I turned the news on this morning in the sincere hope that Boris was getting better, if only so I could start disliking him again. A year ago he was a dangerous duffer driven by narcisissm and hubris to be Prime Minister. His only aspiration when in power was to 'Get Brexit Done' which now seems a rather paltry ambition. This he seemed to think he would achieve by a few Churchillian swaggers and thus jolly his way into history. Tragically he has come against a crisis beyond the abilities of any prime minister and an opponent infinitely more implacable than Michel Barnier. We don't like to think of anyone in intensive care, gasping for oxygen and totally dependent upon under-paid and under-resourced nurses. In short, like us, Boris is learning to accept his vulnerability and dependency.
In a far less dramatic way that's how we felt early this morning when, try as we might, there were simply no delivery slots available for an on-line shop. So we will have to rely again on our more than willing friends and neighbours. Feeling a bit useless, I fancied myself calling across the front wall to passers-by for alms - Please fetch me some stamps, I'm almost 73, you know. Perhaps we'll all end up better people by having to admit to being vulnerable and dependent.
There's lots of advice in the media about how to cope. One is to operate a daily regime. Up at 6.30 - prayer and meditation (a little flagellation optional), breakfast, join streamed aerobics, phone calls, lunch, gardening or housework, pursue worthy hobby, obligatory vigorous walk, evening meal, permitted TV. That's not mine incidentally. I just totter through a rather ramshakle sequence of hours reacting to weather, impulses, moods and orders from on high, round a loose scaffold of morning tea, breakfast, coffee, tea, dinner.
This morning we walked up to the Stand and gazed south across Crich sleeping and beyond, Ripley, Nottingham, Leicester and places where people are dying beyond Fortress Crich. On return we agreed it was too hot to do anything except sit in the garden and contemplate trivial jobs with a paralysing apathy. Deirdre has been far more energectic, dispatching Easter greetings and putting uplifting signs on our noticeboard outside. And I noticed that at least the frogs had been busy, uncharacteristically discreetly this year. Usually they transform the pond into a jacuzzi. Anyway a little blotch of spawn was at least something to show for their rather lethargic efforts, which is more than I have to show for my efforts today.
.