Cassie though it ironic that she had spent last Christmas Day alone and now when everyone else was facing Christmas alone she was having two guests for Christmas lunch, three if you counted the dog. When she had invited Sam the rule had been three households for five days, but Boris had changed all that on Saturday. They were still in Tier 2 so she didn’t think they were breaking any rules; Christmas Day only and no overnight stays, but she hadn’t bargained for Sam’s long lost son turning up. Even in pre Covid days this would have been quite a drama. But there was no question of him being sent back to Scotland, would he even be allowed back in? Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister, did not want anyone entering or leaving Scotland. Sam had insisted Lucas ring his mother, so she could call off the frantic search round their huge highland estate, but more to ensure future prospects for cooperation.
Sam was thrilled with the turn of events, he felt he had a connection already with his sixteen year old son. Cassie could not see things in such a positive light, Sam was a long way from being able to provide a stable home for a teenager who still had two years of school ahead, but it was not her place to say anything. Of more immediate concern was meeting Lucas. As an only child brought up by her aunt and sent to a girls’ school she knew nothing about teenage boys. Doris next door had reassured her all she had to do was treat him like a normal human being and perhaps he would be interested in her geckos.
Now as she looked at the time and checked the oven she wondered if Sam had heard the latest news; at one minute past midnight on Boxing Day they were going to enter Tier 4. Any positivity she had felt about the pandemic or her own little life seemed to be fast fading in recent weeks, a new strain of Covid, worrying statistics…
The doorbell rang and as she opened it she was taken aback to see a broad shouldered young man taller than Sam, standing behind him.
‘Cassie, this is Lucas.’
For some reason she had imagined a smaller version of Sam, pale, quiet and nervous, an unhappy runaway; so she was further surprised when he greeted her enthusiastically in a booming baritone Scottish accent.
‘Lunch smells nice.’
‘It’s just a little pork joint,’ Cassie apologised ‘I’ve never cooked a turkey in my life.’
‘That’s okay, didn’t Sa…. my father tell you I am vegetarian?’
Today’s window peeps into one of the most famous Christmas stories. A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in 1843. It recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
The story has been filmed or inspired films many times and as you are probably busy getting ready for Christmas, why not watch this five minute Lego version?
The calendar has already opened on a ballet, so today’s window opens on an opera popular at Christmas.
Hansel and Gretel was composed in 1891/1892 by nineteenth-century composer Engelbert Humperdinck The libretto was written by his sister, based on the Grimm Brothers’ dark fairy tale of brother and sister lost in the forest and finding the witch’s gingerbread house. The first video is the evening prayer the children sing as they fall asleep in the forest.
The second piece has its own magic. On 19 June 1929, 250 children from 52 local schools, the Manchester Children’s Choir, travelled by tram to the Free Trade Hall in Manchester to record Nymphs and Shepherds by Henry Purcell with the Hallé Orchestra, under the direction of Sir Hamilton Harty. It was issued on Columbia 9909, a 12in 78rpm disc that cost four shillings and sixpence and sold 1million copies. The B side was the Dance Duet from Hansel and Gretel.
Today’s window opens into Vivienne’s living room, where we can eavesdrop as she chats on the phone. Restricted lives leave those living alone searching for nuggets of news in their now restricted lives. Tit bits gleaned from family and friends, polished and enhanced until they bear little resemblance to the original.
Tier 4, I didn’t even know there was a Tier 4 till yesterday and all that food. The experts have been saying this for weeks and Boris waits till yesterday… Julia had already had a big shop delivered here, no I paid for half of it, which considering there are four of them… salmon en what, I thought she was vegetarian… oh piscetarian. Well I would be happy with that, wish I was coming to yours. No luckily James is going to take it for his homeless lot … I mean I would be quite happy to go to MPJ and help with the cooking, but of course I am not allowed… yes, still Tier 2, looks like it will be lunch at Sonia’s…. I know, I was trying to avoid being in her bubble, but I can hardly pretend I have other plans when we all know we are all staying at home…
That chap across the road, no mask? Did the bus driver say anything… I got on the bus the other day and forgot about the screen, there was one tiny hole to put your hand in and swipe your bus pass… the whole class? I know, Julia said Jacintha’s is the only class that hasn’t had to isolate.
