We lost an hour of lock-down today, as we moved from GMT to British Summer Time (a.k.a. Daylight Saving). Hopefully when we get our hour back in the autumn we will be able to use it.
British Summer Time has not brought summer weather (possibly it has brought British summer weather). We had a north east wind which made it feel about -5° even though it was sunny. It didn’t stop us going to the allotment though. I think it counts as our daily excercise.
I have a prediction. Gardens this summer are going to be immaculate. The allotment is looking pretty good already.
We spent most of the day up there. We had the left-overs from last night’s curry for lunch. We cleared a load of brambles. We dismembered a greenhouse that had arrived courtesy of a winter storm. Then before we went home, we had a bonfire to get rid of the evidence.
We needed comfort food, so we made cottage pie for tea, followed by apple pie and ice cream.
Day 7
Today started with a phone call from work. Apparently, my contract was due to end tomorrow. They asked if I wanted to renew. Maybe I should have said no, but I didn’t.
We, or to be more exact Diane, went all domestic. Then she beat me at Scrabble. It is getting desperate.
A bike ride to Raynes Park to get some fruit ended with a full ‘T’ bag. It was full of reduced price food. Roast chicken with reduced price veggies for dinner.
It is quarter to three on Saturday the 28th of March 2020. I should have been finishing of my beer and vegan pie. Getting ready to take my seat at Forest Green Rovers vs Cheltenham. No Wimbledon was planned for today. We were supposed to be away to Lincoln, but I wasn’t planning on going.
My future brother-in-law, Mick, lives in Stroud and supports Forest Green. He has been wanting us to come down for the weekend to go to a game for months. We had everything arranged for the last Saturday in October. Wimbledon was supposed to play Bury. However, the game was called off due to a waterlogged pitch. This weekend was the re-arranged date. Forest Green are English football’s only vegan club. All the food and drink sold at the ground is vegan. It is apparently very good. It is better than the food at most football grounds. Let’s face it, that is a fairly low bar to get over. I was looking forward to my vegan pie and spending the weekend with Mick and Tina.
Instead I am enduring my third Saturday without football. By the end of the season I am usually ready for a break from football. This is especially true after the tensions of the last two seasons. Having football taken away from me with nine games left to play feels different, unfair even. What will happen to the rest of the season is anyone’s guess. The seasons of all the leagues below National League level are finished. Tiers 7 and below have been declared null and void. This hasn’t pleased everyone, but I’m not sure what else to do. I think a decision needs to be made soon. The same should happen with all leagues from the Premiership on down. It won’t be long before this happens. In such a case, we will have to endure Liverpool supporters complaining. They will continue from now until the heat death of the universe, about how they were robbed of their first title in thirty years.
Another worry is how many clubs will survive this shutdown. Running a football club is a bit of a hand to mouth existence. This weeks gate receipts being needed to meet this weeks outgoings. This is especially true of lower league clubs. Some clubs, such as Southend and Macclesfield, were in a precarious financial position even before this happened. When (if) football gets started again we might see some very different leagues.
I think that is football dealt with, for now. But it does feel strange not to be checking my phone for updates to the scores.
We have put teddy bears in the windows. This way, when kids are out for their daily exercise, they can be “Going on a Bear Hunt”.
No trips to the allotment today, although we did buy some seeds while we were doing our food shopping. I went for a walk to get my exercise instead.
Dinner was a take-away curry to try and help the local curry house to stay in business.
Loo rolls left: one fewer than yesterday but still sufficient.
So into day four of lock-down UK. The first day that I didn’t have any work to do, that is because I don’t work on Fridays. So in theory, it shouldn’t have been any different from a normal Friday. However, I couldn’t go out for lunch. I also couldn’t meet up with my football friends to discuss tomorrow’s game. It was a bit different though.
As some people know Diane and I decided to get married about five weeks ago. We ordered our engagement ring the following week and were due to pick it up today. Obviously with things being as they are. we couldn’t travel down to Worthing to collect it. The jeweller sent it to us special delivery and it arrived before breakfast this morning. We are now officially engaged. It has been posted on Facebook, so it must be true.
In other news, Boris Johnston has tested positive for Covid-19. Boris Johnston is our Prime Minister, in case you had forgotten. The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has also tested positive. So it can happen to anyone.
