Friday 22nd May
The day starts grey, windy, cool, but warm enough to have patio doors open while eating breakfast. Someone had a bonfire last night, which must still be smouldering, and there is the smell of wood smoke on the breeze. In contrast to yesterday, I am reminded of Autumn.
Out with the dogs I meet friends whose jobs have been affected by the social isolation restrictions. One delivers expensive lease cars, and had one on his drive ready for a delivery trip the day after lockdown was announced. It has remained there for two months. The lease company arranged an appointment to collect it, but realised that this was not an essential journey. My friend must take a GPS-tagged photograph of the mileage each week, just to confirm that he hasn’t been out for a luxury spin. Then I meet another friend also has a motoring related job – a driving instructor, who hasn’t given a lesson for two months, and isn’t sure what will be required to safely resume teaching.
A day off from working at home, and I am tasked with vacuuming, a chance to put on noise cancelling headphones, and catch up with some podcasts. Radio 4’s “More Or Less” is a favourite, dissecting numbers and statistics in the news. Testing for Covid 19 has unsurprisingly been a regular topic, looking closely at Government claims that its target of 100,000 daily has been exceeded. The quoted figure includes home testing kits, each kit posted counted as a “test”, even though a significant proportion of kits are not delivered, or not returned for other reasons. The Government will not release figures for home tests returned. 30,000+ tests for research purposes are also included, like those for Richard and Chris who were invited for a test after reporting symptoms on the “Zoe” Covid monitoring app. These test results are not used by Public Health England to track the number of infections. The number of test results actually used by Public Health England to assess the infection rate is about half of the number actually announced by the Government. Does this matter? Yes, if the number of tests is a tool to safely manage relaxation of social isolation.
In early March our neighbours had some roof repairs undertaken, the roof safely accessed via scaffolding. The scaffolding was due to be dismantled in late March, but presumably the company deemed it difficult to guarantee social distancing when dismantling, transporting, offloading and storing scaffolding. I would have thought that having two blokes at either end of a scaffold pole would be exceedingly effective social distancing. Nevertheless, the scaffolding remained in place until today as, with a fanfare of clanking steel, the shape of the house is once again revealed. I am sure that, with reduced construction work and low demand for scaffolding, that company has not been using our neighbours house for convenient storage.
I collect medication for wife, neighbours, and dogs, all from different villages, a pleasant 15 miles journey around various country roads. The neighbour’s medication is from a dispensing pharmacy, where I queue for 15 minutes despite 
only 5 socially-queuing people being in front of me. Chantal’s is from our GP, where signs direct me away from reception to the rear car park, and a tap on a window results in prompt service.
At the vets I am now used to the routine of calling from the car park to announce my arrival, and collecting the medicine from a basket outside of the door. A vet is talking to someone through a car window, before collecting their dog from the back of the car, and leading it through the back door, presumably for a consultation without “Mum and Dad” being present. The pooch trotted quite happily beside the vet. I wouldn’t be happy not being with Tia during a consultation, but one day I may have no option. Mind you when Tia was last inoculated, when she was as stressed as she always is by the experience, the vet and nurse took her away for the jabs, and she was fine. Maybe I am free of Coronavirus, but a carrier of stress. Chantal may agree.
On May 6th it was revealed that Professor Neil Ferguson, a leading epidemiologist who advised the Government, a useful chap, had breached lockdown rules. He resigned. Tonight, it is revealed that Dominic Cummins, an advisor to Boris Johnson, has breached lockdown rules. We are waiting….
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
