You simply cannot even guess at the lengths I go to when presenting each edition of Salut!'s Covid-19 Diaries. Sometimes, it's as far as the three or four Fawlty-like paces it takes to get from bedroom to study. Here, with minimal editing but masses of admiration for the super photo, is Bill Taylor's latest dispatch from Toronto (how long would it take to send a mercy package of Weetabix from London to Canada?) ...
Retail notes from the trenches:
When we finally regain the even tenor of our old ways, someone should choreograph – if it hasn’t already been done – a ballet for shopping carts.
A quick but well-thought-out and extensive supermarket run – what my mother used to call “the big shop”, the one she did every week. No hoarding but buying more than usual, enough that it doesn’t have to be done again next week.
Metro is well-organised. Security at the door to amiably make sure the store maintains the right customer/distance ratio. Saying, “I’m with the band,” elicits a dry look and doesn’t get me to the front of the line. Actually, it’s early (though not the seniors’ magic hour) and there’s only one person ahead of me.
Watching shoppers elegantly manoeuvre their carts to avoid getting within two metres of one another is a thing of beauty, a skill Young Drivers of Canada might take it upon themselves to teach.
If it could be transferred to the skies it would wow the crowds at the CNE air show. As it is, when the National Ballet puts it on stage, I can’t decide if a score by Stravinsky or Tchaikovsky would be more appropriate.
Oh, what the heck, let’s hire them both. Enough of austerity. And they’ll need the work.
Metro has toilet paper in abundance, by the way, including a display right by the door – possibly to put a smile on people’s faces when they come in, pessimistic and suspicious.
But the Weetabix truck hasn’t arrived yet and there isn’t a bic on the shelves. Breakfast is about to become bleak-fast, unless I expand my cereal horizons. Time to check out Chex.
A lot of Americans are conditioned when they see someone in military uniform to say, “Thank you for your service.”
I find myself reflexively thanking security guards, mail carriers, sales clerks (especially at the liquor store, whose hands I wish to kiss through their latex gloves) and anyone else who has to deal with such as I. They smile politely, murmur their appreciation and are probably heartily sick of hearing it.
Along with the groceries, I take my hiking cleats out of the back of the car. Won’t be needing those for a while.
I won’t say I live and die by my hair but it’s a serious part of who I am. Has been for the last half century or more. And it gives some of my friends a source of malicious merriment [and envy - ed]. I forgive them.
It’s causing me no little anguish right now because it’s reaching a dreadful in-between stage. If the stylist I share with Lesley was still working, it would get the attention it badly needs.
That’s not about to happen, so I fear it might look like hell for the next couple of weeks until it’s grown out enough to have reached a stage that I can live with and possibly learn to love.
Until then, all I can do is trim my beard and moustache (and eyebrows? Probably) so I look a little less ZZ Toppish. That and start experimenting to find the most effective use of gel.
Pain comes in a variety of forms these days. We deal with it as best we may.
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