Love, peace, breathe, sing and eat ginger and garlic.
A candle for those who’s lives have only just begun.
Boris Johnson
AIDS RIDDEN CHORISTERS & FLAG WAVING PICANINNIES.
“I would go further and say that it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes.”
He said he felt ..
“fully entitled” to expect women to remove face coverings when talking to him at his MP surgery – and schools and universities should be able to take the same approach if a student.”
“.. turns up… looking like a bank robber”.
Me.
Entitled, exactly, they all feel entitled. Of course they do, they were educated to believe and know they are the elite, the future Minsters, Bankers .. Landowners all…. Tax evaders .. thieves and tossers all..
Donald Trump
‘Kung flu,’ yeah. Kung flu. ‘Covid.’ ‘Covid-19.’ ‘Covid.’ I said, ‘What’s the ’19’?’ ‘Covid-19.’ Some people can’t explain what the 19 — give me the — ‘Covid-19.’ I said, ‘That’s an odd name.’ I could give you many, many names.’
“Cases, Cases, Cases! If we didn’t test so much and so successfully, we would have very few cases. If you test 40,000,000 people, you are going to have many cases that, without the testing (like other countries), would not show up every night on the Fake Evening News,” Trump wrote. “In a certain way, our tremendous Testing success gives the Fake News Media all they want, CASES. In the meantime, Deaths and the all important Mortality Rate goes down. You don’t hear about that from the Fake News, and you never will. Anybody need any Ventilators???”
Me.
These Men are running things? WTF?
There is something stirring my innards…my fears? An inner Big Brother is talking. .. a sinister sensation..Something amiss? There is a hissing around my head? Shhh.
Dominic Raab.
.. when asked whether he would take the knee to show solidarity with BLM, said: “I’d take the knee for two people: the Queen and the Mrs when I asked her to marry me.”
.. has prompted criticism and scorn after saying he views the symbolic Black Lives Matter action of taking the knee as “a symbol of subjugation and subordination”, and that it originated from the TV show Game of Thrones.
The Nightingale Hospitals.
Government spending.
.. built in the ExCel conference centre in the Docklands area of London..
.. closed on 15 May. Doctors, nurses and other staff working there were told the news on Monday morning. Originally planned to have 4,000 beds, the Nightingale has treated just 54 patients since it was opened by Prince Charles on 3 April and received its first patient on 7 April.
Me.
That didn’t last Long? Meanwhile, patients with Cancer and other life threatening diseases were left with treatment cancelled, left to live or die… left not knowing, whilst there were empty beds…. everywhere.
Some 331 Conservative MPs opposed a motion that would have led to weekly testing of NHS workers and care staff last night.
Matt Hancock
Yes, I am incredibly proud of the work that was done to put in place the Nightingale hospitals across the country. Most of them were put in place in under two weeks.
We now have one of the largest testing capabilities in the world; we are testing more people per day than Germany, and the whole country should be reassured by that fact. …
But what I would say is that the availability of testing across the board is now huge. It is big enough to start the test, trace and track programme.
Me.
Lies lies and more lies. Boasting and piffle. Money spent, ££££s Shed loads. There is something stirring my innards…my fears? An inner Big Brother ..a sinister sensation..Something amiss? There is a hissing around my head? Shhh.
Matt Hancock.
I can announce that we have met our goal. The number of tests yesterday, on the last day of April, was 122,347.
“This unprecedented expansion in British testing capability is an incredible achievement, but it is not my achievement, it is a national achievement.”
ME
April.
They slither, those sly slippery Slime Balls. They posture and gloat. They evade the questions, cannot say yes or no. Flimflam and nonsense, lies and self congratulations. World Class. Unprecedented. On a scale never seen before.
April 3rd.
Dungeness. It is rather touching that this beautiful home was saved for us all in the midst of yet another appalling time. Another Plague.
April 4
Mr Johnson’s pregnant fiancee Carrie Symonds, 32, said she is “on the mend” after suffering coronavirus symptoms.
