A long Covid, or Over the Wall — Sunday 5th July 2020
By: Who Is Andrew Beattie
Tags: Covid Diaries, Covid Journal, Coronavirus Diaries, Diary, Journaling

A long Covid, or Over the Wall. I don’t know why I’ve persisted with that title, but there it is.

It has been a long Covid, though — that’s a truth. Me being sick with what I think was probably Covid last year feels a long time ago. I have two friends who have it currently — both fully vaccinated. One of them messaged earlier to say that he can’t shake it after a week and feels rough.

And Over the wall definitely still works for the period of my diary that I’m posting still, as I was still at City Road then and still very much interested in what was happening with Jade, Chloe, David and John, whose lives played out over my back wall.

I don’t know why I’m writing a justification for the title of this series — but there we are, and there that is.

It’s Sunday evening now, almost 8 pm, and it’s been a lovely and productive day. Lunch at my Dad's with Max and my Mum, then back home to water my plants, vacuum, and start Max’s homework. He left for Amy’s 10 minutes ago and the house is now much quieter.

I’m going to start a book soon, after I make my bed. Anna is out getting groceries and I’m looking forward to seeing her when she’s back and we video chat.

That’s the plan.

We got a lot of rubbish of the Rezzy in our clean up days in 2020

Sunday 05th July 2020

It’s 10:30 am. I’m listening to the last 3 minutes of the second lesson in my course in the background. David Hieatt is currently in the top right-hand corner of my screen and has just asked me, ‘Who is your Betty?’ Basically, who am I writing this for? Who is the person? Mike Coulter had three Bettys in mind when he was writing this course. Impressive. I don’t know one Betty.

It’s a great question though and one I’ve thought a lot about recently with a few things I’m doing. Who am I doing it for and why am I doing it? I often find this difficult to explain with a lot of the things that I do and I feel drawn to things in instinct and then, mostly impulsively, I agree to do something or point myself in a direction and go. And I am impulsive, and an addict. That is, I’m addicted to following my impulses.

But there has to be more to it. The hour lesson I’ve just listened to in bed asked me to think about people's motivations when I’m writing. To think about what keeps them up at night, about what they’re aiming or wanting to do. It challenged me to write my three desires — to which I wrote financial independence, freedom to travel and justice, fairness and equality.

But, back to the question — who am I writing this for? Well, I used to write for my Nan — many years ago when she was alive I’d write things and I’d imagine that she’d read them. Or I’d send her letters. In my mid-twenties, she was my audience of one, my reader, and it made it easier to write, and be myself. There wasn’t any point to a lot of that writing in those days — I’d just write things that I thought of — sometimes a blog about something on my mind, or sometimes a little story.

Was she was who I was writing for? The purpose of that writing? It wasn’t really just to entertain my Nan — I just felt an impulse to write, and so I did. But it was good to know I had a reader.

And so I actually have no idea why I’m writing this or what I’m writing it for. It started as a story that I might submit somewhere about my neighbours and about life in lockdown — a human interest piece. But now it’s about something else and I don’t know what it is that I’m doing it for. I’m also not sure it matters so much, as I’m enjoying writing it. Maybe in 20 years when Max asks me to remind him about the Pandemic and the thing that reset the economy and kickstarted a community wealth building new deal and green revolution, I’ll remember this piece and email it to him and it’ll remind me of the lockdown period. I wonder how I’ll feel about it then? I’ll be the audience then, along with Max.

Yesterday the pubs, restaurants, cafes and barbers opened across England. I’ve avoided images from social media and stories about it. I wonder how we’ll look back on this period in several weeks, months or years? The point in time at which the government decided that it was okay for us to resume some sort of normality with a virus that kills people still in circulation. The only reference I have for what might happen is in the US, where some states that have opened for business are having a bad time with the virus returning and are in danger of overwhelming the healthcare system and running out of intensive care beds. So, badly perhaps?

Suffice to say that I won't be heading to a pub anytime soon — but I may head to a cafe for my first take out Cortado or Flat White when I’m in the office over the next couple of days.

I imagine that epidemiologists are avoiding pubs too for now and I’ll deem it safe to return to them when the UK Epidemiological Society, if there even is such a thing, Tweets a picture of its members gathered in a pub with a round of bevvies and a table of empties in front of them.

Until then I’ll remain mostly indoors, occasionally writing this thing and questioning my motivations.

This is part of a series of diary entries I wrote from April 2020 to April 2021. I’m posting them a year out from when I first wrote them. You can read the other ones I’ve posted here