What shocks me most at the moment is the discrepancy between the awful National News and a walk out onto the local hills and through the woods on a sunny winter afternoon.It was only when we turned to cross a field, claggy in mud and muck that we had any hardship to endure.Otherwise the sky remained a cloudless blue and yesterday we found our first
snowdrops. I only hope that some of our NHS staff will see snowdrops in the banks or the hospital borders on their way to work. That’s the sort of Epiphany they need. Sadly death and infection figures have today again been trotted out with much the same numbness as the FTSE 100 Index or sterling exchange rate.
Today the decorations have come down and our rooms have that desolate abandoned appearance that marks the occasion. The outside lights have been removed, though, despite superstitions to the contrary, we’ve decided to leave a few up in the tree to cheer us up as darkness once again gobbles its way up The Common. The Christmas sweaters have disappeared into the wash basket and we may now wear something with more gravitas as befits our age and station.
Lockdown provides us with more opportunity to pause in front of the mirror and track our steady and remorseless crumbling into age and gravitas. Time now, to keep an inventory of wrinkles, saggy bits and blotches, to measure them and record them on the Edexcel spreadsheet. Time to lament that despite the ample application of potions, lubricants, vitamins, elixirs, tonics, detoxicants, supplements, unguents and moisturisers, age is continuing to erode what I once fancied was my fine frame. It would be reassuring to learn that I was never regarded as having a fine frame in which case age is not wreaking its havoc at the speed I feared. Maybe I didn’t start using moisturising cream early enough – it took Dove to sponsor the Six Nations Rugby Championship to make such self maintenance respectable for finely framed men.
Maybe this is what lockdown and its predecessors is doing to us by distancing us from our exercise classes, our social networks and a large Boots where we can wander round and pick up random bottles to try. Lockdown reduces choice and so reduces our mental capacity to make choices. In the shower the other day, instead of the traditional broad choice of conditioners there was just one solitary tube of something purple. Great was my panic when I saw what I had used – it’s bad enough to be aging but to join the legions of purple tinted lady National Trust groupies and bridge players was never part of my life-style plan.
Thankfully, however disgraceful and eccentric my appearance becomes I am surrounded by contemporaries in the same state of decline. This is clearly marked by the hirsute deterioration of those who failed to get to the hairdressers before lockdown. These are those who were trampled underfoot in the stampede, bullying, imploring and bribing that took place before Christmas. People I knew as smartly shorn gentlemen are now shaggily bearded, or with Crippin moustaches or pony tails and Crich seems to be hosting a convention of Old Testament prophets. We’re in danger of heading towards the human equivalent of being well passed the use-by-date on the jar.
Normally, when the decorations come down we look ahead. We want to redecorate, refurbish and renovate the house, buy new clothes and book holidays. We used to spring clean – remove the vestiges of winter and look forward to a more hygienic and a fresher spring. This year for us the scale of ambition has been limited to identifying and disposing of out-of-date food items. The most significant was 2017 vintage mincemeat – which seemed alright to me, with its strong fermenting smell and slightly grizzled growth on the top,in fact not unlike we aging and neglected looking old men. The mincemeat was closely followed by such staples as Besciamella and chestnut puree. Anyway, their demise will leave room on the shelf for the tins of baked beans and frankfurters I bought by mistake because my mask had misted up my glasses.
Tomorrow I will take the church’s 10 foot Christmas tree down to Wessington to feed the alpacas, who apparently don’t check the use-by-dates.
JANUARY -THIS MOST MOIST MONTH
January, when mud skies drip on days oozing together
And weekends are featureless between Strictly and the Six Nations.
When raw rooks crackle against the grizzled dawn
And putrid light slouches into evening.
Days profitably spent at words or music composing,
Or rather decomposing,
Anxiously supposing
That the dry skin crumbling
To the floor is the last flake,
Like a clapped out snake
Who’s had enough
For one last slough.
But now Dove is sponsoring the Six Nations.
It’s OK to consider re-hydrations,
That it’s not wimpy for the toughest guys
To squeeze a bottle and moisturise.
And there they go,
The second row,
Garnier bodies
Intensive 7 days fast absorbing.
Try tackling two massive thrashing thighs
That have been ultra replenished with shea butter.