It's had a big effect on everyone. People are at home and only allowed out once a day for exercise, or to visit the shops to get essential supplies.
The impact on my family has been profound. My sons are furloughed, my daughters are teachers and are doing what they can, but it is nothing like their previous roles.
Fortunate
The first thing to recognise is that however badly we've been affected in this country, we are incredibly fortunate really. We have the space to 'social distance', many societies do not. We have a good set of supply chains, and although there are odd shortages, food is still readily available. We have some guaranteed income, many countries do not.My new routine
For me, the change is relatively small. I no longer commute, I can easily work from home. A new routine is developing. I'm still working 3 days a week. So, Monday to Wednesday I work from home and avoid the commute. I can get up a little later because of that. On Tuesday's I travel to the office in the day time to change a backup disk. The journey is really easy, there is almost no one on the road. In the evening I go for a walk, I'm trying to do three miles a day. On Monday evening there is a Zoom video call for Forging Men, on Wednesdays there is Pray Together to prepare and take part in.On Thursday to Saturday, I am usually putting videos together for the service on Sunday. It is a long slow painstaking task, but it makes the time fly so I do not miss my days out so much. On these days I do slightly longer walks sometimes 4-5 miles. I suppose it's good for me, but it is more necessary because editing videos is tedious and I need a literal change of scenery after editing for a number of hours.
Return to Normal
The media are starting to talk about returning to normal. I don't think there is a normal to return to. The impact of these sudden changes will take at least a decade to work through, and we have bigger crises to face too. The nature of things will change. Here are some thoughts, and some hopes.Health Service
Maybe, for once, we will get a proper grown-up debate about what parts of our our health service are fully funded and how much that is going to cost. Perhaps we can get past the party political approaches and get the social care issues sorted out too.Nature of Money
This is the biggest one for me. The 'hit' to the economy is significantly worse than anything anyone has ever seen. We cannot simple bounce back - partly because that would cause the virus to spread wildly again. Government debt will be the biggest item to deal with, as it was after WWII. I sense however that some of the ideas floatingb around might just be given a try. Universal basic income is the main one. What would we ask of people? Would they have to be available for work if needed - say to pick fruit in season? Or would they effectively be paid to do nothing and consume much less than they do now - as a way of helping with climate change?Things seen in Lockdown
There are some things that I have seen in lockdown, that I wouldn't normally see:
- A badger in the street (I haven't seen that for about 30 years)
- A cat with a small snake in its mouth (slowworm?) walking down the path
- A squirrel retrieving a coffee cup from a covered waste bin
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