Today has been a pretty standard day. Daily Morning Chi Gong, took Honey for a walk to Kate’s Park, headed up to The Melting Pot, back home and then chilled on the sofa watching a magic lecture.
Covid seems to be rising more and more at the moment across the UK, with record number of cases in 24 hours. The last having that level of cases in the middle of May. This leaves me with the feeling of “here we go again” and feeling resentment to it all. I think it is that feeling of stagnant energy and how I want things to return to normal, even though “normal” may not happen.
I was chatting with Helen a bit about the “empty space” that I talked about on Day 165, but originally came from a comment from Helen back on Day 9. Helen was saying the “will-we/won’t we” limbo of lockdown, reminds her of being on sick leave. Her experiences of being on sick leave seem to mirror the experience of people in lockdown. For Helen, the next step is to do ‘Back-to-Work Training’ for 10 hours a week with the hope of getting back to work again.
She hopes to return to at least 50% of what she did before going on full-time sick leave in December 2018. She says “if there wasn’t any hope of me getting back to work, then I would be putting on some sort of disability retirement“. The key is hope, hope that she can return to work.
But she lives in a constant uncertainty of not knowing what will happen in the future. A state of perpetual limbo.
I think that is a key thing for us all in lockdown – hope. Its harder to have hope when it is being controlled by other people. I am not sure if I have any hope? I don’t have hope that we will return to life as it was pre-covid. I don’t have much hope that we will be “back to normal” next year, more like 2022.
I don’t think I have much hope, which is maybe why I am feeling the way I am feeling.
Do others have hope for the future in regards to Covid?
What do you think?
Face-Mask Corner
Today is Anna from The Melting Pot.
She was pretending to be a bird, as the face-mask has birds on it.
This face-mask is one of The Melting Pot complementary face-masks (they are not all tartan) donated and made by Eco Art.
Thanks Anna 🙂
Readers Corner
Two people in Readers Corner today.
Drew
Think this is Drew’s first official appearance in Readers Corner! You will remember his music appearing on Day 114, although not in ‘Music Corner’ as it didn’t exist back then. Although, did he not appear in Music Corner as well?
Anyway, Drew posted a comment on yesterday’s blog (Day 167) saying:
“I know what you mean about a looming feeling. It just feels like another lockdown is just around the corner, especially when you start to see it getting closer to home again.”.
Thanks Drew! Welcome to Readers Corner 🙂
I didn’t think about that, seeing other areas of Scotland going into lockdown, thinking “it’s only a matter of time until it is us“.
Helen
Helen send me a message saying:
“You mentioned that Brian did that mix tape for you at the turn of the century, but I think you wrote the wrong century!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_of_the_century
Had to Google it to make sure … yep, the “turn of the 20th century” is early 1900s!!”
It Made Me Smile
Someone shared this on their Facebook feed, of the Health in Mind staff playing in a five-a-side tournament 7 years ago today (7th September 2013). You will remember my story about being not good sports on Day 150. This was before I started playing five-a-side with The Melting Pot.
Although this brought back memories, what made me smile, was the unknown story attached to this.
I’d had a kind of cold for a couple of days leading up to this, but nothing serious. But on the Saturday morning of the tournament, I woke up with pains on the tips of my toes and fingers. I looked on my toes and there were red spot type things on them and one or two appearing on my finger tips too.
Unsure what it was, but feeling OK, I decided to head along to the tournament.
At the end of each game, all players would shake hands with the other team. I think we probably played about 4 different teams.
By the end of the day, the red spots had got worst. I looked online and then phoned NHS 24. I was diagnosed with Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease. Which is highly contagious!
What made me smile, as the unknowingly of me probably spreading it across the football teams when shaking their hands!
An interesting fact, about Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease, the final phase of the disease is that all your nails (toe nails and finger nails) fall off. Plus all the skin on your hands and feet come off. It’s as if the body is ridding itself of the disease.
You can imagine, all symptoms had disappeared for a few weeks and I felt I was back to normal. Then one morning I woke up to find many of my nails had fallen off and skin was everywhere. I was terrified 😉
Music Corner
Helen messaged me today with lots about yesterday’s Music Corner (Day 167). But does it come in this section or ‘Readers Corner’? I am putting it in here!
Helen said:
“Another great playlist Jim!
Thanks for digging out all these great tunes from you mix tapes. It was good to hear a different version of Caledonia, because I’m going to be recording myself singing Caledonia in a couple of weeks as part of the “Stay at Home Choir” https://new.stayathomechoir.com/projects/caledonia
I’ve been listening to this choir version almost non-stop for the past couple of weeks already
Thanks for sharing that Helen.
She continued saying:
“Did the original NOOOOOOOO tape have duplicates throughout it too? I guess it was hard to jump in to a favourite tune on a tape , so makes sense to have the best tunes duplicated a few times throughout a mix tape.
I remember getting mix tapes. Such a special thing 
Nowadays I’ve heard of a couple of people getting a special playlist for their birthday. Maybe that’s the modern equivalent of a special, unique and personal mix tape?”.
The original of “NOOOOOOOOO” tape did have duplicates, mainly of the Only Fools and Horses theme tune, but just about 10 seconds of the chorus. It was an in joke. Of course, you can’t just put in 10 seconds of the song on Spotify, hence why it doesn’t seem to fit in.
As I come to the end of this blog, I am left wondering about “hope”. I don’t really have much positive hope for the future in regards to Covid – that surprises me. I guess that is this being in limbo, not knowing what the future holds that destroys the hope for me. The feeling of stagnant energy – nothing is moving forward. We are all just waiting!
It kind of feels that we are now out of lockdown, but in fact, the psychological impact of lockdown is affecting all of us. I think being in full lockdown was so much easier than where we are not.
What do you think?
Today the weather has been reasonably cold (compared to yesterday) with some rain showers.
Thanks for reading.
Jim xx