You are welcome to it.
The bottle of Corona beer that is in my fridge that is. I fear that if the locals get wind that I have a bottle off Virus in my fridge things will kick off.
Turkey can be like that. It is a polarised country. Much of it sophisticated but much of it traditional and superstitious. Where I live in the mountains you get both.
The bottle was left there by my friend. Let us call him Barry as I do not want to broadcast his real name Trevor across social media.
Barry is a plain speaking Yorkshireman. He has a tough exterior forged through a childhood as the son of a hill farmer and hardened by a lifetime running a building company. Underneath those who know him find a heart of gold. I know I will find it one day too.
Barry is a Practical Man and can turn his hand to most things. Recently he turned his hand to cutting his hair. There are no barbers in the Time of Corona. Actually it does not look bad as long as you look at the front. From the back it looks like he took a ferret to it.
In one of the many ironies of these strange times, the New York Metropolitan Opera chose the Barber of Seville to show on Monday. They are streaming an opera every day, available to all and free of charge as their contribution to the crisis. There is now a rich range of Arts offerings free of charge from some of the world’s great names; these include the National Theatre, The Globe, Royal Opera House. Opera is more accessible than a haircut in this Upside Down World
But what of my man, Mehmet the Barber? And all the restaurant and bar owners, gardeners, maintenance teams, masseurs, psychiatrists, marriage guidance councillors and others who serve the tourist and expat locals here? Pity them. Their incomes have all dried up.
Virtually every government is now following the same lockdown trajectory, driving the world’s economies towards a steep cliff. Politicians though are waking up to the unpalatable truth that destroying an economy has a balance sheet too.
We older folk had better get ready to shoulder the burden of isolation and let the rest of the world get on, get ill, get over it and get back to work. Herd immunity or something like it may yet have its day.
We oldies will just have to sharpen our video calling skills until a vaccine comes along.
“No Grandma look up at the camera. No not at the ceiling. Grandma! What have you touched now? You’ve disappeared. Hello! Grandma! Grandma! Bloody hell!!”
Stay busy. Have a structure to your day. The Devil finds work for idle hands.
I have already transformed my Shed from “a bloody shambles” as my wife harshly but succinctly described it into a Temple of Order; now light filters through sparkling windows and coruscates off lines of glass jars containing a myriad, neatly sorted screws and fittings. Tools hang, oiled and rested, in serried row ready for action. Lightly varnished racking houses every sporting accessory a man might have needed before this Time of Corona.
I am getting my house in order, whilst the lovely Special K tends our garden and learns how to weave pine needles in to useful household storage containers.
We know our Duty.
Stay safe