Getting Used to the Muck «

Getting Used to the Muck

Wednesday 15th April 2020

Wednesday already!

I said at the outset: we’ll get used to the muck as we go along. Even about ten days ago (I’ve lost all sense of time) I took a look at my bathroom edging and thought it utterly despicable. Benign crisis-induced acceptance of deterioration up to a point was seeping away even then. Things were returning to normal.

It’s true, today, I’ve only glanced at the stock prices and taken the merest peck at the BBC News at 4.45, as I do every day, my only ration, but the raging anxiety of the earliest days seems to have subsided. I’m getting used to the muck. It’s not disagreeable to be in one’s home, amongst antiques and decor, to parade in one’s grounds (15′ x 30′), to wander through the bedrooms, as a Royalty would do in their Palace. I always said this confinement brings us nearer to Royalty. Perhaps it’s a kind of trance. Some Poor Little Rich Gays are deliciously ensconced in their various menages. They couldn’t be happier. Robert Nevil said, ‘There’s nothing you can do about the situation generally. Best not to think of it.’ I don’t know that I’d go that far. But you can see how prisoners get addicted to being in prison. So cosy. No responsibilities. As soon as they’re released, they contrive to get straight back in again. It’s a well-known phenomenon. The only disturbance in my enclosure is the constant sirens going up and down the road nearby. But they do anyway in normal times owing to the criminal element. I just hope it’s not ill people being taken away.

Yesterday the Gay Mother on the telephone said, ‘Is this virus to be the only thing we talk about? What about Greta Thunberg? She’s terribly unhealthy.’ I thought she was going announce some dread new news re: Greta but no, she’d read in The Tablet that Greta took half an hour to eat a banana and her sister took even longer to get the better of a spoonful of yoghurt. ‘She doesn’t eat properly. She’s tiny. You’d never know she was sixteen.’

I telephoned to Reggie Cresswell, and Lord Tanza who was about to go out to buy some self-raising flour. Flour! I couldn’t believe it. Flour’s generally considered a rarity these days. But they’ve got it in their Turkish shop. ‘I’ve never known that shop not to have anything,’ Reggie said, ‘ except perhaps a 1st edition.’ He was cleaning the silver after finishing Middlemarch (that’s George Eliot’s Middlemarch) which has got quite a lot wrong with it (George Eliot herself going on: wonky story-line) but marvellous bits. I wonder if anyone will ever read it again. It could get disused. We talked about Ivy as well. Reggie’s thinking about another ceramic, which is incredibly thrilling.