Shortly after the PM’s announcement on March 27, Ms Symonds – who usually lives with him in the No 11 flat – shared a photograph of herself self-isolating in Camberwell, south London, with the couple’s dog Dilyn.
April 5
Downing Street said Mr Johnson has been admitted to a London NHS hospital for tests as a “precautionary step” as his coronavirus symptoms persist.
Sunday 5 April
Royal College of Surgeons
A survey across the UK by the Royal College of Surgeons of England finds that “a third of surgeons and trainees say they do not believe they have an adequate supply of PPE in their trust, enabling them to do their jobs safely”. 57% say that there have been shortages in the past 30 days.
Matt Hancock.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock urges NHS staff not to overuse PPE: “We need everyone to treat PPE like the precious resource it is. Everyone should use the equipment they clinically need, in line with the guidelines: no more and no less”
Me.
Patronising arse. Bollocks. The arrogance, the sheer bloody cheek. Vile venomous vipers.
BMA.
The BMA says that PPE supplies in London and Yorkshire “are running at dangerously low levels” and “that some pieces of equipment are no longer available – forcing doctors into impossible situations, and ultimately, putting their lives at risk”.
Me.
I have my card Do not resuscitate. That document was thrust at people in care homes after being ejected from hospitals, no testing, no PPE for staff. In other words, Government culling.
9 April 2020:
Dominic Raab ..
..standing in for the hospitalised prime minister, said the death toll had increased by 881 on the previous day. The actual death toll was 64% higher than that.Sir David King, the former government chief scientific adviser and chairman of the independent Sage group, said the gap between the Downing Street figures and the true toll was “an attempt to play down the adversity that the country was faced with”.
“Hospitals across England are running out of the surgical gowns needed to treat patients with COVID-19 and do not know when fresh supplies will arrive, two secret NHS memos reveal”.
UNISON reports that “thousands of people working in the NHS, social care and local services have contacted a UNISON hotline in the last week expressing anxiety at the lack of gloves, masks, eye protectors and gowns where they work”.
10 April 2020:
The UK reaches a new record high of 980 recorded daily deaths from the Coronavirus of those tested and dying in hospitals.
This number is higher than any daily maximum recorded in Italy (or any other European country other than France, though France’s figures include deaths in care homes) during the entire pandemic to date, and places the UK’s per capita death rate from the Coronavirus as one of the highest in the world Most of the media coverage leads with Boris Johnson’s recovery after being in intensive care.
11 April 2020:
Me.
The state of my Garden shed. Appalling. I can’t even get stuff out! Never mind about putting stuff in. Must clear it up. It looks like the inside of my current head. A mess. Chaos.
A leaked letter from the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to the Department of Health and Social Care notes that the handling of PPE for care workers has been “shambolic”, with delivery of equipment “paltry” and “haphazard” “A US institute that predicted deaths from COVID-19 in the UK would be the highest in Europe at 66,000 has revised down its forecasts as a result of new data.
April 12th
Prof John Ashton, a former regional director of public health for north-west England, who has previously criticised the government over the crisis, said its performance had worsened…
.. Now we are into the cover-up. Any journalist worth their salt should boycott this propaganda [the daily briefing]. They don’t answer any questions.
BBC News website’s main headline is about the Government’s supposed “herculean” efforts to secure enough PPE for the NHS frontline staff who are becoming infected with COVID-19 in record numbers..
Boris Johnson.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been admitted to hospital for tests, 10 days after testing positive for coronavirus, Downing Street said, He was taken to a London hospital on Sunday evening with “persistent symptoms” – including a temperature.
Me.
However.. Shock and horror. In the United ?? Kingdom. I am having un explained Big Brother moments? Something underneath bubbling, a sinister sensation?
I watch the daily Briefing in that Brown room with 2 flags and three brown Podiums. Breaking news sliding across the bottom of my screen. Impossibly pompous outpouring of boasting lies to what they see as the subservient masses. The peasant, the serfs, the great unwashed.
