Friday 27th March 2020

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Friday 27th March 2020

08:10 GMT

The bright sunshine, and the afternoon temperature of 12° C, should have meant that yesterday should have seemed warm, and in direct sunshine it did almost feel like that, but it was a cold day when seen from a different viewpoint. My south facing bedroom seemed warm enough while the sun was coming through the windows, but seemed to get quite chilly when the angle of the sun meant a lot less of it was lighting up the room. The kitchen, on the north side of the house, felt terribly chilly a lot of the time.

Today's weather forecast has changed a little since I took the screenshot above, but neither shows the temperature being low enough for another frosty start - which it was ! The latest revision says the sunshine should now last all day, and the temperature should be 13° C for most of the afternoon. The wind from the north east is not going to be that strong, but it will be a cold wind. Today should be very similar to the previous few days. Tomorrow may see the first cracks appearing. The morning may start sunny, but it is predicted that sunshine will gave way to sunny spells in the afternoon, and then it will cloud over. Sunday looks to be cold and miserable, but maybe that might change if we are very lucky.

There was really only one highlight for yesterday, and that was another walk in the sunshine. It was a walk that was both good and bad.
a little longer than the last

On the left is the track of my walk as taken on my usual Huawei P20 Lite phone. It is almost clean apart from a little squiggle in the centre of the picture. In this case that little error probably makes very little difference to the claimed 2.25 miles. Maybe the pedantic might say it was only 2.24 miles.

The other trace is the recording made on my old Cubot Dinosaur phone. It starts and ends clean, but I had barely walked a quarter of a mile before it decided it had to do a Google Playstore update. That paused the app until I was well past Ladywell on my way home. I suppose it was my own fault for taking it the drawer, and trying to use it straight away before it had settled down. I may try the Cubot Dinosaur phone again of I go out today.

One of the first things I noted when I went out yesterday was that the corner shop was closed. She doesn't normally close even for Xmas (although she is open for only a few hours on Xmas morning). Newsagents are specifically exempt from having to close up while the crisis continues. That leaves two possibilities. The first is that custom has dropped to such a low level that it was not worth keeping open. The other is that the lady who runs it, or her husband has fallen to the Coronavirus.

While the social media police scream "stay at home", the official information is that by taking a few precautions, the advantages of exercise, for both physical and mental health, outweigh any disadvantages. A walk in the sun certainly helps me stay on the right said of sanity. I note that the council, who presumably designed this poster, have almost got things right. "Keep a safe distance from other people" is almost the correct warning. I would add to it to say how filthy and disease laden people can be, but you can still read it as protecting yourself from the unknown rather than trying to protect others from something it is hard to believe you have. Nobody deliberately wants to infect anyone, but the emssage seems stronger to me when it is protecting yourself.

Nice to see the trains are still running. I have no idea how many were travelling on this train, but I suspect it would barely justify an 8 car train - possibly a 2 car would be sufficient, but I believe that the intention is to allow more space between people to avoid cross infection. It makes me wonder how busy rush hour trains are. There are are still many whose jobs are considered essential enough to continue working, and maybe the early trains are rather more full.

I have always thought this gym equipment was a blot on the landscape, and now it is taped off. I don't know why though. The allegedly super fit who use this type of crap are probably healthy enough to shrug off a silly little virus.

I was quite glad to get home again after my walk. I found I was starting to feel tired faster than I should. Later on I would lay on my bed and snooze for a while. In that respect it was little different to my walks to see Angela at lunchtime, although yesterday was another walk without a Guinness stop along the way. Two pints of Guinness is enough to get me a bit sleepy in the afternoon.The other factor is that I seemed to be walking faster than usual. Not stopping to take many photos would have increased the average, but just over 3mph is pretty good for me these days.

When I lay on my bed the last of the sun was streaming through the window. The sun stayed out much later, but the angle meant it missed most of my bedroom. I woke up later feeling really chilly, It could almost have been how a fever would feel, but I don't think it was a fever. On the other hand there does seem to be some evidence that I continue to fight some sort of infection, but it is quite low key.

Another indicator that all was not good was that I poured a glass of whisky, and struggled to finish it. I think it was actually because of my dinner. I have been probably more careful about making my food last longer than I was doing consciously. Last night I had two quarter pounder burgers with some raw red cabbage, and raw red onion (and some cooked onion). It did leave my mouth feeling very "oniony", and I think that was interfering with the flavour of the whisky.

Once again I studiously avoided watching the news because it just seems to be an endless stream of negative figures. I don't know it's source, or it's accuracy, but I did see an article whose headline was so many tens of thousands have recovered from the virus. Such figures help make a more informed decision about this virus. It cannot be denied that just like seasonal 'flu, it is taking it's toll on the ill and infirm, but for the more healthy it seems to be less a problem than 'flu. It should make good headlines to say that 1000 people were admitted to some hospital today, but 800 were discharged a few hour later because they just had a bad smokers cough. The trouble is that people getting better does not make good news.

I was in bed early again last night, and if it hadn't been for a message from Chris coming through just after 10pm, I would have been fast asleep by 10pm. The message was unexpected and interesting. The significant bit was from a scan of a newspaper article. It seems that the old Catford Constitutional Club building, once condemned for falling down, will now be rejuvenated as some sort of community centre. Lewisham might also get a canoe club as part of the area regeneration. I was not aware we needed a canoe club.

My sleep was a bit strange last night. I would wake up feeling stiff and aching, and thinking I was too uncomfortable to get back to sleep, and yet it seems I had no trouble falling asleep again. I did have one notable dream. I seemed to dream I was in some sort of department store, and I had this notion that I wanted a long black leather coat - something like a slightly less sinister version of the one Herr Flick of The Gestapo wears in "'Allo 'Allo". It definitely had to be black, but all I could find was a tan coloured coat, and that would not have been a good fit. Before the dream ended I found a powder blue coat that was the right size, but I rejected that outright.

Back in real life I do think I could fancy a long black leather coat for when the weather is bad. The major flaw in this desire is that I rather expect that I would probably have to pay considerably more than the £120 quoted for the tan coat in the dream. I think in the real world prices might start closer to £1200 !

This morning I have good and bad news. The good news is that eking out my food has allowed my weight to drop to within 300 grammes of the low weight I managed at the end of last December when things went all wrong. A few more weeks of this could see a useful difference to my waistline. Of course the weight loss could be for other reasons. My blood glucose, which I though was falling, is high again (although still less than the danger area). It could indicate I am still fighting an infection. On the other hand my blood pressure has returned to very low, although my pulse rate seemed a bit fast.

The worst indicator is the joint pain I am suffering from. That is a symptom of coronavirus. My right knee and my hips feel rather stiff. it is almost as if I had walked too far yesterday ! Perhaps the very worst symptom is that I keep finding I have written illegible rubbish. If the coronavirus was known to attack the brain I would probably be quite worried. but at the moment the worse thing I have to do is to try and proofread this once or twice before uploading it.

Today is another challenge to try and do useful stuff/keep myself amused. I am in two minds about going for another walk. I fear my joints may complain too much, but on the other hand I wonder how much of this stiffness in caused by long hours sitting in front of my PC. I am surprised I have not gone down with deep vein thrombosis, but I guess all the blood thinners I am on prevent that - up to a point ! If only the sun was high enough in the sky to warm up the garden I would be tempted to do a bit of work out there. Maybe I will give it a go anyway. Right now I feel like I am starving, and I am contemplating having some sort of breakfast.