Page composed
using
 1
|
|
Tuesday 24th
March 2020
|
07:13 GMT
It was very sunny yesterday, and it did
feel sort of mild, but the current political state
of the land made the desire to enjoy it somewhat
muted. The afternoon temperature was about 11° C.
It is really chilly this morning, but that
is not surprising with the sky being so clear.
Right now all I can see through my south facing
front window is the merest wisps of some very high
clouds. The breeze today should be quite light,
and it should feel very nice in the sunshine this
afternoon when the temperature hits 14° C.
Tomorrow should be very similar today except a
degree or two cooler. Tomorrow marks the start of
a slow decline in the weather. If the decline
continues we could see some very chilly days in a
week.
It was not absolutely essential, but
yesterday seemed like a good time to go to Aldi
and buy a bit more shopping. Like last time I
bought enough for about 5 days if I am careful. I
should have enough food for about a fortnight now,
but after that I will need more. Almost all I
bought is fresh and perishable. There were two
exceptions. I did buy two cans of "chunky beef
soup", and some more Heinz "creationz". The latter
being flavoured baked beans. By buying a few of
those beans on every visit I seem to have amassed
a small hoard over the last three months - well
before hoarding became a thing as people stripped
shops of everything they had.
I was quite surprised that Aldi was almost
quiet when I got there. It was probably quieter
than any average Monday morning. On rare occasions
I would be there quite early on a Monday morning,
and there was usually a surge soon after opening,
but it would quieten a bit my mid morning. That is
when I went yesterday, and that is when I thought
it to be quieter than usual. I found there were a
few gaps on the shelves, but they seemed to have
most things. It was strangely one of my nicer
shopping trips.
I had originally been considering going out
for an extra walk after doing that shopping, but I
found I didn't fancy it after lugging my heavy
bags of shopping home - most of the wait coming
from drinks, and not food. It has become apparent
that I may have been fighting an infection for
some days. I had originally thought it to be hay
fever, and there was evidence that I was suffering
from that (extra stinging eyes after getting near
to early flowering trees). Quite what I am or was
suffering from is open to conjecture.
I can't really cite any specific symptoms.
It was mostly just a feeling of being under the
weather, although a subtle loss off taste was
perhaps specific. Curiously enough it is said that
loss of taste is a symptom of Civid-19. What I do
know is that if I was still at work I would not
have even considered taking the time of sick. I
was perfectly able to function close to normal,
but it might have made the day at work feel like a
long day.
Curiously enough (which is a start to a
sentence I really should use less) there were
possibly two measurable hints that I really was
under the weather. Both my blood pressure and
blood glucose levels were a bit peaky recently. My
blood pressure was still well inside "normal"
limits, but I didn't see the usual very low
readings I now tend to get. I thought I knew good
reasons for my blood glucose being high, and on
the whole those reasons were most probably right,
but it is the drop towards lower readings, more
typical of those from a few weeks ago, and
dropping without too much effort, that suggest it
was more than just what I was eating and drinking.
It is also possible that my blood glucose
is dropping because I have very slightly, to a
miniscule degree, lost some appetite. What I
cannot determine is if this loss (or lessening) of
appetite is just my brain reacting subconsciously
to seeing those high blood glucose levels, and
reacting appropriately, or if the lessening of
appetite is because of whatever mystery thing it
is that makes you eat less when ill. It is very
rare for me to go off my food because of illness,
and I am not sure if it has ever happened in the
past no matter how ill I might have been. If
anything I would be drawn to eat even more.
I am probably more worried about my mental
health. Who knows how loopy I could get now that
the lockdown has been enhanced. It all sounds too
much like the plot of 1984 for my liking. The
latest edict from Big Brother is that we are now
only allowed out the house once per day for
exercise. As far as I know there is not time
limit, or distance for that exercise (which can
really only be walking or running). I believe that
going out for essential shopping, i.e. food, is
included in the once out of the house per day.
There is one tiny ray of hope in this
terrible state of affairs. I never heard the full
edict, but judging from a one line précis on a
link to our great leaders speech, gatherings of
more than 2 people are now banned (but presumably
only if the participants keep the regulation 6ft
apart). That should be good enough for a brief
meeting with Angela, although not being able to
end it with a hug would be heartbreaking. It would
be quite good enough to plan the resistance using
cell networks (even if in all the movies everyone
gets captured, and has a fate not worth thinking
about).
