Snack attack!

It has been a strange week, with Nozomi, Tomoki and I all working and studying at home. So far everything has been relatively harmonious. A few notes and observations from the week:

The good

• Tomoki has been cooperative, even enthusiastic about walking the dog in the morning and in studying during school hours.
• It has been nice to be able to eat lunch together.
• We have been able to sit in the garden as it is sunny and warm.
• Nozomi has made dinner several times which is a nice break for me!
• I have enjoyed reading a chapter of The Belgariad (by David Eddings) to Tomoki each day 
• My outpatient appointment has been rescheduled as a telephone appointment - I don't have to go to the "plague" hospital for it. Phew!
• It was nice for everyone to applaud and cheer for the NHS on Thursday night at 8pm.

The bad

• Nozomi is enjoying snacking during the day as she works at the dining table. Could be dangerous dear! Just saying...
• I am drinking too much wine every day (around a bottle). Could be dangerous mate! Just saying...
• I have a mild cough which could be something or could be nothing. It is not affecting my exercise or daily life.
• Cases of COVID-19 and deaths continue to rise at an alarming rate. There is no end in sight to this confinement and necessary wrecking of our way of life.

The ugly

• Being limited to one short walk a day while spring is in full bloom is incredibly frustrating.
• I am getting concerned about my stock of wine but am scared to go to the shops! Will need to start rationing it.
• It is impossible to get a delivery slot for home deliveries of groceries. We will have to go shopping in about a week or so.
• My retirement plans are in tatters if the market doesn't recover.

 

 

Sunny chills

The Covid Pause gets frosty...

Tomoki and I are continuing with our morning walk before work/study as it is the time with fewest people around. The weather gods continue to mock us and the daily temperature continues to hit a new maximum for the year as each day of this wretched week passes. The sky is blue, the sun shining. One or two aircraft contrails can be seen but there are hardly any flights these days. Never quite seen anything like it. It was however frosty when we set out this morning - in more ways than one.

There has been a change in the mood since the Prime Minister's announcement of Monday night. The cheerful 'Hellos' of the weekend have become frosty grimaces or a thousand-yard stare as people walking past each other just want to be on their way. There is an almost guilty atmosphere as if we are doing something wrong simply by walking the dog. I absolutely hate it. We are only permitted one sojourn outside for daily exercise and it has become a somewhat fraught experience. The delight of an empty trail ahead is soon turned to a sinking feeling when someone steps onto it and starts heading towards you.

However, we are trying to make the best of the situation. I set Tomoki a challenge today. He was tasked with taking photos of interesting looking plants and collecting some samples. He will then need to try and identify the plants using whatever resources available. (Mainly this will be the internet). Then he has been asked to research some interesting facts and to document his discoveries by means of a blog article. He can also draw the leaves and buds we collected. In this way, I explained to him we can cover his ICT, science, English, art and exercise all in one challenge. He seems quite enthusiastic about it. がんばれ！(do your best).

[Here is his report]

We had a video call with Adam, Akiko, and Leo yesterday evening. Adam will be working from home from today thank goodness. They have everything they need. It seems that shops continue to improve though with strict distancing measures now enforced. We have managed to avoid going so far thanks to home deliveries. Another one arrived yesterday thanks to Nozomi's efforts but it looks to be the last for many weeks so we will probably have to start going out for a few things within a week. I am eyeing up my dwindling wine stock with some concern as I am drinking way more than normal. Oh well, once it's gone it's gone. 

I continue my morning exercises although I am allowing myself to get up a little later. I started at 6:30 today (rather than the usual 5:45). My regime involves about 15mins of bodyweight exercises, and then 56min on the exercise bike in front of a Netflix show. Today was Better Call Saul.

Ok, back to work. Enough brain dumping for now.

Shutdown

So that's it. The first Covid lock-down. Will it be the last? We are now allowed out once a day for exercise with only people from our household. The entire nation effectively imprisoned in their own homes. I keep thinking I will wake up in a minute, but this nightmare seems set to continue for many weeks if not months. As if to taunt us further, the weather was once again glorious and sunny today.

