Home and Away

Here I am shivering under a bobble hat in my kitchen at 7.30am of a Friday morning, wrapped in a dressing gown and wooley jumpers with long johns, thick corduroys and a blanket comforting my legs as I Muse. Let me explain…

Hiroo Onoda was a Japanese soldier who remained in the jungle on Lubang Island in the Philippines, until 1974 because he did not believe that the war had ended 30 years earlier. He was finally persuaded to emerge after his ageing former commanding officer was flown in to see him. It seemed that as World War II neared its end in 1944, Mr Onoda, then a lieutenant, became cut off on Lubang as US troops came north. The young soldier had orders not to surrender – a command he obeyed for three decades and he dismissed as ploys, search parties sent to him and leaflets dropped by Japan. He was greeted as a hero on his return to his homeland.

I didn’t quite get a hero’s welcome last Monday when I returned to the coalface of the ‘Herald office after almost three years in lockdown, long after the rest of the workforce had emerged from isolation.

Just when I thought we’d seen it all, a week or so before St Patrick’s Day 2020, an enterprise I was on in Dungannon was curtailed and the Market Square was empty on a usually bustling Tuesday afternoon. It was eerie. Covid-19 had arrived and it was time to baton down the hatches, don face-masks and in the best traditions of The Police (not the PSNI!) sing, ‘Don’t stand, don’t stand, don’t stand so close to me…’

With my very own eyes, I saw vulnerable frightened folk peer out their windows as food relief was left on their doorsteps, football gates were padlocked and selfish conspiracy theorists found a voice.

Zoom became all the rage with meetings of all sorts, including work, held through the screens. However, it looks now like Zoom is here to stay as the fuel companies hiked prices through the proverbial ceiling making drives to work less and less feasible. Which is costlier, however? A round trip of 40/50/60 miles five days a week or hitting the switch on the home heating for the day? Magic carpets for travelling is the stuff of Arabian Nights but there are magic blankets at home to ward off the cold!

The great debate: Which is better, working from home or the office?

Way back in the 17th century, English poet John Donne compared people to countries when he penned, ‘No man is an island’. It is prose that has great resonance to the contemporary Brexit debate but that’s a whole other story…’No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were…’

Too much isolation is not good for the soul. Manys-the-day in the last three years my only outing was to the local store. What once took ten minutes became a half hour visit, striking up one conversation after another: “Well, Plunky what do you think of our chances this weekend?” “Kezi you know nahan bout football!” “Well, Jackie how’s all your ones?”… and that’s just the staff! Not quite jungle war isolation but that was the extent of human contact for another 24 hours. Indeed, during this freezing spell there are days the journey beyond the four walls is no further than the blue bin… brr! Stir crazy soon becomes hermit.

For every ying there’s a yang, and it is much less likely on these icy days that I will finish on an operating table as I did after a fall on Gallows Hill on the walk into work or have to climb out through the car window, after hitting black ice on the road to Pomeroy – also a number of years ago.

I happened upon the early morning Musing and discovered it is a time when the mind is uncluttered from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and social media. Doing the maths, it would be impossible to do likewise from an office in Omagh and there are other mornings the laptop is open at 8am.

When the pressure is on, it is possible to get on top with a shift until 7pm or indeed 8pm, fuelled by a few coffee stops. Again not feasible from John Street when the keys are rattling and its time to bolt the doors. Swings and roundabouts but the work gets done and the hours are clawed back with the odd day-time World Cup game or darts thriller. Research!

It’s just a matter of going out the back door, walking around the house and going in the front door to feel like one has arrived home from work. Dinner is eaten from the other side of the table, to change the ambience. There is one side of the table my girls know I am not to be interrupted! And the rush home for other activities has been eradicated.

Perhaps a mix of home and away is the answer.

Since the onset of the pandemic, life has changed for everyone and there is no going back!