Tuesday, March 17, 2020

NOT SO SELF-ISOLATED

I'm fine. Taking self-isolation regularly and always with a large pinch of philosophical salt. What is 'self'? What is 'isolation'? What is salt?

Today I had a hospital appoinment arranged by a wondrous Staff Nurse in the ever more blessed NHS for blood test and ECG and knee x-ray, all needed before hip replacement which now won't happen before 3 or 4 months but anyway, good time to go for tests, quite fun really, bus deserted, streets not crowded, hospital nearly empty, quiet and super-clean with signs everywhere about washing hands etc. Didn't have to wait at all, everybody so friendly, amazed that I don't look my ancientness and am so fit (apart from joints). What could be better than flattery from medical persons who have no reason to flatter you? You can be sure it's bona fide. 

Went for hot chocolate and muffin at Starbucks afterwards, paper cup and paper bag, washed hands first (little bottle of sanitiser goes ieverywheree). Usual crowds and noise absent. Nice.

But of course it's not normal therefore not nice at all. I wish everyone well.

2 comments:

Roderick Robinson said...

I'd say "regularly" should be "continuously" but who am I to preach? I sneak out and acquire The Guardian from the nearby filling station and have managed to justify this by recommending a novel use for one of the filling station's lesser-known features. Since you do not drive I may have to elaborate.

Filling stations that stay open round-the-clock are vulnerable to men with GBH tendencies. Thus the doors are locked at night and payment for fuel is made via a sort of sliding drawer system similiar in principle though not in detail to those operating at some post offices.

The staff agreed this was a good idea but it was never employed. Instead black tape on the floor marks out the acceptable anti-infection frontier. To show I'm a good guy I stretch out exaggeratedly when handing over the payment voucher (It helps the publisher's cash flow) and The Guardian itself (which needs its bar-code scanned). So important to be seen doing the right thing. Enough. I'm becoming a bore.

Reading The Guardian online is just not the same.

Natalie d'Arbeloff said...

True, I don't have a car and don't drive anyway so I'm free from many tortuous car-related machinations. However this corona crisis makes us aware of so many surfaces we normally come in contact with, suddenly becoming potentially lethal. A newspaper: how many hands will have touched it before your hands take hold of it? Do you sometimes lick a finger to turn pages which cling together? Loose apples, bananas, oranges at the greengrocers: how many times will they have been handled by the time you pick one up? It's amine field.