Day One Hundred and Six - Something's Afoot

Today my chiropodist friend visited and did my feet in the garden! And she wouldn't take a penny for it. She said it was a birthday present, bless her. It was wonderful to see her and we talked about everything under the sun including coronavirus. We both think there is something odd about it all. We started going down the conspiracy theory route. We also wondered whether it was a global plot to try and deal with the environment and global warming. Keep people indoors. Stop them travelling. The statistics for CO2 emissions should certainly be improved this year. But I reckon that if that were the case there would be at least one whistleblower? But we both felt that with the recent protests and riots and the mass exodus to the beaches should have seen a spike in infections. But that hasn't happened. Why? And yet there has been a flareup in the city of Leicester. Why? We both decided that we may never ever know the truth about this virus,  it's origins and how it really truly behaves in the long term.

The window cleaner came as well. Peculiar isn't it? I've been in lockdown for weeks I've had hardly any social interaction and then in two days I have two visitors and the window cleaner. Funny -  that buses come along in threes thing really does seem to apply. I expect I shall be solitary now for the foreseeable future.

A change in the weather. Very breezy today and a tad on the chilly side. I am resolutely continuing to wear my summer shorts but I would admit to being a tad cold today. I had considered whether to get all of my Wimbledon gear out. Today should've been day one of the tournament. But I don't think I want to be reminded too much. It makes me feel sad. I think about past years of the tournament. I think about how for so many years I couldn't follow it as devotedly as I would've liked because of my work commitments. And then when I quit teaching and had an office job I had that freedom to not only attend the tournament but to take the whole two weeks off work. I'll never forget the first year I went to Wimbledon. It was the men's quarter-finals. My sister and I had ballot seats on centre court a few rows in the front. We saw Marat Safin and Goran Ivanisevich. We saw Tim Henman and Roger Federer! Lockdown has often meant I go back and think about the past. I think I've said it before the present isn't amounting to all that much. I can't particularly see a future and so I look backwards to when things were good. Wimbledon was one of the good things. It became quite a ritual. For several years we were very lucky in securing ballot tickets.  I would go and stay with my sister. If we had Monday tickets I'd go for the whole weekend. But I'll still remember that very first time. It was such a hot day and we stayed right till the end. By the time we got back to her flat in Paddington we were tired and instead of cooking we had this lovely meal in an Indian restaurant just round the corner to her flat. We sat out on their terrace. If I close my eyes I can still feel that warm, balmy summer air in that curious time on a summer evening as it starts to get dark. Oh, if only I could invent a time machine that would take me back to when things were good. I suppose I'm thinking about that more because of my sister visiting yesterday and Wimbledon, which should be starting today.

But it serves no purpose to become too morose about what's been and gone. I have to be grateful that I did do those things. I have to enjoy and revel in the memories rather than keep wishing I could go back. I suppose that one day this will all be a memory? We'll talk about the days of coronavirus, days of the lockdown. Will children be asking their parents, what did you do during the lockdown mummy and daddy? But I wonder if things have changed irrevocably. Only time will tell.