Monday 1^st June

After a dry May, I have a dry front garden and a dry water butt at the front of the house. I have two hosepipes, each precisely half the distance from the tap to the front garden, which necessitates a visit to our local hardware store, Bibs in Stony Stanton, for two jubilee clips for pipe-connecting purposes. Bibs is a very small establishment, but manages to stock a huge selection of haberdashery and hardware, from padlocks to plumbing, bicycle parts to bird food, and that doesn’t include the range of haberdashery items, a side of the business with which I am unfamiliar. My DIY skills are limited; in fact, I intentionally do not have the right tools for the job to discourage me from attempting the job. For this reason, I find it very helpful that I can tell the proprietor of Bibs what I am trying to achieve, and he will tell me what to do, how to do it, and sell me the necessary materials. There was local consternation some weeks ago when the shop closed because the owner had suffered Covid 19 symptoms. Today is my first visit since re-opening. As expected, there is a small queue. The shop is too small for any one-way system, indeed too small for any comfortable social distancing to be possible. Forget “One-In-One-Out”, required by other shops. For Bibs it is “One-In”. That’s it. Just one customer at a time. I have time for a brief chat with the owner, who tells me his experience of becoming infected with Covid-19.

Initially he was generally lethargic, with the classic hacking dry cough. He had difficulty eating because of the atrocious taste of food, or even water, at a time when this hadn’t been noted as a common symptom. The NHS 111 service, as expected, told him to isolate for 14 days. The symptoms persisted after 14 day, together with stomach cramps, and by now he was feeling particularly poorly, but the 111 service repeated the advice to isolate. He called his GP who promptly summonsed an ambulance. The ambulance crew in full PPE wasn’t particularly unsettling – presumably this was as expected. The part of the admission that made him scared for his own welfare was being wheeled along hospital corridor with the paramedic shouting ahead for people to move out of the way, and to get behind closed doors off of the corridor if possible.

He remained in intensive care with pneumonia for seven days, but thankfully did not need oxygen. Two fellow patients died during his stay; their beds curtained off until the bodies were removed. Within a couple of hours each bed was occupied by another Covid 19 patient. After seven days he was on the road to recovery, and was offered a choice of remaining on the ward for further monitoring, or recovering at home. He was on the next available transport home, four hours later. “It is good to have you back” I say. “Not as good as it is to be back!” he replies.

There is a queue of three outside as I leave with my two small jubilee clips, and I explain my slightly longer than expected visit by blaming a telephone call that the owner received during our conversation. They are all very understanding.

It is odd the things that come to mind during a quiet evening dog walk. After working for many years at the same Authority I have many colleagues that are also friends, although we only occasionally meet outside of the office. I am obviously in regular contact with my own Team members, but I realise that I am missing colleagues in other Teams. Well, some of them, anyway.

Posted: Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020
Category: News and Views from the Oakstump
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