Simply Getting Out Of Bed Is The Biggest Challenge

These new ‘lock-down’ rules present us all with a brand new set of challenges. The first one is the challenge of simply getting out of bed. I mean, why bother? What’s the point? What’s to stop us from spending a comfortable day in bed reading a good book or watching a movie on a tiny screen while munching biscuits and spreading crumbs all over the bed?

If that challenge is surmounted then we face the issue of getting dressed. Again, why not just stay in one’s pyjamas? What’s the point of getting dressed just to travel into the kitchen or dining room? It’s not as if you’re going anywhere.

Well, if one has a wife firmly grounded in the great British ‘standards-must-be-maintained’ tradition one is driven smartly out of bed into clean, freshly pressed clothes, and one definitely does not, repeat not, eat biscuits in bed dropping crumbs everywhere.

Assume all this accomplished and you even had some breakfast. You still have at last another 12 or so hours to kill before you’re allowed back in bed. Idle the day away? Forget it. Beware the lists - lists of things around the house that were always going to get done ‘some day’. Well, guess what? That day has arrived. Oven needs cleaning? Break out the instruction book – if you can find it. Try to understand the fluent Serbo-Croatian most of these things are written in and bravely dismantle the oven door and racks inside. Then with toxic chemicals not allowed in most civilized countries you scrub the inside while hoping that your thin rubber gloves don’t dissolve into a puddle of smoking rubber. If you survive that then you have to put the damn thing back together again – with helpful reminders from your wife that you’ve got the door back-to-front.

The kid does NOT go in the laundry!

The wardens have allowed us outside once a day for exercise. But right now in London all this does is prove that the Almighty has a perverse sense of humour. All winter we struggled with dark, rainy, cold weather. Now, when we can’t really take advantage of it, the skies are a beautiful cerulean blue, not a cloud in sight, and the sun beams down on nearly empty parks. I hope He’s getting a good laugh.

  By this time even Emmanuel Kant (see the previous post) is beginning to look good. But not yet. I have, however, only myself to blame for the next activity. To help keep the brain from turning into porridge I had begun taking German lessons at the Goethe Institute. Now German – as you might expect – is a language with a great many rules. Rather like a huge, very complicated jig saw puzzle where each tiny piece must fit precisely into the right place. Each pronoun, in the right form of course, and each verb – along with all those little verb helpers -- has a well-defined place in every sort of sentence. The problem is, however, that that ‘well-defined place’ keeps changing according to the nature of the sentence. The Goethe Institute had to close during the lock-down and I foolishly thought my brain would be given a well-deserved rest. No chance! These are Germans, after all. The staff came up with a very clever way to continue the lessons online – complete with a whiteboard and homework. So much for that well-deserved R&R.

Then, of course, there are the multiple ways we are supposed to use the internet to ease the strain of isolation. This assumes, however, that one is familiar with all the social media platforms or other programs that one can download, upload, side-load or otherwise cajole into some useful function. Judging by what passes for communication on some of these platforms isolation begins to look pretty attractive.

The real social distancing challenge comes if the wide-spread lock-down order remains in effect for the Orthodox Easter on April 19. Greeks are wonderful people but  - how can I put this politely –  natural social distancers or self-isolators they are not -  especially on the biggest day of the year. Even in London large crowds holding candles gather outside the Orthodox cathedral around midnight on Saturday to celebrate the Anastasi -- resurrection of Jesus. 

Good luck cancelling this one

Greeks will travel far and wide to be with family and friends to celebrate Easter weekend. The Lenten fast officially ends with the midnight service and people then congregate in homes all over the country to celebrate the ending of the Fast with a large meal in the wee hours of the morning. Later Sunday morning the air is heavy with the scents of entire lambs being roasted on spits. By the afternoon the feast is prepared and even larger crowds gather to partake of the mounds of lamb, goat, sausage, sweets, and the odd glass of ouzo. It will take a very brave official to ban or even limit for the sake of a mere virus this celebration that is hard-wired into every Greek’s DNA.