BEN HUR, FEAR, PLAGUE, FOOD BUNDLES & THE WOOLLING BULLINGS... (COVID-19 DIARY PART 4...)

Ben Hur, Fear, Plague, Food Bundles & The Woolling Bullings

(Covid-19: Day 3 of hermit life…) 

I saw Ben Hur at the cinema when I was a kid and I still have the lush souvenir colour programme from the event which was lavishly illustrated with exciting images from the film’s famous chariot races. 

More galling and upsetting though were the scenes in the film concerning lepers in their colony, whose scarred, hideous faces were mostly hidden by filthy lengths of linen cloth. Good natured villagers would take food to them but leave it at the outer limits of the colony, for the disease was known to be virulent and catching. The lepers would scurry fearfully from their hiding places to collect the food bundles, after the kind folks had edged quickly away…

Ocado’s driver hesitated before edging towards our house last night (March 26th) at around 8.30pm, carrying plastic troughs full of bags containing our ordered food. He left them a good two metres from the porch door and then backed away, crouching like he had just lit a particularly evil firework on the drive. He waited for me to rush out in three relay shuttles to grab the bags and transfer them into the hallway, before he, still leaning and bending like he was auditioning for the part of Quasimodo in Victor Hugo’s famous The Hunchback of Notre Dame novel, edged forth to retrieve his boxes and scuttle back to his van.

Today, the Cook delivery chap was bolder and before even knocking the door, he had already bent to shove two cardboard boxes of frozen food inside the porch and was retreating steadfastly and hurriedly to his limousine parked in the road. He reminded me of a wary zoo employee exiting the lions’ enclosure rather swiftly, after depositing raw meat for the animals to tear at.

Unclean I felt, plagued I might have felt too, merely an infection to steer clear of, as I spirited away more deposited foodstuffs into our cell’s fridge, freezer and cupboards. No rice though, but a pack of toilet paper. My arse will be relieved…

Having gardened on Tuesday and seen nobody at all, yesterday we were trimming the front drive’s two small conifers when two neighbouring couples strolled by, under the state’s orders to exercise with one walk. Conversations at safe distances took place, the first we’ve had with these people, ever…  Only one name was known to me and that was because he had been a professional football referee, so I knew that he was standing the full ten yards from me, having distanced himself with some precision…

A walk… A good idea and so today the household of two took one, just a short one, to check on the local herd of Belted Galloway cattle, which hover and trudge on Somme-like mud nearby. They were there, but their feeding station was empty, like a World War One trench had been abandoned. They seemed to be socially distancing… However, a tractor soon appeared and as the cattle sensed its arrival, they tramped towards it and a new hay bale was tossed into the circular feeder. Soon they were like uncooperative humans, ignoring the advice of their state, feeding round a barbecue…

EMPTY TRENCH...

SOCIALLY DISTANCED...

But they were Belted Galloways, my favourite Woolling Bullings…

UNWISE GATHERING...

A PAUSE TO SLOBBER...

COVID-19 TURNED AWAY...

EATING IN DISCOMFORT...

It’s what they do…