Archive of Our Own ^beta

Where to start?
March the 10th is as good a place as any. We meet at yours, and we cook supper together. Then we head off for a stroll, and a couple of drinks, as is our habit. An early night is promised, and accepted.
Next morning lying there- snuggled up together- we discuss my going home to Ireland, for the celebration of St Patrick’s day. Nothing unusual there. I always take time off at this time of year. The only thing that is niggling at us… We have tickets to see Evanescence in Brussels, on the 4th of April. That looks like it may not go ahead. Your Christmas present to me.

The first confirmed death from Covid-19, in Belgium, is on the 11th of March.
I head off home on Friday the 13th. We chat on the phone, while I am at the airport. I tell you I will be back, teasing, and annoying you, before you know it. That’s a lie! But we don’t know it yet.

I am home by 3pm. My original plan is - calling to visit my best friend, and seeing her little lad. I have not seen them since Christmas, but, as the time nears, we decide it is best to skip it - this trip. I am coming from the area in Belgium, that has the highest outbreak in the country. To clarify - Flanders is the most densely populated province. Sitting on the bus, as it cruised along the motorway, I get my ear chewed on the phone by my sister. How dare I come home! In the middle of a pandemic! Putting every one at risk! It is a decision taken by me and my parents earlier in the week. Come home. If this situation gets worse - who knows when we will see each other again.

Belgium announce a partial lockdown that afternoon.

Back in Galway, there are pints. Pinteens in the local. Guinness, of course. Not much to look at - our local - but the Guinness is a wee bit legendary there. And the sing songs! There are no songs that night. Not many in. Even Dad’s best friend is not there, which we remark upon.
On Sunday, the 14th, the Irish government announce a partial lockdown, with all pubs and restaurants closing, at midnight that Sunday night. Belgium announce a full lockdown on the 17th of March, coming into effect next day.
I check up on travel restrictions, and head back, on Thursday the 19th, as planned. I check in with work, and, with the municipal council. Since I have no symptoms, there is no need to quarantine. From work, I hear we are working from home, unless necessary.

Lockdown:
All non essential services close. Supermarkets, pharmacists, fuel providers remain open. Agricultural supplies remain open. The Institute I work for, is partially open. The borders here are “open”. There is no ban on essential travel into the country, but a ban on non essential travel out. The Dutch decide the same.
This will last until the 5th of April. That’s a lie too!

You live approximately 45 minutes away depending on traffic. It takes you 10 minutes longer on average, because, that’s how you roll, honey. Me! Choose a USB stick. Pop it in the stereo port. And move!! Flanders to Zeeland. Vvroom! It may as well be 4 hours away now, or 40. There is an actual land border between the Netherlands and Belgium since 1831. It has not mattered most of the time. People cross over and back, each day, to work, and to visit relatives - and lovers. It matters now!
We chat each day, when we have time, and a longer talk each evening. You have a cheesy idea that’s just wonderful. We put our phones on speaker, and we have our supper at the same time. Talk while we eat. A drink with it some evenings.
Before the next announcement, we both know, that no border will be reopening, anywhere, across Europe.
Governments decide mid April at the earliest. We both acknowledge it will be May at the earliest.

I am doing a mix, of working from home, with the odd day in the lab. I privately tell you, that it is a waste of time, what we are doing. Then one Friday I find out exactly why we are still open.

The Mission: Impossible, E-mail.

Your mission; should you chose to accept - is this. Set up the lab for two bacteriologists. Clean the lab down each day. The catch. No outside movement apart from the work. Two weeks quarantine afterwards. I’m not married. No kids. My family are safely tucked away in the west of Ireland. I’m healthy. I agree.

**** I am not an epidemiologist. I do not have a background in Biology. My forte is Physics, and Chemistry. But I am available. I know how to set up a lab, and, deep clean afterwards.