Back to important things. We are planning to get married next summer (2021). We were supposed to go up to Scotland next week. We wanted to look at potential wedding venues. That obviously isn’t going to happen now. So we had a Zoom meeting, at lunchtime, with one of our prospective venues. we decided probably not. However, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had bought shares in Zoom last year.
After that we decided to take our daily exercise by walking up to the allotment. The allotment could be the most immaculate allotment in the history of allotments this year. We haven’t done a lot of planting yet. However, it is definitely looking better after a bonfire and some tidying up.
Bonfire time
We also had a rather nice sunset.
We had a rather nice stir fry for supper, although we would rather have had an engagement party. That will have to wait.
We are now in the second day of n days of lock-down. My sister who is a Senior NHS critical care manager thinks that it may be six months. So six months of lockdown. Six months before things get back to “normal”, whatever normal turns out to be.
Day 2
After yesterdays uncertainty about whether we should, or could, continue to work, Engineer Surveyors have been classified as “essential workers”. We have been informed that certain settings are critical to the operation of the country. They are also vital in the fight against Covid-19. Places like hospitals and research laboratories fall into this category. Our inspections are safety critical and a legal requirement. Therefore, we have been told to carry on inspecting. However, this is only at essential sites.
Up to lunchtime was spent with phonecalls and emails trying to get a definition of an essential site. After that was agreed, I spent the rest of the time producing a spreadsheet for management. It detailed my essential work for the next three months. Duster came upstairs to join me, but then decided to self-isolate.
Duster self-isolating.
Producing spreadsheets is not my favorite activity. At about the time I had finished it Diane suggested taking a picnic up to the allotment for lunch. So we had our picnic lunch under clear blue skies and a bitterly cold east wind. It was a wonderful lunch.
Diane spent half her time trying to conduct a virtual tea party on her phone. A bit like herding cats. I spent my time clearing one of the beds and putting some seeds in; parsnips, beetroot, spring onions and radishes. Diane also planted some tomato, pepper and chili seeds which we have put into the cold frame. Hopefully it will work.
We finished the afternoon off with a bonfire.
Dinner in the spirit of self care (and because we had left-overs yesterday was steak and chips, followed by watching the film “Fisherman’s Friends”.
Day 3
I had to go and do some actual work today. I was out inspecting boilers at a school. Schools are considered essential. They provide care for the children of essential workers. These workers include NHS staff. Without this care, they might not be able to go to work otherwise. It felt quite strange having to make sure I was sufficiently distanced (2 metres) from other people. We have been instructed not to accept the offer of a cup of tea from the clients. By the time I got home, I was feeling quite de-caffeinated. I was also dehydrated because all my normal go-to cafes and coffee shops are shut for the duration as well.
I also managed to get some shopping done. Again a slightly surreal experience. I had to queue for about five minutes. I stood two meters apart from the people in front and behind me. This was necessary to get into the shop. The restriction wasn’t due to the shop being busy. It was to limit the number of people in the shop at any one time. I think that panic buying may be over. I managed to get everything I wanted. However, they were out of the brand of beer that I prefer.
Afternoon was spent redoing yesterdays spreadsheet, because management wants the data in a different form….grrr.
We just stood outside to give our NHS staff a minute of communal applause. I am about to take part in a virtual pub quiz. Life is becoming increasingly weird.
Our Prime Minister interrupted Coronation Street last night (so it has to be serious) to tell us that as of today the United Kingdom is in lock-down. More or less, details were a bit vague – work from home, unless you can’t, but only go to work if you are an essential worker. unless you work on a construction site, in which case it is apparently fine, because we need to keep the economy moving, or something. Now I am as keen as anyone to see our (AFC Wimbledon’s) new stadium completed in time for my birthday, but I don’t think that it is essential, or even, in the overall scheme of things important. The rest of the world is not exactly impressed either.
How has my first day in lock-down been? I received a text message last night from my team manager telling me, that in light of the announcement, to cancel all appointments for today and tomorrow, and to await instructions. After speaking to him it appears that we have been getting contradictory messages from the government about whether we (Engineer Surveyors) are essential workers or not. A meeting between the Inspection Authorities and the Government was being held.
I did a bit of “work” mainly down loading various collaborative tools that we couldn’t make work. we eventually fell back on something called WebEx, which is a bit clunky but did work.
After lunch (cheese toasties) we went all domestic and cleaned all the downstairs windows, inside and out. We also cut back a lot of over-hanging bushes and ivy, but that was before we found that the council would not be collecting garden waste for the foreseeable future. Minor mistake.
