In 2020 there was an outbreak of 'flu. It started in China, and by March 2020 the WHO labelled it a pandemic.
The UK government's response was to restrict people's activities in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. These policies meant many people, myself included, were unable to go to work.
I decided I should spend some of my spare time writing this journal. There will be no theme to individual entries; just whatever I feel like writing. The images are (with a few obvious exceptions) taken within a half mile radius of our house.
I went to Wickes for glue and storage boxes for the gym. That's the longest I have had to queue since this all started. I was there for over an hour and a quarter, and I spent less than 5 minutes in the shop. The storage boxes were ordered for "click and collect", but the order was clearly not ready for collection when I arrived. Delivery is your best option. Some people do not respect the social distance thing in the queue, everyone is too quick to go back to the rushed life-style where they only care for themselves and not the people around them.
Some of the drive through takeaways have re-opened. Many have attracted long queues of cars as people desperately re-fuel on the junk missed over the last few months. There are already accusations of litter caused by the discarded cartons the food is served in. However, I imagine this is the only way we are going to get eat out now; food served in sterile cartons that need to be thrown away once the food has been eaten.
Our Tesco delivery arrived on Friday night. It's all packed in plastic bags; something we have avoided for may years now. Suddenly we have bags of bags in the house, waiting for a purpose.
The human race is an ecological disaster zone.
We picked some elderflowers on Saturday. I used them to make cordial. No disposable containers or preservatives were used.
There are more shops open now. All of them have queues outside, with a "one out, one in" procedure in place. Our local garden centre is one such re-opened shop, so we have found a few projects to enhance our garden. Another interesting shortage though; compost seems to be in short supply. I can only assume demand is higher than normal.
I have finally finished "The Stand". The book is over 1,000 pages long. The book concludes as society begins to rebuild itself after the pandemic.
I have been back in the gym again. The room and contents are ready for the grand re-opening; who knows when that will be. We'll have to carefully consider our policies and procedures next.
The allotment is beginning to require more of our time. We have planted more beans and carrots. In return, we are eating strawberries, and picking sweet peas.
We now discover one of the leading MPs drove over 200 miles during lockdown while he had symptoms of Covid-19. This is considered acceptable because he was caring for his family. I guess nobody understood the rules properly; everyone thought that was specifically prohibited. As a nation, we clearly have no common sense and need clearer guidance on such matters.
The litter and noise is slowly increasing. The Prime Minister said we could all go outside on Monday. Obviously, nobody listened to the "Monday" part. Many people are tired to listening to barely thought out rules that MPs themselves do not bother to follow.
MacDonald's are open again for drive through. I find it amazing that people queued in their cars for hours to buy junk food in disposable packaging. Are these the things we all miss so much? You would have thought people have had enough of queueing.
Brighton beach was rammed on Saturday and the next day there was as much litter on the beach as the litter pickers had ever seen. Sadly this included burned out barbecues and broken glass. Many of the locals did not go near the beaches to avoid the crowds. We certainly won't be venturing to town until the madness has abated.
The weather has been really hot and dry. There has been no rain for almost a month. They say it was the driest May since ages. Things are growing down the allotment. The image here is my attempt at sweet potatoes. They are supposed to grow up in to the net above them. Will this work? I have no idea.
Some of the schools have partially returned, while other children have been told there will be no school until September. We are thinking abut how to re-open the club. We will have to liaise with the Leisure Centre. I feel the gymnasts will enter a very different club to the one they left behind.