The Corona Blog

In the early part of 2020, Wuhan was becoming famous...and not for the right reasons. The world came to a standstill, airports shut down, businesses stopped, and people stayed inside their homes and went into isolation.

I was having coffee at the house of a friend. He had just come out of hospital and, facing the prospect of being cooped up for several weeks at home, was feeling a bit sorry for himself. I decided to cheer him up and told him about the patient who asked for a two-finger prostate examination because they wanted a second opinion.

Knowing that I like to think of myself as a bit funny and always have a joke handy, he suggested I create a "blog." "We are all going to need a little cheering up while Covid is still around," he said. He suggested that maybe reading funny stories would help people take their mind of the nine o'clock news that always seems to be full of things we can't do anything about.

With this in mind, I started writing about the everyday things that I experienced during the various lockdowns.

By lucky chance, the timing of my retirement was spot-on because I left my medical practice just before Covid hit, saving me from all the drama that followed. At first, I was apprehensive about retiring, and on top of that having to isolate. As soon as I got started on working on the garden and in the house, however, I became as happy as a pig in the proverbial. And from one story to another, the readers will see how simple things, while puttering around the house and the garden, can bring about a smile and a laugh in our lives.

The short fiction stories in the book share the adventures and misadventures as I was mowing, building walls, organizing a new workshop, installing sculptures, cooking chicken, and putting a greenhouse together. There are also stories of a dog, shrimp, deer, and some insects that may also tickle some readers' fancies.

And although we're not out of the woods yet, even though vaccines are now available, hopefully these stories will carry the readers through the year 2021 with a more hopeful outlook and ready to find the light-and humor-in everyday, ordinary things.