Some of the weird and wonderful designs used for face coverings when the pandemic started

Keeping you covered

Jim Carrey in The Mask.

A few years ago my children's favourite film was The Mask starring Jim Carrey.

It featured the story of bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss who is transformed into a manic superhero when he wears a mysterious mask. 

The film sprang to mind last week when I reluctantly agreed to take my ageing mum into a building society in Wisbech.

Complete with masks pulled up close to our face, we approached the cashier and asked her to put money into our bag.

As I nervously looked around I couldn't help thinking what sort of response we would have had to our request before Covid 19 came hurtling across the horizon.

As I looked around at everyone wearing their masks it also brought to mind the wild and wacky images of people in makeshift masks in Wuhan when the pandemic first started. Anything and everything seemed to suffice. Some people even seemed to be wearing large plastic water bottles over their heads.

You couldn't make it up, but it is true!

I have to say I was brought up in an era of cowboys and indians and enjoyed dressing in my sheriff's waistcoat, complete with plastic badge, my holster and gun, complete with caps which could scare most things, a cowboy hat and, on occasion, when I became the Lone Ranger, a mask, albeit one which I wore over my eyes not my nose and mouth.

That was then. Life was much simpler then. I could spot the baddies (usually children from our road) and the caps saw them off.

One of the many bright designs on offer.

Now, quite a number of years later, I don't feel so safe. A mask doesn't seem enough ammunition to repel a global pandemic that we can't see. We can't tell where it will strike next, we can't round it up or lock it in handcuffs ( I had some plastic ones of those too!) and we can't lock it in jail.

Washing my hands until they are are as coarse as sandpaper and wearing a mask just doesn't seem  to cut it for me.

But I digress. Back to masks and what people are using as face coverings now that it looks like we will be wearing them more and more wherever we go. Some people go for bright colours, some stick to traditional black or grey. Some have names or designs on them but they all try to do the same thing: to protect us from the dreaded Coronavirus.

Strange times indeed! Who would have thought, when we saw in 2020, that it would ever come to this? And when, if ever, will it all end and we get back to normality as we know it?
 

Okay, okay... too hard a questions. Just wash your hands, keep your distance and pull on your face mask... whichever shape, design or colour you choose to wear!

Above and below: More wacky designs and ideas, including a plastic carrier bag (not recommended), used by people.