A Downer

Welcome to the Lockdown Hoedown folks!!

That’s the party for the end of lockdown. We have had Meltdown (from Africa) so we are now on Countdown (to May 27th) when lockdown for over 65s is tipped to end. Except it is looking like Letdown as it would appear that it is not going to end on Wednesday.

A Government Spokesman recently confirmed that “Over 65s will be allowed out on 27^th May but only to return to their home town. Transport by donkey alone will be permitted and applicants must be accompanied by an escort of at least six young people waving a red flag. On reaching the home town the aged person will be expected to self isolate for six months.”

Not so much a countdown as a balls-up.

Lesson One: giving freedom back is harder than taking it away. Is that because freedom is complicated?

Life has certainly become cheaper and simpler in this Time of Corona.

Yes indeed, the anti virus policy Life at Home (Evde Hayat Var) has brought some interesting changes; gone are all the Facebook posts of large groups of people, some of whom you vaguely know, sitting around a restaurant table, grinning tipsily and tilting full glasses at the camera. Gone the “everybody else is having a better time than me” anxiety that such constant online posturing provokes. Gone too the 46 pictures of someone’s party that you have not been invited to (“and we bloody well invited them to ours!”).  Gone to the scrolls of “best night ever” “great evening”, Smiley Face, Like, Heart, Champagne Glass emoji etc.

Nowadays just the occasional picture of a lonely glass of Efes balanced on a balcony captioned unconvincingly “time for a cheeky one. A bit early I know” with a couple of  “Just thinking the same” type comments accompany.  

It will all be back with a vengeance, of course.

I know the Special and I are in a very privileged position but I have to say that there are many aspects of this confinement whose passing I shall regret.

Even my friend Builder Baz is wont to opine that “we will look back on this as a very special time.”

I was only reflecting on his words this Saturday evening past

It was that gentle time of evening when the dusk softens the light. Orange, red, pink and purples streak the horizon in gentle competition. The mountains turn into soft grey silhouettes. The whole country was on day one of a four day lockdown to limit any end of Ramazan festivities. En plus the electricity system is down. Nothing hums, buzzes or whirs. The silence is intense.

The Special has taken up pine needle weaving again. Her fingers have fully recovered from her earlier allergic reaction. A woven trinket bowl, one of a nested set of five, is gradually taking shape under her deft fingers. I am tapping the dottle from my favourite meerschaum and stuffing it fondly with a bowlful of Trevelyen of Picadilly’s No 3 ready rubbed rough shag.

A deep sonorous tick from the longcase clock in the corner beats a timeless rhythm, or it would if we had one, but you get the picture. A deep peace has settled on Leto Towers.

I exhale a gentle cloud of aromatic smoke filling the air with its mellow fragrance and let out that long sigh of contentment that a good shag always brings (What???).

My Differently Gendered Other looks up suddenly, inadvertently stabbing herself with a particularly vicious pine needle.

“Ouch! Ten kuruş for your thoughts my Domestic Adonis”.

“I was just reflecting on how peaceful and productive retreating from the world for a couple of months has been. Now we shall see the return of FOMO.”

“Remind me, My Piece of Manly Perfection.”

“Fear of Missing Out mon ange. That feeling, aggravated by the social media bubble, that Life is a party that you have not been invited to.”

“I suspect that FOMO will be replaced by FOGO, Fear of Going Out”

I nearly choked on my Meerschaum. How I laughed!

“Or FOWL, for the furloughed but happy, ” the Goddess of the Pine Needle added, on a roll now, “Fear of Working Life.”

“What about FUCK” I riposted “for those ‘guided by the Science’, Fear of Uninformed Corona Knowledge”

“Or SOD IT, Sick Of Donald’s Imbecile Tirades!”

And so we went on until the wooden stairs summoned.

To combat all this FEAR, what we all need is a dose of free and rational thought. Yes, a good FART.

Or as the Americans, with that vigour they bring to the English language, might put it “Blow it out your ass!”

Have a nice holiday confident in the knowlege that you are not – for now – missing out on anything

Iyi Bayramlar