Number of deaths. PPE arriving soon.???
Not on this list of the dead are the Care home deaths and the undiagnosed deaths in people’s homes. Let alone those who died with no diagnosis. No testing.
Matt Hancock
Health Secretary Matt Hancock urges NHS staff not to overuse PPE: “We need everyone to treat PPE like the precious resource it is. Everyone should use the equipment they clinically need, in line with the guidelines: no more and no less”
BMA says that PPE supplies in London and Yorkshire “are running at dangerously low levels” and “that some pieces of equipment are no longer available – forcing doctors into impossible situations, and ultimately, putting their lives at risk”.
The chief nurse.
.. deflected the question about the number of nurses and doctors who died because of confidentiality. She said.. She wasn’t being asked about individuals, she was being asked about numbers.
Mantra..
What about the testing?
What about the Kit? The PPE?
ME.
With admiration and awe I see how some of my creative friends are coping with these times. Work disappeared overnight, lifeline gone. They are doing home concerts and online gigs …online galleries, running groups on Zoom.
Guidance:
Advice concerning outdoor exercise changed during the second week in April, when Mr Cummings and his family walked in the woods.
Cummings seen outside the family property
5 Sunday 12 April
Family seen in Barnard Castle,
30 miles away
6 Tuesday 14 April
Cummings photographed in London
8 Monday 20 April
Witness says Cummings seen looking at bluebells in woods near Houghall close to family home
Cummings seen in London again
6 April: At some point in the week leading up to this date, Mr Cummings discussed his decision to travel to Durham with the prime minister.
Me.
Of course…he was entitled? With back up from Boris Johnson and his posh blokey, blokes.
Boris Johnson.
Johnson said the matter was closed after Durham police concluded Cummings may have broken lockdown rules but decided they would take no action against him. The prime minister also blocked journalists from probing questions from Prof Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance ..
ME
All of my life I have been given to odd and debilitating behaviour. By the age of 12 I began shutting down, wouldn’t talk. Elective mutism they said? That lasted off and on until my late teens.
I discovered one day, beside a Pub in Hastings old town, that I did have a voice, well more of a bellow really.
It gave me a life. Without it, my ‘permission to sing Hat’, and in solo isolation, I have once more retreated. I can only talk it seems when I have to .. and then I think I am a bit manic. Gabble, gabble. Losing words for the simplest things. Lack of interaction with others is wreaking havoc with my communication skills…
Public Health England
The guidance is a reversal of stipulating that full-length waterproof surgical gowns, designed to stop coronavirus droplets getting into someone’s mouth or nose, should be worn for all high-risk hospital procedures. PHE advised frontline staff to wear a flimsy plastic apron with coveralls when gowns ran out, in a move that doctors and nurses fear may lead to more of them contracting the virus and ultimately putting lives at risk.
Me.
On mental Health.
‘Oh, you’ll get over it.’
..some will say.
‘Pull yourself together.’
I would if I could, its hell in here.
If I had a broken leg, would people say?
‘Don’t be such a drama queen, get up and walk…’
Don’t think so.
and..
..’you are not the only one with problems you know..’
In other words ..
‘I support and empathise with mental health, I support Mind. I am a good person. But I’m not interested to know about your mind. Go away.’
Thank God for true friends.
ME.
During the last crisis, Banks meltdown… I had a series of terrible life changing episodes. One of them, an almost too late emergency back surgery. I had to leave my beloved little Home on Deptford High Street, and I moved to the Kent Coast in 2010. However, thanks to NHS surgery, I am upright, a tad wobbly, but upright.
What about the testing?
What about the Kit? The PPE?
April 7th
Me.
April 7th & 70 bloody six! For chrissakes. I toasted me myself and I. Then I talked to the Cats. My Daughter sent me flowers on Mothers Day and a gift for my Birthday.
It is my Birthday and I’ll post what I want to. It’s week 3 of being alone in me flat AH!!! Stir crazy.
