Big Issue

I imagine many of us will experience tears in the coming months, for a multitude of reasons big and small. I walked past a Big Issue seller around whom footfall looked pitiful. I bought a magazine and he wished me ‘good luck with everything over the next few days’. I walked off teary-eyed at the sheer uncertainty of his situation.

A coffee shop in the morning with Gugs (also stranded in the UK amidst a change of contract from Myanmar to Kenya) was doing a brisk trade, although it wouldn’t accept cash for hygiene reasons. The fruit and veg stall at the market where I picked up some avocados for Ali also had a flock of customers. Although there are fewer people moving around, it’s heartening that local businesses are being supported as they can weather the economic uncertainty much less well than corporations with reserves and assets. Those of us who don’t have salaries immediately threatened by the shutdown must continue to use services and businesses as much as possible, to maintain a degree of normalcy. Although it’s perhaps inevitable that things will soon be shuttered more widely.

My sister called me in the evening as I was walking to Sainsburys. I managed to find almost the last packet of bread rolls from a decimated bakery section.

My bike is locked at the office and the keys are in Berry and Helen’s house. I haven’t seen them yet as Helen’s sister has coronavirus and they were recently together for their 40th birthday. As walking in Cambridge takes me five times longer than cycling the same distance I might have to tomorrow take the ridiculous step of having keys thrown to me from a window.

During my walk today the cold was biting and if I have to be facing extremely reduced social interaction, I’d rather be doing it in the tropics.

A few of us had to go to the office although barely anyone else was there. The living wall in the building is already looking worse for wear and I worry we’ll all return to a vertical brown carpet.