Nearly 4 years ago, January 2018, I wrote a blog entitled ‘Judgemental, moi?’ Consensus was yes, but most people agreed my opinions were justified. They were three ‘case histories’ of rude, manipulative women, who put peoples’ backs up. My ‘judgement’ came to fruition, help. The lady who overate and disrupted their lives by illness and sleeplessness is now very ill indeed, all through over-eating and never taking doctor’s advice. The one who embarrassed her partner in public (and was generally rude, and proud of it, about most people) is almost silent and sits alone when you meet her. Covid had reduced her audience, but FaceBook provided an alternative outlet – mutual acquaintances said she wrote awful things. I know there was a suggestion she should have some sort of therapy, presume she has done so. Number three is no fool, she realised she was upsetting people, her much older partner nagged the life out of her and she is a social being. You still have a raging headache after two hours with her but she has stopped the slanging of other people (at least in public). I promise I had no hand in these outcomes and my words went nowhere else but here.

I am trying, again, not to get ‘het up’. But Covid is responsible for a lot, not just fear, loss of life and chaos, but people who can’t have a nice, normal discussion round the dinner table or over a pint are liable to mull things over all alone and blow them out of proportion. People say ‘Don’t watch the news and depress yourself’, but with family spread round the globe, and stuck in my near silent town, I try to ‘keep up’ without getting ‘wound up’. Find that impossible.

The vaccination question is making me furious, and unexpectedly rather scared. Old friend in my shop this morning, I regarded her as even-minded. I presumed she was vaccinated, she’s 83. No way. Years ago she had a flu ‘jab’, insisted she caught ‘flu, and that, ergo, she is allergic to vaccinations. But it is common knowledge that quite a lot of people will experience symptoms of ‘flu, but only short-term. Now with the new variant, and cases of Covid 19 increasing, do I really want un-vaccinated people in close contact? All public places demand a vaccination certificate – I can’t do this to a friend, deny her access to my shop. Another is worse – she says Covid does not exist, just another type of ‘flu, and exaggerated by governments for political purposes.

During Covid friends who were quite racist are now totally bigoted, out with all foreigners. I am doing yet another Future Learn course on the History of Slavery. Lovely ceremony in Paris, Josephine Baker was ‘Pantheonised’. But when very famous, she went back to New York in the 1960’s she was not allowed in a restaurant, although her friend Grace Kelly was inside!

Are these strange circumstances changing/hardening your stance on topics?

The Gardener

A Moodscope member.