Sometimes I think, and sometimes I don’t. Today I was thinking that we’d have been lost during Covid without postmen and bin men. They are two overlooked jobs, but without post and regular rubbish collections civilisation would soon break down.

The NHS put my dad on a ventilator and kept him sedated as he slipped away. To be fair, there wasn’t much else they could do, but for this, and many other acts like it, they have had praise heaped upon them. The bus drivers and bin men, the posties and shop workers all did a lot more for me than the NHS, and for lower wages, but nobody seems to say much about them. Bus drivers and postmen died during the pandemic as a result of contact with infected people, and representatives of the other services probably did, but their deaths weren’t reported on TV.

After the first lockdown, Julia went in to work for the other lockdowns and even had an official government badge to show she was an essential worker. Despite this, and working face to face with people who had Covid (and thought that it was acceptable to come to the centre despite the positive test) she has yet to be given the thanks of a grateful nation.

She hasn’t even had the thanks of MENCAP. They gave the workers in the residential homes a cash bonus. The staff at daycentres were given nothing and told their job was not as difficult as in the homes.

I’m not saying that the NHS didn’t do a good job, all I’m saying is that the praise and rewards don’t seem to have been distributed equally amongst everyone who helped us through the pandemic.

You can add police, fire services and teachers to the list too, and probably a few others. It’s sometimes difficult remembering how many people we rely on the live our lives.

I did have some other thoughts, but it felt like a day for writing something serious, so I did.

Daffodils