COVID-19 New Cases around the world

As mentioned in the last article, I have been watching the data across the world and, i particular, the numbers of new cases each day and my sheet expresses these as the number per 1m population. This, I feel, provides a better comparison that mere totals and the total active cases seem most unreliable with totally different methods of calculation in different places.

I do appreciate, of course, that there will also be huge problems in the reliability of some of the data from countries with poor recording or testing facilities or procedures. This will almost certainly mean that where the virus has taken hold in a poor, less well-equipped country then the  number of active cases must be significantly higher than the official data shows. or all that, I do feel this is a useful guide, especially as 'active' cases are not available for the UK and some other countries and it is really to see how we're doing in comparison to others that I do this. More in hope than anything else these days, though.

I got a mouthful from some woman in Portugal when I put these on Facebook. She was most offended that I had shown Portugal as red and UK as a nice apple green. Clearly, as she pointed out amongst the huffing and puffing, every country will have lovely safe places where no-one is ill and you can happily visit and hug people and wander around without a mask. I am sure Portugal has many. But unless someone provides me with all the detailed regional data all I can share is the national stuff and, indeed, that is what tends to guide authorities, for better or worse. But, yes, don't make any decisions based on what I publish. It's purely data, made a little more comprehensible.

Depending upon what I am doing with this sheet from time to time it may change to show all the days or may be filtered to show just Europe or just certain areas of the planet.

The Clap Trap

I do hope this business of people standing around banging pots and clapping every Thursday at 8pm comes to an end soon. I mean as some sort of national requirement that makes a top or second to top news item each evening two hours later. I have nothing against anyone showing their appreciation for the good work done by others, although I am quite relieved that there is not an out-of-work opera singer or bagpipe player living within earshot who wishes to do so. Everyone should be free to say thank you, draw rainbows or whatever. What seems to have developed, though, is criticism of those who do not participate.

It seems that it is necessary to be seen clapping and that has become as important a feature of the procedure as the sign of appreciation itself. It is like praying to one's God or whatever similar activity a person may wish to do in line with his religion or belief. Some people need to demonstrate that they are praying, attending church on Sunday or whatever when most religions I know about refer to being modest and not making any obvious outward show of intent. To pray quietly in the peace of one's own home seems far more genuine and desirable than to do so noisily in public.

Although everyone's clapping is not praying the two activities are similar in many ways and I think there has been enough public, organised 'thank you' activity. Indeed, just the one would have been extremely effective, as would, I suggest, celebration when we finally get something definitive by way of an all-clear of the virus or a vaccine produced.

I like all my neighbours. I do appreciate the hard work put in by many, many people in all walks of life to help keep me and my friends and family safe. I would just feel uncomfortable standing outside my door at a set time on a set day clapping. It's not something I feel at ease doing. It would be unnatural and the sole reason I would have done so would have been to have been seen doing so. Now I have to put up with the niggling thought that one or two people will be asking themselves, or each other, why I was not out there clapping or banging a spoon on a pan.

Things were going well for a while but now the virus and events around it are getting political. We have seen several efforts to make the Government ministers feel embarrassed, possibly hoping they might resign and slowly build support for the opposition. First blame for some shortages of protective equipment is placed on various ministers. No-one seems to ask what part the very well-paid and numerous senior executives running the NHS and other services might have played. They were, indeed the people whose job descriptions will have included ensuring the adequacy of supplies - and that would, I presume, include more that just asking for them and moaning when they don't receive them.

Secondly, blame for our either being locked down too late in the day or, bizarrely on the other hand too, for actually being locked down at all is placed on various ministers. None of them are experts in this field. There may have been scenarios played out in years gone by when the country's response to different types of threat were conducted and weaknesses here and there shown up. Whether any of our ministers were familiar with these or recommendations when all this blew up I don't know but I doubt anyone was particularly well-briefed personally and will have relied heavily upon the advice provided by those who, again, are paid handsomely from the public purse for doing so.

I maintain that, whoever had been in Government, whatever their political affiliation. then there would now be blame placed on them and the same amount of whingeing and journalists constantly asking questions about whether they should have done this or that several weeks ago when the public want to know what will be happening tomorrow and in the months ahead. I think we all largely accept that there may well have been better decisions taken at different times but we want to know now what decisions are being taken for the best outcomes in future.

I get the impression that most of the ministers directly involved in making decisions about my future are intelligent and sensible. I don't get the impression that they are being at all 'Conservative' but doing what they believe, after listening to advice from experts, is right. In contrast, we now have teachers' union officials stirring up great unease amongst a group who have tended to be Labour or Liberal voters in the main, in relation to the proposals to get children at certain ages to return to school soon. We expected that there would be parents who will be reluctant to move out of the security blanket that staying at home provides and I have talked before about those idiots who seek a guarantee that their child will not get the virus. Now, though, it is harder to get past a union decree that their members should not work until their representatives have been satisfied that it will be safe. Quite what these union officials can do that the people running the schools can't do is beyond me, especially as most, if not all the schools have been open ever since the damned virus first appeared.