Nine pounds, did she have to have stiches… so nobody can go round, how many great nieces is that now? goodness… No, they’re still just friends… what are the chances of James marrying again, let alone finding a wife young enough to have babies… They won’t have any more, Julia said he’s had the snip, two children quite enough.
Next door-but-one you mean, well that was a bit of drama, how many police cars? There’s going to be more of that with people shut indoors. There are some advantages to living alone. No, James won’t even come indoors now, says it’s not safe for me when he’s been mixing with… yes they are very careful, I have been sewing more masks for them.
Did you, how is she? I’m not surprised, shut indoors with him, she must be going round the bend, bit of a come down hey, three cruises a year and now her greatest excitement is going to the CoOp. That couple down the road, I don’t think they have been out at all since March, what with him and his lungs and heart and her with her, not sure what, but I was walking by and she had left a bunch of Xmas cards on the garden wall with a note, asking someone to post them, so that was my Brownie good deed for the day. So do I .. to do my duty to God and The Queen and help other people every day… yes, Jacintha had just joined when Covid struck.
No, at least we’re not trying to get to France… not with all this food I’ve got… we might not get lettuces, no great loss.
Which planets? What the actual Bethlehem star, how do they know? I’m not going to see it from my garden, it’s just started pouring with rain… Yes you too.
Today finds Elf in contemplative mood so the window opens in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge University; a place inextricably associated with Christmas. For over a hundred years A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols has been broadcast on the radio and more recently on television, from here to millions of people around the world.
Listen to one of my favourite composers and one of my favourite singers. Fantasia On Christmas Carols by Ralph Vaughan Williams, sung by Roderick Williams.
Ralph Vaughan Williams was a composer of great importance for English music. He was born on 12 October 1872 in a Cotswold village. At the turn of the century he was among the first to travel into the countryside to collect folk songs and carols from singers, notating them for future generations. He died on 26 August 1958; his ashes are interred in Westminster Abbey, near Purcell. In his long and very productive life music of every genre flowed in profusion.
Christmas always has a touch of winter melancholy, especially this year and one of my favourite carols for enjoying a touch of melancholy is Bethlehem Down, made more interesting and poignant by the story behind it
Peter Warlock was the pseudonymn of Philip Heseltine (1894–1930), his choice of Warlock reflected his interest in occult practices! Bethlehem Down was created in a mood of flippancy due to the impecunious state of Warlock and his poet friend Bruce Blunt – both notorious for their Bohemian behaviour. They hoped to earn enough money to get suitably drunk at Christmas; the carol was completed in a few days and published (words and music) in The Daily Telegraph on Christmas Eve. Their plan had worked and they had ‘an immortal carouse on the proceeds’.
But Warlock’s career as a composer, music scholar and critic was cut short; towards the end of his life he became depressed by a loss of creative inspiration and died in his London flat of coal gas poisoning in 1930, probably suicide.
The weather is grey and damp here so what better than an Australian Christmas tree to brighten us up.
But the elf had a trip to the beach hut yesterday where we had glorious sunshine. He is looking forward to some Christmas shopping as we are now out of Lockdown Two and in Tier Two, we can’t visit anybody, but can go to non essential shops, so let me know what you want…
We’re in tears over tiers; only the Isle of Wight, The Scilly Isles and Cornwall are in Tier 1. From next Tuesday or is it Wednesday… many of us will continue being home alone. Four fifths of my family will be in Tier 3, including the new puppy, but as he’s not allowed beyond the back garden yet he probably is not bothered. For those of us in Tier Two the only difference from Lockdown Two is that all the shops are open, I think… In some ways it is a sort of Covid comfort blanket, no pressure to decide what to do or where to go next.