Click for track https://soundcloud.com/user1698211/mad-old-bat-master It is called Mad Old Bat, so there.
A parcel arrived from New Zealand from my Beloved Niece Sacha. Cards and messages from Friends. But nobody here to cuddle.
Today we lay to rest and say our goodbyes for now to Chris Da Souza. We are with you in spirit…. Thinking about you all ❤️♥️♥️RIP Chris. He was a most wonderful human being. I loved him.
April 7th.
Last Birthday Post … thank you so much for all of those lovely greetings.
I have been blessed with my son and my daughter… I never met my Father and barely knew my Mother, so here is Mother. For a Mother I did not get to know. Nor she me. https://soundcloud.com/user1698211/mother
Dominique Cummings
12 April: Mr Cummings drives to Barnard Castle, about 25 miles from his parents’ home in Durham, with his wife and child. He explained this episode as needing to test his driving was fine before making the long drive back to London. He said he’d been having problems with his vision.
ME
Zoom. The thought of putting myself out there on a screen has become a act of fear for me…I am afraid once more. Depression and panic along with the inability to properly communicate, unless I have a glass in my hand, has become almost unbearable.
Easter Monday April the 13th.
I tried Zoom with The Wildflowers. I even put on my Birthday T shirt from Annie Catford. Red lipstick! Put a bra on.. I could not make it work. I could see them but I was not there… I rubbed off the lipstick. Kept the T shirt on. Not the Bra.
Me.
The fears and dread, nightmares and daymares are omni present. So I take the pills. Pills for depression and panic attacks. Eye drops for eye problems, pills for Menier’s disease, pills for back pain, following on from Surgery 10 years ago…
I must be rattling like a maraca. And of course, I love rattling my pots and pans, beads and bangles, earrings and other flim flam flummery.
Alok Sharma
.. the UK business secretary, has admitted.
“We are putting that in place, with millions of pieces of PPE kit going out to the frontline. Of course, we need to be doing even more,” he said.
Me.
Tinitus, bloody Tinitus. Never any peace.
Priti Patel.
.. the home secretary, also stopped short of a full apology, saying: “I’m sorry if people feel there have been failings.”
Me.
Daily briefings
Boasting and Posturing
“We have ordered more PPE.’ It is on its way from Turkey….”
Yea right?”
‘and sanitiser and testing kits. ’
Me.
Eyes watering praise for the NHS our hero’s ?
Lip service.
Torys refused NHS pay rises time after time.
BUT ..
They bailed out the Banks!
Me
Eventually it came. The Army run Testing sites. After two hours the site went down, again and again. Disaster. They should have consulted the supermarket tech departments. Log on, they give to a waiting time, where you are in the Queue, give you advice as to the least busy times. Did they not think about how many people needed those tests? Appropriate PPE and remedies?
CARE HOMES
Me.
So the elderly are considered collateral damage? .. old and in the way, along with their carers? Cleaners? Kitchen staff?
No more than the collateral damage by the rich and entitled for many a decade, you only have to look at those painful pictures of the young sacrificed in wars. Pay back? Somehow I know that ain’t gonna happen. You look at the pics of those NHS deaths .. same thing: sent out there with little or no protection?
Priti Patel
.. refuses to take children from Greek camps threatened by Covid-19
The home secretary has ignored pleas from charities, as refugees already accepted to join family in the UK are trapped in travel chaos.
April 12th
The House of Lords.
OLDER PEOPLE COULD FACE EXTENDED CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN,
Like rebuilding Britain in 1948, the battle against Covid-19 has seen a generation of Black migrants asked to help. But after their experiences of racism, will they?
Me.
Good people, and far too many per head of black / brown – so called ethnic minorities – who keep the NHS going. So what’s new? Nothing. The entitled always strut with arrogance… Elderly people were too scared to go to Hospital A & E because they were told not too. Dangerous, our government said. So they died at home.. Often alone.
