Life Under the Cloud. Tessa Barrie’s Coronavirus Diaries
Dear Diary, as 2020 was so goddam bleak, I intend to record only positive thoughts and affirmations this year.
Well, hello, 2021! I took down the tree and the Christmas decorations today because now that you’re here, there no point in hanging around, I want to get on with it. You’ve been a long time coming. It’s been the longest 365 days of my life and, as I’m sure you’ve heard, your predecessor was a nightmare.
I dare to dream about spending time with the people I care about, without being 2 meters apart.
I dare to dream about going out for a meal, or to the theatre – how I’ve missed the smell of the greasepaint – and listening to Little Black Dress cook up a storm in the Blue Note Bar with other live music lovers.
I dare to dream about a change of scene – I used to write poetry, just as well I gave it up.
I dare to dream about soaking up the sunshine somewhere with the gentle lapping of the sea in my ears, free to inhale the exhilarating, briny COVID-19-free air. Joy.
Let’s face it, 2020 has been a shit year, so far, but one good thing that has come out of it for me, is that it has highlighted the things that are really important.
Dominic Cummings has to go! Some may argue that he shouldn’t be in 10 Downing Street at all. The Conservative Government appear to be closing ranks and defending Cummings’s reckless behaviour. So it would seem they have created one set of rules for the entire UK population and […]
The human race has come a long way in the last 200,000 years. We have the innate ability to adapt to change, and now we are currently facing the most significant changes we will ever have to make. Climate change, overpopulation, pollution, and on top these three serious contenders, COVID-19 is raining down on us all.
With the help of the global scientific community, we will survive this cataclysmic period in our history but, then what?
I was having such an incredible dream. It was the start of a long haul flight, I’ve no idea where I was going, but my excitement was as effervescent as the fizz I was sipping. I tipped my head back, savouring the moment. Waiting for someone to whisper sweet nothings in my ear, when the deep-throated moan of a hungry Burmese cat, demanding to be fed, blasted my eardrum.
‘Just let me sleep!’ Not quite all the words I used, but this is a family show.
Being in lockdown is inevitably changing our perspective on many things. How we will live and work in the future is at the forefront of all our minds. Our lives are, effectively, on hold until we return to some sort of reality, and we have no idea when that is going to be. I have no doubt that when we are eventually let out, we will run around like headless chickens trying to pick up where we left off.
Until that time, it is so important to keep focused on life after lockdown and where we want it to take us, as well as the things that we want, but are yet to achieve.
Whether wearing a face mask will stop you from contracting COVID-19 or not, covering up your nose and mouth makes sense – even if I look like like a bonkers blogging buffoon. I will work on a more stylish look for my second attempt at a homemade mask. As they say, where I come from, owt’s better than nowt.
In my mind, it’s peace of mind, and it’s got to be better than inhaling anything COVID-19 related. Stay safe everyone.
I live in a lane, rather than a street. There are seven houses close by and children live in two of them. It has a country feel about it, as there are fields around us, but the main road is only 200 yards away, and the town centre is just a twenty-minute walk.
There are constant comings and goings. We are all busy. Our lives taking us in different directions going to work, school runs, evening classes and sporting events.
We chat with each other when we pass in the lane, walking our dogs, going for a jog or a cycle ride.
‘We’re overdue a catch-up!’ We say. ‘We must get together soon.’
One month after the British Government made the extraordinary decision to let the Cheltenham Festival go ahead, we have been fed the daily bullshit about Coronavirus affecting the older generation and those with pre-existing conditions (a category always vulnerable to infection). The latest reported COVID-19 death is a 13-year-old -schoolboy, who died alone, without his family at his bedside.
When the COVID-19 dust settles, and an investigation is held into why measures were not put into place sooner to protect the UK before the acute phase of the pandemic hit, will heads roll?
It’s Monday morning, the start of another working week, which was greeted by steely grey clouds at first light and the biting chill of a northeast wind. However, this was no ordinary morning because there was no rush hour, no scrabbling to find a parking place because as of 8.00 a.m. this morning, the small Island of Jersey, Channel Islands followed the UK’s lead, and officially went into lockdown.
In January, I was in full steam ahead writing-mode. I honestly believed I could finish book number two by the end of April. I was writing with a confidence I had never felt before, and it was a fantastic feeling. Unfortunately, my purple patch fizzled out about 3 weeks ago as the Coronavirus shit really began to hit the fan.
Perhaps I had been blinkered up to that point? Hoping Covid-19 would just go away.
Now just doesn’t feel like the right time to be writing a murder mystery spoof. So, it’s not actually the curse of the writer’s block that is to blame; it’s the Coronavirus Curse. The inability to focus on the writing that I love.
After an uplifting day in the sunshine yesterday, I made the mistake of checking for updates on the Government of Jersey’s social media account around midnight, and Jersey’s Heath Minister, Richard Renouf, had just posted. ‘ Sadly, this evening, I need to announce that a patient of ours […]
Just Say It is my first born novel which I am currently submitting to agents. It is a bittersweet story, which covers the forty-three year relationship between Lisa Grant and her narcissist mother, Elizabeth.
Not quite finished yet, but this is my second novel, a murder mystery spoof. The sleepy market town of Didsbrook is thrown into turmoil after the town’s most flamboyant resident, the much-loved actress turned best-selling novelist, Jocelyn Robertshaw, is found dead.
BROKEN a young woman who takes a sabbatical in the USA and is falsely accused of murder. (Fifteen-minute read.)
I wrote this little doggerel almost thirty years ago. It was inspired by an experience I had at sixteen when I still had, misguided, aspirations about pursuing a career on the stage. I was at an ‘all-round’ college in London, and after my first lesson with our drama teacher, who was moonlighting from one of the leading London-based drama schools, I knew acting was never going to be the career for me.
The Jersey Writers Social Group meet every Tuesday at 11.00 o’clock
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If you are interested in joining, please contact James Sillwood @ jerseywritersgroup@gmail.com
