees, that will come in the autumn.

She loves the 3 dogs and they her. For some reason all dogs love Joan or Jomammy as many call her, a name generated from the struggle one of her grandchildren had deciphering the fact that she was Joan and also her Mammy’s Mammy – Jomammy. It stuck of course and many people still call her Jomammy. To me she has always been Joan. Daisy used to be her favourite, a little fluffster always available to jump on her lap, but of late our best boy Hokee has wheedled his way into her affections.

Our Hokee is a special, empathic creature, with an uncanny ability to sense pain, sadness or mood in general. Unlike the other two little barkers, he is the strong silent type. If he barks, he means business and as I have mentioned here many times before, he actually saved my life. Now he watches over Joan more and more. He sits by her side as she has her tea in the morning and then jumps up beside her for a few minutes. She brushes him and she has noticed how gentle and attentive he is. When she sits in the sun, he is never far away, and he watches her even as she sleeps.

Of course being 95 has its challenges. Joan’s hearing is impaired and her relatively new hearing aids need repeated re-adjustment, something we cant get to the audiologist to do because of the lockdown. They help with her tinnitus more than anything else. Luckily the walls in our house are solid brick as she listens to the TV at full blast with the text on as well.

Unfortunately with no where to go, when the weather turns, she is restricted to occupying herself with TV and crosswords. She used to always finish them but not anymore. Every Sunday I walk to the local shop to buy her favourite newspaper, which unfortunately is a tabloid full of hyped up stories about Covid-19. Joan had a series of mini strokes a few years ago and while she did recover, her ability to retain new information is impaired and it can sometimes take weeks of repetition to get a notion ingrained. She will remember who she loaned her bike to in 1939, trust me I’ve heard that one, but can’t quite remember what day it is today.

The weekly Sunday newspaper reminder of Covid, makes her uneasy and it sparks off a series of questions. They go on all day, repeated to both Jo and I and we answer her same way each time. She asks “what is this thing …the corona?” She asks, “how do you get it? Is it in the air?” Joan tells us that she never remembers anything like it and wants to know if she can go out. We calmly explain, that it’s a bit like the flu but it is more dangerous for people over 70, so it’s best to stay away from people and shops. Mentioning age, she proudly asks, “do you know how old I am” and then she tells us as if we didn’t know. I tell her it’s only for a few more weeks and that she is safe and she moves on, for a while at least.

But there is only so much TV one can watch. She has tired of her usual favourites, Murdoch Mysteries, Ms. Marple, Blue Bloods, Death in Paradise. We look for movies that she likes, Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, old B movies, she loves detectives, murder mysteries, that’s what she tells me every day. She loves horror, the gorier or cheesier the better. Joan is a big Sharknado and Chucky fan. But it has been nearly three months now and we have even started diversifying her tastes to Scandi drama.

Caring for Joan daily is my darling Jo. As I lock myself away in my home office all day, she is calmly, patiently answering the same questions, looking after her physical needs, making sure she takes her medication and making meals of her choice, not to mention some of the more difficult aspects of caring for someone who is not perhaps as completely capable as she once was. That has become a burden that leaves me in awe of the girl I love. Normally, she gets some break, perhaps only short pauses if you will, when Joan visits her daughters, but in their absence, Joan has become increasingly focussed on my sweetheart. I know she is a little anxious about the corona as she calls it, and now she pretty much follows Jo about the house and garden until the sun sets, and she settles in to watch some schlock horror on Netflix.

It’s the small things and I see it every day, the little details and although they pile up and cause her much distress, my darling Jo is unceasingly patient and kind. Joan comes looking for tea, always saying, “I think I’ll make a cup of tea.” This is code for, will you make me a cup of tea and when I say, I’ll make you a cuppa Joan, she reminds me, “one and a half sugars” which is of course two, or she’ll be back in to add the bit you left out.

How she likes her food, what her favourites are, trying to create a varied menu for a woman who has pretty much fixed tastes, are challenges in themselves and Joanna always rises to them. It is the big things, the doctor visits, the chiropodist, bathing, worrying, it is a huge list. Like I say I am in awe.

