Wednesday 29th April 2020

Wednesday.

The 70th day of March.

Or something. Not sure how many days we have now been locked down, but the time has gone pretty quickly and painlessly, except for the lack of orchiding, obviously.

I am, we are in good spirits, trying out new recipes, walking when we can, getting fit, sleeping well and the garden has never looked better.

But, little did I know, that dark clouds were gathering and our idyll would be shattered just before lunch.

Or not.

We shall see.

I have to be honest, that we did overeat a tad the night before. I made warmed up roast lamb and did roast potatoes, steamed veg and Yorkshire puddings. And wine. And gravy. It was just too lovely. Too lovely to leave any. So we ate too much, and so when we went to bed it did lay heavy. And I did have indigestion, and the meat sweats, which meant by the end of the night I felt like I had not slept, and felt like crap.

Jools said I looked like I had two black eyes. Nice.

So, at least it was a rest day from phys, I couldn't have done it anyway. But on the plus side, I wasn't hungry.

And yet, somehow, I failed to use the spare time I had in a useful way. But I did put the seedlings out, water them, fill up the bird feeders, wash up, and have the kettle boiled to make Jools her cuppa when she came back from her walk.

More productive than I thought.

And work.

Outside it was a fine, sunny became warm too. I wish I was outside.

Anyway. Meetings. Phone calls. Reviewing documents, planning audits. All in the general life of an auditor, quality expert and international playboy.

At eleven, I joined in an online coffee morning with some ex-RAF mates, when the phone rang.

It was Jen, nearly in tears. She had a fever, ached and felt like shit. She had to have a COVID test but could not get the site to work, could I go round to help?

Well, I said I would, and did go, but this is serious. If Jen had the virus, there was a chance I would get it too, but I could not leave her on her own, could I?

So, I drop everything, drive to Whitfield, where Jon is making lunch for her Mother, who is nearly 101 years old now. And Jen looked like death warmed up.

She wiped her phone with a disinfectant wipe, and a pen and the piece of paper. She told me everything, said he had received this code she had to enter to book a test.

Indeed, there was a 16 digit code, a mixture of letters and numbers to enter on a website. It took four attempts on her mobile to get it done before the cite was accepted. Then there was the entering of a post code. The site did not like the format of Jen's postcode, but gave no hint of what format it might like.

Four attempts at that, then the car registration, her name and date of birth, select the location for the test, luckily in Dover, and a time. She had a test for an hour's time.

Jen looks better already at the news, says I can go home now as its under control. She gives me another wipe, I can't hug her, of course. We were never closer than 2m, and for the most part she was in the kitchen and me in the dining room. Such is modern life now.

I go home, as her appointment was for half an hour. As it turned out, the queue to get to the shop car park down by the harbour went the length of the promenade, and took three hours to get tested, all that time her Mother was alone, and Jen was alone in the car as no one could take her.

By evening when she called, she was feeling better. Though we will have to wait 48 hours to see if she is positive or not.

Meanwhile, I was coming down with a migraine.

Arriving back, had lunch, and looking at my mails, I could see dots in my vision making reading very hard. I knew that if I pressed on, I would get a full blown attack, so I set my out of office message, packed up and went to bed.

Where I was joined by Scully. I did not sleep, at least not much, but it was fine just laying in the semi-darkness, listening to Scully gently snore and purr.

I get up at half four, get dressed and feed Scully who said she was wasting away.

Dinner was the new fallback; fishcakes, curried rice and corn. Which was very nice once done. We were careful not to eat too much.

The evening stretched out before us for like two hours until we could go to bed at nine.

lay in bed, once again, just after nine an I see that outside it wasn't quite dark.

So much rock and roll.