Thoughts From Tier 4
Dear LJ.
Well, it's been another crazy week, so sorry for my absence, and I'm here, in a rather subdued mood, to catch you up with my life, although this entry is going to be more my thoughts than my doings, which are just the same as always: radio work, videos, crafting, getting ready for Christmas, all the usual things that go on in my gold plated life! . Yes, in spite of what's going on at the moment, I'd still call it a gold plated life.
Well, the big news is that we're back in lockdown. As of midnight, we're in a tier four situation, all non essential shops are shut, we have to stay indoors except for essential shopping and exercise. Thank goodness essential carers are allowed to work, so I won't lose Lixi, for which I humbly thank God. It would be a bleak picture indeed without the sunshine she brings into our lives, as well as all the essential things she does for me.
I feel deeply thankful that, as far as I know at this moment, we will suffer only minor inconveniences. We weren't planning to go anywhere for Christmas, our gift shopping has long been done and our food shopping is always done online, our Christmas order will arrive tomorrow. My Mum has gone to my sister's for Christmas, I don't quite know what will happen, how long she plans to stay there now, but she is safe and not alone at Christmas, which is the main thing I was worried about.
I feel very sad though for so many people. The people who work in the hospitality industry, my dear friend whose husband owns a cafe, and now can't trade on the busiest week of the year. Our favourite restaurant which has valiantly been running a takeaway service and doing everything they can to ride this awfulness through has had to close up completely for now. All the shops, hairdressers, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers who rely on Christmas for their best trade. All the people who were looking forward to being together at Christmas, and now it's been snatched away. I think that's what makes it so bad, bad, no good really awful, terribly horribly bad really. You make a plan, you get things together for it, then poof! Someone makes an announcement and it's all gone, and there's nothing you can do. Not a damn bloody thing. You don't even like to say anything, or at least I don't, because there's millions of people going through much worse. You ask what the hell do I know? My Christmas isn't ruined. No, but I know all right. We work sixteen and even eighteen hour days here. The one time we get away from the computers and the phones and really get to be totally alone and relaxed is when we go to our happy place for just a few days. We were going in may, only you know. Didn't happen. And then we were going in October. Only Caerphilly went into lockdown, so poof! Bang that went too. And what can you do? What can you say? I had Mum in pieces because we'd just lost Dad. how could I complain because I'd just lost my holiday!
What really does get me angry are the people who do complain when they've lost nothing. No one in their family's died. No one's had worse to bear than not being able to do every little thing they want to do. And there they are on Twitter, bitching and moaning, telling us all that Covid is nothing to make a fuss about, that the only people who die are old people and what do they matter anyway, that if you get sick, so what, you get sick, that we should all stop being afraid of a treatable disease and get back to our lives! God, it makes me want to scream! They should see the young doctors who live near my Mum, practically on their knees from lack of sleep. They should hear about the old man who had to wait nineteen hours in an ambulance before he could get a hospital bed because everywhere was full of Covid patients! They should know what it feels like not to be able to get to someone you dearly love's funeral!
It's really easy to aportion blame, and I'm as guilty of it as anyone. I wish our government had acted faster, I wish our prime minister was more decisive. I wish people weren't so selfish, because it affects all of us when they break the rules, and that is what they just don't and won't realize. I often wonder in absolute despair what it's going to take to bring this under control. Will the vaccine subdue it, with this new variant? I hope so, but I don't dare hope too hard. Hope is a thing I've learned it's dangerous to have too much of. I'm just doing what I always do. Living each day for what it is, getting as much out of it as I can, trying to find a little bit of sparkle, even if it's only a tiny bit, and thanking God for the good things in my life. After all, if I have to live in this room for another six months, there are worse fates. I have mr B, and Lixi and the babies. AS long as I have them, I have more than enough.
Take care until next time.
Well, it's been another crazy week, so sorry for my absence, and I'm here, in a rather subdued mood, to catch you up with my life, although this entry is going to be more my thoughts than my doings, which are just the same as always: radio work, videos, crafting, getting ready for Christmas, all the usual things that go on in my gold plated life! . Yes, in spite of what's going on at the moment, I'd still call it a gold plated life.
Well, the big news is that we're back in lockdown. As of midnight, we're in a tier four situation, all non essential shops are shut, we have to stay indoors except for essential shopping and exercise. Thank goodness essential carers are allowed to work, so I won't lose Lixi, for which I humbly thank God. It would be a bleak picture indeed without the sunshine she brings into our lives, as well as all the essential things she does for me.
I feel deeply thankful that, as far as I know at this moment, we will suffer only minor inconveniences. We weren't planning to go anywhere for Christmas, our gift shopping has long been done and our food shopping is always done online, our Christmas order will arrive tomorrow. My Mum has gone to my sister's for Christmas, I don't quite know what will happen, how long she plans to stay there now, but she is safe and not alone at Christmas, which is the main thing I was worried about.
I feel very sad though for so many people. The people who work in the hospitality industry, my dear friend whose husband owns a cafe, and now can't trade on the busiest week of the year. Our favourite restaurant which has valiantly been running a takeaway service and doing everything they can to ride this awfulness through has had to close up completely for now. All the shops, hairdressers, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers who rely on Christmas for their best trade. All the people who were looking forward to being together at Christmas, and now it's been snatched away. I think that's what makes it so bad, bad, no good really awful, terribly horribly bad really. You make a plan, you get things together for it, then poof! Someone makes an announcement and it's all gone, and there's nothing you can do. Not a damn bloody thing. You don't even like to say anything, or at least I don't, because there's millions of people going through much worse. You ask what the hell do I know? My Christmas isn't ruined. No, but I know all right. We work sixteen and even eighteen hour days here. The one time we get away from the computers and the phones and really get to be totally alone and relaxed is when we go to our happy place for just a few days. We were going in may, only you know. Didn't happen. And then we were going in October. Only Caerphilly went into lockdown, so poof! Bang that went too. And what can you do? What can you say? I had Mum in pieces because we'd just lost Dad. how could I complain because I'd just lost my holiday!
What really does get me angry are the people who do complain when they've lost nothing. No one in their family's died. No one's had worse to bear than not being able to do every little thing they want to do. And there they are on Twitter, bitching and moaning, telling us all that Covid is nothing to make a fuss about, that the only people who die are old people and what do they matter anyway, that if you get sick, so what, you get sick, that we should all stop being afraid of a treatable disease and get back to our lives! God, it makes me want to scream! They should see the young doctors who live near my Mum, practically on their knees from lack of sleep. They should hear about the old man who had to wait nineteen hours in an ambulance before he could get a hospital bed because everywhere was full of Covid patients! They should know what it feels like not to be able to get to someone you dearly love's funeral!
It's really easy to aportion blame, and I'm as guilty of it as anyone. I wish our government had acted faster, I wish our prime minister was more decisive. I wish people weren't so selfish, because it affects all of us when they break the rules, and that is what they just don't and won't realize. I often wonder in absolute despair what it's going to take to bring this under control. Will the vaccine subdue it, with this new variant? I hope so, but I don't dare hope too hard. Hope is a thing I've learned it's dangerous to have too much of. I'm just doing what I always do. Living each day for what it is, getting as much out of it as I can, trying to find a little bit of sparkle, even if it's only a tiny bit, and thanking God for the good things in my life. After all, if I have to live in this room for another six months, there are worse fates. I have mr B, and Lixi and the babies. AS long as I have them, I have more than enough.
Take care until next time.