Everyone is looking for a cure for Covid-19.
A drug developed, to cure the Sars1 virus, back in the early part of this century. It did not work then. It does not work now.
We begin on the 30th of March. We finish on the 7th of April.
I destroy one lab coat, and three perfectly good pairs of jeans. Bras, knickers, socks. Five T shirts. Bleach has no mercy for them.
The lab we are working in has a side office, which I convert into a kitchen. Microwave, kettle, fridge. A toaster, that is never used. A unit that runs our clothes through UV light, that kills any virus that may be on our clothes. That gets used. Oh!! Does it ever!!
I undress each evening after cleaning down the whole area. Shower while my clothes run through the UV light.
I have a check-list. It is one I wrote down, on the morning we began. I run through it each evening, step by step, mentally, before I leave for home. Then I begin another check-list.
The doors handles of my apartment block gleam. The elevator buttons. The railings on the stairs glisten. I’m constantly wiping down surfaces. The car. The apartment.
Once home, I strip. Put my clothes on the floor of the shower.
I have a mix of bleach, hydrogen peroxide and ethanol I pour over them. I walk it into my clothes, as I scrub myself. I have a jet black T shirt, that, after three days, has a pattern like a Friesian cow, jeans like the flag of Argentina. The peroxide keeps my hair blonde-ish, even though it makes it very dry, and brittle. Oh well! The white lab coat does not survive either. Nothing does.
On the 7th of April, my last task is to incinerate my clothes, and the clothes of my two co-workers. We don’t shake hands. We do not promise to meet up for a drink “when this is all over”. It is with a sense of disappointment we part. A waste of time. A good press release, by a business - originally - and maybe some development money gained. Not a cure. Not even a useful aid.

The night before a Televangelist on U.S, telly, blew the Wind of God on the virus. “You are destroyed forever, and you will never be back”. That didn’t work either. Took two weeks to find out as normal.

123. One hundred and twenty three people die on the 1st of April, and the death rate and infection rate increases rapidly peaking at 496, four hundred and ninety six deaths on the 10th of the month.

Quarantine.
Self Isolation. I send a text to me Mam, every day, and let her know I feel well. I do not check my temperature until the beginning of the second week. Normal. No symptoms.
I read - how in Brussels - people are ringing up local Radio Stations, complaining about an unusual odour, pervading their nostrils. Traffic is non existent. So there are no NO2 (Nitrogen Dioxide) gases in the air, which means that the smell of slurry, and farmyard manure - being spread by farmers - is drifting along in the prevailing wind. Good, honest cowshit!!
I am in a book group. On the night of my birthday, I watch the screen, as one girl puts the group into complete meltdown. Domino effect. Takes a couple of weeks before it comes right again.
I’ve a group chat running with my two best friends. We start doing Dingbats quizzes.
I’ve a Kik friend in India who tells me about her day. And shows me the sights - if she goes for a drive. She is terrific to me, and I don’t know if she realises, how important it is, telling me these stories of normality.
You call each morning. Each time you go on your break. In the evening. Not at bedtime. Too difficult. The texts at bedtime are fun though. Teasing. Private.

At 6am on the 23rd of April, I am out walking. Around and around within the allowed 3km distance. I have a permit - E-mailed over from the municipal council - that allows me to do some tidying up,and weeding flower beds in the park near me. I’d helped to rejuvenate it in the Spring of 2019.
Out in the open air.
Freedom!

May 1st
109. One Hundred and Nine people die today from Covid-19.The daily toll has fallen from a peak of almost 500. Five Hundred. Currently 7,700, Seven Thousand, and Seven Hundred people have died here since March!
The BBC, show a graph on television, of the U.S. President showing deaths from Covid-19 by head of population. We are at the top. It’s used for self praise. “I am doing such a great job”! And the Beeb decide it makes Britain look good too.
I am no expert. But as a comment: No government locked down immediately after the very first death. Dammit, South Korea never locked down at all. But they did lots of other things that worked.
Ireland did the same as here. Lockdown. Masks. Hand sanitizer. Being a small island helps. My aunt, is now over her fear of going to work each day as an ICU nurse. Me Mam. Her complaints are: She misses having her grandkids, in and out, of the house each day, and, only being able to talk to them now from a safe distance. AND!!!! Dad being under her feet all the time. 47 years married. First time she has ever said she is seeing too much of him.