Yes, it will be ruddy complicated. Yes, there will be times when it will be simply not be feasible to be 2 metres away or 100% certain that a surface does not harbour contagion. But all the experts I have heard talk about this, without any obvious political leaning in either direction, are saying that children appear to be far far less likely to suffer as a result of catching the virus and the numbers affected in any serious way are minute across the nation and that the risk to teachers in the school environment is no greater than in any other work environment.

You have expected our local supermarkets to be open and staff to be on duty. You have queued to buy non-essentials at a Garden Centre with staff there hauling plants and decking around for you but now you don't want to go into a classroom or you want to keep your child effectively locked in her room on the 7th floor of an apartment until September. Actually, I wouldn't mind betting that many of these left wing complainers and moaners are the same people who will be driving to some beach or barbecue area at the weekend and probably leaving their litter behind as well as their shit in someone's garden as they made no allowance whatsoever for public toilets being closed.

The Government cannot really win, whatever they do. It only takes a nurse to die and they'll be blamed for her PPE not being adequate. One child will get ill and they'll be blamed for encouraging a return too soon. Old folk will die in Care Homes and that will be their fault too, whether it is from the virus or not. Many businesses will collapse because they will have been shut for too long and unable to get going again. That will be the Government's fault for the length of lockdown. Almost everything that goes wrong will be their fault and it will be virtually impossible to argue against the opposition's complaints or journalists' insinuations that then become headlines in our newspapers and on our screens.

Boris Johnson might just as well hold his hands up now and say "OK. It's all my fault. Vote Labour in 2024."

Except it isn't. And you need to realise something. China is where this all started. The people to blame are the Chinese Communist Party. And no-one gets to vote for or against them. Indeed, in Hong Kong last week, those members of parliament who were objecting to a change in regulations being introduced by Chinese Communist Party representatives in Hong Kong were forcibly prevented from returning to the voting chamber. The rules state that only those present can vote and so a raft of changes became law against the wishes of, I suspect, the vast majority of Hong Kong citizens. When we ceded control of Hong Kong to an arrangement between Hong Kong and China there was supposed to be respect maintained for the independence of Hong Kong. This was enshrined in agreements made between the United Kingdom and China at the time. These agreements are now being eroded to such an extent that it is quite wrong to sit back and not object.

Perhaps those people so keen to moan at the UK Government might use their efforts better by focussing on what China is doing. Now there they would have good cause to argue, moan, whinge and shout. Why don't you? The virus has conveniently led to our taking the eye off the Hong Kong ball. And it will be Hong Kong citizens who will pay the penalty.

Cars crash, smokers cough.

Some relaxation of restrictions here in England this week. It appears that I should be able to drive somewhere for exercise and to be able to visit someone outside, one at a time, and still maintaining a good distance between us all. I can also do this several times so I could meet one person in one place and then another in the same place afterwards or go somewhere else and neither distance nor time appear to be an issue.

I am not rushing to do so, though, as anyone who really wants to see or talk to me can do so by phone or video and there really are not many people I'm missing if the truth be told. I had very, very few visitors before all this started so I am hardly likely to see much difference. It does mean that I could go to Sussex to collect an old bicycle that someone is building for me but I can't go with my daughter so I'd have to borrow her car with the bike rack on the roof or, maybe, fit the device to my car. I probably won't though. It might be cheaper to have it posted to me. I could also go to the airport but Ukraine and Malta are still not permitting international flights so I'm still stuck in Britain for some time.

I have noticed something about the behaviour of many people during this crisis and the new  proposals have only served to emphasise this. It seems that many individuals have lost the ability to assess a situation and make decisions. Mr Tellme-Whattodo understood the Stay At Home message and pretty much did so. He and his wife dutifully stood in the queue at the supermarket and tut-tutted when anyone seems to be closer than 2 metres. They had studied what 2 metres was and, although they may also have been the same family that piled up their shopping trolley with loo rolls and pasta in March, they are now dutifully buying just the three packs of mince and casting a scrutinising eye over other folk's trolleys as they pass. Mrs Maskface wears a mask everywhere she goes and bustles quickly out of the way whenever she sees someone heading towards her. She looks pretty grim as if she has either had the virus or expects to be getting it any time soon although the flimsy bit of material will not protect her at all as she brushes her ungloved hand across her face after opening the shop door which a hundred other ungloved fingers had touched during the last few hours.

Now, though, there is much moaning and complaint. They don't understand the new message, they say. Those who had been waiting for a chance to criticise the government, mostly because it was Conservative and they'd voted Liberal or Labour or SNP or Plaid Cymru, now, at last had a chance to do so. Staying At Home had been crystal clear.  Quite easy to understand and fairly easy to obey. They also reckoned there would be a good chance of catching the virus and dying if they didn't. So that's a good incentive to do so. Now these people have a problem. They're being told to Stay Alert. Allowing for the fact that some particularly thick people needed to look up alert in a dictionary but didn't possess any books so had to ask a neighbour, many still had a problem with this. It meant that they needed to look out for danger, to think before doing this or that as they were now able to step outside and go places, perhaps go to work and shortly see some of their children off to school.

It seems that many people are totally unprepared for this kind of mental exercise. A classic remark from Mrs Tellme was that she wouldn't go to work until she had a guarantee that she would be safe. Union officials, of course, loved this too and suddenly a whole new career path opened for thousands of jobsworths who could spend days and months holding employers to account for not including X or Y in their risk assessments. How on Earth, I ask, can anyone on this planet ever have a guarantee that they will be safe doing anything?!

