Corona Virus – Mick Canning

I did say I would go and see what Bob has been up to, didn’t I? I haven’t forgotten, but I’m afraid I have to tell you the news isn’t good. I tried to phone him but got no answer, which is unusual as he is one of those people who has to answer their mobile when it rings no matter what else he might be doing. In fact, I don’t think I could begin to tell you the number of times he has told me off for not answering my phone when he calls me.

‘I tried calling you this morning!’ he would say, huffily, when he got hold on me later that day.

‘I know. I was too busy to take the call.’

”You know? you know? Why couldn’t you take it?’

‘Well, if you want to know, I was twenty foot up the top of a rickety ladder balanced precariously on a loose boulder and hanging on with one hand trying to return a baby golden eagle to the nest it had fallen out of, while both the parents were clawing at my face with their talons and shrieking furiously, under the impression I was trying to harm their chick.’

‘Pretty poor excuse if you ask me,’ he’d sniff. ‘So why didn’t you call me back afterwards?’

‘I wasn’t allowed to in the operating theatre.’

‘And you call yourself a friend?’

Anyway, I couldn’t get him. the phone rang and rang and Bob didn’t answer.

So I phoned Gina, his wife.

It turns out he is in hospital, but fortunately nothing to do with the Corona Virus. It seems he was out for his permitted walk and was taking a short cut through a field. Unfortunately, he only noticed there was a bull in the field when it began chasing him. Wisely, he legged it pretty quickly. And he had almost reached the fence and safety when he heard a text arrive on his phone, and naturally stopped there and then to read it.

047

It could happen to anyone.

107 (2)

Here we are in week whatever it is of Lockdown, and I have to say I’m finding it ever so difficult to dream up a new blog post. It’s not that I’m having any difficulty writing, as I’m making good progress with one of my novels. I timetable my day so I write in the morning and don’t allow myself to look at the internet until after lunch. I go out and walk each day, I’m eating well. And I don’t mind the idea of Lockdown as such, since I’m quite a solitary person at the best of times; fond of my own company and never at my best with groups of people.

When it comes to writing a new post, though, I just seem to dry up. I think one reason for this is the major change to everyone’s lifestyles that this crisis has demanded. Not so much the changes to mine, strangely enough, but those of other people. I look at some of the posts I have partly written and think they seem somehow too trite for today. Some others are about journeys or visits to places I love, and I don’t seem to have the heart to finish them. Perhaps it’s all a bit too raw, too painful. I rarely write political pieces, and have even less enthusiasm at the moment than usual. Again, the politics are either too trite, or just incredibly infuriating. And there are more than enough bloggers covering the infuriating stuff, even if I wanted to.

Write a parody? I do, occasionally. But a parody of the Coronavirus Crisis seems tasteless, and both our inept government and the unpleasant fool in the White House are already parodies of themselves. I could do a humorous one later, I suppose. I might go and see what Bob is up to…

But I don’t feel I’ve anything original to offer at the moment, and I’m generally a subscriber to the school of thought that states if you have nothing to say, then it’s best not to say it.

So I thought today I’d pick a random photograph I haven’t posted before and put that up, and just go with a stream of consciousness, and see where it led me.

It turns out it led me here.