11 weeks on from lockdown on Monday 23 March and we've arrived in June. In the early days steets were eerily quiet, hardly anyone around and very few cars on the road. Children painted rainbows of thanks to NHS and essential key workers (locksmiths everywhere have never felt so appreciated). It taught us who is vital and what we can manage without.
Guess who was nominated acting child in our house?
Thursday evenings at 8pm saw a nation stepping onto doorsteps, applauding and banging saucepans. If nothing else it was good for neighbourhood camarade. Other than that, the point of applauding people for doing their day jobs soon waned. As many NHS employees said, we don't need applause, please just pay us properly!
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During the early weeks we all dutifully did as told #stayhome except for essential shopping and once a day exercise.
Combe Hill Woods. I've rolled a tough one mile trail along through here many, many times now whilst John and Ali ran quite a lot further.
Indoors we discovered Zoom and businesses everywhere wondered why they'd ever wasted so much time, effort and money on international conferences. Skies empty of aircraft, I reckon at this rate we've been on track to reach net zero carbon emissions by the end of this year. Result! The earth says thank you.
UK Coronavirus deaths peaked somewhere at the end of April. Tragically many doctors, nurses, carers and porters lost their lives (viral load on wards must be sky high, coupled with a reported lack of adequate protective masks, gowns and gloves) and our, somewhat overweight, Prime Minister Boris Johnson nearly died.
Just as #stayhome was starting to wear thin on Sunday 10 May we were told in a bizarre pre recorded government publicity stunt...
Algebra that had everyone scratching heads
...that we could all get back to work, go out as much as we like as long as we #stayalert
Stay alert? Forever more I will think of viruses sneaking up behind us!
As numbers of new cases and deaths fell, the sun shone. With the fine example of Dominic Cummings, chief advisor to Boris Johnson, trust in the government plummeted. Sales of charcoal, burgers and beer soared as much as the temperature; thousands flocked to beaches and pretty much did exactly as they pleased
Things are starting to open and life is taking on a new kind of normal. Have been busy making masks for us all when inside shops, on a train or (for Joe) a plane to South Korea.
Strangely none of the men liked my vast collection of lovely floral fabric scraps so had to invest in tartan alternative!
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As at time of writing, nearly 40,000 people in the UK have died from COVID-19. Or as high as 50,000 if suspected deaths are included.
Either which way, we're not doing very well. We were slow to shut down, are we too quick to open up?