This period of intense protection that had been provided by the Government appears to have had the effect of neutralising people's brain cells in terms of their ability to think for themselves. They want The Government to tell them exactly what to do, not open a door and allow them to think for themselves whether to go out, whether to turn left or right or go straight ahead. They liked the Nanny State. They were the voters that Jeremy Corbyn knew were out there but failed to reach. I thought there might only have been a small proportion of the nation that would really have welcomed a socialist state in Britain but I may have been quite wrong. I am now seeing many, many people in interviews and even in discussion of the street, who are simply waiting to be told what to do next, who expect this guarantee of safety from a school, employer or whoever.

A good friend of mine wrote a message shortly after Boris Johnson's TV announcement to say that was confusing and how 'people' had no idea what to do. I immediately responded to say that it seemed very clear to me. If people felt that it was safe to go back to work then they would be encouraged to do so. They needed to be alert, careful when encountering others. If they could keep at a distance and follow the usual instructions of maintaining clean hands, not touching their faces then for the vast majority that would be sufficient to enable them to steer clear of infection. They would only get it from touching a contaminated surface or breathing in contaminated air. There would always be some risk but for all but a few of us that risk would be of similar order to the risks that we had lived with, probably unknowingly admittedly, all our lives so far. Cars crash, trees fall down, people fight, gas explodes, smokers cough. We walk through a valley of potential death every day and, for the most part, instinctively take precautions to minimise the number of events that could lead to us dying.

So the idea that we should Stay Alert seems pretty much common sense and totally comprehensible. If we don't have to go anywhere then no-one is saying we should go out for the sake of it but if we want to we can. No-one is forcing us back to work but if the employer makes changes that enable them to comply with various regulations for our safety then we can go. If we can't then the state will continue to pay our wages for a while longer. No-one is forcing children to go to school but if the school feels that it has complied with the regulations to keep children safe then they can go. Parents will not be fined for keeping their child away. It is all our choice in most cases still. But so many people are apparently anaesthetised by the Nanny State injection of Stay At Home that they are simply lost and cannot take responsibility for their future decisions.

It will be someone else's fault if they get ill. It will be someone else's fault if their employer goes bust because workers don't return to help rebuild the economy. It will be someone else's fault whatever 'it' is. They have this ridiculous desire for a guarantee, for certainty. They cannot ever have it.

This question of risk is an important one to consider further. There have been almost zero instances of  very young children being badly affected by the virus. In fact, amongst the under 50s the numbers of people who have been badly affected and who have not had any other health problems are still very small. It has been the old folk who have suffered or those may well have suffered anyway from something else but the virus got to them first. So for a huge swathe of our population it may well be the case that they could get the virus and either not know it or recover quickly from its effects and get on with life again. The problem is that they might pass it to the old or infirm and that's why we have had the 'lockdown' - to protect not so much the NHS but old folk. It has also had the benefit of keeping safe those few young people who would have been badly affected by it for reasons no-one is quite sure.

So children returning to school is very, very unlikely to result in their getting ill. It will be pretty much as safe as it ever was for them. The problem will be that they are great spreaders. They'll pick up the virus and give it to teachers and bring it home. That is pretty much unavoidable while the virus is around and it is isn't going anywhere soon. So young parents and teachers should be fine and will not die as a result of children going back to school but there needs to be care in managing encounters with old folk. Older people need to be alert - if they feel vulnerable and don't want to take the risk then they shouldn't teach or interact with the children. If they are the parents then, OK, don't send the children back yet. If they are the teachers, don't go back to work yet.

If we don't start taking risks now and entering environments where there might be virus around then we will have to wait until it is cleared or a vaccine is available. Are we seriously going to avoid work, keep children away from school, continue with our present strange insular lifestyles, waiting for Them to tell Us what to do for what could be another six months? We simply cannot ever have that guarantee that we won't get ill or die. We can get a large degree of certainty if we can be innoculated against this strain of virus but that seems not to be likely until 2021. The incidence of infection on surfaces or in the air should become minimal before that and statistics from tests will indicate the nation's progress in wiping it out as fewer and fewer people show a positive response in tests and, of course, the number of people dying from the virus becomes close to zero over a sustained period. We are already well down on earlier numbers and once the deaths fall to below 100 each day I, for one, will begin to feel much more confident that I will not be one of the future numbers on our TV screens or in the headlines. I may still get the virus but I feel much less likely to die and that, to be brutally honest, is the important thing for me. I want to stay alive.

So I shall be alert. I will look around at who is a potential threat to my survival and steer pretty much clear of them. I will not touch my face unless I can be sure my hands are clean. I will live my life with those that I know and love around from time to time but at a safe distance no doubt for some months yet. I will make one exception for my girlfriend as and when I am able to meet her again unless, of course, she is coughing spluttering and complaining of a lack of sense of smell or taste!

Spring colours and £8.99 WizzAir tickets

The amazing colours of Spring are here and even though I know I have taken the same plants over and over they remain a delight and, of course, slightly different each year.

