So what do we do about old people? Who seem to be the major losers in the great Covid cull of 2020 (soon to be extended, by popular demand!!) Ok, there are benefits here because old people are, generally, a disproportionate drain on national resources. They need more power to heat up. They take pensions. They don’t pay much tax. They’re a massive drain on the NHS. And they need care. Yup, there’s not really much good to say about the aged. Pretty worthless group of non-contributing parasites.

Other than, we like them. And we love having them around. And they bring the essential balance to the lives of the young, the younger and youngest.

This is my dad. He’s going to be 96 on Tuesday, by the grace of God (not even one day is taken for granted at such a time of life), he should live so long, pth, pth, pth. And so, with ‘visiting’ temporarily banned due to lockdown, we arranged a ‘fly by’ happy birthday. With him inside his care home and us in the car park, shouting the birthday song as loud as our voices might manage to get it through the double doors and somewhere near his hearing aids.

So Rachie and I went, met up with Lila and Joey and their mum and dad, in the rain, to scream at ‘Poppa Moishe’ through the glass. And wave. Because Joey doesn’t know the words to that particular song we let him sit down in a puddle he found instead. (What was he thinking??? Do babies think at all???)

And it was sad that he is locked in, especially as yesterday morning I received an email telling me that one of the carers had just tested positive so all have to isolate in their rooms for 14 days. But they wonderfully made an exception. Because some carers really do actually care.

His face says it all. There may have been some kind of minor risk involved, who knows, but he’d take that any day, and so would I, for the sheer pleasure those 5 minutes gave him.

My dad was on LBC last Sunday morning. Telling them that he’s an old soldier, a WW2 veteran, never committed a crime but is a prisoner of government diktat. And in what is inevitably their last few days/weeks/months/years if they,re very lucky, isn’t protecting the very old from Covid arguably more dangerous to their overall health and wellbeing than letting them have the massive benefit that contact with their families brings?

Difficult decisions. Not sure its been thought out properly, but there again, what has?

Happy Sunday

A xxxx