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Monday 30th
March 2020
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09:42 BST
Yesterday's weather left no positive
feeling, and instead mostly negative feelings.
After a little sunshine in the morning it was just
cold and grey for the rest of the day. There was
even at least one shower of rain.
It seems like
winter is back. The sky is grey, and although
no rain is shown to fall at any specific time,
there is a small risk of rain at any time. The
afternoon temperature may only reach 8° C, and
wit the wind still coming from the icy north,
it will probably feel much cooler. Tomorrow
may be a far nicer day - by comparison, and
not in absolute terms. The temperature should
reach 10° C for a while in the afternoon, and
with the wind coming from the east, still
cold, but not icy, it may even feel bearable
when the sun is out - there could be sunny
spells throughout daylight hours tomorrow.
One thing that failed to make an
impact yesterday was the clocks changing from GMT
to BST. I didn't even realise it had happened
until quite late in the day, and it wasn't until I
noticed that it was light at 7.30pm last night
that I really believed it. The fact that the only
clocks I pay any attention to automatically change
from GMT to BST (and vice versa) means that there
is no need to actually participate in the change.
The only real impact of the change used to be when
having to get up to go to work. Since retiring I
run to my own clock, not that of others....well
sort of. Obviously some times still matter, but on
days like yesterday when it seems the outer world
did not even exist, I did not feel tied to any
clock.
Yesterday was a day when I was feeling very
slightly ill. It felt like a mild head cold -
mainly just a bit of extra snot. The worrying
thing is that a runny nose often precedes a cough
as all that extra mucus runs down the throat. A
cough at this time, in the middle of the
coronavirus pandemic is not a good thing because
it is one of the prime symptoms. Fortunately my
nose did seem to dry up a bit later in the day,
but the hay fever-like feeling remained.
I have been keeping an eye on my temperature
for some time now. One interesting observation
that probably means nothing, is that it is late in
the evening when my temperature seems to peak.
Last night it was, if I recall correctly, 36.9° C,
and that is not far short of normal (usually taken
to be 37.3° C, although different authorities have
their own favourite idea of "normal" usually
differing by a few tenths of a degree). This
morning, (at approx 10:15am) my temperature was
34.2° C. That is fairly low, but not that unusual
for me.
All this makes me doubly, or probably
trebly annoyed that I didn't think to take my
temperature about three weeks ago when I had a
severe case of the shivers. I was too busy trying
to get warm to even think about getting my
thermometer out. It is my belief, rightly or
wrongly, that was when I probably had a corona
virus infection. I had every single symptom except
for the respiratory tract infection, and it is
possible my high doses of vitamin D protected me
from that.
I have to say that I felt bloody miserable
yesterday. The grey skies, once the few sunny
spells in the morning passed, added to my
despondency. Another negative input was caffeine
withdrawal. My supplies of Diet Coke are now
getting very low, and yesterday I decided to do
without to make my last one and three quarters
bottles last a bit longer. I could have gone out
to try and get more, but I am unsure of the state
of the shops. Some report say that supermarkets
are only letting 2 people in at a time, and that
queues to get in are very long. Others tell a
different story. It is a shame that the corner
shop has closed for up to a month because of
illness (although I am not sure if the exact
reason is known).
The thing that really pissed me off is that
I had been so looking forward to today because
Angela is (or should be) back at work today. I had
dreams of a clandestine meeting in the park, but
in those dreams it was warm and sunny. The reality
was not only that the weather forecast said it
would be cold and grey, but that I wasn't sure if
I was well enough to see Angela. It was always my
intention to keep the required 2 metres from her,
but even at that distance I would not be wanting
to cough or sneeze on her.
I took stock of how much food I have
yesterday - by which I mean I had a very brief
look in the kitchen. I could probably last another
month, maybe more, without needed to buy any more
food, but it would mean a very boring diet that
would get increasingly unhealthy. For instance I
have almost three full bags of pasta, and one of
them is still in date. I am pretty confident that
even the out of date stuff would be fine for many
years yet. The reason I have it is because I don't
eat pasta. It raises my blood glucose too high -
like all carbohydrates.
For some peculiar reason I decided that
there was one foodstuff I needed urgently. Every
so often, maybe as infrequently as once every
couple of years, I have a strong desire for fish
fingers. I think the last time could have been
less than 6 months ago, but the urge has come
around again. It made me think that if I get out
at all today, I want to buy fish fingers as well
as Diet Coke. One other thing I did yesterday has
a bearing on food/eating. I paid my credit card
for the month. For once it was quite a small
amount. That means I could possibly treat myself
to a takeaway sometime soon. I think that
takeaways are still being delivered, but I worry
about prices being raised during the crisis. I
don't fancy a kebab at any cost !
My pattern of sleep has changed a lot
recently. It seems I am often more tired when I go
to bed than I think I am. Last night was a typical
case. I went to bed fairly early with the
intention of reading. Pretty soon I felt like
putting the book down, and I fell asleep really
quickly. The really strange thing is that I have
no recollection of waking up until 5am this
morning. I can't remember the last night I managed
to sleep non stop for what might have been 6 or
even 7 hours. Of course the clocks changing meant
that 5am would have been the same as 4am two
nights ago.
I can't remember if the big dream I had
happened before waking at 5am, or if it was when I
fell asleep again. It was a variant of a dream I
have had in the past. In the dream my next door
neighbour had a huge back garden that seemed to
extend to the horizon. In last nights dream they
decided to tarmac over a large part of it, and it
seemed to amuse me when I thought it was going to
do their drainage no good, and their remaining
grass would become a quagmire.
This morning I feel good, bad and
indifferent. I sent Angela a message to wish her
well on her first day back at work, and I said I
would try and call her during her lunchbreak. I
still feel really pissed off that I won't be
seeing her. It is now 18 days since I last saw
Angela, and I really miss her. It is also 11 days
since I last went into a pub, and that seems
reason to be sad too. At the moment I can't decide
how I feel. There are some conflicting feeling to
try and balance out.
What seems to be a sensitive indicator of
my health is my blood glucose level. Yesterday it
seemed to have gone down, but it is high again
this morning. I can probably blame it on what I
ate or drank, but I am not sure what. Maybe it was
some of the beer I had. It seems to have arrested
my recent weight loss, and even slightly reversed
it.
I think that what I am going to do today is
to have a shower, and wash my hair. Then,
hopefully before I gain any more symptoms of bad
health, I ought to rush out and see if I can buy
some fish fingers. I am wondering what the Tesco
Express store will be like. I have a theory that
the crowds will be concentrating on the bigger
supermarkets, and small shops may be OK. One thing
I must try and stop doing is having an
experimental cough. There have been a few times
when I have needed to cough - for instance waking
up with a dry mouth and throat - but sometimes I
seem to have a cough to see how it feels.....or
maybe I don't. Just thinking about that made me
need to cough, but with no obvious benefit for
doing so. It is possible that I may have the first
inkling of a sore throat. Maybe I am losing the
battle with coronavirus, or maybe it is all in the
mind. It probably makes it important to get out to
stretch my legs in the fresh air while I can.
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