The government here begin to talk about some reopening, so finally it appears we are recovering, and a small sense of normality returning. I relax a little. I do not change my routine. But the pandemic is less at the forefront of my mind the whole time. I am looking forward to at least the swimming pools reopening. I bike to work, the days I am needed on site. It’s fine not seeing so much traffic, but at times, returning in the evenings - it’s eerie - so few people are out and about. This is a social city. Normal to see parents - or grandparents - out for a stroll with children on a warm spring evening. People strolling or sitting together. Having their social time. Bread for the pigeons in the parks, or the ducks in the canals.
This is my home since 2017. Vibrant bars. Well organised festivals. Lovely architectural buildings, and quirky street art. How to get something done… Affix a poster, or, a note in the windows of the local shops, with mobile numbers in strips, at the bottom. How to meet really good people - in a setting - outside of bars and clubs. Pull off one of the numbers. Dial it, and say you are available. How I got to know people a year ago. The park from earlier.
Now things are going to open up some more. We can move about more freely. Gillienne and her friends, - who I’ve been doing the shopping for - can go and do their normal excursion themselves togetyher soon.
Quarantine: My head of Dept. found he had to go to 4 apartments. Collect 4 sets of bags, 4 shopping lists, 4 debit/credit cards. Then there were 4 different washing powders etcetera, etcetera. He never complained. Star!!!! He really is!!!!

There is one spike, but the death rate, AND infection rate steadily drop.
I read the news online, on Friday the 15th. Gyms will reopen. Swimming pools won’t open just yet. A household can have 4 visitors. The border will not reopen at this time. Non essential shops reopen. Some other considerations that I care nothing about. All happening on Monday 18th of May 2020.
The border will not reopen at this time. That’s it. Simple. There are a few lines explaining why, but I do not need to read them, nor do I read any more about it. I tend to speed read the news anyway. I take in what I deem useful, or of interest.
The border will not reopen at this time. We have our supper with phones that evening. Nothing that can be done by us really. Hugs to me, have always been as precious as oxygen. I crave them. But they will have to wait. A need to be held. To be hugged. It is not essential travel. With Government edicts, they do their best for the population, but emotion is omitted. For a very good reason.
The UK has a mask mandate, but if you feel stifled inside it, or you feel repressed, you are “absolved” from wearing one. Brazil are calling mask wearers sissies as the death toll rises. The U.S.A……. Nevermind.

On Saturday, I go for a bike ride around the prescribed limits. Next week I will be able to go further.
Wednesday I can go shopping for undies, socks and jeans. Clothes shopping!!! My way. Go to the Jeans rack. Pick the size. Go to the sweater section. Same. T shirt section. Same. Socks. Black. M for medium or 38. Knicks. Same. Fifteen minutes max. Pay by card. Gone!

There is a total babe in the book group from Finland. Dark sense of humour - like mine. Saturday evening I ask for some Finnish Death Metal recommendations. You Tube here we go!!! Spin the tracks to the blue-tooth speaker and later to blue-tooth Headphones. Technology and Wi-Fi.
We talk for ages this Saturday evening - me and you. We are both stoic and realistic about the situation. We aim for the 1st of July. Let’s not go by anyone but us two. The 1st of July is a date. Carved in our brains. Cheeky text message at bedtime. And replied to.

Quarantine: You do not have to be having fun, to have alcohol.

The border will not reopen at this time.

I’m listening to Death Metal, and drinking alone. On a Saturday night. At home.
Then I switch over to a playlist I have been making since March.
Happy songs….. Meh!

Kaleo. Broken bones.
Dorothy. Black Tar and Nicotine.
Hothouse Flowers. Hallelujah.
Staind. Everything Changes (acoustic).
Primitive Radio Gods. Standing Outside a Broken Phone Box.
Airborne Toxic Event. The Kids are Ready to Die.
Meatloaf. Objects in the Rear View Mirror.
Staind. Epiphany.
Airborne Toxic Event. All at Once.
Tom Robinson. Still Loving You.
Dorothy. Flawless.
Evanessence. My Immortal.

My Immortal breaks me.

The border will not reopen at this time.
Clang!! The border is not just a line on the map. It’s a sky high invisible barrier. It’s out there in the beyond. A wall between Belgium and Holland.
Clang!! It’s a 3km line around my flat. Clang!! It’s at the door of my flat after dark because there is Curfew. Clang!!
Someone has opened the gate at the border. But it’s just to ensure it is securely locked. Then slammed it shut!
Clang!!
The 3km line. Clang!!
The outer door of the apartment block. Clang!!

