No one knows what's going on. Everyone is in at work, but the rest of the business park is empty. We hardly passed any cars on the commute to work. It's like a ghost town, but we're the ghosts.
A tent went up in London yesterday to cope with the number of dead bodies. It doesn't feel real.
The government advice is still optional.
We ran out of anti bacterial hand wash two days ago. Our work replaced it with bubble bath because that's cheaper and more readily available now.
Trying to clean surfaces in the office more than once at week is still being met with derision. Yesterday, our head of HR said we wouldn't be working from home unless everyone was confirmed positive.
A member of staff was sent home with a high temperature and dry cough. The owner went round telling everyone its not true and was a practical joke, but that member of staff hasn't come back in. He isn't working from home either. No one has heard from him. It's like he disappeared.
One of the yard guys said the army had rolled up to a nearby town, and started testing the old air raid sirens last night. Still, no one knows whats going on. The background hum of helicopters is becoming as normal as the rusty cry of the chaffinch who nests nearby. Our boss keeps telling us to calm down, that it's nothing to worry about and not to listen to the news or social media.
Any one who mentions working from home is treated like a shirker. Like they want to get out of doing their work.
No one knows how they are going to pay their bills, the government sick pay isn't enough for food at the moment, let alone anything else. Businesses are letting staff go, enforcing unpaid leave. The unknown looms above us all like a guillotine. The fear in the office is palpable, its a sour smell of sweat, the residual lines of knitted brows, that faint tremor of trying to hold it all back.
The supermarkets have sold out of all the fresh veg, they are struggling to stay in stock of any food. Facebook is full of pictures of full cupboards, hundreds of tins stacked ceiling high. And the shelves are empty. The worst of human nature comes out there.
Other countries are doing so much to keep their citizens safe. No one knows whats going on here, but it feels like we are on our own, like we need to make sure we look after our own, because government and employers won't. No wonder someone keeps stealing toilet paper from work.
My evening class has been suspended, the schools are set to finally close at the end of the week. One of my colleagues wife is a nurse. They has been told there is nothing that can be done, there is no point in testing because she will catch it, that the death of their high-risk young son is an acceptable loss. The hospitals are full already.
I went to see my Nana at the weekend, and as I waved goodbye, unable to give her a hug, I realized I don't know when I will be able to visit her again. I learnt a long time ago, we never know it's the last time we see someone, until it was.
The radio is full of people's misinformed opinions, their fears, their anger at the selfishness of others. Only the most extreme callers ever make it on air. There is no shortage of those now, broadcasting direct to peoples homes and offices. "I miss brexit" has become a running joke, sadder than it is funny as people start to realize how little the differences between us ever really mattered.
Everyone I know is flip flopping between desperately reaching out to those around them - making sure they are okay, reminding people we are all in this together, that we'll get through it, laughing, joking, looking for the upsides. And then silently drowning in their own fears, too overwhelmed for words, wondering if they have enough food for their family, where they will get the money to buy more.
I'm still going on walks around the golf course on my lunch break. It feels safer than sitting in an office full of people.
Out there, between the fields, this all feels so far away. The wind tugged at my hair, not a golfer in site, the soft fuzzy cotton of catkins budding white against the dark limber branches. A grouse, unphased by my presence, trotting along the path as though it was made for him. The distinctive call of a pair of lapwings, swirling and diving over a field, last week the beginnings of a construction site, this week reclaimed by the wild, and for just for a moment, I forget about all of this.