It seems a long time ago that I was writing about the restrictions on our movements due to the virus and the threats to some of our lives. Here we are in May and I should now be driving around small tracks on Gozo, seeking an elusive beach and drinking more coffee than is good for me. Instead I am still here in the village, several months older but little wiser about what may or may not be the outcome of all this.

I bought a string of WizzAir tickets recently. One was an optimistic 27 May flight but at £8.99 it was irresistible. My logic was that if, by some good fortune, I was able to go then I would kick myself if there was a mad rush for tickets later and that would push the price through the roof or even mean I couldn't actually get a flight at all. Similar logic then made me buy some more at the same crazy price so if May doesn't work I can try again in late June and if that doesn't work I'll try 12 July. After that we're in August and the times when everyone tends to go on holiday so the prices were not at all attractive. I suppose if I am still waiting I'll take what I can get but by then I might even be prepared to wait until the more pleasant month of September for travel when I might also be able to move on to Gozo too where the temperature will be substantially lower than the 40° that it reaches in Summer.

Whatever happens here in UK, I shall also need Ukraine to open its border, of course. So that is the first square on the puzzle board that has to be reached. They also need to permit travel either by private or public transport. Then, or by then, I need to be able to get to Luton Airport reasonably legally. For that I may need a face mask as it seems that airports and airlines will be insisting on those being worn. My daughter told me the type she reckons I should buy so I have a super efficient type coming but, as that looks pretty ugly and I shall not really need that other than in close proximity to others, I have purchased a couple of other simple affairs which might look a bit better. One is like a cowboy's scarf in black with white dots and I can vaguely imagine wearing that one. None of the others appeal at all, though. So I'll have the mask but can I actually get to the airport?

At the moment the regulations don't permit me to go so I need them to be relaxed so that I can drive my car at least to the airport and, ideally, to my friend's house from which I can then get a lift or take some form of transport. He does drive a taxi so I'm hoping that, even if we cannot travel together as friends, we can do so as drive plus fare.

Although there are signs of businesses beginning to open again and some relaxation will be announced soon, I don't expect much to happen that will assist my cause at this juncture. That's OK as Ukraine's border is still closed but when it does open I really don't want to be stuck because of UK regulations.

So there is quite a lot of change to happen before I can make use of my £8.99 tickets.

In all this I am, of course, assuming that I manage to avoid catching the damn virus or, if I do, not dying from it. Dying would be a great shame as I still have a considerable amount of tidying to do.

Wellies

One of the nice things about living here is how you can wander around without having to talk to people but, if you do happen to come across someone they are nearly always pleasant and have a smile and a greeting. 

On my travels today I can across some very cheerful people gathered around the small bridge where my children used to play Poohsticks, since modernised with variations on themes to prevent sheep crossing. Substantial dredging and bank clearance work in recent months has helped the stream to develop quite nicely and it flows much faster than it used to. The rains, though, swelled it for several weeks and the newly cleared banks are now just mud. Sticky mud. The sort of mud that you really can't stop young lads wanting to walk into, if only to see how far up their wellies it will go.

One lad had done just that!

Prior to this posed picture, he and the wellington boot were at some distance from each other. What made me laugh, though, was his mother attempting to extract the barely visible boot with a stick!

It was a brave effort and might have worked if she had had a couple of hours spare. She was standing on a dry part of the bank, leaning forward and jiggling the stick around and I could see her slipping and falling in the stream with her enthusiastic but sadly slightly misguided plan. I reassured her that her wellies would allow her to go into the stream, from where it would be an awful lot easier to reach the boot with her hands and rescue it.

Now, I didn't actually know whether her boot wouldn't leak and fill up while she was at it but I took a chance on that one. A few minutes later and the boot was rescued and the young lad could stop hopping around.

As I said, there are nice people around. I felt slightly useful and was surprised to learn that one of the ladies knew about this blog. So I really do have to feature them in today's rambling.

In other news we have to figure out some new etiquette for passing people on footpaths. You're approaching someone on a narrow path by the side of a road. Who moves first? So far I have had some amusing near dances as I've waited until almost the last moment and then we've both moved, moved back again and, eventually, one or other has stayed in the road! One lady went to the opposite side of the road almost as soon as she saw me and stayed there until she had passed, unable to get any further away short of clambering over a hedge and I'm not sure she hadn't even though of doing that. She looked pretty terrified and was quite grey and not one of the happy people here.

I have always thought that it was for a gentleman to move onto the road and my inclination is to do so, whether the approaching human obstacle is a group, has a dog or children or a pram or all three. I will stay put for a bike, even a lady on a bike and most certainly for anyone in lycra on a bike. For another bloke then there has to be some sort of visual assessment of their age and condition. I'll move off the path if I think they look a bit old and doddery. If they then do the same I just have to accept that I am not young any more.

Something else I have noticed that has nothing to do with wellington boots or path etiquette is the way the landscape is changing. The slopes and hills are generally much as they always have been but there are definitely new bumps and mini-valleys appearing. I also find new places where a stream is starting to run or where you tread in trainers at your peril. There is one part of my normal walk where in the last few weeks I have had to make quite a significant detour to keep my shoes dry. I usually follow the well-trod paths left by the sheep but these are not as reliable as they used to be.

