COVID 19 and What the World Needs Now!

Have you been in lockdown since 14th March like me? How are you coping? Are you beginning to get cabin fever? Or bored and looking for things to do?

What I can say is that being confined to my fourth floor flat is very much like sailing alone around the world. One is alone on board, and after essential work of setting sails, navigating, and doing minor repairs one is at liberty to sit and watch the world go by. Reading was the main activity for me. Now after essential work around the flat, cleaning and tidying up,  instead of reading I play computer games or chat on Social Media. I have regular contact to friends and family, not via radio schedules, but by Facetime or WhatsApp. The real major difference is that there is no motion (unless I've had one too many) and my bunk is not lying on its ear!



Petra as I indicated in my last blog is working hard to maintain her Patchwork Family and is very strict with us OAPs. She has her hands full with working from Home  and having to care for Vincent as the Kindergartens are closed. But she thinks ahead and orders for us online when she can, or receives the orders from the local Bio Bauer. (Farmer). Now though, we have felt safe enough to go and collect from her, saving just a little of her time.  As we have all been in Quarantine for the last four weeks, we were allowed to have a walk together on Easter Monday, wearing facemasks made by Sigrid and maintaining social distances!

I personally don't have a problem with being shut in my flat, as long as I can get out on my bike once per day I can cope. I've started to declutter my life. Going through old love letters and photos, takes time though and sometimes my mind will only cope with so much nostalgia. The size of the Paper Bin also determines how much I can shred at any one time. It is not as much as I would like, so I often have to wait a week to 10 days before I can resume. It means my flat is a bit untidy as I do not put it all away again, it sits there in various piles waiting for me to begin again with the trip down memory lane.

My main thoughts though are to the future and here I am fearful. I am fearful for the whole World, for it requires not a country by country solution, but a world solution. It is no good that China is on top of the problem now, when the USA and other countries are not. The only way we are going to get to defeat this pandemic is if we work together, sharing knowledge and resources.

Instead each country is competing for the limited resources of facemasks and other PPE (Personal Protection Equipment).

What the World needs now is a dynamic selfless leader to coordinate the effort to defeat the virus, and we don't have one. The Buffoon in the White House is not it. Boris and his BREXIT mentality is also not it, though perhaps if he changed his attitude he could apply his mind to it, but I doubt he will. Ursula von der Leyen is not it either, which is sad, nor is Angela Merkel, though she could be if she put her mind to it. It needs a super power to lead the way.

We do not need to look too far back in history to find examples of how it should be done.
When the EBOLA Virus spread out of the Guinea borders in 2014 President Obama activated the Emergency Operations Centre at the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta. The CDC was immediately deployed to West Africa to coordinate a response that included vector tracing, testing, education, logistics and communication.

President Obama worked with the UN and the World Health Organisation and rerouted all travellers heading from Africa to the USA to specific airports that were equipped to handle mass testing. In the USA more than 6500 people were trained through mock outbreaks of a pandemic, before a single case arrived on their shores.

Three months after Obama instigated this response a man travelled from West Africa to Dallas and slipped through the testing net. He was, however, immediately detected and isolated, but died a week later. The two nurses that cared for him contracted the disease, but thankfully recovered. All the protocols worked and Ebola was  contained.

Now before anyone knew about COVID 19 even in China, Trump disbanded the pandemic response team that Obama had put in place. He cut funding to the CDC and he cut the US contribution to the World Health Organisation. Trump fired the one person on the National Security Council in charge of stopping the spread of infectious diseases!

When the outbreak started in China, Trump assumed it was China's problem and sent no help of any kind. They were in a trade war, weren't they, so why should the egotist and isolationist (make America great again) help them.

I could go on listing the man's bluffing and blustering, but need not as the virus moves faster and now America and in particular New York is harder hit than anywhere else in the World.

