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.
I hadn’t experimented with a mask before. I put the mask on just outside Tesco. It was tricky getting it on with gloves on so I took my gloves off. Once on the first problem was that every time I breathed out my glasses fogged up. If I moved the mask my nose wasn’t covered and if I moved my glasses I couldn’t see – well not the prices anyway. It was also hot and muggy inside the mask. I hadn’t expected that and yet if I’d thought I would have remembered that in the winter when I was growing up it was so cold in the bedroom that once in bed I’d breathe under the blankets to warm up inside the bed. Cold bed, warm breath. Warm breath muggy mask. The whole thing of masks is clearly easier said than done. I suppose doctors and nurses get used to it.
The Tesco’s experience was brilliant. The floor is marked at two meter intervals with arrows showing which way to go. It’s clearly essential to know what you want as there’s no going back, though I suppose you could if you’re prepared to do the whole circuit again. Other customers were great at keeping their distance. The young woman at the checkout was patient and as helpful as she possibly could be the other side of the screen. It was a bit of a juggle trying to put things into a bag and get organised but I managed it.
Once outside with two carrier bags full of, amongst other things, asparagus, I took off my mask. Well I took off my mask and my glasses which shot off across the pavement. Another young woman, who’d been along from me, at two meters, at the check out, called out, ‘I wish I could help but I don’t know how I can.’ I called back that I was sure I’d get sorted eventually and that it was just a matter of getting used to it and we agreed that wearing a mask and glasses should carry a safety warning and we laughed and she went on her way.
I managed to retrieve my glasses – thank goodness I’m doing bending exercises – and I gathered up the bags and was home, exhausted, having had enough experiences to last the day, by twenty past eight.
I’ve had an email from New Zealand responding to my mention of Lambeth Palace. My cousin tells me that a newspaper there has reported on the Archbishop’s secret visits to patients in St Thomas’s Hospital. She describes the Archbishop as ‘gallant’. Maybe. I gather the secret visits have been widely reported here. I don’t get a newspaper and I seem to be steering clear of all news reports other than the radio at 8:00am. My understanding of current church regulations here is that parish clergy have been told by the Bishops that they may not visit sick parishioners in hospital or in their own homes but that they must find other ‘imaginative’ ways of caring for them. Only hospital chaplains ae allowed to visit in hospitals. The Archbishop has made himself a voluntary hospital chaplain. Oh well it’s always been ‘one rule for the rich and…’
I hope that doesn’t sound bitter. It’s meant to sound very very disappointed.