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Thursday 19th
March 2020
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07:48 GMT
The forecast for yesterday was resolute
that there would be no sign of sunshine yesterday,
but it was wrong ! There may not have been much,
but something is a lot more than nothing. Until
about 5pm the sky was light, and now and again the
sun would peep through the clouds. At about 5pm
the clouds thickened, and it became very dark -
just like sunset had come over an hour early. It
seemed like it was about to rain (which would have
been handy for reasons I'll come to later), but it
stayed dry until well after dark, and possibly
until some time after midnight. The afternoon
temperature of 14° C felt mild even under a dull
sky.
Today is going to be a fair bit cooler than
yesterday, and maybe today will be very dull all
day. Sometime in the early hours of this morning
there was a sprinkle of rain, and while it is dry
now, and the forecast says it will continue dry,
it does look like there could be a creditable
chance of rain sometime this morning. (I can't see
any rain falling as I write this, but it does look
very damp outside - there could be some fine, hard
to see, drizzle). I suspect that the afternoon
high of just 9° C is going to feel quite cool in
the dull grey light. There is hope that tomorrow
may be slightly better. t the moment the forecast
says a bit of rain around sunrise, and then the
clouds will start to thin, not enough for any
sunshine, but the afternoon should be a bit
brighter, and it should be 9° C again.
Yesterday turned out to be a more
productive day than I thought it might be -
although I had almost predicted what some of it
might be. For instance a vague possibility of
considering going to Aldi did turn into a shopping
trip to Aldi. Some of the shelves were a bit
sparse, but they had everything I was looking for,
and a few things I wasn't originally looking for.
They even seemed to have some toilet paper, but I
doubt that lasted long. It does seem that after
all the panic buying, things are returning to
normal.
One interesting observation is that before
I went out to go to Aldi I was coughing a bit, and
my nose seemed to be slightly runny. Once out in
the fresh air these things all but stopped. I
don't think I can remember coughing once going to
and from Aldi, or when inside the place. I do
remember blowing my nose just once before entering
Aldi, but it was more a reflex action rather than
a real need. My throat got tickly, and my nose
seemed to slightly run once I got home again, and
relaxed.
It may have been just after 2pm that I
tried a sort of experiment. I was not sure I was
well enough to do it, but with the sun doing it's
best to come out, I decided to do a bit of
gardening. Initially I did feel a bit creaky -
some of it a remnant of my long walk the previous
day - but the more I did, the better I felt
(within limits). There were two things I wanted to
do in the garden. One was to pull out a bit more
ivy, and generally do a bit more clearance by the
right hand side of the back fence. I made some
useful progress there, but the process was made
more difficult by the amount of rubble there.
The other objective was to start the
process of preparing what should one day be lawn.
Raking some of the pebbles and rocks off it, and
at the same time removing some weeds (which are
now shooting up fast if I don't bash them down
again), was one part of the process. The harder
part was to try and flatten, and level the ground.
To avoid over extending myself, I decided I would
only work on the back half of the lawn-to-be. I
shifted quite a lot of heavy soil around, and in
doing so I uncovered even more of the line of
bricks that once divided the old lawn from an
ancient flower bed.
It seemed that I made good progress, and
although I knew it was still not perfectly level,
it seemed good enough for one days work. When I
stepped back and looked again there I saw it still
sloped down to the left, but it didn't seem too
bad. With the soil freshly raked I decided I would
scatter grass seed over it. I thought the sight of
some fresh green grass would be a good way of
enthusing me to tackle the other half of the
lawn-to-be. I will have to dig up some of the
grass in the future when I use more of the bricks
and rubble to put borders in. On the left hand of
where I have sown seeds is a loose pile of soil
and rubble that I will have to level out when I
put a border between the grass and the garden
path.
This was the state of my garden after I
scattered the grass seed everywhere I had just
worked on. As you can see it is never going to be
as good as a bowling green, but that is not what I
am aiming for - at least not this year ! On the
left hand side you can see how much I had to dig
out by the line of the old surface still visible
on what will be a flower or vegetable bed at the
rear of the garden. Halfway along the left hand
fence is the entrance to the foxes earth. I am
still unsure if it is in use, but I am leaving a
small area around it alone. I still have no clear
idea of what my ultimate plan is, but I am happy
that I continue to make progress towards something.