The Spanish Flu pandemic lasted two full years from January 1918 to December 1920. It came more or less in three waves and finally died out in the summer of 1919.  More or less the same methods were tried then to control the spread, though not as successfully as now I would suggest. They didn't have the medicines to cope then, nor did they have a vaccine, just like now. 500 Million people were affected and 50 Million died world wide! This time we are or seem to be slowing its spread, but we have a long way to go before we can return to normal life. Consequently I feel the public need to be warned to dig in and not ease the lockdown or travel restrictions too soon. Countries will ease up because of economic pressures and history will show which countries were more successful than others at controlling the spread.

Stay safe, "for it's a jungle out there"!

Remembrance Sunday!

 

I, like many Veterans, prepared myself for the act of remembering the fallen by polishing my shoes and medal and getting the rest of my kit ready on the Saturday before.

I was proud to have been given the privilege of representing the Rheindahlen Branch of the Royal British Legion, at the British Ceremony of Remembrance in the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Reichswald! The British Senior National Representative, Group Captain RJ Niven, at the NATO Combined Air Operations Centre had asked for a representative who was also to recite the Kohima Epitaph during the Ceremony! 

As there were many Royal Pioneers buried in this cemetery I also took a Wreath given me by the RPC Association to lay in their honour. 

As I had never been to the Reichswald before I was up early and a good thing too, as the first thing I was called upon to do was scrape the ice off of all my car’s windows! 

My NAVI, as we say here in Germany, took me to the Reichswald via The Netherlands. The address I had was that the cemetery was on the Grünewald Straße and when I got to it I turned the wrong way and drove away from the cemetery. I quickly realised my error and turned round and soon found it. 

There was quite a gathering of Nations at the cemetery as one might expect. In fact all NATO Nations were represented including Poland a relatively new member State. 

I made myself known to Group Captain Niven and the Parade Sergeant Major. I was asked to lay the RPC Wreath in the third wave of wreath layers which included the local German Civil Dignatories and to lay the RBL Wreath last! 

The Wreath Layers were lined up about 20 metres from the Memorial Stone, so it was quite a Walk of honour to lay my two wreaths. 

The sun shone and there was frost on the ground. There were no microphones or means of projecting ones voice other than that learned on Army Parades. It was difficult to hear the voice of the RAF Chaplin who had come out especially from the UK, or the other actors in the ceremony! 

Consequently when it came to my turn to recite the Kohima Epitaph I put on my best parade ground voice and recited it as loud as I could!

“When you go home, tell them of us and say, 

for your tomorrow, we gave our today!”

After the ceremony I visited a number of the graves.

This man is the grandfather of fellow Pioneer Kevin Kittel!

Next year I shall make sure I take a number of the small RBL wooden crosses to mark the graves I visit!

This is how far away I stood during the ceremony and the distance I had to march twice to lay my wreaths!

Guests had been invited to a light lunch in the UK Community Centre following the ceremony and so I now went there. It was in a converted Military Quarter on what had once clearly been the Patch when the RAF had had a large presence in Germany.

Here I was able to have a conversation with the Chaplin Rev Craig Lancaster, who thanked me for my part, so I must presume my voice carried! 

I told the organisers that I would return next year to represent the Royal Pioneer Corps and if possible bring a second person to represent the Rheindahlen Branch of the Royal British Legion! 

My NAVI took me home this time not going via the Netherlands! 

Not a good start into September!

I blame it on the Jalapeno I put in the salad I had with my steak last night, for I woke up in the early hours with an odd feeling in my tummy, and then the Gremlins came to get me and I couldn't sleep. Fortunately the Gremlin called "self doubt" was not one of them, but the "replay" one did it for me, for most of the night. A replay of all the heartache moments of the first six months of the year kept going through my head. Unless you have provided care for a helpless loved one, you will not truly understand how soul sapping it can be. To watch how the body slowly gives up on a loved one, to wash, change, dress and feed them and to have to turn them over in the night when they are unable to do so themselves. To see the 1000 yard stare in their eyes and have no remedy to ease this suffering of the mind. To see them struggle for breath, night after night. All these images kept going through my head to rob me of sleep. 

