Life in the Time of Coronavirus: Keeping Up Morale

Spring in spite of everything

It has been a cataclysmic few weeks. A December butterfly flapping its wings in Wuhan caused the entire world to shake by the end of February.  Europe is now the epicentre of a pandemic. Here in France, as in other countries, we are contemplating a Sunday without the usual choice of pleasures – sitting on a café terrace with coffee and croissants, getting ready for a special lunch with friends, as recounted in my last blog of February 7th (how things have changed…)  As I wrote that, we were also getting excited about  a much-anticipated UK trip at the end of the month to see family and friends and join in  a once in a lifetime event – all of which we finally cancelled.

If, like me, you are a neurotic control freak, your reaction in such circumstances is an irresistible urge to fling yourself into a total Madame de Récamier lie-down-with-hand-to-brow for the foreseeable future.  This gets boring after a while, though. So, struggling upright, I turned to the wise words of others who have faced daunting prospects. Faced them, and survived. Pinned up next to the desk is a poem famous for its inspirational message. It was said to have been a favourite of Nelson Mandela, locked up for 27 years on Robben Island and still able to come out doing his Madiba dance.

The Man, dancing

W. E. Henley’s poem, Invictus, was featured in an earlier blog. Written in 1875 when its author was 25, it has become a cultural touchstone for those facing adversity. Henley was at the end of an eight year ordeal during which part of his left leg had been amputated and he was recovering from a series of interventions to save his right foot.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

So here’s a suggestion. Intoning those thrilling lines- I AM the master of my fate, I AM the captain of my soul- and Madiba-ing round the house,  try keeping up morale by inflicting some order on your domestic universe. Oil that squeaky hinge! Pick up all those clothes in the bottom of your wardrobe! Scrape off the bits of old cheese and tomato sauce stuck to the sides of the fridge! In the Cowshed we wheeled out the big guns and turned our control thunderbolts on la buanderie.

Roughly translated, ‘buanderie’ means ‘laundry room’, in our case the small room off the kitchen where the washing machine lives. The MDM and I had been meaning to tackle this damp and dismal space ever since we moved in. Eight years after that move, the butterfly spurred us into action. In this unrenovated part of the house, the 200- year-old earthenware tiles were in a sad and sorry state, chipped, cracked and covered with cement. Just contemplating how to deal with them made us feel equally sad and sorry, not to mention chipped and cracked around the knee area. Hence we kept putting it off. In our new bid for control however, we needed a helping hand. Fortunately this was before the quarantine measures came in, so for the nastiest part of the job – removing 3 mm from their surface by means of an ear-splittingly loud machine – a cross between a drill and a plane – we fell back on the services of our trusty local magician with youthful, unchipped knees, Monsieur Barleycorn.

Wearing a hazmat suit, goggles, and a mask, Monsieur B. spent 8 hours transforming la buanderie into planet Mars. Three millimetres might not sound like much, but the results were spectacular. Within minutes of his attack, clouds of red dust billowed into the lane through the open window, the grass turned a rusty orange and the post-lady’s yellow van got a surprise sprinkling of paprika.

Useless precautions to keep out the Martian dust

In spite of precautionary measures –sealing up communicating doors and covering everything in sheets – walls, surfaces and insides of cupboards in the adjoining kitchen were swiftly covered in a thick, sticky film of ancient tile-dust.  Monsieur B cut a striking figure as he staggered out of the buanderie for his lunch break. Even after a lengthy shower and the contents of two bottles of extra-strength gel, he still looked like an extra in a sci fi movie– one of those alien life forms emerging from the shimmering atmosphere of the Martian mountains and causing the not- so-intrepid earthling astronauts to drop their laser guns and beat it back to the mother-ship.

The Maître De Maison, meanwhile, wading through the flotsam of buanderie items which had washed up in the kitchen (sink unit, washing machine, ironing board, step ladder) had somehow got to the dusty cooker and the dustier frying pan and rustled up a hearty repast of saucisse de Toulouse et frites, where every gritty, squeaky bite brought back memories of childhood picnics on the beach.

Several days later there was light at the end of the tunnel. After countless sessions of vacuuming, hosing down, re-grouting, re-mopping and re-painting, the formerly dismal little room was emerging, pristine and spring-like after a 200- year-long winter. It’s still not quite finished. The tiles – a becoming shade of deep Martian red- still need repeated moppings before we can apply the final treatment, a wax that will transform them into glowing rubies.

Glowing rubies on the way

We have our eye on other projects. There’s a sagging arch over the gateway to the 200-year-old courtyard, formerly an extension of the Cowshed. It would be ironic if 20 tonnes of ancient masonry fell on our heads just as we were emerging from quarantine. There’s the garden shed, and its colony of mice and spiders to be re-housed. There’s an energetic star jasmine,  which, having covered its trellis, has somehow launched  itself across a gap of one metre and got itself seriously involved with a Japanese maple.

And of course, there’s the writing…more news of that in the next (I hope) blog.

Meanwhile, a Happy Mother’s Day to Mums in the UK, and bon courage to readers everywhere, especially those stuck in cities, and those brave souls on the front lines. Keep washing hands, keep taking the Vit C, keep Madiba-ing, stay safe, stay sane …

#stayhome #s’ensortirsanssortir #laughterisgoodforyou