HUFFINGTONPOST.CO.UK
Me.
Just so that when the Covid19 crisis is over they can tell them to ‘fuck off home’!
Kathleen O’Donoghue
Oh the (wicked wicked) irony!
Jimmy Lindsay
Boris will deport them all after the pandemic is over, I wonder what the WHITE RACIST would say if the Windrush Nurses said OK, but we will only treat Black patient?
“Just over 40% of NHS medical staff are from Black and minority ethnic heritage backgrounds.”
17 April 2020:
“NHS bosses have asked doctors and nurses to work without protective full-length gowns when treating COVID-19 patients, as hospitals came within hours of running out of supplies”, the Guardian reports. “The guidance is a reversal of Public Health England guidelines stipulating that full-length waterproof surgical gowns, designed to stop Coronavirus droplets getting into someone’s mouth or nose, should be worn for all high-risk hospital procedures”
Me
Care workers, Porters, Cleaners, those serving in the shops and driving public transport, all going about the business with little or no protection.
18 April 2020:
Data collated by Care England, the country’s largest representative body for care homes, suggests that the number of care home residents who have died of suspected Coronavirus may have reached 7,500.
April 14th
Me.
I have no words. I love this land, and I mean the land I was born in, I love the people, well, most of them! I love the sea, the hills, the moors, the crags, the beaches, mountains and valleys, the downs and the parks, the cities, the towns and villages, the birds and the bees, hills and vales. I love the deer, the sheep, the waterways, wildlife, lakes and rivers, the diversity of my own home city, London, it’s exciting and rich musical heritage, the city I was born in, and then priced out of. I love the River Thames. My home River. But, I am ashamed of this government and many before them. The mush-mouthed platitudes about the Saints who work and died for the NHS.
Me.
The Hypocrisy and Lies. The racism, bigotry, the ever-increasing divide between rich and poor. And as for the phrase ‘Living wage! What is not a living wage, a slowly ticking starving wage? Everyone who goes out to work, doing the jobs that keep us as a society going, the transport workers, nurses, street cleaners, garbage collectors, bus drivers, factory workers, washer uppers, waiters and those who serve school dinners, office cleaners, and on and on, and without those people working on low low wages, the whole shebang would stagger to a dreadful halt. What would the rich do then? I suppose they could all hoof off to Necker and join that ‘cap in hand’ to governments fella on his Tax haven Island. `instead of paying the people that keep it all running a living wage.
David King, the former Chief Scientific Advisor,
“I’m very saddened by the predicament we’re in. Why we didn’t respond so much sooner once this epidemic broke out in China, I simply don’t know”, Sir David King, the former Chief Scientific Advisor, tells LBC Radio. “It seems like we were unprepared and we didn’t take action. We didn’t manage this until too late and every day’s delay has resulted in further deaths in the United Kingdom…
Me.
In this very odd time I have been, alongside millions of us, reflecting. Alongside my anger at some leaders, globally. I have experienced that which has informed me and kept me going, is the best of human nature, endeavour, compassion, Humour, courage, art, bravery, kindness, the unexpected.
People have spoken out risked their lives against injustice, spoken out against appalling bigotry, fought for human rights.
Boris Johnson.
..has pledged to have a UK-wide tracing operation to tackle coronavirus in place by 1 June run by 25,000 contact tracers.
Johnson said during the exchange that he had growing confidence that England would have a test, track and trace operation that would be “world-beating” by 1 June.
15 April 2020:
Me.
My heart goes out to students who have had their education put into total disruption and a very uncertain future.
Covid-19 Climate change. Broken economy.
My heart goes out to young families stuck in flats with no outside space, goes out to those, whose loved ones have died with no goodbyes, hugs and kisses. Funerals, hasty and lonely occasions.
Mat Hancock
UK hit 1000.000 tests amid claims tally is artificially boosted. Government now counting ordered or posted home testing kits even before sample taken.
The delays and mistakes that may have put the lives of NHS staff at risk.