Clang!! The phone buzzes as the book group chat continues. I think about leaving the group, or just smashing the stupid phone off the wall. My only form of communication to you. And home…. I turn it off.
Clang!! I’m gonna smash my favourite beer glass in the corner between the two windows. Aim right for the corner. Aim for the painting of the hens and rooster my friend painted, and gave to me, just before I moved here.
Clang!! I don’t. Paint shops are not open yet. I’m so anal! I won’t even bloody smash something.
Clang!! The world becomes me sobbing at my table in the wee hours of Saturday night, Sunday morning.
Clang!! I rip the thong I wore that day to shreds sitting on the side of the bed. How asinine is that. The only thing I can destroy is a little strip of polyester. To vent my frustration. My longing to see you. My wanting to just live!
My….. Loneliness. (It’s 3rd of January now, as I write about the event. It’s the first time I’ve admitted that. Loneliness. Isolation. I’m glad now I did not admit to it back then, even to myself).
Clang!!! I have a mini meltdown, just for myself.
Sunday morning, I wash my face, and address my red, puffy eyes, as best I can. I tidy up bottles, and the detritus from the night before. I begin to clean the flat. You ring. The earliest you have ever called me. You’ve had a bad night too. We both take some solace from the fact that we were not alone in our emotions. Some….

On Monday evening I take the long way home. Biking along by the canals, and throwing bread to the ducks and swans there. Why I have not done it sooner, is beyond me. Just with what was going on in the world, I forgot.
I have two friends here - a couple - who are also Irish. On Thursday evening they came for dinner. The 21st of May is the first time I have people in my flat since Friday 6th of March. It is the first time I have cooked for anyone, other than myself, since I returned from Ireland. In different times we’ve cracked open beers. and had whiskies after dinner. They usually stay over. This night. A drink before dinner. Tea and whiskey cake after. Then they leave to return to their own safe haven. That is the social high point of May 2020.

June
17. Seventeen people died from Covid-19 related symptoms on the 3rd of June. That day the Belgian Government announce more relaxations. The first wave is over. Bars and restaurants are to open on the 8th. Travel will be less restricted. We can now have 10 contacts. The border will reopen on the 15th if this trend continues. Finally! This will become true. Swimming pools will not reopen at this time but the seaside does.
Plans! Plans!
I have a table booked for three, on the evening of the 8th. The weather is glorious, so it is outside in the beer garden.
On Monday morning, I drive! Ghent, to Brugges, to Ostend and along the coast to Bredene aan Zee. 5am. Swimming costume under my coat. I am not the first there. As I pull in, there are three other cars. I spot a family walking along the beach. A few heads bob in the water. I slip off my coat and sandals and walk into the North Sea.
Hallelujah!!!!!
The water is cold. There is a wonderful buoyancy to swimming in salt water. Yes, there are currents, but I know this area well. I swim out, and to the right, and let the current carry me back in. Bliss. I repeat it three times. Letting myself be carried back to shore, on my back in the early bright sunlight. Dawn was at 4.15 approximately that morning. Walk along the shore to my coat. Wade back in. I am tired on the third attempt. I have not swam since the start of March. So my muscles are out of tune. It’s alllllll Good! Man! I dry myself off and head for work. More traffic this morning. I actually feel like honking my horn the odd time.
A mini celebration. Freedom part two.

I arrive at the bar at 5pm. My two Irish friends arrive shortly after, and then we go in together. Another time,I’d have strolled in alone and ordered something for myself. This evening is different. We wait to be taken to our allocated table. Normally we just plop down on a seat, and begin chatting, while one gets the drinks in. We stand for a lot of the evening. Table service only tonight. The waiter wears a mask. We pay by card, and tip in cash. We leave at 11 pm.

Tuesday morning I crawl into the shower, and squat there, as the water cascades onto my back and haunches, like a rhino, in the Serengeti, when the first rains come.
I do not go for a swim this Tuesday morning. But I do on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It is my favourite exercise. I have signed out of work, when my mind is clogged. Gone to a swimming pool. Lazy laps. Up and down. Just me and the water until my head is cleared again. Come back into work feeling refreshed. That’s in non 2020 times.
Tuesday afternoon I have my hair done. Wednesday evening, my awkward to reach areas are waxed.
Thursday: My four formidable ladies are insisting on taking me somewhere, for a meal, as a thank you. But they are still nervous about being in crowds. So I cook a brisket, and we sit in my apartment, socially distancing as best we can.
Ladies still drink sherry! Who knew!?

