Covid-itis is coming and it won’t be pretty

I should be out there raking up the millions of leaves falling on to the lawn and putting the final touches to other parts of the garden. Except, I’m distracted by the news, the fact that Boris appears to actually be combing his hair these days and the suggestion from a financial expert that devolved nations should pay for their own lockdowns. It’s as though they’re gunning for us in other parts of this nation to which we belong.

Take SNP leader in Scotland Nicola Sturgeon, for example. She has plans ‘to impose strict post-Brexit border checks on goods arriving in Scotland from Northern Ireland’.

What have we done to upset her? Don’t I visit her part of the UK every year - have been doing that for the last 45 years?

The northern Irish must top their list of tourists visiting every year.

Some of us can trace our ancestry back centuries. For goodness sake my brother-in-law is a fully fledged, recognised by historians, descendant of Robert the Bruce. Why pick on us?

We all know, of course that Ms Sturgeon wants no truck with the English and is dedicated to having an independent Scotland, though attached to the EU. Doesn’t make much sense that, but she seems to imagine that if she holds enough referendums she will get her way eventually. She has already lost one vote in that direction, but is determined to carry on.

She has done her homework on those post-Brexit checks and clearly is finding ways to make them work in her favour.

So the idea of her ‘unfettered access’ between Northern Ireland and England via Scotland may be just an illusion. It might hit Scotland’s tourist trade next year.

As a sailing family we may have to find somewhere else to take our boat. Life gets more complicated by the day and we

haven’t even got to Hallowe’en yet.

Here at home, the shutting down of ‘close contact services’ this week was not good.

Why, for example, deprive us of the service of hairdressers (only allowed if it is part of an essential health service) – a crime against women I say. I can’t understand why an Assembly with a fair number of women in it thought this was okay. Barbers, too, must be thoroughly fed up with the loss of their business, whilst owners of pubs, bars and restaurants may have great difficulty re-starting their businesses.

These are the services which drive our social lives and help us make new friends. With no real guarantee that the virus will die out this side of the New Year we are all having to re-tune our lives and there are many people who will find that difficult.

Covid-itis is coming and it won’t be pretty.

The sooner our Health Centres re-open the better.

Even I am finding it hard to get my head around the fact that I can’t share Hallowe’en this year with family and friends. There will be none of the rituals we have built up over the years on this particular night. There will be no fireworks, probably no bonfire and, why go to all that bother of giving a pumpkin an evil look when few will be around to admire your efforts.

But back to that idea that devolved nations should pay for their own lockdowns.

An article in the Daily Telegraph this week stated that whilst lockdown ‘might not be an effective way of fighting Covid-19, one point is clear, it is shockingly expensive – and the bill for that should be shouldered by the people’.

I didn’t think any of us thought the bill was going to be paid for by the super-rich, some of whom we will find in the future have made fortunes out of this pandemic. No. Tax rises will be inevitable and taxes are paid by the people, yes even pensioners who have had the temerity to work all their lives in the hope of having a decent living on retirement.

We didn’t choose lockdown.

Our politicians did and their efficacy can be judged by the rest of us come the next election.

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