Without wishing to tempt fate, I note that none of the friends contributing to Salut!'s Covid-19 Diaries has actually suffered the symptoms of this dreadful disease. But two women I have to know and value on social media, fellow Sunderland AFC supporters, have reported virus-like signs and, in one case, is sure she has caught it. Get well quickly and strongly, Hilary with your treatment combination of paracetamol, Vitamin C and Dylan.
And welcome, Malcolm Dawson, who was my deputy editor at Salut! Sunderland until we handed the site to others from Jan 1. Malcolm, now settled back in the North East after spending his teaching career in the from the East Midlands. The full series of diaries can be found by clicking on the final word of this introduction - here:
LOCKDOWN IN HOWDEN
Just under a month ago on Thursday March 5, at a bit of a loose end, I decided I would use my recently acquired bus pass and take a trip courtesey of Weardale Travel to the market town of Stanhope. My plan, such as it was, was to mooch about a bit, grab a spot of lunch and maybe a couple of pints in the knowledge that by teatime I would be paying for my indulgence, desperate for a kip.
Long gone are the days when I could have three or four beers at lunch to wash down the fish and chips before taking to the football pitch and giving 90 minutes effort and endeavour on a Wednesday afternoon, which was traditionally the days when Universities and Colleges fought out their sports fixtures. But I rarely indulge at dinner time anymore. That’ll be what some of you refer to as lunchtime but as Lamont Dozier once said “I’m zipping up my boots, going back to my roots.”
So that was the plan and after lacing up my boots, making sure I had a book of crosswords for the bus ride I set off, just as some of Durham County Council’s refuse collection operatives emptied mine and next door’s recycling bins and boxes of assorted glassware. I had plenty of time so took them all back to where they live - the bins that is, not the blokes who empty them.
Then walking round to the bus stop I faffed about checking that I had remembered to put a biro in the cavernous pockets of my fleece. It was then as I turned left, passing the Spar shop, the bus passed me and me with still 50 yards to the stop. Dodgy knees and and ageing body meant a sprint was out of the question so I quickened my pace but the blighter didn’t stop. No one to get off you see so I checked the time and the bloody thing was two minutes early and the next one wasn’t for another hour!
Time for a rethink, so needing the exercise I kept walking towards Crook whilst checking the times and destinations of the next buses, with a revised plan of going to the pictures in Darlington. Then it hit me! For weeks I had been promising to buy myself a laundry basket as I was getting fed up with the pile of dirty socks and pants on my bedroom floor increasing daily until I had a full washload.
The bus to Darlington stops at Bishop which is handy for Wilkinson and Home Bargains, both purveyors of the aforementioned laundry item. So that was that and Home Bargains it was that drew me in and there in the entrance was a mountain of Andrex toilet tissue in 12-roll packs for three quid and a few pence. Even though I had plenty of loo roll at home, living alone as I do and with my bodily functions being regular, I couldn’t overlook a 25p bog roll with a picture of a puppy on the wrapping so I picked up a pack.
The maze that is Home Bargains takes you all round the store, no doubt to tempt gullible shoppers into buying things they didn’t need so I grabbed a bar of soap (which I did need), a pair of bluetooth headphones (which I’d been thinking about getting anyway), a mobile phone holder to fix to the car windscreen (as the other one I have which goes on the air vent is rubbish) before finding the thing I’d really come in for - a collapsable laundry bag in battleship grey. I resisted the girl on the till’s attempts to get me to buy 12 crumpets for a pound and staggered back to the bus stand like a contestant on Crackerjack’s Double or Drop game. (Younger readers Google it - other search engines are available).
So that was that and I made it to Stanhope (which was pretty quiet) the next day. Then on the Saturday there was the not unexpected disappointment of Sunderland failing to beat Gillingham.
Anyone who follows SAFC will be inured to the fact that just when expectation levels rise they never fail to disappoint and the current squad are obviously proud protectors of that tradition.
“So what’s all this to do with Covid 19?” I hear you ask. Just bear with me - I’m getting there.
Malcolm, a keen ornithologist, would rather be away somewhere spotting falcons. Image: Martin Mecnarowski. Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12694187
On the Sunday I made one of my regular trips to Lytham St Annes, where a friend of mine and myself are contracted by a couple of hotels to organise sessions of bridge for their guests. Despite the fact that I have been in receipt of my state pension since November, some seven months after my 65th birthday, I am still at least 10 years younger the majority of guests. This was the time when people were becoming aware that coronavirus was no longer just a problem in the Far East.
