Saturday 14th March 2020
Cancelled.
Forced myself to get up at 8am on a Saturday morning to take Non-Sick Sprog to football training, only to be trapped at the gateway to the F.C. grounds, by a car attempting to reverse back into the road (back into my precious DD (Daredevil Dacia)). This should have been the warning sign, but no, undaunted, I dodged the retreating traffic and pelted on up the driveway and parked up. At which point, Sprog pointed out that the playing field was devoid of life (okay, so I’m not counting the grass and the worms).
Football training cancelled.
At least I made my exit the correct way, thinking it wise to turn around and use my forward gears rather than the reverse. Some people! Other mothers – what a strange breed! Only this mother can boast of perfection.
The world is changing. Reckon I was ahead of the game, with regard to my recent voluntary redundancy. With Coronavirus on the rampage, soon, I’ll be one of many millions of mothers confined to the home. How herstory repeats itself – the adjective of ‘voluntary’ is about to be wiped out!
I return, complete with Non-Sick Sprog (of course) to our home-isolation unit and enter the domain of the Sick.
Middle Sprog (the Sick One) is still coughing away, but is being the model patient – his only requirement being a regular delivery of Cheerios!
‘Mum!’ comes the call.
‘Yes!’
‘I’m fed up of Cheerios! Is that box of Cocoa Pops I saw hidden in your study being kept for our isolation? Or can I have Cocoa Pops today?’
We are in isolation. Sick Sprog is awaiting the results of a Coronavirus test and, for the rest of us, all social events have been cancelled. I open the box of Cocoa Pops.
Sick Sprog is happy.
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Couldn’t believe it. I’d just completed yesterday’s diary entry and settled down on my disinfected settee for my afternoon nap (lots of sleep will stave off the virus, won’t it?), when I got the call. Usually, I ignore the phone ringing, but in present circumstances what alternative did I have but to answer it?
‘Are you the parent or guardian of Sick Sprog?’
‘Yes, I think so!’
‘Can you bring him to Freshmarket Hospital now for his Coronavirus test?’
‘Freshmarket?’
‘Yes, Freshmarket!’
‘Err, well. That’s quite a long way from here! (And I’ll likely catch his virus, if I’m cooped up in my Dacia with him!) Might take me a while. Let me Google it. It’s going to take 50 minutes.’
The reality was quite different. It took me an hour and a half, the last half hour being spent driving round in large circles, looking for the Hospital Entrance. And the other extra ten minutes, spent driving round in smaller circles, within the said Hospital grounds looking for a drive-through pagoda.
On finding the pagoda, I found it unmanned. Well, I guess I did arrive rather later than predicted. As I parked up and tried to work out a plan of action, I got the fright of my life. Looking over towards a distant doorway, I saw some alien-monster thing from an episode of Star Trek. It registered the invasive presence of DD, donned a visor, and emerged from its spaceship, with cotton bud in hand.
How come the nurse got to wear fancy dress? I was the one who’d been trapped in a car with an infectious sprog coughing everywhere! Really?
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Sick Sprog is happy. (Can’t hear him coughing from down here!)
And I’m happy.
Hubby has just delivered my brunch: eggs and beans on toast. Hope he isn’t infected. (Noticed an empty bumper-sized box of Lemsips in the recycling bin earlier! Is Hubby hiding something?) I decide to leave the Coronavirus-symptom interrogation until after I’ve eaten said brunch.
Delicious.
‘Hubby, why have you consumed 10 sachets of Lemsips in the last week? Are you ill?’
‘I’m always ill! Wake up every morning with a headache,’ he says.
This is probably a plea for man-flu sympathy, but then I recall how many times he went out with his workmates for a pint (or two) last week, and all semblance of sympathy vanishes.
Ill indeed!
May as well make use of my time in forced isolation. Take up a new hobby, advises the BBC. I continue with the old …
Ancestry.com!
I get to work. Must be another line of my family tree that I can take back to my Lots-of-Great-Grandfather-via-many-lines-of-my-tree William the Conqueror, surely? And did one of my own, old Will, really murder that many Brits?
‘As the British death toll rises, airlines cancel flights to mainland Europe!’ announces an inappropriately-excitable voice (probably an undercover French spy) from the BBC News.
Is old Will back?
He’s here. Somehow, Great-Something-Grandfather, obtained the last one-way airline ticket from Normandy to Heathrow, and is here – ready to take back his own, ready to reclaim his land and properties from this undeserving fruit of his loins. And, this time, there’s nowhere to flee to. All exits blocked …..
Written in haste, by The Silly-Savvy Salopian
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Image by Capri23auto from Pixabay
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