Christmas is still going to be a five day bubble of fun with three households allowed to meet as long as they keep all the windows open, don’t play board games and don’t hug Granny, but all that could change...
Theoretically it would have been better if everyone had stayed home for ever back in February and worn masks, even in the shower and if flights all over the world had been cancelled… We would have ended up with no food in the shops and worse still, no Amazon deliveries, but at least our leaders could not have been accused of being indecisive.
But what is life like in our new reality? My elderly next-door-but-one neighbour rang up the other evening; earlier when I walked past her house she was sitting in her porch with her granddaughter perched on a chair in the front garden, baby on her lap. I stopped to say hello at a safe distance, but her dog started barking ( the tiny dachshund barks at everyone that goes by ) , frightening the baby, who started crying… I waved apologetically and moved on. She was on the phone for over two hours, I was a bit punch drunk, but can’t complain I have no one to talk to and she makes me laugh. She was widowed when she was my age; half her family are nurses at our local hospitals and one of her sons works at the crematorium. Whatever the latest instructions Boris declares, her family have put her under lockdown. Her other son controls her central heating from his home in Malta.
On Tuesday my friend and I met at the beach hut in glorious sunshine. I can go to the shops ( the ones that are open ) or the cliff top and look at the horizon any time; I don’t feel closed in. On the promenade or up on Hengistbury Head it is like a permanent weekend or holiday time, everyone is out walking, jogging, cycling with dogs and children. Mostly they smile as they pass at a safe distance, glad to see people’s faces. Later in the afternoon when it is dark it is quite festive on the sea front; our resident four or five redundant ocean liners are fully lit up and circles of coloured light whiz past as invisible dogs run around with their flashing collars. Back at the shops the Christmas lights are up and windows are brightly lit with displays of what we cannot buy till next week.
But everywhere there will be people in tears over tiers, most of us confused with the constant changing of rules and information. Folk overworked and folk out of work. Parents going on social media to insist that though Johnny was off school sick, he tested negative for Covid and he wasn’t the cause of the whole of year seven having to stay home and isolate…
The pandemic has revealed just how many people live alone; we hear and read about well known stars and artists happily living by themselves, presumably as a lifestyle choice. Plenty of ordinary people live alone, perhaps always have done as adults, or since a parent or partner died or after divorce. Many of these are happy living by themselves, self contained. Those elderly people already restricted to home before Covid hit, are not necessarily lonely. A lady in her nineties on our library round told us she was never lonely, as long as she had the twenty books we brought her every three weeks. Of course there are many people who are lonely, young people from broken homes in tiny bedsits, old people who have no family left in the world.
None of these ‘single households’ reckoned on having a pandemic and being prisoners in their homes. Single retired people leading busy independent lives suddenly found themselves described as vulnerable. The people for whom lockdowns and the lack of access to normal activities are so hard are single parents in tiny flats, carers left to cope with disabled children or parents and partners with dementia. Their support network was suddenly pulled out from beneath them.
Being alone is not the same as being lonely. In days gone by lone people might manage a farm by themselves with the nearest humans miles away; being alone really meant that, no radio, television or internet. I can’t imagine what that would be like, but perhaps the company of their dog, farm animals and nature all around was enough. It’s a cliché, but you can be just as lonely in a big city; most of us have probably found ourselves in a new town, at a new job, knowing no one.
When we first moved here sixteen years ago Cyberspouse had a few more weeks working out his notice at Heathrow. When he left for work early on Monday morning with the kitchen flooded ( that’s another story ) I suddenly realised I had gone from a home with five people and a job at Heathrow with thousands of people – I wasn’t actually working with thousands, just moving among thousands each day – to a strange house in a place I knew no one. I wondered if I only existed in relation to other people.