I have managed to avoid shops for most of the week but will need to visit Tesco tomorrow. I expect the experience will be noteworthy. We'll see.

Spaced out.

Manufacturers of black and yellow tape are doing good business. It was all over the entrance floor at Tesco this morning and also at the Greens Norton Medical Centre where I had to go to collect a prescription. I spent quite a while standing in one of those strange queues at Tesco. We were all spaced out, not on psychedelic drugs, just doing the 2 metre apart thing. It was a warm sunny morning so standing around looking slightly vacant wasn't that bad a thing to do. After a while, though, I began to wonder just how long we would stand there for. Several people had emerged and I had assumed that as one person left one would go in but that wasn't happening. The two people in front of me were youngsters, both engaged deeply in whatever was on their phones and it occurred to me that they may not have noticed the people coming out. Then I watched an old person just walk straight in, missing the queue completely! I decided to follow her.

Inside it all became clear. I had, by chance, arrived in a special period reserved for old people and it was about 15 minutes from ending. There was a lady dishing out sanitiser, wiping our baskets and giving us all gloves which seemed a bit over the top as I only wanted some flour but I went along with the procedure cheerfully. The staff recognised me and didn't seem to query that I might not have been 'old' which was quite disappointing but did have the advantage that I didn't have to go back and queue for another 15 minutes.

There wasn't any flour but I did find some bananas.

My final part of the journey out today was to the Post Office in Greens Norton where they didn't have any black and yellow tape. They didn't have any flour either but I did get a Corgi Toy on its way to a collector in The Netherlands and had a laugh with the chap behind the counter about the length of parts of many Dutch street addresses.

I seem to have made it back safely and think I have managed to avoid anything that might have wanted to attack me. I am particularly glad that I don't need to return to the Medical Centre for a month. I feel a lot safer with the sheep.

Early morning, exercise books, rood pole or perch.

I had a call at 7am this morning. Calls at that time tend to make me think it's bad news or, as I made my way downstairs to try and find the phone before my odd answerphone message would trip in, the sobering thought that it might be the NHS or some local authority telling me that I should go to bed immediately, not pass Go and definitely not collect £200.

I had recently ignored some eye test that I am recommended to do as I was 0.001% over whatever random line is placed in the book for being diabetic and, despite since being a rather larger percentage under that same random line, I still get all the bumph from clinics and people that tends to do more to worry than cure me. As none of the locations were particularly local, unlike the last one that I did attend a year or so ago, and I am not supposed to drive myself back and the whole thing was worded as a recommendation rather than an instruction, I decided to give it a miss this year and maybe I'll do it next year if they come up with a more convenient venue too. So I had visions that it might be a reminder about that and I was preparing excuses as I went. Or maybe they were having another go at getting me to have a 'flu jab which I had also put off this year. Or, and this was the scary, one, was I actually in this group of people to be locked away for 12 weeks and provided with food and stuff?

It was none of these at all. In fact it was a Corgi collector who presumably had nothing better to do at this time of the morning. I can only guess that he had got used to getting up regularly get up for work at 6am or something and catch a train or bus at this kind of hour and so it seemed totally normal to speak to people at 7am. He just ploughed in with some questions about gold-plated Rover 2000s. I didn't mind too much as it was a relief that it wasn't someone in uniform about to curtail my freedom.

I did remind him that it was, er, quite early and wasn't he surprised to find me 'open' at this time and I think it did begin to dawn upon him that I might not have had breakfast, let alone find some clothes to wear. It was clear that he had seen Boris's announcement last night and simply felt that he needed to occupy himself with something as an alternative to the commute to which his brain and body seemed to have become accustomed. I can imagine that there will be many people waking up this morning and wondering just what the hell they will do and all the autopilot things that their brain is attempting to suggest to their arms and legs are being interrupted by the new input.

So that was a strange start to the day but I was quite impressed by my ability to string the words together in approximately the correct order to make complete sentences in answering the caller's questions. I could make a massive profit on a gold-plated Rover 2000 if I were able to find one for him but they are really few and far between so it's unlikely but nice to be asked.

It seems to be a morning for people getting up very early, or, at least early by my standards. My friend Adrian had been having trouble with his email but announced at sometime around 6:30am that all was well after all. The earliest, though, was Charlie Clarricoates who runs Charlie's Dog Training Centre in Soham. He was up  when the time began with a 5! Charlie has trouble with some technology but finds text easy and there was a long message about putting some videos on his web site. It seems that, whilst I don't have to fix Adrian's email today, I will have quite a bit to keep me occupied with Charlie's videos.

Although sales are not exactly in the same league as that of the £1500+ Rover 2000, I have had a steady flow over the last week or two and no obvious signs of marked change yet. My last two sales, in fact, were to two of the most badly affected towns, Bergamo and Madrid. I was a little concerned that the new rules to keep us in our homes might not permit trips to the Post Office but I believe I will be able to do that and, as it happens, the Greens Norton Post Office is also a food store so I could buy some essentials too.