I have asked myself often enough, why did she pass on when I was not there? The answer came from a friend who thought that Hanna waited until no one who loved her was present to save us from the suffering. The circumstances certainly prove this theory. My friend explained that her grandfather had passed on like that. We never left Hanna alone during the last five days. Either I or a daughter were with her and then at the last a paid carer, not a member of the family was with her at the end. 

The one image that finally came to console me in the night was the one I have of her seeking my hand when the Priest came. She seemed to understand, though could not speak, and knew that I needed the Priest as much as she did.

I woke drained and listless, but went for my bike ride. Nothing worked this morning. My bike speedometer stopped working, the iPad App for bike rides didn't work either. I stopped by Hanna as usual and found a moment of calm. The gardener confirmed he had the lamp and stones in his custody and when the stonemason has done his stuff will return them. 

Life goes on and I must begin to get my things and my mind together, for my  trip to the UK this Friday.

Bureaucracy in Death

Most of the civilised world loves bureaucracy. We need birth certificates, ID cards and Passports which tell us who we are. Then there are the licences we need to work to live or to drive. It is my experience from my travels around the world that many countries turn it to an art form. Germany is one such country, not as bad as some, but whole forests of paper are offered up to this hungry God called Bureaucracy. And woe betide you if you do not follow this path, or if you loose patience with a “jobs worth”.

Today I had to walk the path of bureaucracy for Hanna, in order to ensure her Last Will and Testament is finalised. This involved in the first instance a visit to the “Amtsgericht” or the Court that deals with Wills and Testaments.

My first hurdle was the security check at the front door of an imposing building. It is almost worse than that at airports. What was doubly annoying this morning was though there was no one behind me coming through, the guard tried to rush me when it came to collect my belongings from the x-ray machine and get dressed again. The result was that my mobile fell out of my jacket pocket and into the sum of its constituent parts!

Thankfully the woman that then dealt with me was pleasant it just took time as she serviced her own personal God, which in her case was a computer. Her typing was with two fingers, which needless to say takes longer than with a few more. Once she had everything typed up I was given a copy and then I have to say, why did it take so long for her to fill in a very simple form on her computer. I could have written the whole thing out faster than she filled it in. That’s the trouble with a well established bureaucracy, there is no room for original thought or improvisation.

From there I walked in the sun to an other bureaucratic institution a Bank. It was marginally quicker here, another very pleasant woman (to the eye also) quickly copied what I gave her, said she would pay the funeral expenses, but that was it. We had to wait for the Courts to do there stuff.

Then I got on my bike and went to the cemetery to check that the grave was properly registered as we had some doubts since there was no mention of it on the final bill from the Undertakers. Nothing untoward there, the bill for that was sent separately yesterday and we can bury another coffin (mine) and up to 4 urns on the plot.

The it was off to the stonemasons for a discussion and tasking and also to the Gardener that had looked after the grave and with whom I made an appointment at the grave, to discuss how it should be redone once the soil has settled.

The flowers on the grave are slowly rotting and returning to the earth, but the candle burned bright even in the daylight. While standing there and musing on things in general and Hanna in particular, I was pleasantly surprised by a visitor. One of Hanna’s English students a mature man called Bernhard. Hanna liked this chap very much as his hobby fascinated her. He is also a magician and had wanted schooling in his English so he could also do his tricks in that language. His day job is that of a teacher in a handicapped children’s school. They had just returned from holiday, which is why they were not at the funeral.

Hanna would have been pleased at the honour he did her by visiting the grave.

 I was too.

The Next Step

Today is the third Sunday since Hanna's death. The first, friends kindly had me round for a meal; the second, I was away and staying in Helpensen. So today was the first Sunday alone, but I did not fall into a hole. After a leisurely breakfast on my balcony, with fresh bread rolls which I had got from the baker on the corner, I visited Hanna and changed the burnt out candle.

