I’ve always wanted to live through some history-defining moment, some pivotal event that would be talked and written about in history books (Ha! As if there will still be ‘books’) in 100 years time.
This is not what I had in mind.

I cannot in good conscience roll out a platitude about how we are “All in this together” as I sit in this fairly large house with it’s nice garden just a few minutes walk from open fields with hardly another human in sight, as I sip my glass of Malbec, safe in the knowledge that I have money in the bank to feed myself for the foreseeable future.

This is clearly not affecting everyone equally, is it?

The three of us in this house are ok, no one has had any symptoms, yet.
I had a headache for a few days two weeks ago, but that was more likely an extended hangover.
We now have moisturiser by every sink because we are washing our hands so much it’s become an “essential item”.
Some friends and family have not been so lucky. A few have been pretty seriously (hospital) ill, most of those were not tested so we can’t be sure.
No one I know personally has died, yet.
But given the numbers it’s more than likely that at some point the number will get a lot more personal.

I did see people in hazmat suits spraying disinfectant on a building a stones throw from here, so that was nice.

The, on one level heart warming displays of solidarity that are the Thursday night claps for the essential NHS and other workers are tinged slightly darker by looking over and seeing the man who always has the huge “Vote Conservative” banner up in his front garden every election clapping too.
You’ve got a fucking nerve, mate.
As if it wasn’t his vote that helped to put in power a party that has done it’s best to decimate the NHS and is now rapidly trying to white wash over the derogatory “low skilled worker” label it has used for years for so many of what are now deemed “essential workers”.

How many fucking hedge fund wankers do you think we need right now? And how many supermarket workers or hospital porters?
Exactly.

I spent the first few weeks thinking, don’t be petty and make this a party political issue, but the lying disaster capitalist Tory fucktards that run this country have proved (as if it needed reinforcing) that they are inexcusably fucking evil.

NO, not inept or overwhelmed!!

Sociopathically deranged lying excuses for homo sapiens bereft of simple human empathy unless its applied to their, dick in a pigs head, Eton chums and their stock portfolios!

Which incidentally, are all doing rather well thanks to them shorting basically everything and transferring the blood money to offshore accounts so they don’t have to, oh I don’t know, pay any fucking tax on it!

When it’s safe to go out again I hope the first thing the population of this country does is start building guillotines in the market squares up and down this septic isle.

Of course they won’t, there will be a new series of the X-factor by then.

The unseasonably warm, sunny weather and the sky as blue as I’ve ever seen it in the UK, wiped clean of the usual dissipating contrail haze, have made things a little easier.
That and the fact that so much of my life is spent in front of the dual 27” windows to my world that I sit illuminated by as I write this anyway.

I usually wake up early, but my sleep has definitely gotten more sporadic. I often find myself standing in the garden at 5.30 or 6am marvelling at the number and volume of the birds in the devoid of distant car rumble silence.

I’ve been trying to do something creative everyday as, apart from the edit I finished off in the first few days and a 3 hour motion graphics job a week ago my work schedule is tumble weeds rolling away to the horizon and beyond along an abandoned street in glorious slow motion.

I’ve failed most days, there’s only so many flower pictures or pigeon videos you can take, no matter what vintage Russian lens you use, before you loose the will to live.

At least I haven’t started a bloody podcast.

After effects tutorials, YouTube videos, emails from companies I once foolishly gave my email to telling me about their response and would I like 20% off, watching all the Oscar best picture winners since the year I was born in order, zombie first person shooters, THAT Spanish bank robber drama, Jitsi (NOT Zoom for fuck sake, at least pretend you don’t want to live in the panopticon) chats, amateur radio static and daily walks without my phone (untrackable that way) but with a face mask.

Trips to the supermarket, which I used to genuinely enjoy in my search for the best reduced bargains, have become tense, infuriating and scary as despite the clear markings on the floor there seem to be far too many idiots who think the 2m apart rule, observed outside in the queue for the most part, doesn’t apply to them.

I confess I have really lost it on a number of occasions, most recently when a woman walked into me as I was stood still in a wide aisle where there was plenty of room. What the actual fuck is wrong with some people?

My already Satre-ian levels of misanthropy are not being lessened by all this.

There is, on one hand, the unmistakable feeling of community and camaraderie, whilst on the other a deep-seated “are they infected” fear of everyone.

I want to believe the talk of possible (albeit tarnished) silver linings when we eventually come out the other side of this into our changed world.

Talk of a renewed brother (and sister) hood of man, of an actual real will to avert the ecological disaster we are still careening towards, of the realisation that home working for many is not only plausible but preferable, of disinfectant injecting and “we have enough PPE” politicians and all like them being ejected forever from our toxic politics, of the people that do the jobs that hold our societies together being given the respect and wages they have always deserved, of a universal income lifting the weight of wage slavery from the poorest and most forgotten, of a truly brighter tomorrow……

I want to believe it…..

So, yes I get my history defining moment to live through, but I’d trade it all for a simple hug from a good friend and an overpriced pint in a pub in a heartbeat.

To finish this off below are some of the photos and videos I’ve produced over the past month.
(Mostly bloody flowers but, what can you do if you can’t go anywhere and when you do go outside for your regulation once a day there’s almost no-one around?)

There’s more over on my Instagram (I’d appreciate a follow there if you’d be so kind)