Joan is my cover girl for Darkly Wood II The woman who never wore shoes and the photo in fact inspired the title. It was taken in 1946 when she was just a slip of a girl aged 21. Now, 74 years on she celebrates her 95^th birthday, cocooned away from the world to keep her safe from the coronavirus. It is not the 95^th birthday we envisaged at the turn of the year but… 95… The sun is shining, we will have a couple of socially distant visits from her daughters and daughter in law in our garden which is luckily a perfect, safe environment for her. There’ll be cake and sure later on, she can have a glass of bitter lemon, a couple of ginger snaps and I’ll slap on Sharknado V. That’s how you rock a 95^th in lockdown… Happy Birthday Jomammy…

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28 Days Later… Day 72… Victors not Vectors

Icelandic craic, culchies and driving it like you stole it…

I was descending the Atlas mountains, driving a pick up with three passengers, the vehicle only just managing to stay on the dusty track as I steered along the edge of a precarious drop off, on what was for me the wrong side of the road, while my co-pilot blasted out a hideous Irish country and western trucker song, called Hit the Diff. To say it was nerve-racking would be an understatement. It was a redneck dream and a nightmare for an urbanite like me.

Three of us were Irish with a lone Icelander in the back, nervously smiling at our cruel sense of national humour and perhaps cringing like me, at Hit the Diff. To him I’m sure we sounded like we were arguing but of course we weren’t. We Irish are quite self-deprecating and along with that comes the outward expression of the same, which we call slagging among our friends.

I was the only Dub (from Dublin) in the car and my other 2 compatriots were Culchies (from the country). My Icelandic friend was a city boy from Reykjavik. I’d spent the previous day with 3 ultra religious Israelis and a couple of Russians, one of whom modelled himself as a young Vladimir Putin, so all things considered, day 2 was still looking like more fun.

Now if you’ve ever been to Ireland you will know that everyone outside of the pale is a Culchie and while each of the 32 counties in Ireland have huge local rivalries, especially when it comes to sport, 31 of them band together in their abuse of people like me from the capital of the Republic, Dublin. It is all good fun, but in a car careening along a cliff edge dirt track, with country and western music blaring, the last thing our poor Icelandic colleague needed, was us abusing each other over the sound of slide guitars.

Mowing, lifting, sowing, bailing, drawing, hauling and buckraking. Being a man of eclectic musical taste, I still struggled with the guitar twangs and the lyrical torture that my 2 Culchie cousins were subjecting me to, and I wasn’t behind about coming forward.

“Turn that shite off, I’m beginning to hope there’s some Jihadi sniper out here somewhere that will put me out of my misery!”

I should have known better. It only encouraged them to hire it up. I hated apple air play in that moment. Unfortunately the road was so precarious, that I needed both hands on the wheel at all times or I would have taken control of the audio. The best I could do was lower it down from the steering wheel, but that just started a childish game of hi-low.

“You Jackeens don’t know good music.” my front passenger laughed and the two of them sang along to the chorus. “Drive her like ya stole her…”

“O hit the diff and pray, that she goes all the way…

‘Kill me now’ I thought. But then I had a better idea. Like I stole her eh?… I stepped on the accelerator, edged my right wheels as close to the terrifying cliff as I could, and my countrymen on the right hand side of the pick up, nearly soiled themselves. The drop was horrifying and there was nothing but a couple of inches of gravel and sand keeping us from tumbling down to our death.

“Jaysus!”

My co-pilot leaned away from the door and grabbed the handle above his head with both hands. Not so funny now I thought.

“I can’t concentrate with that shite blasting in my ear.”

He lowered it down and having been defeated he had to change tack. He criticised my driving.

“Have you never driven a left-hand drive before? The gap to the edge is tighter than a duck’s arse…and that’s water tight!”

“I have” says I, but I’ve never driven one this big on such a narrow track along a cliff edge while being tortured” I emphasised the last word, “TORTURED by bog man music. Did the 80’s even come to Tipperary?”

On and on we went, slagging the bejesus out of each other until we came to our rest spot. The legs that got out of that car were nervous ones. We were all a little bit shaky, me less so, because at least I had been ‘in control’ at the wheel.

That Moroccan trip was hugely enlightening and while it was at times a bit scary, our Icelandic colleague had a great time, which he put down to the fun he had with a bunch of strangers who welcomed him as one of our own. He joined our group as a lone outsider and we made him comfortable, by treating him like he was one of us. No special treatment or allowances. By the end of the day he was jumping in, slagging the rest of us like a native.

Everywhere I have travelled, the locals have their own way about them. Things about which they are proud and somethings they like to complain about. The arrival of Covid-19 has hit us in Ireland in a way that was unexpected. We are very social animals. We are renowned for our love of gatherings in the pub, sing-songs, telling stories, partying whenever we get a sniff of a chance, and our weddings and funerals are a thing to behold.

