May 10th (2020)

 

May 10th
Tempus horribilis

"I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made"
(AE Housman, The Laws of God, The Laws of Man, 1922)

It is a BAD DAY for me

“It's sad, so sad (so sad)
It's a sad, sad situation
And it's getting more and more absurd.”
(Sorry seems to be the hardest word, Elton John, lyrics Bernie Taupin, 1976)

My brief four day trip to Cambodia has ended up being 56 days, and counting. As time drags on and personal communication becomes stilted, there is the distinct possibility of my ‘staycation’ becoming ‘time apart’. It certainly is a time of reflection, introspection, weighing the gains/losses and reconsidering the future.

I was awake at 6.50am, but it is 7.33am and I am just about to shower, then breakfast and post the diary selection for today.

Not wanting to start this Sunday on a bad note, but my old home town in England has recorded 36 Covid19 related deaths. In my home State (in Malaysia) there have been 36 related deaths. Cambodia has recorded none. At this moment Cambodia has no new reported cases of the virus for four weeks, and is considering reopening schools. Which I think would be quite foolish.

However, if all this is true, then my guardian angel has placed me in the right country at the right time. While other countries sink beneath the sheer weight of Covid19 cases, sufferers and the dead, Cambodia has, incredibly, barely been touched, if we are to believe the official figures that is.

I am about to go out shopping for the ingredients for the sauce I am making, whatever you may want to call it. I will try Asia Market first, for the minced beef (some say ground beef).

Today is ‘one of those days’.

Google Docs. is not saving my recent edits to Google Drive from my hand phone. So everything I wrote this morning stays on my hand phone and does not appear on the midi Mac. That transfer-ability was the feature I liked about using Google Docs. I have just spent twenty minutes re-typing my earlier thoughts.

I am heading to Asia Market and decide that I need to withdraw money from an ATM. I am down to my last few dollars and need money for today’s shopping, and to carry me over this period of unknown days in Cambodia. It is not to be. I step into the ATM booth at Cathay United Bank, because it’s on my way. The ATM has no warning sign, no notice, so I cheerfully put my card into the slot. The machine takes my card. A message comes on the ATM screen apologising for something. I push the button to cancel the transaction, but it does not return my card. My bloody Visa card is swallowed by the sodding machine. I seek help but only get the reply that the bank opens on Monday.

Even stranger than that...I took photos of the machine, and of the screen, and those images seem to have vanished from my hand phone. I have tried all directories and files, but those images are nowhere to be found.

As if the day could not get any worse. It has.

Malaysia’s movement control order to be extended further until June 9th, says back door PM Muhyiddin

My conclusion is that it is a bad day, and all I can do is cry and somehow get through this day alive.