On my visit to the Post Office yesterday the lady behind me was standing so far away I was having serious doubts about my appearance or maybe I had been wearing the same jumper for too long. I mean, she was at the opposite end of one of the aisles which was more like 20 metres than 2. She was, however, of a certain vintage and may well never had had to deal with such things as metres before. She probably thought it was something like a rod or furlong, one of those measurement units that were always printed on the back page of exercise books.

It is now 10am. I need to get on with work.

Signs of life

This time next year?

It's a lovely sunny Sunday morning and you see these guys in the field next door and, of course, their world has not changed at all. In terms of my day-to-day existence here, I suppose my immediate, local world has not changed either. I like to think that if I can stay here, undisturbed and uninfected, I can just get on with all the things that I do that people often smile at - the photos, the Corgi Toys, the stamp collection, the crosswords and diabolical sudoku puzzles, but not the Eurovision and X Factor articles or predictions as neither are happening. For the most part, I can and do with the days actually passing quite rapidly before I have done much of what I had proposed that I do when I woke up. 

The evenings are readily consumed with TV programmes, live, a mass of recorded stuff and, when that's finished I have Netflix and Amazon Prime, of which I have barely scratched the surface. I have Le Carré's Agent Running In The Field to read too. I can definitely keep myself occupied, go for a walk, a drive, chat to friends and family on the phone or some app or other; I can do these things but for most of the time I am mostly trying not to answer the question as to when will this all end? When can I give my daughters a big hug, put my arm around my sons? How much longer will it be after that when I can walk out in the Arrivals section of Zhuliany Airport and fall into the welcoming arms of a partner?

We hear news that people in China are now starting to return to 'normal' and that the only new cases being discovered are those arriving from outside the country. So, without a vaccine, those people who have survived appear to have waited only about three months before they can start to circulate locally, although clearly they cannot travel to other countries. This seems most encouraging but almost too good to believe. Could we here in Britain be similarly free to associate, wander around, shop and work in June? 

At the moment I am trying to come to terms with the more likely scenario that, whilst the village here will remain much as it always has been and the only people getting ill or dying will be those whose time had come anyway, in cities and other vast swathes of the more populated areas there will be terrifyingly large numbers of people who become badly affected and it will only be in the autumn or even this time next year that the virus may have finally run its course, killed as many as it can and will either be killed itself by vaccines that we all receive or will simply run out of people to infect and cease to reproduce to the point where we can celebrate its demise.

By that time I would hope that other countries, either by luck or better defence activity, will have also bade farewell to the damn pestilence and planes will be taking off once more and, sometime in April 2021 I will walk into that Arrivals area, a year older, deeper in debt but still welcome.

Potatoes. I have potatoes.

I now have potatoes. I did have to get up at 6:30am to get them but, with Tony Blackburn's Sounds Of The Sixties on the radio and the sun shining in a pretty blue sky, it was a good time to be up and about. Even at sometime before 7am Tescos was quite busy and I recognised another chap hovering round the melons, someone who would very seldom be awake at this hour, never mind actively moving around in a co-ordinated manner. We smiled at each other from the proscribed two metres.

Staff said that there had been a big rush of people when they had opened at 6am but they hadn't completely cleared the shelves, thank goodness. The freezer cabinets were mostly empty, though, and what was left was expensive. There were a couple of those interesting fish fillets in breadcrumbs or light batter that used almost always reduced to £2.50 were back up at £4. I can only imagine that people's freezers must be absolutely bursting with lazy food in the kitchens of the generation that never learned how to cook. I bet there will stuff at the bottom that will finish up in landfill in a year's time or, preferably in some ways, contribute to an early demise of some annoying people. My fridge is full with one packet of spinach, a couple of small baguettes, some fish fingers and two Häagen-Dazs tubs.

I did get some potatoes, though, and that made the early morning trip worthwhile. I am determined to make some leek and potato soup. I have no idea how to start but the internet is a wonderful thing and I know there'll be a simple recipe I can follow. The other food I crave is cake. I have eggs, flour and sugar. I am hoping that will be enough for some sort of sponge if I can get the proportions right. If not then I like biscuits too.

Someone on Facebook had shared some announcement yesterday by a local-ish farmer who had big sacks of potatoes for sale. I did think about driving across to Litchborough but then I had this vision of a queue of cars along the lane and, to be honest, much as I like potatoes, a sack of the things is a bit more than even I need! I also have no idea where the farm is and couldn't find the post again which is probably just as well. However, if a few people in the village do genuinely need them (and know where to go!) but have no transport then just ask and I'll help.

My cousin Gary is getting married today. As far as I can tell, he will be permitted two guests, making a total of five people at the ceremony. He did say that they wanted a quiet affair. Maybe not that quiet. I shall raise a glass of something alcoholic to the pair later today.

The trouble with people

I really did think that Towcester would not present the ugly face of stockpiling and grab-as-much-as-you-can-and-sod-everyone-else that we have all seen on TV and social media videos. This was the sort of behaviour you might find in poor places like the grottier parts of Hackney, Harlow or Hemel Hempstead. Maybe parts of Milton Keynes too. But not Towcester, the sleepy little market town where most people pass through because they have to and don't stop. I was wrong.

