Day by day.

Day by day.

It all seems as if our lives are slowly turning into one endless loop of TV repeats,  the weeks and months now a yawning chasm and here we are desperately clinging onto the same treadmill with no apparent end in sight fighting an invisible disease that shows little sign of relenting. Initially we all thought  Covid 19 would simply be some temporary medical alarm, rather like one of those annoying colds that you simply couldn't shake off. But now 2020 is gradually descending into the realms of the scary horror movie that make you want to just jump out of your seat and send your popcorn flying.

We are now conditioned to the present day and we know what's going on. What we probably don't need at the moment are those nauseating reminders of coronavirus because quite clearly the heart rending statistics tell their own story. Since the beginning of this very modern Greek tragedy, both TV, radio, newspapers and every conceivable media outlet haven't been backwards in coming forward with yet more statements of the obvious. Suddenly Ground Hog Day is gradually morphing into some very realistic drama where the fatalities and casualties are increasing almost exponentially alongside those poor people who have just been diagnosed with Covid 19 or may have thankfully recovered.

This is real life out there. The recurring narrative is almost too much to bear and the ever present atmosphere is one of fear and emotional meltdown but you probably know that anyway. The nation feels as if this paralysis, this turmoil, this sickening helplessness may never go away. It is hard to accuse anybody of being totally neurotic because everybody, quite literally everybody, is afraid to go anywhere, do anything or feel anything because we don't really know why or how this came to pass.

Last week on one of many walks in Finsbury Park you were subjected to the kind of sound that you might have associated with 'The Land that Time Forgot'. You walked around one circuit of the park and found yourself followed by a truck with a loud tannoy warning that you were only allowed to go out and exercise and that if you didn't follow the strident order you had to go home. For a while this was distinctly unsettling until you realised the damaging implications of your refusal to comply. Perhaps you'd be severely fined on the spot by some by passing park ranger or even the police. Surely not though.

Even the laying of a new pavement outside the parade of shops next to us has failed to arouse any excitement at all. You'd have thought the local mayor or mayoress would have been invited to come along and cut the tape just to lift the mood ever so slightly. Even the hairdressers has put the shutters up since the very thought of having your hair cut may not seem quite so appealing. The dry cleaners is similarly shut for the duration and the opticians can't seem to decide whether to open or not.

We are now at the critical stage whereby even the chemist isn't sure whether to keep its doors open, stagger the number of people allowed inside the chemist or just give up the ghost and just close permanently which wouldn't really benefit anybody. The local sweet shops and greengrocers are still doing an excellent trade which, to all intents and purposes, is the right way to go. How else would we able to cope without our eggs, bread, milk and - yes, you've guessed it- toilet rolls? It seems certain that the world will not come to an end and nothing unsavoury will ever happen but you'd probably think it already had.

Outside, the spring weather is at its loveliest and if you didn't know what exactly is going on around us you'd swear that everything is indeed good in the world and things are just fine. But the local streets and roads are still disturbingly quiet and eerie, almost sinister in their silence. Every so often a trickle of cars and completely unpopulated buses struggle their way around the highways and byways of life. But you can, it is true, hear a pin drop. The cyclists meander their way around the streets before everything just vanishes rather like a cheesy magic trick.

The official line is that the industrious construction workers next to us should have downed their tools because the social distancing law would render any kind of activity completely out of the question. Occasionally you hear the beeping of some massively complex piece of machinery but how to make the distinction between necessity or the deeply offensive. Even the Travelodge hotel, which is still in the process of being built, looks as though it could open in the 22nd century.

Wherever you look there are huge white sheets enveloping the framework of half built structures, cranes towering over North London with an arrogant and commanding air. None of us are really demoralised because the sun is still shining brightly and the birds are still tripping the light fantastic on telegraph poles that stretch for a good mile or so. Nothing will ever stop their daily routine and wherever you look most of the bird population will enact the same balletic movement where whole communities of birds sway across the sky with all the grace of Torvill and Dean at the very peak of their powers.

Sadly though the daily bulletins from 10 Downing Street make for nothing but grim reading. The fatalities are slowly decreasing but then we're told in the same breath that the figures don't include the number of elderly people who have died in care or nursing homes. The language though has now become frighteningly morbid and extremely garbled. This is not to suggest that we haven't a clue what our wonderful medical officers and scientists are talking about but every so often the sentences and grammar keep going around in our heads without really changing their context.

At varying times we are assured that it won't be long now before the children can finally go back to school as soon as it's safe to do so. It could be in the second week of May and then a cynical voice might suggest that that's just wishful thinking. Far too premature for the re-opening of schools. And yet we must hope that it could be imminent because both parents and their kids are at the end of their tether.

Perhaps the reel to reel tape recorder will finally make some kind of sense eventually. For the truth is that the announcements and pronouncements, the constant analysis, the scientific discourses. We have been bogged down in rousing rhetoric and would prefer a little more clarity. We hear about the ongoing arrival of patients at the newly opened Nightingale Hospital in East London and wonder whether the hard facts will ever emerge. A vast majority of people have now been sent home but has Covid19 finally disappeared over the horizon?

Today Her Majesty the Queen is celebrating her 94th birthday which would have been accompanied by that traditionally loud burst of cannon fire. But quite rightly this would be totally inappropriate and besides we can always abandon ourselves to jubilant street parties when Covid19 has finally gone. So do please stay at home and protect the NHS. It's not rocket science or is it? Keep well everybody and ensure absolute safety.