Fourteen days since
the public declaration of our diamond wedding. We’ve become
hermits, anchorites, even. Well, anti-social plague bearers. Joyce
arrived home after our celebrations and declared a state of cold.
Coughs, splutters, and sneezes. Oddly, Val was also afflicted. Me? I
don’t get colds, I just minister, saint-like, to the sufferers. Val
went home. Women. Men don’t get colds; a belief I fostered for
another week.
J seemed a little
recovered by the following Sunday so we went for a drive and a
coffee. By the time we were home I had a slight scratchy feeling at
the back of my throat. By next morning I had a streaming, steaming,
cold. We boarded up the doors and windows, took to our bed, ordered
groceries and medication – well done Ocado and Brown’s Chemist.
We lived on just coconuts and fish from the sea (via the freezer),
and paracetamols. We planned adventures in weak, rattling voices. We
escaped once to post a letter, then stumbled back to bed.
A good neighbour,
believing we had gone abroad, cut the grass and put the bins out. The
boy delivered the papers and the milk and orange juice. We sneezed on
one another but never, not even once, did we sneeze on another human
being.
We hope to venture
out next week into a better, cleaner, germ and Brexit free world.
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