Friday evening we have our supper with phones. Wednesday suits best for you to come over. You are off on Thursday morning.
Tuesday evening I deep clean my flat again.
Wednesday morning. New sheets. New pillow cases. New duvet cover. The bed is now dressed. The day flies. You text that you are 15 minutes away. I’m still in work, and have to clean my office yet. (Yes, I know. I’m anal). We have kidded around that your knickers will be outside the door to assure me you have arrived. I bike home, and come around my apartment complex. Your car is there. I continue on to the local shop, get milk, and return. There is no underwear on the ground, outside the door. I come in . You are standing at the sliding door, which you have opened, to let fresh air into a - summertime - stifling apartment. You have been looking out. You see me cycle up, disappear, and return.
Slightly gaunt. Your face has thinned. Your eyes look tired. You are tired. You have lost weight. You stand there casting a long shadow into the flat. 5’11”. 1.8 metres.
You are the most beautiful, the most treasured, the most coveted . My precious!! My love. My lover. My heart. My everything!
We should be whooping and giving each other high fives.
We kiss, and hold each other tight. Holding on for our lives as we cry. Tears. Sobs. The enormity of being separated for so long, just engulfs us.

I make my lunch next morning for work. And one for you as well. Old habit.
You ring before you leave. You collect me, and we go to a park. Have our lunch together sitting on the grass. It is wonderful being together for an extra 45 minutes or so. New habit. This becomes a Thursday routine while the restrictions are eased.
The other new routine is that you work Saturday. Have a nap. Then drive to here. I do not go to your place. You - like me in April - have become obsessed with deep cleaning and disinfecting your own apartment. Wednesday becomes our time. Sundays we meet up with my friends, or you go to visit your cousin. Monday mornings we leave the flat together and go our own ways. It’s only two sleeps until Wednesday again.
Sunday morning swims together. The drive to the sea and back. Music on! Stress levels off! Laughs in the car.Squeals in the water. Safe. Together!

My sister in Birmingham in the UK gives birth to a girl on the 14th of June. Everything goes well. Her third baby. First daughter. I cannot visit because of Covid. Dad and Mam cannot visit their daughter to help out, and, make a huge fuss of their new grandchild. That situation has still not changed.
Dad is 70 the 30th of June. It’s not what we had planned. But they make a good time of it at home. Restrictions are still a lot tighter in Ireland.

7. Seven people die from Covid related illness on the 1st of July in Belgium. We have survived it seems and the infection rate remains low. Loosening restrictions has not caused the virus to spring back up again in communities.
Gilliene et mesdames start to move out again. I meet them one Tuesday evening for a drink, when they are returning from an excursion. The nervousness, from the night in my apartment is gone. They are still as reserved as ever, but enjoying the days of their lives again.
We both take a week off at the end of July, and go on day trips. Role reversal. We go for a drive early in the morning. Find a beach. Swim. Continue and do some sight seeing. We continue past crowded places though, and return earlier next day. Belgium is flat. But the architecture in the towns is special. And Zeeland where you live is delightful. The summer before ,we took a hut on the beach twice. Lying wrapped in a blanket under the moon past midnight and a swim under the stars before bed together.
Early up. Early to bed to be wrapped in each other. The sunset we take photos of, on Wednesday, is the perfect end to a blissful day together.
As July morphs into August, and it begins to get complicated again.

4. Four people die on the 1st of August. No one on the 2nd . Governments have decided to give a colour code to other countries, depending, on how high the instance of the virus is, in relation to their own. Green, Orange, Red. And then individual Nations code their own regions. For the first time, Brussels has a higher infection rate than Flanders, where I am. Belgium is coded red in relation to Ireland, and Orange in relation to Holland. The colours on the map change weekly. It becomes impossible to follow. It also becomes harder to plan anything again. Even our routine becomes haphazard. We look at the coding each Monday and decide what to do the following weekend. We have to look up the rates each Sunday afternoon. This decides whether you stay over Sunday night, or not. It’s gets tetchy and ridiculous quickly.
We have a very important work audit in mid August, and fly through it. It’s a nice fillip, to be told they are looking forward to working with us again in the future. I’ve put a lot of work and hours into it, and I accept the credit. The year we are having, it’s good to be busy.
We have two full weekends together. Friday afternoon through to Monday morning. One where you have to be back in Zeeland by midnight. The other two are not doable. Wednesday nights revert to phone suppers. Lunch in my office, Thursdays, looking out the window, daydreaming about laying on the grass in the park, talking with you.

