HOW different we are from just a year ago. One year ago next week, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was sat with his Highness the Aga Khan officially opening the new Curragh and naming the new stand. All those things we huffed and puffed and wrote reams about seem so trival now. An ill wind blowing through the stand?
On the track we saw the debuts of two of our top two-year-olds in Siskin and Albigna. Both owned by two of racing’s most influential and international owners.
Many industries are preparing to get back to work despite many reservations within their own representative bodies being expressed as to the safety of resumption. It’s just difficult to get the image of social distancing and face masks being used on a building site when no one can see what is going on.
It’s two weeks since the pre-bank holiday announcement of the Government’s roadmap to reopening, and there is a great relief that, as France and German resumed racing under tight and safe restrictions, we have an earlier date to begin and some equestrian activity is also allowed.
This has been the toughest week yet since we were corona-ed. Things are really bad when you miss being stuck for nearly an hour on the M50 every morning.
It’s replaced by watching a 15 minute twirl on the laptop until the unreliable broadband connects to begin work.
Swearing at a computer screen gives no satisfaction. Yet, it’s the only link with the big wide world.
You wake to sunshine but then the first word that your sub conscious offers is ‘coronavirus’. You are thankful for being well but nonetheless, the gloom and this great void, filled with mostly bad news, has infected your brain.
Your last walk at night sees the shining Venus almost teasing you from the brightest skies since lockdown occurred. The countryside is lush but lonesome.
Yellow is not the new black. It’s no longer a colour bringing cheer but a hateful one, Danger here, Covid everywhere. Even watching Siobhan Ryan on the RTE weather in a bright yellow dress makes you want to switch channels. Had Chris Martin released Yellow this summer, I’d blacklist it.
Still, perspective must come. I’m lucky, I’m still working, so many are not, though there are tough times ahead for everyone in our industry and many, many more.
The death of over 1,500 Irishmen and women since March 1st stays front and centre and should never be forgotten as so many passed on silently without even a ‘proper send off’, a part of our grieving process. It should not be forgotten when we become close to normal people again. Fortunately, I’ve had no relatives endangered in care homes. Those in the front line of care deserve our eternal gratitude and support.
Eagerness
Everyone keeps the good side out so far and continues to express their eagerness to get going in a new ‘normal’. But each passing week pushes back troubles down the line. We know racing and sales revolve around buying and selling and credit. Summer racecourses will, like so many businesses, suffer.
We appreciate the difficult times other sports also face. We must stay safe and take no risks but every other country is doing this.
The whole empty summer hit home this week after a short video from RTE Sport’s Sunday Game promotion recalling so many great days of All-Ireland Final battles over the last decades.
There’ll be no Season of Sundays because we have nothing to engage in and Sunday has merged into every other day .
It’s normally a time of channel switching to try to keep up with racing, GAA, golf or tennis if they all clashed of a Sunday. Sport does lift the spirits.
I even found an old recorded clip on my phone of John Mullane gasping for breath at Limerick battled Cork in the 2018 Hurling All-Ireland semi-final. Oh to hope for days like those again.
From those days, the first verse of Caledonia is never more apt.
I don’t know if you can see
The changes that have come over me
In these last few days I’ve been afraid
That I might drift away
So I’ve been telling old stories, singing songs
That make me think about where I came from
And that’s the reason why I seem
So far away today