Now you have to know that Hanna and I had become creatures of habit over the last 11 years. Sundays was our day when we would take off somewhere armed with our cameras. After our expedition we would retire to my place for Tea and a check of our booty. We would also sit and watch TV, nearly always ZDF at 1930hrs especially as they had a programme about history and culture. This would be followed by a kitschy love story, which we had dubbed "Herz und Schmerz". After a short siesta we would then sit, over a meal I would cook, talking into the night and generally in the summer until the sun came up.

So after telling Hanna what I was going to do and armed with my camera, I set off for Nideggen in the Eifel. I had learnt that in the Burg there was an exhibition about Pilgrims and the Jacob's Way.

Just some of the pictures I took today.

The exhibition gave me a better feel for what it will involve walking the Jacob's Way. I was also able to buy some literature and a small Pilgrims' prayer book. The drive, there and back, gave me time to reflect on my intentions and to allow certain ideas to coalesce. 

I shall always plan to be in Mönchengladbach on certain days of the year, 

23 April          Hanna's Birthday

24 April          Anniversary of our first meeting

30 July            the day of her death

1 November   All Souls when the family visit all the graves of the departed members.

The rest of the time I shall do as I please, but certainly travel or be walking the Pilgrims' Way. I have come to the idea that I will walk the route from home right through Germany, France to Spain. In the beginning I shall walk in stages coming home at the end of the day and as I get further afield in weekly bites staying where ever until I reach the Spanish Border. Then I shall do the last 800 km in one go. A further idea is to walk on to La Corunna and take a ship to England and then walk the Pilgrims' Way to Canterbury. I have to get back after all. 

When I got home, I did as we would have done. I got out my best china and had tea and read a little in the literature I had bought. Checked my photos, then had  a siesta. I sat and watched our normal programmes, cooked myself a meal and instead of chatting into the night I am writing this Blog. So as you see my life is slowly coming round to being normal again.

Hanna Part 9

Last Will and Testament

I’ve got to admit I wept again today. Just couldn’t stop myself. I have been reading her Last Will and Testament again, since I am one of those responsible for its implementation. She first wrote a letter to us all in 1991 when they (the bloody doctors that is) thought she had cancer.

She wrote then, “if I get over this then I shall be pleased, but if not then that’s OK as I have experienced so many nice things recently, particularly my relationship to Alan, that it just can’t get any better. And when the party is at its height, then that is the time to depart…”

She went on to say that her funeral should not be a sentimental occasion and that the pastor should not have to strain himself to find nice things to say about her. She was just a normal person, making mistakes and with normal weaknesses. She had, she said, always tried to act like a Christian, but did she succeed? Therefore we were not to run around for weeks with long faces or wearing black. Life goes on and we should too.

In another passage she says, “Monica, Silke, Natalie and Alan should know that I love them and that they have made my life richer.”

I often ask myself now, did I tell her often enough what she meant to me? How she enriched my life?

I got up early today, to ride my bike in an attempt to get fit again and so it was easy to stop by and tell her now. Last year our last big event together was to photograph a wedding and so I told her that, the bride is now pregnant. A sure sign that life goes on. She would have been pleased to know that another child is on the way and going to such a loving family. More flowers had been placed on the grave too, by some dear friends of mine. A nice gesture for they were unable to come to the funeral.

So I hope you agree it was OK to have a little weep today, for the love of a very special person.

           A small woman with a big heart taken in 2011

Hanna Part 8

Hanna on her Birthday 2012

The funeral was yesterday. I survived. 

I arrived at the church early and at the same time as Hanna's coffin so had plenty of time to sit alone with her and God. I watched the florist place the flowers on the coffin and the various wreaths around it. Pictures of these will be added to this blog as and when I get them, from the friends that took pictures for me. 

Her daughters were responsible for the arrangements and for dealing with the Catholic priest who took the service, and I have to say they did a good job of it and Hanna would have been pleased. The words to the hymns they chose were appropriate and in at least one case moved me to tears. However, I cannot get used to the German Church music and the manner in which they sing the hymns. I have been an Anglican Choir member, man and boy so am well versed in the Anglican way of doing things. It is almost Catholic like too. But that's just me, as Hanna would tell you, I can be quite pedantic at times and strive for 200% perfection. Generally I fail, but thanks to Hanna's bad influence and with age I am learning to live with it.

