Preface

It’s the first of April 2020 but no one is pranking fools. I’m living in Southern England and we are in the early days of the infamous Coronavirus saga. You, the reader, with the benefit of time, may know the outcome of this pandemic but today, April Fools Day 2020, no one knows what will happen. I’m nearly 77 years old and suffer from COPD, all be it, quite mildly. They say I am in the high-risk category—high risk of developing a fatal case of Covid-19 that is… It is remotely possible that I might be dead in the next few weeks.—If I’m ever going to get my thoughts down on paper, I had better get on with it.

Snippets of this memoir have floated in and out of my head for years. I sometimes write a few paragraphs in my imagination, thinking that one day I will write, not a full auto biography, I haven’t the skill or patience, but at least a few chapters of some of my more interesting memories as my mother did a score of years ago. The uncertainty of continuing life is incessantly voiced by the constant news broadcasts informing us that things are indeed getting worse, and no one knows when they will get better. The world has shut down! Look up at the beautiful fluffy clouds, unmasked by pollution, the clear blue sky above is entirely devoid of jet contrails, chemical or otherwise. The air in our nostrils smells cleaner and sweeter somehow: Gone is the hint of exhaust and diesel fumes. International air travel has all but ceased; trains and busses are on skeleton timetables; cars are only to be used for essential travel.

As of today, our instructions are: Stay Home!!! Only go out to shop for food or medicine or for exercise and then only once a day. You can also go out to work if you absolutely can’t do that from home but, increasingly this is limited to essential work and the definition of what is essential tightens every day.

We are told, at this stage, that we will probably be in lock down for at least two months if not three or … God forbid, six months or longer. The news on TV is rattling around in my head as I write this. It has just been announced that Wimbledon, the famous tennis competition scheduled for late June / August, has been cancelled for this year as has been all sport including Football, Rugby, Motor racing, even (gasp!) the Japanese Olympics which was due to take place this summer. All pubs, festivals, restaurants, swimming pools, gyms and anywhere where people might gather have been shut. No gatherings of more than two people from different households are permitted. This lock down is likely to last many weeks.

Living in an Oxfordshire village as I do, I am fortunate that, for the moment at least, we can still walk our dogs or go out for exercise and we can still interact with our fellow villagers providing it is done from the apparently safe distance, of two meters. We are also fortunate that it is springtime, and the weather is unaffected by Covid. The air is getting warmer, the Daffodils which I planted in September have blossomed glorious yellow by my front wall and the Wisteria, planted three years ago, is finally about to produce flowers for the first time. There is at least something to look forward to … Perhaps…