We then decided to take our daily permitted excursion for exercise and took our bikes along to Raynes Park. We also managed to find some milk, some veggies and tea bags. I arrived back to find a message asking me to log in to a conference call. The message of which was that some clarity about our status has been achieved but not a lot. We shall see what tomorrow brings.
Dinner, in the spirit of the times was left overs. Left over veggie curry from two days ago, with left over rhubarb (from the allotment) crumble from yesterday. It was fine, but we might have steak tomorrow.
I covered the important implications of the current crisis yesterday. One major point is the current lack of football, which is now extended to 30th April at least. Things have become more serious. Someone posted on Twitter “This Coronavirus thing was only supposed to stop Liverpool winning the Premiership.” Now, they are closing the pubs.
We are living in strange times. We have a Tory government doing stuff that Jeremy Corbyn might have thought twice about. People are stripping the supermarkets of almost anything edible, as well as toilet paper. In some ways, it is a rational response to the prospect of being isolated for up to fourteen days. Still, it has also shown that the market doesn’t have the answers in this case. Schools are closed, pubs, restaurants and cinemas are closed. In the space of a fortnight life in the UK has changed, perhaps for ever. No one knows when this will end. I think that even fewer people think that life will just revert to what it was before afterwards.
I have been trying to work out what I feel and think about all this. I know one thing for sure. I feel happier when I am with Diane (as I am now). I feel less happy when I am on my own.
It feels like the run up to Christmas. Everything is closing down. People are buying much more than they actually need. It is not a bottle of Avocat in case Auntie Doris comes. Instead, it is pasta, rice, and loo roll. Christmas is all over in a few days. Even if you hate Christmas, you can grin and bear it. This is different.
In some ways, it seems to me more like the week before Grace died. I was stuck in a bubble, waiting for something that I didn’t want to happen. Something that I knew was going to happen, but not when. That is what our current situation feels like.
How is it going to play out. I don’t know. Most people seem to recover from disease. Some people have mild or no symptoms. So it probably isn’t the end of the world, even if it seems that it is at times.
The worst fallout is probably going to be economic. Many people have already been laid off. Some companies will probably go under. The government has produced unprecedented measures to try and support business and workers who have been laid off.
When this is all over, I hope we can take a good look at how we organise the world. I know that Covid-19 is an immediate threat, but when it comes down to it not an existential one. If we can take these drastic steps to fight this. Then, we can also take some equally radical action to prevent the actual existential threat of climate change.
I haven’t posted for a while, almost a year in fact. The current events have prompted me to dust the keyboard off. Writing helps me make sense of what is happening. I find it helps me to order my thoughts.
Like 99.9% of the world’s population, the virus known as Coronavirus, Covid-19, or SARS-CoV-2 has dominated my thoughts for the past week. This post will probably contain all the advertised, random thoughts, ramblings and a rant or two as well.
Football (and sport in general) the first casualty
Important things first. Football has been suspended, as have almost all other sports. All of cycling’s spring classics have been canceled. There is no horse racing, the Masters golf tournament has been postponed and the cricket season seem unlikely to start. Football should restart on the 3rd of April. I will be very surprised if it restarts then. I don’t see this being over or even under control until the end of June at the earliest. The footballing powers think the season can be completed. This is because the Euros have been postponed until 2021. I don’t see it myself. My feeling is that the season will be abandoned.
This also means that I have probably watched my last AFC Wimbledon game at Kingsmeadow. If we had known that our game against Bolton was going to be the last, we might have planned differently. We could have organized something special. Our new stadium, in Plough Lane, should be ready for next season. The work may be delayed, especially if London is put into full lockdown. For the time being, we have an opening date of the 29th of August. It happens to be my birthday.
When will I get to wear these again?
We had planned a celebration for the final game of the season against Coventry. But, it seems it is not going to happen now. We will just have to make do with this video that the club have produced.
The ground is too small for us. It is more than shabby. It can take forever to get served at the bar. The sight lines, especially from the Rygas terrace are horrendous. We know all that. It has been home for the past eighteen years. It has helped us grow from a mad idea into a professional club. We now play in EFL League One. We are still fan owned. Watch the video. Discover why some of us will shed a tear. Even though we are all glad to be heading back to Plough Lane.
I’ll leave my thoughts there for tonight. I will come back to them tomorrow. I will try to work out my feelings about what this virus means.
A Scotsman in Suburbia 