Has it been a holiday

Subject: Has it been a holiday.

Another cloudless blue sky with a holiday squeezed in amongst it but of little or no consequence since we are barred in Wales from going out to enjoy the weather or the glorious beach. It's as if some power were playing a celestial joke, remembering my past visits to Wales and the grey water leadened sky's which were a feature of each stay.
Even the meaning of a holiday is lost in this forced immobilisation where the working days and the weekends merge into one, making our normal tick box sense of time unreliable.  Monday back to work, Friday party time. The identification with each day, Saturday a day of sport and a trip out to the pub to catch up with mates, Sunday the lunch time get together and a barbecue in the garden or a scramble in the countryside recognising the natural beauty of this tiny island. We are creatures of habit and even in retirement that sullen glow of Monday morning and the need to go to a job and make some more money becomes irresistible.
The sense of the encroachment on our freedom which work brings is etched on the faces of the travellers on the bus or train, the glum no talking on the tube, the swish of the doors as we pile out into some subterranean tunnel complex, caught up in the flow of humanity as it trails, pale faced  up the jerky escalator only to separate at street level in search of the office. Forced by uniformity we press on  passed the shops, the fast food outlets, the chemists offering relief for the excess of the night before, the vast emporium with stick figurines posing in the window waiting for the shop girl to make them modest, the bright interiors cosy from the rainswept street. Only a few more streets to go as the traffic sweep by, splashing the wet pedestrian as they wait patiently at the Intersection, their minds awash with the anticipation of a rebuke from the boss at some oversight last week, a mind perhaps still awake with the laughter of the weekend.
This routine has been on hold for a number of weeks now and whilst the lucky ones with recognisable jobs have been furloughed, the majority the GIG workers, casual itinerants in the world of work, people who emerge early out of their tiny poorly furnished rooms to stand side by side with those who have proper jobs, jostling for an ever reducing piece of the cake. No furloughed pay for them, only the worry of an incessant rent which is always due and the eternal hope that something better will turn up.
All this has been suspended in the aspic of an unseen virus. For some a killer for others, much like the flue, an inconvenience. With no banking security, no nest egg to fall back upon these people are keen as mustard to get back to work and we, the retiree are unjust in frowning at their rush to compound the pandemic and the torture of the staff working in the hospitals as they battle each day the unseen enemy, putting their own lives at risk as they do so.
Will this be the last week of lockdown as the bean-counters evaluate the market against the lives of a few. Will the economic model by which we fly each day, suiting its needs and the investors in Dubai or Singapore, ensconced in their tower high air conditioning lit by the glow of their computer screens, far removed from the mayhem on the street more enthralled in the mayhem on their screens as billions of dollars are wiped off an imaginary trading board which is their only reality.
So it's back to work whilst keeping an eye on R+1, hoping not to hear the referees whistle blow time again.