‘I am so frightened of this disease. Here I am in the prime of my life with so much to look forward to,’ the aunt of a friend of mine has just announced. It’s typical. She has never been frightened of anything in her life and she will be one hundred and two years old in September.  She made the announcement to her carer. She is also, typically, perfectly ready to die. That’s the way to do it.

When I was first working in Singapore a wonderful elderly Chinese parishioner, Mrs Lim Wah Aun took me to Sago Lane. Sago Lane was a street of undertakers, coffin makers, shops which sold funeral garments, joss sticks, paper houses, clothes, cars everything you needed for a funeral. Mrs Lim pointed out the coffins which looked like wonderful wooden boats and, she said, I should never write or sign my name with red ink as, I think, the names on coffins were always written in red or certainly something to do with death was always written in red. I still don’t like to use red ink to sign anything.

Also in Sago Lane were Death Houses. These were houses where poorer families would bring elderly relatives to die knowing that there they would receive all the care and the rituals in preparation for death and after death which they couldn’t afford to give them at home. The rooms were very simple with wooden planks for beds. Those who were there and could understand knew why they were there. Sago Lane was not strange or a street of fear. It was a street of shophouses where families lived above or behind the shops. The Death Houses were also shop houses with families living alongside and caring for the dying. I’ve no doubt some were better than others.

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When I first wrote my last ‘update’ I included a paragraph about spiritual health and then took it out. I thought it was a bit too religious. But I’ve now decided to go the whole hog!

I can still remember, just, some of my Confirmation classes from school. Confirmation is that later part of Christian Initiation when, as an ‘adult’ – we were thirteen or fourteen – you are confirmed in the faith and take on yourself the promises your Godparents made when you were Christened. At Christ’s College, in those days, you were Confirmed in your second year. 

It was part of what you did, like cricket in summer, and rugby in winter – both compulsory. It was taken for granted. Some parents assumed Confirmation was included in the school fees. You didn’t get Confirmed if you were Jewish like my contemporary Ollie Nathan who also didn’t have to come to compulsory singing practice in the chapel on Saturday mornings but did have to go to the Synagogue instead.

You must have been able to get off being Confirmed if you were Roman Catholic but generally you just were – Confirmed that is. It was a Church of England School – in New Zealand. There were no Muslims at College in those days. I guess you could get off compulsory cricket or rugby if you had a doctor’s note but I never heard of anyone managing that – not long term anyway.

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There are two dangers under Lockdown. Well, there are far more than two and I suppose number one danger is that you might catch the virus and that’s always a possibility with panting joggers and runners coming up behind you when you’re on a healthy brisk walk. But leave that to one side. The two dangers for me are being bored and being irritated. Saturday is a dangerous day for me for being irritable especially if I’ve forgotten its Saturday and one of the difficulties these days is remembering which day it is.

My routine on waking up in the morning is to turn on the radio. It’s already set on BBC Radio 3. The problem on Saturdays is that the presenter has a strong regional accent and I cannot understand much of what she’s saying. The other problem is she tells me, frequently, that the next piece of music is ‘gorgeous’. Well it may be, for her, but I would like to make up my own mind over the gorgeousness or not of the piece of music. I’m sure the presenter is a very nice person but if I forget its Saturday and turn on radio 3 when I first wake up I start the day irritated.

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I wore a mask for the first time today. I woke early and I really did need some things from the shop – fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, I was longing for British asparagus, and I was low on butter. One of the decanters was empty as well.

There are many kind people who have offered to shop for me including, of course, fellow parishioners from St Agnes. And there’s my designated local volunteer, Oliver, from down Braganza Street. But he’s running a food bank during the week and last week with forty other volunteers he sorted, packed and delivered eight thousand four hundred meals so I certainly wasn’t going to bother him.

My local Tesco is just down the road and is fine. It also has a cash point outside – the sign ‘free cash’ always irritates me. I know what it means and I’m glad there’s no charge, unlike in New Zealand where there is, but ‘free cash’ seems to have the same meaning as free anything, in other words help yourself, which it certainly does not mean. Be that as it may. After getting some free cash, wearing my gloves of course, I put on my mask.

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Today’s brisk walk was different and it was a battle. It was a battle chiefly because of the wind. When I turned from the Embankment just along from Saint Thomas’s into Westminster Bridge Road the wind was so strong I thought it was going to blow me off the pavement into the road. I had to take shelter behind a sort of kiosk and just pause there while I gathered myself together and then I managed to walk on a bit and i held onto a building at the side. The wind was blowing straight at me so that I could hardly move forward. Then I turned  gradually into Westminster Bridge Road and suddenly the wind was behind me with such  force that I was practically running along the pavement under the railway bridge.

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