I think it may have been because so many people are not at work any more. So people I never realised even existed are now all over the place. And mostly they are not very nice people. Before I got to Tescos they had cleared the shelves of pasta and, of all things, loo rolls. Loo rolls?! I mean, why loo rolls? As I walked in, men were pushing trolleys loaded high with stuff they really did not need. Their wives or partners followed along looking fierce and if you caught their eye they had that expression that says that they are fully aware that they need absolutely none of what is in the trolley but if you dare to challenge them they'll give you a mouthful.

I don't remember seeing so many ugly and unpleasant people in the same place. These were not the regular Tesco customers at all. They were probably people who do a massive monthly shop every Friday night before EastEnders except this was a Tuesday afternoon. I very seldom get angry but as I walked around the store to try and pick up a few things that I genuinely did need - like food for that evening - I kept seeing huge packs of loo rolls in almost everyone's ruddy trolley. I started swearing as I passed people and realised that I would soon be in trouble so I got out as quickly as I could.

With people having to stay at home I can appreciate that there will be some extra requirements with more people eating at home as opposed to work or restaurants or pubs and so, yes, some extra supplies in stock are perfectly understandable. But these are the sort of people who will be back next week, if not, indeed, before, and pile up even more. They'll be really proud of themselves, the bloke purring to his kids how he's protecting his family and how they'll be able to survive longer than their neighbours. Except their neighbours may well have done the same thing.

The stupidity of these people is amazing. Supermarkets run out like they have done because they don't keep massive stocks in store. They predict what will sell each week and get that delivered. OK, now they'll have to adjust those predictions and get some more in to make up for this week's raids but, unless the idiots continue building up walls of loo rolls and tinned tomatoes and pasta, the stores will have adjusted and caught up by next week and, if they have got their predictions right there should be enough for everyone. Eventually even the most lardy idiots will have stocked his garage up with enough and so no-one will be stockpiling any more and, as the stores will still have all the same stuff they always have had, they will begin to look like idiots too. If the stores are running empty next week, however, then their managers will need sacking. In the meantime, ration what people can buy. Please.

A very, very telling video was circulating last night and this morning of a nice lady in her 40s who had tried to buy some essential items at a supermarket after a long shift at a hospital. It was heart-breaking to watch as she broke into tears and was so sad and angry at the same time about all the people who had needlessly cleared the shelves earlier. There was something about her appearance and voice which made her emotional appeal extremely powerful and it certainly got to me in a way that surprised me. I hope that video is repeated every day and shown in the ad breaks for the daytime game shows and soaps that these idiots will be watching, sat with their feet up on their pay next year sofas and vaping or scrolling through Facebook on their mobile phone.

I shall have to get a few items tomorrow so atrip to Tescos is necessary. I really do hope I don't see any more aliens and just the nice people of Towcester once again.

The link to that video is here:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1240687667265843202

Holiday plans and the trouble with refunds

As it happens, it would seem that I am not going to be leaving the car on Jason & Steve’s drive for some considerable time anyway. No-one can travel anywhere by plane at the moment, as of this week. Even if, by some good fortune, flights do resume in a month or two, I am expecting to find that I still won’t be able to land in Ukraine without being put in quarantine for a couple of weeks. Ukraine is where Olga lives and I’ve been going there every other month for a while now. They’ve now started to see numbers of people with the virus increase and people have started to die there. It seems that Ukraine is about two or three weeks behind the UK and I have a feeling that we will be more efficient in getting things under control. Over there I rather suspect that it will be free to circulate very rapidly as few seem to be taking much notice of any distancing policy and many, many people live in quite close proximity in the huge apartment blocks. Generally, Olga is very self-sufficient and can create wonderful food that could last a good length of time. So she shouldn’t need to go out as often as I do but when she does she will, I feel, be more exposed than I am to getting it from someone.

Olga is comparatively young at 51 and seems strong and fairly fit so I am somewhat less fearful about the outcome if she does catch it than I am for myself. I haven’t had any ‘flu or even much of a cold for many years now and I worry that a bad dose of something like this virus could hit me hard. I also do my very best to avoid hospitals and, even if I do get it, I am unlikely to tell anyone for as long as I possibly can in the hope that I can get through and out the other side of it. Obviously, if I find myself in real trouble I will go wherever I have to but that will be a distinctly last, although hopefully not final, resort.

I had spent quite some time and money arranging a holiday for Olga and myself in late April, early May. I’d booked a smart-looking apartment in Qala on Gozo. It was all looking pretty good. My friend Derek lives nearby and he went to check out the place. He reported that there was some building work going on to the rear of the place which could be nuisance. I had hoped we would have a nice quiet place and could spend time on a balcony but this might result in one of the balconies being less than ideal. Having said that, the work may be intermittent and the lady owning the place said they had only just started that week and had actually only been working noisily for a day or two. She reckoned they might be finished anyway by the time we got there but, nevertheless, she had offered us a refund if we decided to cancel. I didn’t think we would find a better place in the short time available so I left it and reckoned we’d be fine. If it were noisy then we’d pop off t a nearby field or beach instead.

One of the nice things about Gozo is that you are never far away from anything. And you can park easily in most places. Just avoid Victoria. I have spent three holidays now driving around the island and not once have I had trouble. We see a beach or a nice view and stop. Just not in Victoria. I do remember the last time I parked in Victoria and needed to use Google Maps to find my way back on foot to the town centre! On another occasion I actually took the TomTom navigation device with me!

