Can't Keep a Good Blog Down

Monday, October 5^th 2020

Do you remember when I wrote this blog and you read it? Well, I’m baaaaack, baby! Like a venereal disease you just can’t rid yourself of; like a boyband who keep reforming for one last ‘Pay-the-Taxman’ tour; like a Facebook friend from school; like a fox shitting in your garden every night – you just can’t keep me away!

I had to stop the blog back at the end of June because I suddenly and unexpectedly found myself in full-time employment again. Mustn’t grumble, I suppose, in today’s economic climate but I soon put paid to it by handing in my notice and going from full time to 1.5 days a week. As ever, my timing is immaculate and all I have to do now is surf the global economic boom all the way to the bank.

To say a lot has happened in the time between the end of June and now is like saying 1666 was quite a busy year for Londoners. So, before I give you the lowdown of when and how coronavirus entered our household, I’ll summarise the last few months in bullet point form:

·         I go back to work with a ‘bubble’ of keyworker children for ten weeks

·         I shift my teaching style out of fifth gear and down into second, handing out sweets, doing loads of art and DT, and giving only verbal feedback instead of marking books – this is the way to teach, I think

·         I hand in my notice to become a famous writer (genius!)

·         Our cockapoo puppy, Sheriff, finds a small pink child’s sock in the woods and runs away from us to swallow it whole, meaning I am inspecting every turd he does for the next three weeks as if it is a forensic crime scene and I am a shit detective, poking through the ‘scene’ with a stick, looking for clues

·         Three weeks after eating the sock, I watch Sheriff vomit up a large pale slug of material and digestive fluid. We are both quite pleased with the result and I hand in my notice as a shit detective.

·         The Screenager watches Netflix whilst nagging me to get BT Sport so he can while away his GCSE year watching men in shiny clothes run after some balls

·         The Cine-Teen has his 18^th birthday which means, officially, that my wife and I have raised a child into adulthood. He celebrates the re-opening of the pubs by re-launching his social life on a grand scale, as we move out of lockdown and into the summer free-for-all of gathering in enormous groups and shagging each other (Shoreham Swingers Society is now meeting again but only on a Thursday morning and only in certain positions which involve no face-to-face contact, masks obligatory but we’ve all seen Eyes Wide Shut so not a problem)

·         Cine-Teen books himself on a holiday to Corfu with the Voodoo Parsnip (girlfriend) and they come back with matching tattoos of the number of their apartment

·         Cine-Teen goes to Portugal with 20 friends in a massive hired villa and comes back with… yup: coronavirus (but no tattoos)

So, yeah, the big C has been here, looked around, stayed for a bit and has now moved on. It was a bit like having a foreign student stay who you don’t really like. Nobody died, hardly any symptoms between the six of us. But fuck! – isolation is just the most boring fuckety-fuck-fucker since lockdown.

I’ll recap Covid-student’s movements through the house with more bullet points, if that’s alright by you:

·         Cine-Teen contacted by Test and Trace because his best friend has a positive test

·         Cine- Teen brings Voodoo Parsnip to stay with us as they have spent the last week together at her house while her family are on holiday

·         Voodoo Parsnip comes down one morning with her lips and face all swollen like she has had an anyphylactic reaction. We all make crosses at her with our fingers as if she is a vampire after reading the NHS advice.

·         Cine-Teen and Parsnip confined to upstairs apart from eating separately from us with strict post-room use cleaning conditions imposed.

·         Nobody has any other symptoms until one afternoon my big toe on my left foot starts to feel uncomfortable. A few hours later it hurts. By the time I go to bed it is agony.

·         I can’t sleep and get up and only then wonder if it is linked to coronavirus and look it up, sitting in the kitchen in the dark with an ice pack on my foot. I spend a few minutes looking at images of manky feet and toes on the internet and then do some reading about COVID-toe.

·         Ring my GP next day who tells me that despite me being vegetarian, hardly drinking any alcohol, having low cholesterol, and being the same weight as I was when I was eighteen, that I have gout. Seems surprised that I think it is related to coronavirus. As I am not in late-stage Henry VIII condition, I decide I am right and the GP is wrong.

Isolation period ends and we all head back to work/film school/school etc. People seem wary of us even though we are officially ‘clear’ and even Shoreham Swingers Society insist we go in full hazmat and just watch and make cups of tea at the end. At least, I think – as I watch a human centipede forming – we’ll be good to go next week.

It’s just good to be back, baby.

Latest data for the UK (as of 12pm):

Infected: 503,000

Deaths: 42,350

People I know who are infected: Shall we include Donald Trump Jr in this? I think we should. How the ‘deep state’ penetrated his special security detail to give it to him, we’ll never know…

Song of the Day: ‘I Won’t Hurt You’ – The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band