Muggins and His Wife Mrs Muggins Venture into Town During the Third Pandemic Lockdown of January 2021 (to drop her son off at the Blood Donation centre (and walk the dog!) Part 2 : Lockdown In The City

Setting January 2021 (section written 24/7/21)

     The first thing to do was to try to catch up his wife and her son, who were walking quickly enough with the urgency of having to see him to the blood donor centre on time. As usual they just proceeded on with no thought for poor Mr Muggins, who had to lock the car up and make sure they didn’t get a fine by acquiring a parking ticket (and displaying it in the right place). As usual, despite the urgency, Mrs Muggins wasn’t actually walking very fast and he soon caught her up and began to enjoy this walk into town, with which he had been so familiar in his younger days, although her son was well ahead. Their little dog was enjoying his walk. He was curious and seemed to enjoy the sights and smells of town. The idea that dogs should be walked on grass, and in natural surroundings, seemed not to apply as he seemed quite happy to be walked on concrete and tarmac, sniffing the buildings and posts as they walked past. Soon they were near the blood donor centre, and her son was into the building and perfectly on time on this occasion. He would meet them when he was finished in town.

     Excitement built as Alfred savoured the buildings of his hometown and took pleasure in seeing real people walking around, after on and off months of lockdown in the troubled viral catastrophe which had descended upon Britain and the rest of the world, even though most of them probably should not have been if their visits to the centre of town were not really essential. Even he and his wife were not strictly on essential business here. Curiosity and a desire to have a nice day, were far more important motivations for their trip, although it could technically be argued that her son’s blood donor trip was essential, and that he needed a lift, ostensibly to keep him off public transport and safe (even though he did actually quite often use it due to a perfectly natural need to get away from the house sometimes to entertain himself). It was however good to be seen to support him in his activities. Mrs Muggins would later prove that the trip could be construed as essential by buying some meat and vegetables at the market, when they got there later, even though it could not be said to be particularly ‘close to home’, or one of their normal places of food supply. But as long as they kept their 2 metre distances and wore their facemasks when they went inside any buildings they were both quite convinced that they weren’t really breaking any rules, and even if they were they were surely doing no harm or even potential harm to anyone else (or themselves and their bubble or their work contacts).

     Besides they weren’t the only ones here in town. It begged the question, ‘what were all the other people also here in town doing here? (which was actually surprisingly quite busy here in the main pedestrianised streets of the town, given that they were in the early weeks of a desperate 3^rd lockdown in which the figures of cases, hospitalizations and deaths were once again rocketing, thanks to the more transmissible Kent (UK) variant of the virus, which had exploded in a busy London, (which had been allowed to open up too much in December, while most of the rest of the country had stayed on Tier 3 semi lockdown restrictions) and other places.)

(section written 26/7/21)

     At this time of year, in January, it was cold. Many of the shops were closed because they were not considered to be essential, and some that could be said to be selling essential items, particularly food, but also including clothes, were open. Alfred and his wife had not come here for shopping anyway, but that was never quite going to be true, because Mrs Muggins actually loved shopping, and was probably addicted to it, even when non essential shopping was not supposed to be allowed. The whole idea of her coming here and not just sending Alfred down town to take her son to his appointment, was probably just a ploy to have a nice day out in town, and even if the shops were partly closed it still felt like they were ‘shopping’ or ‘window shopping’ at least. With many shops completely shuttered, and offices closed, as most office workers were obliged to work from home on their phones and computers, he wondered what all these people were actually doing in town? Alfred thought it was a very good question, a very good question indeed! He could only assume that very few of them were actually doing something essential; perhaps those who lived in flats near the centre of town and actually had food stores here as their local shops? The more he thought about it the more convinced he became that most people had come here for a walk through the ‘deserted streets’ of their town, because they were used to coming here in better times, and could not think of anything better to do with their time. They could have chosen their local park, but they chose instead to come here to the streets of concrete to walk in the steps of fellow townspeople who might be carrying the dreaded virus.

     (They reminded him of zombies, who, bereft of their normal intelligence, still flocked to the shopping malls and centres out of habit, and tradition, not knowing what to do with themselves otherwise. Likewise in a pandemic, where we should all stay as far apart as possible, they are drawn, like moths to the flame, into the centre of town where they would go for a walk or go shopping in normal times, mixing with the familiar crowds, or observing people.)

     Alfred diligently tried to keep as much distance as possible between himself and every other soul who walked these depleted streets, but as he was outside he refused to wear his facemask out here in the street, although he would be the first to put it on when they went inside any building. He watched over his wife, seeking to remind her whenever he thought she was getting too close to anyone else in the street. (She had been a little late in his opinion in seeing the growing danger of the increasing second wave since September as it had grown into the current panic of the post Christmas lockdown and the Kent strain explosion. But she had definitely got the idea long before now that this was a possibly deadly or at least nasty virus that she did not want running through her own family.) On reflection later (after the event!) he did think it might have been sensible to wear the mask in the more crowded parts of the street, as he thought he could discern the smell of other people’s breath a few times. But the streets were by no means anything like as crowded as they would have been in prepandemic times.