Venice, where I had holidayed in October was in lockdown and the hotel had bottles of hand gel in all the public areas and many of our guests fell into the category being classed as vulnerable.
But it was all very low key and there was the assumption that if you were fit and healthy, should you be unfortunate enough to catch the virus it would be no worse than a bad dose of flu and the holiday went without a hitch.
I had toyed with the idea of staying on an extra day as Sunderland were due to play Blackpool but decided against it, partly because during the week their promotion hopes had been further dented by an abject display at Bristol Rovers but mostly because I was off to Bruges on Eurostar a couple of days later. I usually stop off at the Co-op in Kirkby Stephen on the way home and stock up with a week’s shopping but because of my upcoming trip I only bought a couple of days’ worth of food.
The shelves were still full and all was normal, though I did have the foresight to buy some longlife milk, which I like to have in my store cupboard in case I am ever too ill or lazy to go out when the fresh stuff runs out. If only I had known then.
I was still expecting to go Belgium, even though the FA had decided to suspend all football, making my decision not to stay over on the Fylde quite fortuitous in the event, when on the Sunday morning the tour company rang to say that they had cancelled the trip but would offer me the same deal for later in the year. I had a bridge match in the afternoon which was the last league match of the season, and our team was up against the league leaders who looked set for promotion.
With the two teams below us playing each other it looked as if we were doomed as Private Fraser would have us believe. The committee who run the league had offered clubs the option of cancelling and would award each team an average of the points scored in the season so far, but none of the clubs in our division took them up on that, which our opponents and relegation rivals might be regretting now because somehow we managed to win by a big enough margin to claim an 18-2 victory, whilst the teams in 2nd and 3rd place had a close fought tie which ended 12-8 giving both sides just enough to mean our opponents only finished third.
Meanwhile, the team below us scored a 14-6 victory to put them level with ourselves but as we had defeated them earlier in the season we stayed up by the skin of our teeth.
I still went to my regular Sunday quiz in Durham but the feeling of the bar staff was that they would soon be shutting their doors, which they did a day or two before it became mandatory as the seriousness of the pandemic became more apparent.
Next day all my local bridge clubs closed, the Northern League soon decided that they too would cancel all fixtures and with it looking increasingly likely that soon there would be nowhere to go I prepared for a few weeks at home.
I wasn’t that perturbed by the reports of panic buying but on the day I was supposed to be going to on holiday I needed to do a food shop and was shocked by the rows and rows of empty shelves in my local Aldi with no milk at all, either there or in the Lidl opposite.
Even the Spar round the corner was a milk free zone so my liking to have a few litres of UHT at home paid off, as had my bulk purchase of loo roll which only came about because both binmen and bus driver were ahead of schedule.
These past three weeks I have hardly been out the house, partly because that is what we are being asked to do and mostly because there’s nothing to do. The shops are getting back to normal it would seem and I have managed to get what I need so far. I am trying to remember to get stuff out of the freezer the night before I plan to eat it (ice cream excepted) and finding ways to fill my days.
I can download books from the library onto my tablet, I am catching up on light hearted crime drama on i-player and UKTV catch up. I have binged on the early series of Death in Paradise, watched all of Shakespeare and Hathaway and The Majorca Files, all on BBC, and the New Zealand series The Brokenwood Mysteries on UK Drama. I have played some bridge and Scrabble online, where I also do the Guardian crossword everyday whilst listening to the wonderfully named Petroc Trelawney and the less exotically named Ian Skelly on Radio 3, and there are still the glorious episodes of Round the Horne and Hancock’s Half Hour on Radio 4 extra.
I have been updating my Spotify playlists and looking for well worked alternatives to original songs. I know that on another of his sites Colin was running a compare and contrast versions of folk tunes so this goes along those lines but generally I am looking for re-workings of songs rather than straightforward rip offs. So sorry Emma Bunton - your version of What I Am adds nothing to Edie Brickell’s original but anyone interested might want to check these out:
(with an SAFC connection): The Mighty Quinn by The Persuasions or Can’t Help Falling in Love by Kina Grannis
Others: Bad Moon Rising - Thea Gilmore or Oops I Did it Again - Richard Thompson
Two Michael Jackson songs
Billie Jean - Jamie Lancaster and Rock With You - Brandy
Hound Dog - Big Momma Thornton (though strictly speaking this doesn’t qualify as it predates Elvis)
And that is about it for now. Strange times indeed. Stay safe people.
Recent Comments