A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do
These days almost anything one is told, discovers on the internet and/or can think of for ourselves can be so strange and apparently counter-intuitive – after this much flaffing about, endless Government U-turns and collective national pain – that it barely causes the needle on the dial of unexpectedness to flicker.
Yesterday my irregular visits to the television variously revealed thousands of lorries backed up on their day to the Kent ferry terminals; haulier drivers from all over Europe pushing and shoving with police; the Transport minister Grant Shapps practically denying that anything was remotely unusual; welcome reports of the French rescinding their out-of-the-blue total ban on Brits travelling to France; and then finally rumours (and nudge-nudge winks from BBC chief reporters of firmer indications than that) of a Brexit deal to be announced by Boris this morning, probably just as I go across the road at 7.00am to collect my daily newspapers as my local “all in one” shop opens.
The problem I have with where we have reached so far this week as we approach Christmas Day is that the Government’s four-Tier “protection against Covid-19″ system – which seeks on the one hand to give the impression to the world, if not ourselves, that “the UK is still open for business” and yet, on the other, is simultaneously shutting down everyone’s ability to leave home for anything bar bare essentials – is that it is all so confusing and muddled.
Faced with this state of affairs, I am resorting – as I’m sure many other of sound mind (or formerly so) are doing – to taking a considered view of what risks I am prepared to take in the current circumstances and then acting upon it.
Most particularly with regard to my own health and safety, but also, of course, that of others living in “this sceptred isle … this precious stone set in the silver sea …” [thank you Shakespeare, King Richard II, Act 2 scene 1].
After much WhatsApp messaging and phone chatting in recent weeks, tomorrow morning before first light I shall be setting off to travel without stopping to see my daughter and family who live in an area that will be joining mine in Tier 4 at one minute past midnight on Boxing Day.
My purpose is to do no more than set eyes upon them, throw Christmas presents over the wall into their garden – stay socially distanced for half an hour – and then turn round and drive back home again.
I fully appreciate that this proposed mission will offend the official restrictions under which the Government has latterly placed me but I don’t care. If it should come to the attention of the authorities I am fully prepared to admit what I have done and pay the appropriate penalty in terms of either fine and/or penal servitude.
As part of my preparations for my expedition, totally off my own bat, yesterday I had organised a visit to a local NHS “Covid-19 testing facility” a couple of miles from where I live.
At my age I wasn’t able to do this entirely solo – I needed the assistance of a member of a generation younger than mine to “negotiate” the official website that administered my request and then logged my appointment.
In order to qualify for the test, I apparently needed to be either “old” and/or suffering Covid-type symptoms. To tick the box in the latter respect my female assistant represented to the authorities that I had recently developed a persistent cough (which I hadn’t).
I arrived at the facility concerned some fifteen minutes early in order to be sure of being punctual. A man in a yellow safety jacket standing at the entrance waved me away, telling me to come back dead on time.
This I did … and found myself in a queue of ten cars or more.
When it came to my turn, I had to keep my car windows shut but call a mobile number held up on a card by one staffer and then answered by the other. Under her orders I pressed the button to lower my front passenger window and received the kit to be self-administered.
That was my one problem. I bought my car only ten months ago and have yet to discover how to switch on the inside light(s) that illuminate the cabin.
Thus I had to don my rubber gloves, open the pack – administer myself the test and then place it in the correct outer pocket of the kit and eventually hand it to another staffer at the exit to the facility … all by “trial and error” and in total darkness.
In my desperation, I am afraid that I slightly let my generation – the Rusters one – down.
I confess that – in talking to those operating the facility – I rather over-acted in order to give the impression to those in charge of the tests that I was a slightly “off the pace” – not to say dotty – old codger who hadn’t the slightest clue as to what I was supposed to be doing.
I think I got away with it.
When I rang my daughter later to report that I had successfully taken the test, she archly commented that I needn’t have bothered to over-act at all because in her view I had been a slightly “off the pace – not to say dotty – old codger since at least 2014.
Now … unless I somehow buggered up the test procedure with my frantic efforts in the pitch darkness inside my car, thereby rendering whatever bacteria I have contributed in my little phial a “failure” … I should get my result via text within the next 18 to 24 hours.
Although I shall be undertaking my Christmas Day expedition in any event, at least if the test results comes back as “negative” I shall know that I didn’t have Covid-19 yesterday.
Even if I do have it by the time I set off tomorrow …
