Jenni Murray
‘I don’t know when I’ll see my husband next’
It was a week last Sunday that I last saw my husband, David, at our family home in the New Forest. We had lunch in a lovely pub with our older son, Ed, and his fiancée, carefully not hugging and washing hands obsessively, and I set off that evening for a working week in London.
Given the latest instructions from Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, that if two halves of a couple are currently in separate households they should stay that way, I have no idea when we’ll be able to be together again.
While David is self-isolating a couple of hours’ drive away, I’m still going into the Woman’s Hour studio several times a week – maybe from my kitchen table, soon, if we can set up the technology. Every time we had spoken until Monday night’s lockdown was imposed, David tried to persuade me to join him, but it made no sense to risk carrying London bugs to him and the seaside with me, then. Even less so, now.
We’ve talked on the phone, FaceTimed and mastered the intricacies of Zoom, but it’s not easy being separated from those you love when fear of the threat of an invisible and potentially lethal virus occupies your every waking moment, is it?
We’re a family that likes to stay in the closest touch, so that last Sunday lunch feels like a lifetime ago. The more recent Sunday was, without doubt, the strangest and saddest Mother’s Day for me and, I suspect, for everyone else in the country, thanks to this wretched virus. We should have all been gathered at home for a wonderful meal around our own dining table, cooked by the boys. I know, they’re not boys any more. They’re men – Ed is 36 and Charlie’s 32 – although, of course, they’ll always be babies to me!
Instead, Ed, who’s a vet in the New Forest, and his fiancée Liz, an NHS consultant radiologist, are confining themselves to home as much as possible and certainly not risking bringing anything to the parents.
Charlie, who’s a photographer and self-employed, has found his work is drying up as trips abroad and events are cancelled. He’s holed up with his partner, Minal, whose work in media analysis can be done from their home in north London. They’re not far from me, but obeying the instructions to stay away from, yes, I must admit it, elderly mothers – 70 is just around the corner, but not there quite yet!
So that has left me waking up to day after day of glorious sunshine with only my three chihuahuas, Butch, Frieda and Madge, and the Burmese cat, Suu, for company and cuddles.
I’m having to be as pragmatic about this painful separation as possible because it is necessary. There may be an even more stringent lockdown to come and, I hate to be clichéd about it, but there’s no choice other than to Keep Calm and Carry On.
Luckily, as an only child, raised to be self-sufficient, I have learnt over many years to be comfortable in my own company and keep myself occupied. And the good thing about having dogs is their insistence that you don’t sit around and mope all day.
For them, this last week was no different from any other. First, let us out in the garden for a wee. Next, have the food dished up ready for when we come back in. Then, yes, we know you have calls to make, breakfast to eat and papers to read (thank heavens for the iPad), but we will sit here in a little row, eyes wide and laser-focused on you, until you take us for a walk.
The weather has smiled on us with spring sunshine and a gentle breeze, but being out is a powerful reminder that these are far from normal times: no one stops, no one speaks and no one touches any of the dogs’ little heads. They clearly wonder what on earth is going on.
David is consistently concerned about my welfare, coming up with lots of advice about keeping safe. Last week, he sent an email advising drinking sips of water at regular intervals. Apparently it can stop the virus going into the lungs, washing the bugs down into the stomach where they’re killed by the acids that live there. I asked him if vodka and tonic would work, but have been sipping water, too – just in case.
Our last Sunday lunch together feels like a lifetime ago