I had time to get used to the idea of joining that large club, widows ( what a medical scandal it is that women are still outliving men ) and the even larger club of women living alone. After the flurry of activity and family visits we are in our second lockdown in England, so now I am officially on my own. Cyberspouse was totally dependable, unflappable and fun, so being on my own was not what I would have chosen, but if others manage to cope so will I. During 2019 we had plenty of time for trips and fun and getting everything in order. In 2020 I learnt to be a carer and the only responsible adult in the house, no more yelling for help when the computer didn’t work. I am cheating slightly, having had family to help out with the official stuff and Cyberson Two, who after doing nothing at school, is now a builder we all depend on, who can turn his hand to anything. The downside is that none of the family live nearby, but it must be hard to truly be on your own.
What else helps? Covid Comforts are what we all need and anyone who has a home and food enough to eat must be grateful. We glimpse on our television screens into the homes of news commentators or our favourite entertainers; they enjoy having the chance to chat and presumably they are coping fine with lockdown. Invisible are those folk in poverty or grieving having lost family to Covid. It may seem to me that everyone is walking around alive while Cyberspouse is not, but 53,000 is our death toll from Covid in the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile in my cosy lockdown retreat I live in a nice little road with good neighbours and a garden to keep me busy. We are allowed to go to the shops for essentials and at the local shops I buy fresh flowers regularly, my lockdown treat to brighten the dark days of winter. We can go out for exercise and use our beach huts; I can sit and chat at the beach hut with the one friend we’re allowed to meet outside. We can go out for medical reasons, so I was quite excited to go on the bus to the hospital for a blood test!
Indoors the lifesaver is BBC Radio, it never goes off; if I can’t sleep I can listen to the World Service. During the day there is news aplenty ( too much ), but also intelligent chat, dramas, serials and music. I have a CD player so I am never without music on tap. Television may have plenty of rubbish, but also interesting or cheerful programmes to watch with dinner on my lap. Writing is absorbing, creative and vital. Photography and crafts are other creatives to focus on.
Connecting with the outside world? The good old fashioned telephone is the easiest way to chat to people, but how many of us would want to do without the internet during Covid? We can blog, Facetime, share political and lockdown jokes on Facebook, go on zoom; my only experience with zoom is the weekly quiz my daughters’ friends do, but it’s good to have something fun to focus on.
What will happen next in the world, in our own countries; will Christmas be cancelled, will those of us in the northern hemisphere cope with winter… look out for Home Alone Two.
Warning: If you want to avoid the topic of death and dark humour read no further.
Covid 19 has made people think and talk about how people should die, with emphasis on not being alone, preferably with family. Covid patients in isolation have been unable to see loved ones.
In reality most of us cannot choose where to die or plan the scenario; victims of murder or major disasters certainly don’t have the luxury of dying in their own beds comforted by family. Awful circumstances such as terrorist attacks find total strangers holding the hand of a dying person, giving their death some dignity. As no one comes back to tell us, we cannot know if the surroundings and company or lack of it make any difference to their own unique internal solo journey. Celebrities often seem to have died ‘peacefully at home with their family present’ but folk lore and family tales seem to indicate that dying people often wait till the very moment loved ones pop out of the room.
Most terminally ill people will probably get the chance to opt for palliative care at home, though it can’t be guaranteed; they may need to go to hospital or a hospice eventually, but Covid has made it even more desirable to stay at home and leave hospital beds free for others. Unless everyone in your family is a medical person, carers will need help along the way or near the end; team work and various bits of equipment are required to make life easy for patient and carers. There is nothing to stop you ordering wheelchairs and all sorts on Amazon and getting next day delivery, but the National Health Service is geared up to lend what you need and the various teams helping you will be busy arranging equipment. The largest item is the hospital bed; you might die in your own home, but probably not in your own bed, however romantic that looks in films. The beds have to be plugged in and do all sorts of things. The bed and other items come with wheels and stiff pedal brakes impossible to put on or off if you are only wearing your slippers!