I was quite sweaty when I finished
gardening, but I was feeling basically OK. It
feels like any pain or ache as a result of
intended labour, even if it is rather minor
compared to a man who digs up roads for a living,
is a good pain. Well not actually a "good pain"
- there is no such thing as a good pain unless you
are some sort of masochist, but when you know a
good reason for it, it is nothing to worry about.
Probably the best thing was that I recovered from
this sweaty labour very quickly, and at the same
time my tickly cough started up again. I also
resumed hay fever like symptoms.
An hour or two later I tackled what could
be called some brief heavy work as I changed all
my bedding. I am sure I can remember times when
doing so has felt like hard work, but yesterday it
hardly seemed any bother at all (maybe it was
because the duvet seemed to slip into the duvet
cover very easily for a change, and so the most
physical aspect of the process was very low key.
For the rest of the afternoon, which was
almost over anyway, and during the evening, I felt
very strange. It was obvious I was suffering from
something. It tended to be intermittent, and
unpredictable, but my throat would tickle enough
to need some coughing, and my nose seemed to feel
blocked all the time while it was actually quite
free. At the same time I was otherwise feeling
really good. Maybe even better than many typical
similar times. The oddest paradox was that while I
had all the symptoms for a rotten night's sleep, I
actually seemed to sleep well.
During the few times when I woke up in the
night my nose felt itchy and blocked, but wasn't
actually blocked. Also, I can't recall coughing at
all while I slept. I waited until I was fully
awake, and had got out of bed, before I started
coughing again. Like yesterday it seems to come in
unpredictable waves. I suddenly realised I haven't
needed to cough now for the last 15 - 20 minutes,
but I was coughing a lot earlier. It is almost a
completely dry cough, and is just the result of
irritation at the back of my throat, rather than
any sputum that needs coughing up.
That irritation at the back of my throat
could be a symptom of Covid-19, but the high doses
of vitamin D I take may be stopping, or slowing it
become a respiratory infection. Curious that the
'flu like, aching bones muscles and joints, plus
half an afternoon of high fever, would seemed to
have happened a fortnight before the last stage of
Covid-19 is trying to take effect - if indeed it
is anything to do with Covid-19.
Another indicator of my general health is
my blood glucose level. It is stubbornly high at
the moment. Yesterday I wasn't paranoid about it,
but I did try and be careful about what I ate, and
I didn't have any more bottled beer (despite
buying another three bottles in Aldi in the
morning). This morning my blood glucose was 9.2.
That is high, but at least it is lower than the
10.0 I had the day before. Mostly I can keep it in
the region of 7 to 7.5 without too much effort. It
is a strong indicator that I am fighting an
infection.
Well maybe I am fighting an infection, but
I still seem to feel quite good. I am very temped
to do at least a 2 mile walk around the park today
- provided it stays dry. I might even call in the
pub for a quick pint of Guinness. On the other
hand I do have a lot of work to do today. I was
looking at my video archives last night, and I
realised that from around 2014 to 2016 I had shot
a fair bit of video at gigs, but apparently I
never did anything with it. Maybe I thought the
quality of my recording was crap, or that the band
had not played as well as I knew that they could.
Today I will review many of those videos, and see
if I can do something with them. With most, if not
all gigs cancelled because of the Covid-19
pandemic, I will be uploading anything worth
showing to a certain social media web site to
entertain those pining for gigs as a sort of virtual
gig.
Even my regular late Thursday afternoon
drink has been put on hold for a while or more. I
now have plans to just meet Jodie for a quick
drink in Catford this afternoon - assuming it is
during a period when my cough is at a minimum -
which seems to be the case when out in the fresh
air. In these days of self isolation, it seems I
will be carrying on as normal - doing my mostly
solitary stuff as usual. I knew it would come in
handy one day !
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