Coming up for air – but who will arise?

SOON we shall be coming out of lockdown. Not completely, not quickly and certainly not yet. But soon.

It is now 40 days since we entered this state on March 23. It was two weeks too late by most reckoning and this may have caused an extra 6-7,000 deaths. But who knows and can we ever know? Testing, tracing - all have been too chaotic to help.

Six weeks is the length of the school summer holidays and never seemed long enough when I was at school. Then I had children and it seemed way too long. Then they grew up and it seemed way too short. Then I retired and I could not care less.

Today six weeks feels like an eternity. No social contact. No meeting the kids. No coffee shops. No lazy lunches. No slow pints in a pub. Not even, for me, any shopping since I am being 'shielded'. I yearn...

TODAY we broke ranks. We drove to an old favourite cafe in a barn now operating as the village supermarket. My friend Lynn, who runs my wife's favourite top shop, is a resourceful lady. The village post office always stocked bits and bobs; the cafe is a fine haunt for great espresso, cakes and lunches. But under her care it is all now a super market, delivering to the door too.

Then we pootled on to Brooks nature reserve and enjoyed birdsong and woodland. Then home having broken the rules driving further than we walked!

Oh bliss it would be to have trundled into a restaurant and settled down to a lunch.

But soon ,we are told things, will begin to start again. But will they? Really?

HOW will it go then? First tentative step is the return of manufacturing where it is possible. Then the opening of some shops where social distancing can be managed. So queues full of holes and aisles empty of shoppers.

Streets full of people wide apart or wearing face masks or both. They will still be 'chouting' as we call it now – having a chat by shouting across the gap.

But streets full too of many gaps where businesses have gone bust. And where pubs and cafes are still locked down, too cosy and chatty for safety in the age of coronavirus. Will they survive? Who really knows. I personally expect 50% never to be seen again until replaced late this decade.

Deliveries will continue to prosper. There will be so little fun in shopping this new way that most will surely choose to continue with the on line shop, however annoying the NA gaps and substitutes will prove to be.

School will start too, but how do we protect the staff from all those little bundles of coronavirus that exhibit no symptoms. No warning signs? How beyond finding a sudden cache of PPE to protect the teachers and assistants.

AND I want to travel again. But will that be possible? Will we risk allowing trains and planes and ferries to run again? Will anyone want us over there? And what will it all cost? With insurance likely to soar, ticket prices ramped to cover social distancing rules and accommodation needing a surcharge for the deep cleaning.

BUT when will we be allowed anyway? By we I mean we of the ancient and furry brigade. Many also chronically afflicted in so many ways. For me it may not come in my breathing time. 76, recovered cancer but still a severe COPD patient. And my carer goes down the same road. Poor thing.

When will we get to see the green hills of the Dordogne again, or the white lime of Provence or the parched hills of Andalucia again? Ever?