As the coffin left the Church a beautiful instrumental version of, "I did it my way" was played and I could feel Hanna smiling, for this is just what she wanted and how she lived her life.

At the cemetery I met the Jazz musicians from a group called "The Old Market Stompers" that Hanna so loved. They were to play suitable blues music during the procession and after the formal ceremony of committing the body to the earth had taken place. They were fantastic and again Hanna would not have kept still, but would have been swinging with the music.

When it came to me to place something in the grave and say farewell, I threw the rose you see on top of the coffin. To the rose I had tied the 3rd key to the lock I had left on the Weser bridge and an Ushebti,  a fuinery figurine used in Ancient Egypt. Hanna and I loved Egypt and had visited the country together 5 times. She had even been there 3 times before we met. So I think she would have smiled as I gave her an Ancient Egyptian servant to tend to her needs in the after live. Not very Christian I know, but it is the symbolism of placing something Egyptian in her grave that appealed to my romantic nature, for we loved the country and had many wonderful adventures there.

I was pleased that many friends had found the way and the time  to share Hanna's last journey, but was disappointed when some did not come to the Hotel where we went for refreshments after. I had been looking forward to talking to many of them, since some I had not seen for a bit, and some of Hanna's friends I did not even know well and had wanted to get to know them better.

Nevertheless I did speak to and sit with the majority of guests that came, especially those from Hameln and their show of support gave me strength to cope with the day, but especially did honour to Hanna's memory.

I visited the grave this morning and lit a candle for Hanna. She would have liked the many flowers and so many friends were generous and have given me money to place flowers on her grave when those above are gone. Eventually when the earth has settled and the grave takes its normal form, I rather fancy having a little seat there so I can sit and chat. Whatever, it is a place that I shall visit often and not just as most Germans on the official All Souls Day.

All the above 7 photos of the funeral and the procession were kindly taken by Lothar Eimanns.

Hanna Part 3

It's Sunday!

I was awake early as I have not been able to sleep properly for weeks now and the last three were of particular worry. I got up and went to Hanna's family grave where she, and later when my time comes I will be buried. After saying a short prayer for the departed, I dug up the small pewter urn with some of my father's ashes in, before it gets lost in the general digging up that will occur soon.

The little urn with some of my father's ashes

He will live there now on my book shelve by his picture until my time comes when it can be placed in my coffin.

I came home and had breakfast on the balcony. listening to the Sunday Worship on Radio 4 which was a Service in remembrance of the outbreak of the First World War. Needless to say I knew all the hymns and a couple of them I had chosen to be played for my father's burial in New Zealand and the memorial service in the UK.

As it was a Sunday I cleaned my humble abode and changed the bed as I always did on Sunday, as today is the day Hanna would come to stay. She of course will not be coming today or any other day, so I am in a bit of a hole now. Fortunately though some good friends have invited me to a barbecue this evening, so I will not be in this hole for long.

Hanna Part 2

SHOPPING AND LOSS

Today as almost every Friday for the last 11 years I have gone shopping with Hanna. When she could no longer go shopping herself, she would send me an email and I would get her stuff too. Then when she could no longer send emails I would go and write the shopping list for and with her, and later still I would write it myself. Either way at the end of the day we would sit together and eat our evening meal and chat into the night or watch TV until it was time for me to go home.

As I entered the supermarket car park where we would normally shop, it hit me in the face like a wet fish. She was gone. I need not shop for her, or try and think of meals I wanted to cook for her when she came to visit, or later meals I cooked for her at her home. I was now all alone in the world, had no one to cook for anymore. I suddenly felt all alone and found it hard to continue. What was the point of it all.