This was the first day of homeschooling for us. Tomoki showed great initiative and self-drive and gamely worked his way through the suggested itinerary that the school sent home with the kids last Friday. Nozomi also worked from home, and some good news. She can do that every day now. Her company has finally relented to the inevitable. So that is one less vector that the disease can reach us from.  She is also doing a stellar job arranging online food deliveries so that is not a big concern yet.

We walked the dog this morning and at lunchtime. There were far fewer people about this morning so we will make that time our allotted exercise slot. It was very very quiet this morning, but at lunchtime, there were plenty of people about in the woods where I had hoped it would have been quieter. It wasn't crowded by any means, and it was easy to stay a good distance away from people, but the morning was definitely better. Fortunately, Tomoki and I are morning people so we should be fine.

I had very little enthusiasm for work, but I managed to get the first draft of some training slides I have to present next week done. I can get back to more interesting project work tomorrow. Nozomi has discovered she likes working at home. We managed it quite well I think.

I read to Tomo for half an hour this afternoon, and I think he is enjoying the story. Part 1 of The Belgariad by David Eddings; The Pawn of Prophecy. A great series. After dinner, (Pad Thai for us, hot dog for Tomo), we played some music together. We practised Tarantella and then we fooled around with the Tetris theme. It was good fun. I had to glue on a false thumbnail today to fix my own shredded one for guitar playing. So far so good. Sounds a bit duller than a regular nail but at least I can pick the strings properly again.

A fly is buzzing around and is driving me nuts at the moment. I hope the dog can snap it in half.

Al Fresco

A strange day. At any other time, it would have been an almost perfect early spring Sunday. The sun was shining, the wind had lost some of its bite, early blossom is not hard to find and there are daffodils aplenty.

I woke up with a somewhat stuffy nose and immediately thought "uh oh". Temperature was a perfectly normal 36.2, and it was gone after my shower, After the morning ablutions, I went downstairs for a rare treat. A BLT with slightly stale bread, but the bacon grease and mayonnaise did a respectable job masking the fact. After that, it was a dog walk on a beautiful spring morning. In contrast to yesterday, I thought I would walk by the local Tesco Express to see how things were. I didn't get too close, but it was apparent that there were many empty shelves, however, there were some glimpses of greenery in the veg section and a few patches of red in the fresh meat fridge. Judging by a few grim if relieved looking shoppers, it is possible to at least purchase something to eat. Maybe the pressure is easing. I am not worried too much yet, but it is a nagging fear that the food supply won't improve and once the warehouses are empty, we could be in for a rough ride. Need to bury that thought for now. We actually got a delivery from Sainsbury's this afternoon thanks to Nozomi. We have enough.

I Facetimed Helen whilst walking to wish her a happy mother's day. She sounded better than the last time I spoke to her. She has had pneumonia since the beginning of the year and I strongly suspect it was a C19 infection, but she hasn't been tested for it. She spent some time with her mum Peggy, last week, so I hope not. She thinks it was the flu as she had symptoms around Christmas time. 

Anyway, the walk was good. There were people about, but we all kept a respectable distance from each other. In other parts of the country, this does not appear to be the case and I fear a total lock-down is not far off. 

When I got home, the garden was lovely and warm, so I got the outside table ready for lunch so that we could eat outside for the first time this year. We had chicken burgers and oven fries, Tomo ate his burger without complaint. A minor victory!

After cleanup, I prepared a space for Nozomi to work tomorrow. Had to drill a couple of holes to hang an adaptor so she can plug her laptop in. I didn't hit a water pipe or electrocute myself, so a successful job.

I had a long chat with dad whilst making dinner. He seems well, but he has got a list of shopping that he hopes Samantha can get for him. Worst case, assuming we are permitted, we can take him some things next week. He has a full freezer though. 

After a dinner of tebasaki (chicken wings), rice and broccoli we had a quick family meeting to hash out a study plan for Tomoki tomorrow. We will adapt it as we go, but the school gave us some good material to begin with.

Tomo and I practised playing Tarantella together for 20mins or so. He is really good at chord changes. I think we will have a respectable version in a few days or so.