April 30th.
Me.
Trying to count my blessings. I do try.. every day. But my head is a place of sadness. I managed to leave my house after nearly 6 weeks of isolation, thank you, dear Carolanne and Sarah. I was both confused, afraid and in awe of the beauty around me. The rains came. My garden was happy. Counting my blessings.
25th April
ME.
Walk 1
After 6 weeks of self-isolating on Me Jacky Jones, I was becoming a tad agoraphobic.. had bouts before… I needed to leave to work and play..have a life. The last thing I do is put my shoes on, put it off until I am going to be very very late, which I hate …and then I know that I am going to have to open the front door, out into the world. Out of my nest. Flap flap.
25th April I left the flat! With Carolanne and Sarah Red, Milo and adorable Dora. The lower Leas Adventure Playground eerily quiet, no children’s voices and energy. I posted before, but I had used a piece of music I love, Lark Ascending, and I did not have permission to use it, should have known that ! The world is indeed as beautiful as it can be, so precious and in respite from the onslaught of Human pollution. So here it is once more. Just Mobile pics, but you’ll get the picture. On the Leas and down on the Coastal Path stunning. Maryanne and David at home.
- Panorama BBC1
- If you didn’t watch this last night, and are in denial and think the Government are doing their best….you have your heads in the sand. IT is well known that Governments have been running down the NHS for many years… This is why they were woefully prepared for Covid-19 pandemic…lost lives they should not have. They were not well protected with the kit they needed.It sticks in my throat when they trot out the platitudes day after day, stay home save lives protect the NHS Yea right. This was not some loony leftie propaganda, (as I hear some people saying,) in my head. This was out of the mouths of Nurses, Doctors, firms who make medical equipment and more. They are doing the best they can in terrible circumstances with little resources, and knowingly, at huge risk to themselves and their loved ones. I also listened to an interview with Intisar Chowdhury, the 18-year-old son of Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, one of those NHS doctors who died. Humbling. He was gracious and intelligent with his words. However, he wants the Government called to account. Yes yes and yes again.
May 2nd
Today, I am finding self-isolating, lockdown, whatever the current phrase is? With mind difficulties for most of my life, which included depression, this way of being in some ways, is easy for me. Always found being out there, problematic and scary sometimes. However, this is different. I want to see my beloved adult kids and friends. Don’t we all?
Without my life’s passion, music song and poetry…. Being out there is even more terrifying.. Because of my passions, I had to get out there, gird my loins so to speak. Ah well. I so enjoy seeing the wonderful posts that some of my Musical friends are doing from their homes. So here are my wares, I haven’t posted this for a long while, certainly not since all of this terrible Malarky. + a Chicken that I adore. When I became 60 years old, I embraced Pink.
May 11th
I love a wonderful moment of heartwarming life. So many shocking moments, but I will never brush those under the carpet. Holocaust deniers, Racists & their ilk. Trump and his cronies, etc. Cummings and his…we need to be aware, ignorance is dangerous, denial is cowardly.
A beautiful poem by George the poet today the end of the 1.p.m.news.
Me.
Sometimes, when I covered another singer’s song, I worried. And some people didn’t like it. Especially if it was a cherished song. ‘Stay with me Baby’ will always be Lorraine Ellison for me. But many singers covered it. Now, in these uncertain times and me being old! I don’t care what people think. Well, I do, but I’m pretending not to care. So, I listened to it… my version, and I didn’t wince?
BMA.
16th May
.. surcharge, many migrant healthcare workers must pay to access the NHS..
Priti Patel.
.. says NHS fees paid by foreign must stay three weeks after announcing a review/
Me.
Yet another review?
BMA.
The British Medical Association (BMA) said the decision “beggars belief”, given the public’s “huge outpouring of support for our frontline staff” in recent weeks, while Labour called it “unconscionable”.
Me.
Paying NHS for treatment if staff are from other countries? If they are migrants.