We will still get back to Gozo but the question on my mind, and most people’s minds too at this time, is when? Just how long will this go on for and when will we be free to travel again? I heard reports today that the ‘distancing policy’ could remain in force for the rest of the year. The rest of the year?! I understand that the virus may remain in and around so that if we do start meeting and greeting people again as we used to then it could have a revival and there will be another burst of infections. Quite what that means for my prospects of getting a plane to Kiev this year means, I don’t know. I had assumed and kept at the back of my mind the hope that I would go back in late summer and we’d get to Gozo in the autumn, maybe going somewhere else first as Gozo can be way too hot for me in summer. I am beginning to have doubts now. That’s quite heavy.

When trying to get some money back for the apartment reservation I had made I did think that, if the worst came to the worst, I could ask that it be re-used for an autumn period and I had even started to consider which dates might be good, like the second part of October, maybe. Now I’m quite glad I didn’t! Although getting anything back from AirBnB is not simple. My first effort, with total backing from the very understanding host, produced no response at all, despite my stating that the coronavirus affecting travel permissions was the reason for cancellation. My second attempt produced a zero refund! My third, and I think I’ll have to settle for this, produced a £70 credit against a future booking and a request to the owner for the balance of what I’d paid. I am hoping that AirBnB will either pay the owner the money she is due and that will come to me from her or that they will simply pay me with her agreement.

The refund thing is further complicated by the fact that ArBnB don’t give the owner the money until the reservation starts! So the lady won’t get it until the end of April and I have a feeling that I won’t see it before then even if they are supposed to pay me. It must be tough on people who rely on these bookings to get by. I don’t think that Chelsi, the lady owning the apartment in Qala is in that category will be OK, albeit a lot worse off in terms of extra income this year. I do appreciate that it’s not her fault and so I would have accepted some reduction but, hopefully, if I do use AirBnB next time, then the cancellation will not, in the end have cost me anything.

Flights should be OK too. Air Malta may well take a while to get round to making a refund but they have promised that I can have one. I’ll live with that and have a lot more confidence than I have with the AirBnB thing. Even better, however, have been good old WizzAir. They propose to refund my fares plus 20% to my account with them if the travel restrictions are still in place. At the moment the restrictions are stated as applying only up to 3 April but I cannot imagine them not being extended. It would be odd if I can travel to Ukraine after all on 22 April. Surely that is not going to be possible? All will be revealed soon enough, I guess.

Risk

Well that has been quite a week. The postman knocks and then scampers half-way down the driveway before I open the door, leaving my post and parcels in a little pile on the gravel. We shout our news and greetings and I can’t help but smile at how ridiculous this all seems. Coming indoors I then have a dilemma: should I wash the outside of the envelopes and parcels? I decide instead to open them there, throw the unwanted wrapping in the bin and then wash my hands for the approved twenty seconds or so.

I wake each morning really pleased that I have no signs of the virus and say to myself that, provided I keep away from people and possibly infected things, I should make it through the day. That’s all very well but then someone buys one of my Corgi Toys and I need to go to the Post Office. Greens Norton Post Office doesn’t seem too much of a risk to me. As long as my card works on the contactless point, I have noted that my fingers don’t touch anything throughout the whole visit, but I still wash them vigorously when I get home.

The other risk I have to take is a trip to the supermarket to buy food and whatever else I need. I don’t do the monthly shop with a massive trolley. I don’t even do the weekly shop. Until now, I have tended to go in two or three times a week and that has led to my waste being almost zero. Before, I found myself throwing away quite a few items that had passed their ‘Eat by’ dates so my simple get what I need when I need it system was eminently suitable and worked. OK, so I use more fuel but it’s only a few miles to Towcester and I like to keep the car well-used. It always seems happier than being left for ages.

On the occasions that I have had trips abroad I leave my car at Jason’s house and either he or Steve take me to Luton Airport. It saves me a fortune and it’s nice to catch up with the lads from time to time too. When I return, however, every time my car spews petrol on to their drive and I can see the river flowing down to where I had parked as I reverse up and stop to drive off. It used to scare me but now I know that, after a few minutes, it will stop and, provided that I don’t leave the car for another long period, it won’t happen again. It seems to be a problem with some seals around my fuel injectors - they don’t expand at the same rate as some other parts and that allows the fuel to escape until they have, eventually, expanded to the size they’re supposed to be and thus block the flow in the wrong direction. Even when stopped overnight, the metal still doesn’t seem to cool to the extent for a leak to develop or, if it does, it is minimal. But leave it for several days and the gap gets bigger.

Yes, I know, I’ll have to get it fixed one day before I disappear in a puff of smoke but I have yet to find any helpful reference online to tell me or my mechanic friend exactly what needs to be done. Every time I take the car to him it is behaving itself perfectly in that respect and he sees no sign of a leak either. He knows what he’s doing with the old BMWs that I have too and is reasonable enough to tell me that he could replace part X and then find that we need to change Y and Z too and still have the problem. To replace any more could cost more than the car is worth so I’ll carry on taking the risk for a while longer yet.