Being forced to isolate, has been a wound to our national psyche. An Irish wake is perhaps one of the most important rituals we have. I’ve never laughed so much as I have at Irish funerals. Now, people pass quietly, alone, and we are not able to comfort those who mourn their loved ones.

There is no house full of people in the days leading up to the funeral, people coming to the funeral home or house the night before to comfort, pray with, and chat to those who have lost someone. There is no proper funeral Mass, no church filled with sympathy, the crush of the gathering outside where everyone jostles to make their presence known. There is no crowd around the grave as prayers are said, and sometimes there might even be a song. There is no going to a venue afterwards for soup and ‘sangwiches’ as they say. No party atmosphere as everyone shares stories about the dear departed, quite often retelling stories like the one I just told, only with some exaggeration and slagging the loved and lost. All done with a twinkle in the eye and a nod to how much craic the person was, so that the chief mourners could get to see how much others, shared their love for those who had died. Pints are not drunk, nor glasses raised and worst of all, at the end of the day, there is no one to call around to comfort in the saddest days after the funeral is over. Death brings loneliness at the best of times…but now…

It is a cruel virus no doubt and it has impacted us all in ways we never even contemplated when all this began. Here in Ireland, we begin the first phase of withdrawal from full lockdown on 18th May. By then it will be 80 days of this and it’s been tough. But that date is just for a few. For others it will be June July and even August or September before we get out of these restrictions, all things going well.

Victory will be strange in the circumstances, for what will we have won other than that which we surrendered in the first place. But then, will it be even that. Victory for me, will be that we learn from this and that the world and everyone in it, will move on to a better level. It is wishful thinking and probably unlikely, for despite our best intentions, it is human nature to fall back on that which is easiest. We are a lazy species. But I will be positive and hopeful. By staying apart, by not being ‘Vectors’ transmitting the virus, we have started to shut this down in Ireland and hopefully soon across the world. The remaining message is simple, stay safe, stay at home for now at least, and let’s be Victors not Vectors.

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28 Days later…Day 66. Truths and consequences

A meander through the cobwebs in my head…

I’ve always been a bit of a consequence. That’s what they used to say when I was small. I don’t think it’s an expression used outside of Ireland and it has a range of meanings, but for the most part it is used affectionately when you are a bit of a cheeky fecker. Maybe I was that, but as far as I knew, I was always just me.

I never really knew who I was, until I did. By then, it was too late to do much about it. The nature vs nurture argument will probably always be just that, an argument. No one can prove it without someone else disagreeing and presenting their evidence to the contrary. But I won’t get into that. I’m too much of a consequence to be getting that serious today… and you know what that means, I’m about to contradict myself… I’m such a consequence.

As it turns out, underneath my rough exterior, (fab but rough) there is a rather soft heart which carries its own consequences. If you’re familiar with my blog, you will well know there is a little cloud that long ago, decided to rest above my heart. In my head I visualise it like a raincloud atop a mountain, just sitting there, dampening everything it touches.

Of course, I discovered that a little sprinkle of sunshine tends to heat the air and rise the cloud to let the light in, so I have always tried to shine. You can’t be waiting for someone else to fix things now can you? That’s a crude analogy but it’s probably true. When I was a sad little boy, I tried to make people laugh. That was me, trying to shine the cloud away. I remember I’d do impressions of James Mason and Peter Laurie for my aunties and they’d all laugh. In truth, my impressions were probably not all that good, but they laughed anyway. I didn’t know I was trying to fix my own sadness, but I was.

These days, I have hardened myself to who and what I am. I still try to sprinkle some light and I see the thing that wants me, coming long before it arrives. That helps. Most people never see any of it and no one sees all of it. But I am fortunate. I can take care of myself, mostly anyway. I’ve been lucky in life, I have people who love me and what else do you need. They are my brightest sprinkles of sunlight.

I did my back in recently, just at the beginning of lockdown. Then I got sick from all the drugs I was taking on top of all the drugs I already take for my heart. I’ve had weeks of pain, some of it so bad, I couldn’t sit, stand or lie down without a struggle. On top of everything, I am working from home, something I refused to stop doing through my sickness. It is only in the last few days that I have started to feel better. I’m a martyr… “God love me” as my mother would say. It isn’t only Jihadists that can be Martyrs you know. People forget that. A fella like me, working away, crippled I was, in the middle of a pandemic, the sun shining, and me stuck indoors, not a decent drop of Sangiovese to be had in the shops and they only had the cheap tonic to go in my gin…a martyr I tell you!