Robbery. A National Scandal. The very people those tossers are paying lip service to and clapping?
Priti Patel.
It has emerged that the Home Office did not specifically review the charges beyond exempting on a one-year extraordinary basis both those whose visas were due to expire before October from that fee and the £400 surcharge, which will rise to £625 a year each later this year.
Me.
If I could breath fire I would be doing so. Fire and Brimstone.
Priti Patel
“The bill before us today will play a vital role in our recovery plans for the future. It will end free movement and pave the way for our new points-based immigration system.
Me.
Well, she is as bad as, no, worse than Margaret Thatcher. And these are words I thought I would never say.
Gavin Williamson.
The reopening of schools in England is expected to take place in a “phased manner”, says the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson.
He told the Education Select Committee the date for opening would depend on scientific advice – but schools would get “as much notice as possible”.
In England, some nursery and pre-school children – plus pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 will go back June 4th
Me.
Exactly, a plan without a plan, go back to work before we are prepared… walk from the suburbs into city centres, or clog up the roads once more, or… risk infection on Public transport. Send 5-year-old kids to school and tell them to play 2 meters apart! The teachers, cleaners, food providers? Advice face masks, but stocks are low or make one? Masks don’t work. Masks do work.. wear one.. don’t wear one.
ON SCHOOLS ..?? Make of it what you will.
But not all schools have reopened, some due to local council advice and some because they don’t have the staff or space to safely accommodate eligible pupils. Some parents have chosen not to send their children back.
It is not currently compulsory to send children to school.
Confirming the move, he told MPs he wanted all children back to school in September and that “exams will take place next year”.
The education secretary told the House of Commons that there was a “cautious, phased return” to school – but that would no longer mean all primary year groups going back before the end of term.
Mr Williamson said that if schools had the capacity they could take more pupils if they chose.
Donald Trump On masks.
Trump says he thinks some Americans are wearing masks to show they disapprove of him and not as a preventive measure during the pandemic.
Me.
Go to school, don’t go to school? Racism. Let’s have another review, that will keep the masses at bay.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson.
Confirming the move, he told MPs he wanted all children back to school in September and that “exams will take place next year”.
The education secretary told the House of Commons that there was a “cautious, phased return” to school – but that would no longer mean all primary year groups going back before the end of term.
Mr Williamson said that if schools had the capacity they could take more pupils if they chose.
Me.
May 12th.
Walk 2
On a cheerier note. I went for my second long walk last week, with Carolanne the 2nd in 2 months. Blimey, it is amazing that I remembered how to walk further than my bins outside the front door. I sat on the beach, 1st time in months and months. I picked up a handful of small stones and when I got home, I looked and Lo! this one? So precious. Whoever left it there, I thank you. There is something about the beach here that I love. It is the lines and the horizon. I miss my moments with Annie Catford on a Monday before and after Wildflowers sessions at The Norfolk.
Me.
May 18th
Interesting that very young children can go to school? And yet.. allow one person to meet one other person from outside their household outdoors. Grand parents can only meet one grandchild at a time and yet, Nanny’s can go to work ? Well Boris couldn’t do without a Nanny. You can play Tennis, Golf, go shooting? Go to Garden centres? They are telling us that – reception age and years 1 & 2 meters apart? Easier to herd Kittens. You can travel as far as you like? Go to work, but drive your car? It is a Toffs advice .. Like the care homes, a Cull of the elderly with care Home workers as collateral damage.. ! Now they are asking young children and teachers to take the risk? I am so angry at this ridiculous Government.
Spitting fire and brimstone, pins and tacks.
Donald Trump.
“We did all of these numbers and all of this greatness — we have the greatest economy we’ve ever had.”
‘So many numbers. So much greatness.’
“Nobody has done more in three and a half years than this administration has done. Nobody has come close to doing the things we’ve done.”
May 20th.
May 19 HASSAN AKKAD, FILMMAKER, CAMPAIGNER AND HOSPITAL CLEANER. He said ..
