Quarantine Blog - Day 5

Captains log, star date five-nine-six-two-one-four upon the Earlswood House Enterprise. We have entered a dimension where time is no longer relative, the world outside seems to move in a linear pattern, but here it feels like we’re butter being scraped over too much bread. The walls have started to speak to me, they tell me to drink my tea before it goes cold, and whether I’m still wearing yesterday’s boxers. *checks beneath shorts*… I am. I’m seeing extra terrestrial beings walk past the front windows, they are there for a moment and then they are gone. My crew-mate tells me they are from a distant galaxy called the Earlswood G-Ar-Den Center, a constellation I am unfamiliar with but am now wary of. Food parcels arrive at our airlocks, but there is no trace to how they got there. I’m starting to question if they are trying to save us or poison us, time will tell. If only I knew how this….time….worked.

“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” - Aristotle

Have I just called myself a great mind, am I truly going mad? Or am I alluding to various studies linking periods of isolation with bouts of insanity using a popular culture reference as my structure? I’ll let you decide. Also what other blogs do you know of that will quote Greek philosophers like Aristotle one day and then BBC3 Mighty Boosh’s Julian Barrett on others. I appreciate its an eclectic mix of philosophy but one I am most proud of. 

Yesterday, when all my troubles seemed so far away, we received our phone call from public health to check in on us. Instead of calling us all individually, we all congregated around the dining room table, a room we have now renamed, Meeting Room 1 for the work from homers. We have a few meeting rooms in the house, I’m led to believe there is a shared document to book out these rooms at specific times. The lounge seems to be my only safe haven Monday to Friday 8-5.

“Hello, it's me

It’s Pete from Public Health unfortunately we can’t meet

To go over quarantine

They say that time's supposed to heal ya

So how are you all feeling

Hello, can you hear me?

I'm in St Peter Port dreaming about how we guarantee 

When you are finished and covid-free

I've forgotten how it felt before the pandemic fell at our feet

There can be an assistance between us

And a million dials

Hello from the Public Health

I must've called only once myself

To tell you, we’re happy, for the isolating that you’ve done

But when I call, please make sure you stay home “ Pete - Public Health

 

Pretty much word for word what Pete from Public Health said…I jest. I can’t even remember if he was called Pete, but I’ve now created an unbreakable bond with him, so I’m going to keep referring to him as Pete from Public Health. Pete gave us our 1st quarantine call, which is to check on a few things: to make sure we all had our test results and that they were negative, if we were following all quarantine guidelines by asking us questions on our knowledge of it all, checking if we had any symptoms by going through each symptom one by one, and to just check too see how we were feeling mental health wise. Awwww Pete. Thankfully none of us are showing any of the symptoms so all being well we can get out of this quarantine in.....*checks notes”….9….God….9 days still. Pete from Public Health, was a very courteous gentleman who treated us with respect, although we’re essentially caged sub-humans currently, he treated us with compassion while also being incredibly professional. Once the phone went down we all unanimously agreed on one thing.

“He was such a nice man.”

So here’s to you Pete, you’re a top bloke mate, and you’ve made it onto my blog among kingly names such as Julian Barrett, Aristotle and Gavin St Pier.

The rest of my day was quite self-reflective. The reason I am back in Guernsey is to attend the funeral of my Grandfather, and I’ve decided to say something at his funeral. It’s a very strange time and the emotions come in waves, but the greatest ode I can probably give him is that 100% of the memories I personally have are happy ones. So although it’s tough to write about him from an emotional point of view, it’s relatively easy to write such wonderful things about him, because it’s all honest and it’s all true. If there’s one great thing about being in Guernsey at this time, is that we can attend his funeral without any restrictions. I know people very close to me who have not been able to say goodbye to their loved ones and attend their funerals, which is utterly heart-wrenching. So I cannot thank the Guernsey Public Health, Border Control and the Public enough, for your personal sacrifices that is allowing people, such as our family, the privilege to be able to say goodbye when others in the world cannot. You’re all legends.

Once again I struggled to sleep at night, I’m starting to think the amount of tea I am now drinking is the root cause of this, when I’m by myself, I have maybe 1 or 2 cups in the morning and that’s it. This household has a cup every 6.2 seconds, but when it’s offered you can’t say no. Plus any excuse to sample the local dairy delicacy, to UK people the milk here is essentially cream, cut a Guernseyman open and he’ll bleed milk.