Day Seventy-Nine - Spectacles, Stairs and Statistics

Set off this morning, locked the door behind me, started off down the path, thought something is not right here. Duh! Didn't have my glasses on! So I had to unlock again, go and find them and set off once more. I really don't think that lockdown has improved my eyesight to the extent that I no longer need my spectacles when I go out! Another example of how lockdown has benefited me physically is stairs and staircases. All I've had to do is use my own. And sometimes I go up those on all fours. I haven't had to negotiate stairs at stations, in stores,  friends houses etc. Again I wonder how I'm going to be when I go back to all that again. Will my back suffer?

I haven't seen my thumbs up, waving lady now for several days. That does make me worried. She's been as regular as clockwork. I did see a chap called Leon. He's come to my tai chi class intermittently. And I know he lives nearby because I've often seen him in our life B.C (before coronavirus) walking his dog. In fact I think I mentioned him in the very first days of this blog when it was "just" social distancing and lockdown hadn't begun. We stopped very briefly to chat. He's been shielding because he has a heart condition. So he decided to come out today now that people who have been shielding now can go outdoors but he seemed very anxious. He said he was fed up and I said better to be fed up than not well and he did agree. There were numerous different people today as well. People walking who I never seen before. I wondered if they'd been shielding up to now. It might be that they're going out very early to avoid the majority of people.

I am continuing to increase the distance that I'm walking each day. Very, very gradually. I've set myself little markers to go round, a tree stump, a bench, and today a quite wild looking flowerbed with some grasses in it and then when I feel able I add one more so that I'm not letting my body get too used to the same old route.

Chatting to my neighbour over the fence. He has a security camera that is activated by motion and sends pictures to his phone! Last night the badger was in his garden uprooting pots. He has Mr Brock captured on film. But he seemed okay about it and he's not going to try and stop up the hole any more because he realises it's just not working. I'm very lucky that the badger doesn't cause more havoc in my garden. I hope that's not famous last words.

I had, for me, a very productive morning. I've washed my bedrooms curtains including the nets. I've clean the windows. I've taken other soft furnishings washed them and everything is all back in place. And the room smells all lovely and clean and fresh. It looks as though the good weather is set to change. Tomorrow looks as if it may be quite overcast and then there's going to be some rain. We really do need the rain but I'm interested to see what kind of effect this has on moods. A friend of mine who drove along the seafront today said it was packed. They do say that the virus is more difficult to spread outdoors. I hope to goodness that's true. But if people are confined to indoors and still break the lockdown protocols I'm wondering what's going to happen.

There appears to be some criticism of the government statistics for testing. No surprise there. I've been suspicious of the statistics all along. I think that's why overall I feel so confused about all of this. Who's right, who's wrong? When I hear about beaches full of people I wonder what's going on in the heads of those people, and I wonder am I the fool or are they?