Day 120 - Saturday 18th July

I've had a great night's sleep and wake naturally at around 9. Checking my phone I see that the daily death rate announcement has been dropped - apparently due to miscounting errors which make them misleading, although it feels very much as if the government feels it has got Covid done and now intends to spend all its time getting Brexit done instead.  There's also news of the police in riot gear closing down an illegal rave in Finsbury park - the British seem to go a bit mad whenever the sun comes out, as it did yesterday, and councils have been granted new powers to cancel events, close shops and shut public spaces to deal with local outbreaks. Meanwhile Reuters reports that, for the first time, 1M new cases have been reported in 100 hours taking us to 14M in total and Barcelona has asked people to stay home after a spike in cases. An epidemiologist from SAGE has challenged the PM's desire for the UK to return to normal by Christmas.

Although it's clear some people are ready to return to normal life, I'm certainly not and have no desire to be in a busy place surrounded by strangers. I'm pretty sure there will be a second wave and although it's not ideal to be so isolated, I feel much safer at home.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 53 - Monday 11th May

I wake to the nagging pain in my quad and wonder about phoning my GP, but I have a number of calls scheduled today so I decide to ignore it. It's the start of the online sustainability festival at which I've been invited to join a panel on Thursday. I set up a post in its marketplace and attend the first session at 9am. Mid-morning I have a call with the climate change partnership, then I'm due a call at noon that doesn't happen. I drop her a voicemail, grab some lunch and then attend a webinar on Doughnut Economics at city level. Hubby's anniversary gift needs picking up, and when I get back around 3pm our son is still in bed - we started trying to get him up at noon, at his request. He arrives at my office door a while later looking dazed and confused, and I have to give him a hug. He accepts the offer of a mocha and a cheese toastie and disappears into the games room where his PC is set up. I really hope he's ok. Hubby got up earlier today and has started
Read more

Day 56 - Thursday 14th May

Another night disturbed by the pain in my leg. I get a lot of muscle and joint pain, but this is more like toothache in my leg - relentless and unresponsive to stretching or massage. I start calling the surgery at 8am and finally get through close to 9 - I'm offered a telephone consultation this afternoon. My respiratory symptoms are much better though, so seems like that was either hay fever or a flare up of my dodgy sinuses. I spend the morning at my desk, catching up on admin and preparing for my panel session at lunchtime. I review the sample questions, set up my video camera and find my headphones. Then shower and dress in something semi-professional - I even apply minimal makeup. It's almost like going out. I join the crowdcast session and meet one of the other panellists - the other is still trying to get online. But once we go live I can't hear the chair and so I take my lead from the other panellist and we bat back and forth with ideas … then the final panellist
Read more

Day 34 - Tuesday 21st April

Woke up about 6am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I'm at my desk by 8. I spend most of the morning working on social media assets for the climate change partnership for tomorrow's burst of promotion for the extension of the consultation period on the climate emergency strategy and action plan. I enjoy designing comms pieces and it doesn't take long to produce a suite of 8. I'm keen to get the chair's approval before sharing them with the rest of the board though and he's not online this morning; we have a meeting scheduled for 2pm anyway. I grab some lunch and then attend a "lunch and learn" session which has Sam Conniff as the guest speaker. I'm excited to hear him as I thoroughly enjoyed his book "Be More Pirate" and this morning I read a really insightful article he had written about his reaction to the current crisis. A few minutes in the broadcast sound is replaced by an annoying hum - my PC has mutinied. I quickly log back
Read more