To my great delight I actually heard from
Angela yesterday. I am still unsure about
her circumstance - whether she is living at home
or if she is with lover boy. It is worrying for me
to try and phone her in case she has company - the
company of a very jealous man ! Although it was
lovely to hear her voice again I was saddened to
hear she was ill. As soon as she spoke she sounded
bunged up with snot. It seems she just has the
common cold (also caused by a coronavirus), and
will hopefully be over it very soon. It does mean
she will probably have to stay away from work for
yet another couple of weeks.
Her work is with one of the busiest
departments in the hospital, and so she will be
missed, but they can't take chances - or probably
can't, but she doesn't get nearer to patients than
at the other end of a telephone call. Most of her
work is "office based" and potentially she could
work from home, but I doubt that will be possible.
Anyway, for now, it seems a secret meeting in the
park is not going to happen until she is feeling
much better, and the sad reality is that it could
be another 12 weeks before we would officially
allowed a hug - assuming these emergency
regulations do finally finish. It all sounds
perilously like 1984 - elections cancelled until
the crisis is over, but the crisis is never over,
and the man in power stays in power gaining more
and more power, and only doing everything he does
for "our benefit" - i.e. he becomes Big Brother.
It is sort of frightening that more people
are frightened of a silly virus to even consider
what political changes may come about. Many are
praising Big Brothers resolve to limit the effect
of this novel virus, but somehow the figures don't
always stack up. All news reports make a big thing
about the deaths attributable to the virus, and
figures like 577 deaths can sound terrible until
compared to average death rates from all causes.
At the moment these deaths, while a terrible
tragedy to friends and relations, are hardly
making a dent in the death statistics. Figures for
survival rates are only ever shown as a bit of
maths for the watcher to do confirmed cases
minus deaths equals a very large number
that is never applauded. Only death sells
newspapers.
There is a school of thought that says it
would probably make little difference if the
disease was just left to run. The theory is that
the same people would go down badly with the
virus, and the same ones would die of it,
regardless of "social distancing" or not. The
bigger difference is that with no "social
distancing" it would all be over a lot quicker. As
far as I am aware, there is no strong evidence
that exposure to this virus once does not give
future immunity, and so once everyone has it the
virus has nowhere to go, and will very quickly die
out as have so many viruses before this one. The
flaw in the idea is that people are no longer
allowed to die, but for that those people would
have to be incarcerated in a clinically clean
cell, with no contact with anyone else, until they
die naturally of intense boredom.
Until recently I thought that 67 years old
was a very popular age to die after so many public
figures recently, and not so recently, died at
that exact age. Statistics about deaths from the
Civid-19 tend to be "massaged" a lot, but they do
seem to show a very increased mortality rate from
the age of 80. With modern medicine, surviving to
80 is more common than it used to be, but only the
lucky get past that age still. As some have said
(I gave links to a source yesterday) death reports
fail to make a very important distinction between
deaths of the very elderly - those who died with
the disease, and those who died of the
disease. In many cases deaths among the 80 year
olds may have been brought forward a little bit by
fighting the virus, but would have happened anyway
in fairly short time.
The funny thing is that I have several
existing medical conditions, plus being a bit old,
that make me very susceptible to the virus, and I
yet I don't fear it in the same way as many much
younger, and more healthy people do. Some say it
is because they have 80 or 90 year old grannies -
a valid point if only they were sincere about it.
I suppose being blasé about it is probably
inevitable when you wake up every morning
surprised that you are still alive when you
genuinely expected to no make it past your 40s -
according to be best government medical advice !
Yesterday was not that boring, but I am
definitely suffering from spending far too many
hours in front of my PC. If I am not careful I
could start to suffer from deep vein thrombosis.
Today I really do need to get some exercise in. I
am not sure how I feel about a long walk, but
previous experience suggests that once I get
started I will feel OK. Maybe the joy of being out
will mean my exercise might be extended to 4 miles
today. It is what I really should be aiming for
anyway. My original plans may never come to
fruition now, but I was trying to build up my
walking stamina so I could get back to tackling
some of the long coastal paths that I walked back
in 2010 to 2012. Having just been out to the
bathroom in the middle of writing this, and felt
how cold the air is at the moment, I suddenly feel
in no hurry to get out into the sunshine. I think
I'll manage it later, but I am now doubting my
zeal to do it. The sordid truth will be revealed
tomorrow, and we will find out if I managed to
walk anything better than 0 miles. Actually I feel
like going back to bed now !
|
|
