Post-celebrations

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.