Corona in Cortona… Isolation in Italy…..Covid Chronicles…. part 9
Thursday 9th — Friday 24th April — now 45 days in lockdown
Friday 24th April
You couldn’t make it up — Trump’s latest gaff that is…
He actually suggested that since disinfectant works on surfaces etc, that it might be possible to inject into the human body.. apparently to clean the lungs. His aides and medical advisors nearly had apoplexies, and everyone else laughed their socks off — except the companies making disinfectant, who have brought out warnings. Please god, no one takes Trump seriously.
The day we went into lockdown, in a burst of enthusiasm I cleaned all the yucky bits of my dishwasher, around the hinges and door seals etc. About a week later my dishwasher packed up — coincidence? I have ten animal dishes per day to wash, so it is quite useful, but not vital. I noticed, though, the other day, that the problem seemed to be that no water was being fed in. So, I thought maybe I could fix it. Down in the hallway, I couldn’t make the handle which turns off the water, budge. But today I got a friend to do it, when he called in with some mail.
Graham had said that maybe the inlet tube was blocked, or more likely, that the filter on the end of it was clogged or calcified — we have very hard water here. There was a trickle coming out of the taps in the sink and the bath, but I thought I could cope with that, and armed myself with a floor-cloth.
After twenty minutes of puffing and blowing, trying to disconnect the pipe from the dishwasher, I finally managed it, first a little seep of water — expected; then a bit more water — not so expected; then a huge great fountain, and no sign of stopping. Within seconds I was soaked and the kitchen floor was starting to flood. I grabbed the washing up bowl, then a bucket, forgot all my plans of pinching the hose or jamming a cork in it. Instead, I called from the balcony to Raffaella. Her son is a plumber, and was actually at her house, and up and about. How lucky am I? He came immediately. In the hall, he ascertained that the water was not quite turned off, and managed to close it.
It turned out that it wasn’t the water inlet that was the problem; probably the ‘electrovalvola’, whatever that is, not easily fixable anyway. So back to washing up in my miniscule sink, in my tiny kitchen. Ah well, in the light of everything, hardly a tragedy.
All I had to do was strip off my soaking clothes, and find even more towels than I had already found, to mop up the kitchen floor. So much for my precautionary floor cloth!! On the plus side, ‘when life gives you lemons, then make lemonade’, as they apparently don’t say around here. Clearly the moment to wash the kitchen floor, which was anyway long overdue.
Going back in time a bit… a week or so ago I read that a couple have fallen in love across the balconies during the lockdown — in Verona of all places, home of Romeo and Juliet. They saw each other during the evening, when everyone comes out, and some play music or sing, or just toast each other with a glass of wine. Apparently it was love at first sight — he described it as a bolt of lightning!!
With the weather warming up, and many beaches closed for social distancing purposes, Italy’s beach operators are worrying about the summer season.
One innovative Italian company has come up with a possible solution — plexiglass barriers to separate beachgoers. Actually, aluminium-and-plastic cubicles, big enough for two deckchairs. Barmy? Or inspired? Well the Italians do like the beach in July and August. And they do like to crowd together.
One of the things doing the rounds on social media is what appears to be a newspaper article, stating… ‘1918 Philadelphia prematurely ended it’s quarantine from the Spanish flu, to throw a parade in order to boost morale for the war effort. Some twenty thousand people lined the streets on that late September day. Within 72 hours every bed in Philadelphia’s 31 hospitals was filled and the City ended up with 4500 people dying from the flu or it’s complications within a matter of days.’
It brings to mind the saying, ’those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it’. And perhaps we are all guilty of that at times.
According to the latest projections, there will be zero new cases in Umbria after 21 April. The date for Tuscany is May 30th, one of the last out, I wonder why that is so much later..
I have learned a new word … I am not in lockdown, I’m not in isolation, I am cocooning! Given the really vile weather yesterday and today…heavy rain and high winds and a cold 13C, cocooning seems like a good option, although I believe the sun returns the day after tomorrow, and it will be warm again...
Weds 22nd April was ironically, or perhaps appropriately, World Day — this poem, which I heard on Radio 4, was written by Sarah Teasdale in 1920. She obviously wrote it about wartime, but it seems very appropriate for our strange times….
‘There will come Soft Rains’
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
The vigour of Spring is always amazing, but perhaps especially so this year. Nature does what nature does, and does not concern itself with mankind. But, thinking about it — is this virus nature’s reaction to the way we have been living. To the way we have been treating the natural world? Perhaps with all our flights, our treatment of wild animals, our abuse of nature, it could be argued that we have brought this upon ourselves; that Corona could be seen as Nature’s reaction to our actions. Is Nature fighting back?!
To celebrate Earth Day a friend sent me this quote… “And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair” ― Khalil Gibran
I hear that sniffer dogs are being trained in the hope that they can sniff out the virus. If that might be possible, why are my dogs are so entirely useless?
Actually, I was told that Busta, who is, in fact, very intelligent, could have been trained as a truffle hound. I would be happy if I could just train him to stop stealing my food. Perhaps I could train the four of them to pick up their own poo from the garden? It would seem that the cricketer, Michael Vaughan, has that same job, as he did the ’Keepy-Uppie’ challenge for charity, in his back garden with a shovel and a piece of sun hardened dog poo… well I guess that’s one way to enjoy the chore!
Like so many others, I am getting rather fond of Zoom, our yoga lessons are going great guns, which made me think of this video sent to me on Whats App.
A couple of years back I joined a group called InterNations, they organise lots of social, cultural and even sporty events for people who are living in a foreign country. My local chapter, though, is in Florence, and whilst I have often thought about going along to meeting, I’ve never actually made it, partly because the last train back here is about 9:30.
So, when an online meet-up was suggested, I thought it was an opportunity to finally ‘attend’. A couple of hours beforehand, came the sudden realisation that I hadn’t looked into the mirror for days, and I can’t even remember when I last put on makeup! It was fun though, about 15 of us got together to share our experiences; most of us were in Italy, but there was one attendee talking from California, and two others from Germany. We had music from a couple of musicians in the group, some poems, and just general chat.
Read the story from the beginning:…