2. Two people die on the 1st of September but the infection rate has increased. We decide that - seeing as how we both have lots of time in lieu to take - we will take a week this month, and spend it together.
I come home from work on the 16th of September. I prep a supper that does not get cooked. My brother rings. A family friend. A childhood friend. An accident in a quarry. Dead….
His voice, cracking and breaking on the phone as he tries to explain that it was instantaneous. I’m so shocked I do not interrupt. Not even in the long pauses, as he struggles through his own grief to inform me.
My two Irish people come over. Drop an overnight bag in the spare room. We have tea and whiskies, and hold a little wake for one of life’s gentle giants.
I tell them about the first time I met him. Sitting at the table beside his dad at breakfast at our home. Eating their sandwiches that were made for them before they went to work that morning. And then eating the full breakfast, me Mam left down to all of us. A boy. Cloned off his dad. Two mops of woolly hair and two smiling faces. He was 13. I was 10.

The day my sister and I sat in the back of their car, on the way to Thurles, for the club All Ireland Finals. Patrick’s Day. 17th of March 2002. Singing along to the songs on the radio, while he drove, and his dad laughed in the passenger seat. The argument on the way home when we insisted on paying for the dinner, as thanks for their generosity. It was near 11 p.m. the night before when they were informed we wanted to go.

They did the right thing by staying that night. You offered, and I know you would have come, but you had an early start next morning. Thursdays have changed for you also, since early August. I really don’t think it mattered who was here - as long as I did not have to spend that night here alone. I wake groggy and with a sense of numb disbelief.
In work, at about 10 a.m. it hits me really hard. All I can do is cry at my desk as wave after wave of grief wash over me. This happens several times over the next few days. That morning, and driving home with the groceries on Friday, are the worst. I have to pull over the car and just weep. You get here Friday evening. Sunday morning, my cousin puts a device in the church and hooks it to a modem. I listen to the mass on my laptop here, with you. The choir is beautiful. I should have been up there with them.

Restrictions:
40 people allowed in the church. Everyone else sits in their car, while the mass is broadcast through speakers, to the people outside. An Irish solution to an Irish problem: Neighbours and friends form a guard of honour between the church and the graveyard. The people stand outside their houses, as the hearse passes by on it’s way to the church as a mark of respect. If I decide to go home for it ….. Pointless. I would have to isolate. I do nothing.

Monday begins our week off together. We have the same plan as the week in July. It changes because of the events the week before.
Tuesday morning we have breakfast, and ramble through the city. We stop off here and there. When I check my statement at the end of the month I have paid by card in EIGHT different bars. Day drinking!!! Another Irish solution. Alcohol is a solution after all, in Chemistry.
Friday there is a storm. Not a big one, and it does not get really windy until late afternoon. We go for lunch. Sitting in the restaurant having ordered lunch, with people coming and going, collecting take out meals. Some are maskless. Paranoia hits. I look at you. I am nervous. You feel the same. We switch our order to take away, and wait outside, until it is ready. It’s the first time I feel really vulnerable, since this whole epidemic began. We have a power outage later on that night. We are in bed watching “Some Like it Hot”. It’s your first time seeing Josephine, and Daphne, and Sugar.
It’s the last day we go out to either a cafe or a bar in 2020.

On the 30th of the month Belgium passes 10,000, ten thousand, deaths from Covid.19

7. Seven people die on the 1st of October from the virus. But the infection rate is rising rapidly again. On the 9th of the month the Belgian government re-establish restrictions again beginning on Monday the 12th. We have our weekend together. Sunday morning we go for our final swim of the year together in the very cold water. In the afternoon you pay a visit to your cousin to say adieu, and leave Ghent. On impulse I follow you in my car. We both stop in Rieme. You get two coffees, and we sit in your car, watching the sunset by the canal. Parting is just with sorrow. Juliet could part with sweet sorrow, because she knew she would see Romeo next day. We have no idea when we will meet again. It is Christmas when we next spend time together.
I tough it out, swimming in the sea a couple more mornings, and then decide I will die if I have to get in that water again. So that exercise ends. Soon the cycling will as well. The evenings are shorter as winter rapidly approaches. And everyone heads into the long nights, with a pandemic hovering over us all again. October, November and December for me are the same as the first lockdown so I do not see the point in repeating the mundane in print. I’m stronger though, and resigned to waiting this wave out too.
The second wave is as fatal here as the first. We pass 20,000 twenty thousand deaths on the 9th of January 2021.
January and February are the same and I approach the 10th of March again.
One year. I will wait.