Category: Family

Lockdown Diary – Day 12

It has been a beautiful spring Saturday. Alice and I went for a walk to the Clears and then up to the footpath to the North Downs Way. In normal times we would have carried on along it and back down Pilgrim’s Way. But there was too much risk of running in to other people and not having enough room to stay far enough away from them, so we headed back the way we came. This below was the view along the way. The bump just right of centre is Leith Hill, the highest point in Surrey at a breathtaking 297 metres above sea level!

Little else was accomplished today. Just trying to keep safe and keep it together. Growing slightly annoyed with Charlie spending most of his time in his room. He is working but also wasting time playing computer games. He’s happy, so I guess that is what really matters.

It is supposed to be even warmer tomorrow so might have to get the chairs out and sit in the garden and watch all the planes not going over. I am determined to get a run in. We’ll see about that.

Lockdown Diary – Day 11

I want to start out by saying this WordPress iPad app I am using to publish these posts is am absolute piece of crap. I hit publish, it says it publishes, but it doesn’t really publish. So the next day I discover tha previous day’s entry has never published. It just happened again for like the third time. WordPress, you suck!

Not a bad day today otherwise. Went to the chemist to pick up prescriptions for Alice and myself, had to queue for about 20 minutes. Then in the afternoon walked in to town and as there was no queue at M&S I braved going in and got a few more things, milk being the main essential.

Then this evening we had a virtual family reunion on Zoom, with Alice, Charlie and I each on our iPads getting to see and talk to Bob & Sue, Jean and Mike & Jeanne. It was really nice and the first time I think we have all been in the same room, virtual or otherwise, for at least five years, maybe more. I think we’re going to make it a regular weekly event.

Saw a news story that said the US and UK are now on the sharpest trajectory in terms of coronavirus cases and deaths. This fucking hellride has only just begun.

Time for the bedtime shot of Laphroaig and lights out.

Lockdown Diary – Day 9

I think when we look back on this event today will be seen as the day the novelty of being under lockdown finally wore off and shit got real. Deaths in Britain were up by 31% on the previous day, and now total 2,352. The government seems to be totally without a plan. They will almost certainly rise by perhaps another thousand tomorrow. And back home (I still think of America as home) things are about to get far worse than most people could even have begun to imagine just a few weeks ago. It’s hard not to think that both countries are being led to their doom by morons.

Thankfully we all remain well. Charlie applied for his student loan and maintenance grant for next year. Fingers crossed that this is all over and we are starting to get back to normal by the time his fall term starts in September. He’s planning for the future and still studying hard. He’s an inspiration to us all.

We went for a walk today and passed through the cemetery at Reigate parish church, where there are almost certainly people buried who died in the 1918 pandemic. As I said at the start of this entry, the novelty of this situation has definitely worn thin.