Corona Diaries: The current normal, the new normal and a visit to the old normal

Out on the fairways for the first time in eight weeks! Suddenly everything feels different, though a five o’clock start and racing down empty roads to make six o’clock tee-off is normal fare for this time of the year.

Good to see some old faces, even at a distance. Though not everything is “normal”, there’s enough normality to make you feel as if this visit to the old normal was a dream from which you just woke up.

Then home by ten, to find a quietish house. In another room some way from where I am, my beloved is talking to a friend. Again, pretty normal.

After a nap I come down and see what’s hitting the fan around Twitter. Hah! A demo in Hyde Park. A florid-faced middle-aged man being escorted to a police van mouthing off as he goes. Hoaxes, 5G conspiracies, placards demanding freedom and police not wearing masks. A kind of corona group hug. Just the sort of event you need to spark off a second wave.

On to the newspapers, where I learn that at least 30% of corona victims suffer blood clots, which lead to thrombosis, embolisms, strokes, heart attacks and death. No shit, I say to myself. A good job I take a daily aspirin. Then I learn that normal blood-thinning treatment doesn’t work. Not good.

Then I read criticism of Hapless Hancock the Health Minister for saying that early in the outbreak the government put a protective ring around our care homes. Not true, it turns out. He’ll be on special measures soon enough. Or possibly promoted.

So up in the heavens and then down to earth again, all in the space of a few hours. Back in my own protective ring, there are geraniums freshly procured from the garden centre, a fish pie to be cooked and an evening of Italian subtitles, to be interrupted only by the avian evensong and an occasional squirrel trying to find a new way into the house.

New normal, much like the current normal, to be punctuated by a visit to the old normal at the golf course again on Monday.

Tomorrow, I’ll have a stab at thinking about what an economic recovery might look like. Not all as grim as we think, I suspect.

Until then, happy Saturday.