When I got home and began to unpack my shopping the door bell rang. It was Natalie, at 40 on the 24 July, Hanna’s youngest daughter. She said I have something to show you. So up she came and showed me a small bunch of dried flowers she had found in Hanna’s bedroom! It had a label on it from 1990. Now you have to know that in Hanna’s first Will written in 1992 she stated that she wanted the many dried baccarat roses, which were the flowers I had given her over time, to be placed in her coffin as they meant so much to her! Sadly as she herself stated in the last Codicil to her Will, these had fallen to the passage of time and no longer existed.

First Flowers after 5 months separation 1990

Natalie asked if she could put these flowers in her coffin instead. Needless to say I gave her a hug and said of course as I knew exactly what the bunch she found represented  for me and Hanna.

In 1990 I was stationed in Bielefeld as a Staff Officer in HQ 1 (BR) Corps and living in a flat in the centre of town. Although Hanna and I had recently become lovers I did not want a permanent relationship, I was not ready. Instead I started an affair with an American soprano in the Bielefeld Opera Company. Nor did I keep it a quiet affair I told Hanna what I was doing and why. The affair did not survive the first Gulf War, as the lady was not best pleased when on my Birthday I came home late due to some crisis or other at the front.

This taught me another valuable lesson in life and when I realised I was foolish and Hanna WAS the woman for me, I just got in my car with the said fresh flowers and drove down to Mönchengladbach. It was a surprise for her when she saw me, but she knew how I felt without saying or asking anything. She just took me by the hand and straight upstairs to bed. The rest as the say is history and this was when the spark became the all consuming fire.

When Natalie left I wept a little. I wept for the pain I had caused Hanna, I wept for the love and forgiveness Hanna showed me and I wept for the joy of the love we shared.

Hanna

 Damascus 2010

Allepo 2008

As dawn breaks I am writing this as a sort of catharsis, my way of grieving, for I cannot sleep. For the last few nights I have trained my body to stay awake while I held a vigil by the bedside of my dying soul mate. So I am used to being wide awake between the hours of 1800 and 1000 the next day.

I have known, in the biblical sense, many women in my life. Some I have loved deeply, others were just good friends or passing ships in the night and at least two were witches which it would have been better not to have known. Hanna who died yesterday was the one shining light, my best friend and worst critic, a great lover and wonderful soul mate, for she really of all the women, really understood me better than I did myself.

When we met 25 years, 3 months and six days ago the last thing I wanted was another relationship with a woman and certainly not with one that was almost 10 years older than me. I was on my way to becoming a misogynist for one of these witches had just crushed me. I had nothing to laugh about and was content in my sorrow, yet Hanna found the key to make me laugh at myself.

For quite awhile we were just good friends, she was someone I could talk to and neither of us were looking for a relationship or had the wish to “know” one another. But when we did ignite that spark it became a roaring fire which consumed our souls and made them one.

She was a great support and hostess during my service time, when I was required to represent the Crown and had to entertain to encourage better understanding between our allies. And what was pleasing for me, was that she was well liked and respected by those interlocutors I had to deal with at that time. Without her support I could never have managed to sail alone around the world, or find my feet when it ended. She was there for me when I needed it most with advice and critique, though the latter was not always appreciated by me. She had the ability to ask the pertinent questions that nearly always pricked the bubble of my enthusiasm, much to my annoyance. So she kept my feet firmly on the ground, but also knew how to encourage me to follow my dreams. She made me a much better person than I was before.

We shared many passions, such as language and a thirst for knowledge of new cultures and religions. We loved travel and meeting people and exploring the ancient rubble that exists in our world. And we loved taking photos, though she hated me taking hers. Whereas I loved being in hers and we would laugh about the photos she took of me in the left, right, or in the middle of her pictures with a photo smile on my face.

So I am a little lost at sea at the moment for my soul mate has sailed over the horizon and is gone from me. But I know she is there still, just like the ship sailing on the ocean, and she is in my heart and will continue to guide me through the rest of my life.

May God grant her eternal peace and ever lasting life.