Horace’s Diary – no masking the truth!

When they said to socially distance, I stopped talking to everyone except my local takeaway and the Amazon delivery guy.

But I’m back keeping a diary after a strange thing happened to me yesterday.

I went to the shop to buy a mask and then realised I couldn’t enter the shop without a mask. While I was wondering how I would enter a shop without a mask to buy a mask, a fellow gave me his mask as he left the shop.

Grand! I wiped it on my sleeve for safety’s sake and put it over my face, delighted that I could now enter the shop – then I realised that now I had a mask I no longer needed to go into the shop to buy a mask.

In the end, I did go into the shop. You can never have too many masks. I got a breakfast roll, and a newspaper because as Albert Einstein famously said – “It is very easy to make stuff up online.”

My local Tidy Towns meetings are great. Without them, the house would be a total mess. They insist on me having the camera on – they say it’s for GDPR. Who’s he? Everyone says they don’t know much about GDPR. Nor I. Hope he never calls.

NEVER TIDIER

Anyway, it means I clean the place once a week. I’m sticking with Tidy Towns this year. TBH, the town’s never looked better. Clean as a whistle since nothing’s happening – ever. The chairperson Hilda picks up all the abandoned masks and washes them for reuse and recyle. We should win easy this year.

PUB HUBS

On all other Zooms, I stick a plaster over the camera and say it’s broke. Saves getting dressed or tidying.

We should meet in the pub. In the new rural plan, there’s talk of pubs becoming community hubs – what’s new about that? That’s where I do all my best work.

On the subject of pubs, what they mean by wet pubs are what I call dry pubs. The reason indoor drinking took off in Ireland in the first place was so we could drink without getting wet.

GUIDED BY SCIENCE

Still waiting for my jab, when I get lonely, I turn on the radio. “We are guided by the science,” they say and they keep talking about anti-buddies.

I’ve no buddies left at this stage, but when I see the dishwasher’s half full, I find myself saying things like: “I’m looking forward to ramping up capacity.”

I never had so many dishes to wash because I’m forever eating. The past year has been all about fattening the curve and I’ve done my best – with pastries, apple tarts, steaks, pies, the odd chocolate cake.

I’ve had Covid by the way – I know because I tested negative. Luckily, I didn’t experience any symptoms.

I still wear a mask, but that’s because I’m growing a handlebar moustache for Movember and I want it to be a surprise.

Beards are so last year, or should that be 2019.

– Horace