So, what do I do? The minute I can move again, I get out the power hose, and clean the gutters and the paths all the way round our house. My old back is struggling again, but now it’s a more familiar back pain that I have grown used to, so it’s not as bad. Still, I’m an asshole for not resting. That was Monday. Yesterday morning I took a short break from work at my desk to stretch my legs, and I ended up cutting back some plants that have been wrecking my head for weeks. Now I say a few, but there was a hedge cutter, a shears, a couple of clippers, a hoe and an extendible lopper that I call my Zombie slayer 2000 involved. (Let them come, my shed is an anti-zombie arsenal.) I had to stop because I realised, I was overdoing it.

That’s my new cloud. Having to stop. When I power-washed the gutters and then the paths on one side of the house, I was done for, knackered, kaput. So, I started fooling myself. I would target a line in the distance and convince myself that I’d stop when I got to it. Every time I’d go a little beyond and then tell myself, sure, I’ll just do the next bit. By the end of the day I had done the lot, including my car which had been splashed with dirt from the path. It was a bank holiday, a day off for me and I spent it in the sun, wearing a rain coat to keep dry, power-washing anything that wasn’t tied down. Did I mention I was a martyr?

Sometimes I wonder what’s wrong with me. There were multiple times when I had to stop. I was in so much pain, but I knew if I stopped, I’d be defeated, my little heart-cloud might darken, and the rain would begin to fall. So, I pushed on through like I was a twenty-year-old, pretending to be fine. But of course, I wasn’t. I’m still feeling it today, I can tell you. But that didn’t stop me taking a break from work yesterday to…work in the garden… I need help and by help I don’t mean the physical kind, (although actually I do) I mean a psychiatrist!

I went back to my desk, finished off some work, did a little research, then took a break (to walk the dogs) I have no one to blame but myself. By five pm I was shagged, so instead of resting, I started doing this. I should be sipping on a nice glass of red but no I’m a gobsheen.

I only have Joanna and her mother to be consequential to now, since we’ve been under the spell of the lockdown, so I think that’s taking its toll on me as well. I mean I can’t annoy the woman I love or her mother now can I…well…

I’ve managed a few trips to the local shop, but that only gets me into arguments. There are some idiots around let me tell you, and I’ve taken to not letting anyone put me in danger, so they get told very quickly to step the feck off when it comes to my personal space. God I’m turning into a narky auld hoor. (If you’re not Irish, it has the same meaning as it sounds like it should, but spelled differently)

See, like I told you I can be a bit of a consequence. Speaking of consequences and on an altogether different topic, I read the newspapers this morning and the headlines brought me back to another time. Not in a nostalgic…ah the good old days… kind of way, more the …Holy Fup! Not again… kind of way.

A South American president capturing a former U.S. special forces soldier as part of an attempted coup, three Russian doctors mysteriously ‘falling’ out of hospital windows after they spoke out about problems in the medical system during the pandemic, shots exchanged between North and South Korean soldiers, oh dear!

I lived through a chunk of the first cold war and I remember as a child actually expecting a big red button to be pushed at some point. Back then Europe was divided quite physically and there were massive troop and tank numbers either side of the divide. The whole world seemed to have a side. It was quite scary. The world was a very dangerous place and most of us never know the extent of how close we came on many occasions to the launch of nuclear missiles.

The more people like Putin, Trump, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un get their knickers in a twist, the closer we edge to the bad old days. There is nothing like picking a fight, when you want to distract from trouble in your homeland. The language of war is already in the air. First, Donald Trump tried to pin the blame for his woes on China. Now he has started to use the term ‘under attack’ when speaking about Covid-19. That’s no coincidence. Today I read he is comparing it to Pearl harbour and 9-11. It doesn’t seem to be sticking. Maybe Iran might be a target next or maybe things could get worse. War might be his only saviour if the polls don’t fall his way.

Vladimir Putin is no less focussed on maintaining his own power at pretty much any cost. I could go on, those two gobshites are not alone in their behaviour. The combination of political leaders with such a very narrow focus, the human and subsequent economic tragedy that is unfolding before our very eyes every day, may yet prove to be just the beginning of something stupid. Why did I ever mention consequences?… Where was I? What the hell was I talking about?… I tell you I was a consequence when I was a nipper, but if the old-timers starts kicking in, I’ll be a consequence on a mission.. Look after each other folks and above all…Stay safe…

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Month: May 2020

28 Days Later…Day 81… Turning 95 in Lockdown

28 Days Later… Day 72… Victors not Vectors

28 Days later…Day 66. Truths and consequences

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