‘ I cringe when I see government ministers clapping.’
I think, to me, that is the worst part of this pandemic – that people are dying alone.
Me.
Ray Charles & Mingus are still in the shed. One Lime on my little Lime tree. Sorting sorting.. Hats, books …. Clothes….
May 25th.
The US has been convulsed by nationwide protests over the death of an African-American man in police custody.
George Floyd, 46, died after being arrested by police outside a shop in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Footage of the arrest onshows a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Mr Floyd’s neck while he was pinned to the floor.
Donald Trump.
28th May
Thursday night, with people taking the streets from Denver to Kentucky to Oakland to New York. Donald Trump poured fuel on the conflagration with a late-night tweet threatening protesters with a violent military crackdown: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” Trump tweeted.
In which the President of the United State practically begs governors to allow him to send National Guard troops to respond to what have been, especially of late, peaceful protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
“I can’t breathe,” Mr Floyd said repeatedly, pleading for his mother and begging “please, please, please”.
MAY 29th.
Trump.
“And I hope they also use our National Guard. Call me, we’ll be ready for them so fast their heads will spin.”
Me.
May 29th.
Today I feel bad, so bad. Yesterday I drank too much Gin. Too many fags, one after the other, for every Gin I drank. Today I need to get a grip. The world is weeping, people are dying, racism is raising its ugly head again and again, the poorest of our fellow human beings are suffering around the world, our Government carries on with its chaotic bumbling, lies, ineptitude, smoke and mirrors. Trump gets worse on a day by day basis. The evil and dangerous man that he is. America is burning. The world is turning…into a world not worth living in…. the monsters are taking over the world.
May 30th
Me.
A visit from Lucy.
Thank you Lucy.
Me.
Yes. Yet another review, yet another delay tactic, hoping it will go away. Boris on Racism, Child abuse, the abuse of women, so called domestic abuse, behind locked doors? Lockdown. Total fuck wit of a Toff. With his gang… I am so angry. Some people tell me, ‘well, at your age, you need to chill, let go….anger is bad for you.’ To not be angry, concerned, shove my head under the sand or up my arse? May as well be dead. Brown bread. 6 feet under. Pushing up the Daisies.
The state of our planet, out beautiful Earth, as we know. If we don’t do something, now, no, yesterday, we will have a diseased and damaged Earth.
Me.
I am so humbled by the loverly and kind responses to my misery post the other day… I try to stay positive, I do, but sometimes the world and events overwhelm me. Here is a blue sky, a bird ballet, my beloved red poppies and the Silver Birch I planted in 2010 on the concrete and weeds patch which was this garden when I moved in. Sent with love and thank you and virtual hugs.
ME.
I hear the stories of old people dying alone and afraid, struggling for breath. The loves of my life, my children are living elsewhere. I am away from London, the place I always considered home. It was the city I knew, like the back of my hand. A lot of the people I love are there. And around the earth in other places.
To quote a song, ‘Is this all there is?’
Me.
I am scared, I am fearful, I am anxious. I also know I am a lucky woman. I have a garden. I have a life. I have potatoes coming. I have known deep love. But I am afraid. I have a roof, I have food. But I am fearful. I love my solitude, but I feel more alone than ever, like my life before I became an adult and found my own way. Found good people, found music.
Me.
I have scarlet poppies in my garden. But I can’t sleep without the nightmares. My past haunts me, the fears reappear. I have little visitors and now, human visitors in my Garden. And the sky is the bluest of blues. The birds wing across the skies. And I? I watch the sky and birds.
Me.
I fell in the pond. I mean I really fell in, head under the water, soaked from head to toes, knickers included, sodden, mobile in my pocket. I was reaching over trying to prune a Honeysuckle that was out of control and I fell into my very small pond. Panic. Managed to scramble out. I am here to tell the tale. The water tasted bad. Not recommended, even with a splash of Tonic water. My Phone was drowned.
Meniers Disease. You never know when the attacks will happen.