In the first few months of the lockdown I coped fine by myself with Cyberspouse. District nurses were trying to avoid going in any homes, but they phoned regularly with advice and to arrange some of the medications. They were ready to come out with their protective gear if necessary. Cyberspouse was happy not to have any visits, medical or otherwise, relaxing at home in the exceptionally sunny weather we had.
Later on, family help was more vital than keeping isolated and they took turns to come and stay; it was only in the last ten days that the district nurses came and arranged for Marie Curie nurses to parachute in with four visits a day. A helpful bright yellow book arrived promptly in the post. We were also glad a few times to ring the emergency numbers that had been sitting by the phone for months; night duty district nurses and 111 doctors. Marie Curie were excellent, compassionate and caring ladies and one chap. Visits rapidly increased and they made sure I had a night nurse for what turned out to be the last night, one of the few nights I was going to be by myself. They told me I was going to have wonderful Linda who had been doing the overnighter ‘forever’.
Linda arrived with a huge bag, rather like a mature Mary Poppins. I explained yet again that none of the family lived nearby, but they had all been to visit and my daughter was coming back the next day. It was a busy week in real life with two grandchildren just back in the UK and starting a new school and my daughter’s son starting school! Younger son had just got engaged. Linda was there to make sure Cyberspouse was comfortable, to organise the practicalities and make sure I didn’t miss the moment…
I later got a nice card from Marie Curie and they have rung me a few times to see how I am getting on. They are a charity well worth supporting.
Handy Home Hints
You might think your loved one is past the point of seeing the GP, but it is the GP who has to prescribe the drugs and you will have to go and sign for the ‘just in case’ controlled drugs as well as collecting various ongoing prescriptions.
It is helpful if someone in the family works for the NHS or has a friend in palliative care nursing … my daughter is a physiotherapist and had that very friend to ask for advice. She always made lists of questions and sounded professional on the phone, so we were well prepared.
After the death a doctor has to come and certify the death, either the GP or the on call ( 111 ) doctor at night. After that you must call the funeral director, but you can decide if you want them to come as soon as possible or wait a while.
Afterwards you will have to return all the drugs to a pharmacy, especially the controlled drugs, but unused needles have to be returned to the doctors’ surgery.
Darkly Funny Moments.
The next day, Thursday, the funeral directors phoned to say they had not had the notification from our GP of the death. The on call night duty doctor had sat at the kitchen table typing into his lap top, saying ‘everything is going straight through to your doctor’s surgery’ but my writer’s mind thought ‘I have no proof he’s even been here, no piece of paper, was he actually a doctor?’ I was slightly reassured that nurse Linda knew him. When my daughter tried phoning our surgery she couldn’t get through and in the end resorted to using her internal NHS email. Luckily the information did end up in the right place.
One thing the district nurses requested unsuccessfully was a hospital bed extension, we had been expecting it for weeks. When a chap with a truck arrived at the door on Thursday morning I thought he was very quick to collect the hospital bed until he said cheerfully ‘I’ve brought the bed extension’. Poor bloke was embarrassed when I apologised that it was too late.
We had not seen much of the palliative care team from the local hospital who originally got us organised. One of the nurses had phoned the previous week saying ‘I’ll touch base with you on Friday.’ Sure enough on Friday the phone rang and she said brightly ‘Just calling to touch base’… so I had to tell her the news.
Because of Covid we were saved a trip to the registry office; instead I had a nice phone chat to Polly the registrar including Cyberspouse’s no funeral request. After taking most of the details she asked me my occupation. Oh oh, was I going to fail this part? I replied that I had done all sorts of things and she said ‘How would you like to be known in a hundred years?’ Well who in a hundred years would know I didn’t earn a living at it, so of course I replied ‘A writer!’
