Letter in the post Once, twice, thrice Imploring - Get vaccinated... But, you can wait Wait for your GP If you prefer... Nothing... Waiting... Go it alone... Website - do you know your NHS number Yes... Here's some sites They're near to you Best you choose one of them... Book your second shot too... But I don't know if... Book it! Find the centre Stand outside Drizzle dampens... Pretty face, What's your appointment time? Ohh! yes, here you are... Wait some more Called in The Inquisition gives me a card... We sit... Waiting for Godot? Just a free berth... Come now Sir, So polite Ushered into a cubicle... Name, Rank, Number? East European accent Efficient Nurse Information given I take off my Flack Jacket... Briefing... Are you allergic Are you driving?... These are side effects Take Paracetemol... And Water - lots of Water... Jab... Easing back into jacket Nurse completing record Photo on phone... Your Daughter? No - Niece... Very Pretty... Very naughty... Aren't they all at that age?.. Back into the drizzle Feel a little Woozy... Take my time... Home is further It's usually so close... Really slow today... All done? Are you Ok Someone at home cares... But she had it before And understands... The hereafter... Very little sleep Arm sore - can't lie on it... The new day... Muscles ache Lethargic... But I'm determined... determined... Must go for my walk!
covid19
Whatever Happened To…
…Is a question that haunts my thoughts, so I’m guessing that some of my readers may be asking the same question about a number of regular post series that seem to have disappeared over the last couple of months. It could also be a question relating to the year that is just drawing to a close – 2020 – so lets start there.
About this time last year I was looking forward to the end of 2019 and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone in that – it seemed to have been a bad year and I hoped for something better in 2020. January 2020 was not a bad month. I got out and about to pursue my trainspotting and was planning to use that as a means of increasing my exercise to help with my diabetes. In relation to that, I was due to go for a blood test in late February. Then the pandemic set in and we were locked down – I didn’t get to have that test. I also, being either a good citizen or a slave to government whim (you choose which) obeyed the request to stay away from public transport – that was the end of my spotting for the year. In the lull before the current storm and new tier 4 lockdown in London, I was invited to the doc’s for my Flu-jab and then sent to the blood clinic the following Monday to have that delayed blood test. My blood pressure is a lot better although it’s still a bit up and down so we’re experimenting with taking different pills at different times of the day to smooth things out.
All of the above gives some background. Add to that the need for my Wife to shield and therefore work from home. Then send my Son home early from University for Christmas and we suddenly have extra pressure on computing at home. It’s not a broadband issue – that has plenty of capacity. The issue is a space one. When Epi is on her work laptop, she has to have privacy – so Alasdair has to move from his desk while she works. He then needs somewhere to do his online studies, so I’ve made some space on my computing desk for him and provided a LAN connection. However, that impacts on my computing activities – I don’t want to distract him. You may also recall the Windows 10 2004 update and all the disruption that caused – I put the update on indefinite hold after sending another detailed response to Microsoft regards the issues I was experiencing. Then early-November my pc told me I had an update and needed to restart – not what I was expecting. Anyway, I did the restart and everything worked fine. Microsoft have pushed me onto version 1909 instead of 2004. Hopefully, by the time 1909 becomes obsolete, there will be a new update that doesn’t have the issues of 2004.
Let me work through the various series of posts…
Photo Challenges – Apart from doing some plane photography in my back garden, I haven’t picked up a camera in months which is why I’ve missed Brian’s last photo on the card Challenge and I’ve been very sporadic in taking part in Cee’s challenges. I hate recycling old images for these. I really must try to get out with the camera more often in 2021 whatever the lockdown situation.
Watcher of the Skies – Nothing to see here… Well not for most of October and November – lots of cloudy skies reduced my activity to virtually nil. However, December has been a bit better and the 17th was my best day ever for overflies including two light aircraft in close formation just to the north of me. Christmas Day also turned up a lot of sightings including a Kalitta 747. There’s a couple of regular overflies that I keep missing due to cloud – an Antonov AN-12 and an AN-26, both from Ukraine – I’ll get them one day! Again, I need to fire up the camera and take some pictures to share in a post.
Boundary Farm and Rosland Farm – The elephant in the room for these is Truck Simulator and the amount of time spent in those games recently. There has also been a major add on and a new free dlc that brings soil testing to the game. Combined with the Seasons mod that I was gaining an understanding of, this has left me wondering what I should do. I think that I will restart Boundary Farm as a new series in 2021 utilising the Seasons mod at the recommended settings. In the interim, for one of my younger followers, here’s a real-life Kubota Tractor…
Birdshot – I’ve been experimenting with Hunting differently in The Hunter – Call of the Wild. Differently in two ways – not rushing around doing the tasks as quickly as possible and utilising all the freebie weapons that I have access to courtesy of the dlc’s I own. I think that will also see a restart. I want to get back to doing my angling in Fishing Planet too. That won’t be a restart although I will need to remind myself what baits work best in the various locations 🙂
Which brings us to Trucking Digest. When I called this the elephant in the room I wasn’t kidding. The last three months have seen update upon update to mainly American truck Simulator. We’ve had another new state in Colorado and an associated community event. Then, straight from that, we moved into the annual Christmas Event. I have been doing so much driving that I have had little time for much else. In many ways this has been the game that has kept me on an even keel for most of the lockdown, so I shouldn’t and won’t complain, but the effect it has had on my other games and also on my Trucking Digest series of posts is there to see. I’ll do a ‘close out the year’ Digest before 2021 starts to bring you up to date. Then, hopefully, normal service will resume in January for all my regular series including the photo challenges 🙂
Still keeping the Shiny Side Up – whatever Covid throws at us – stay safe everyone 🙂
Everything Change Everything
The past 2 months, or is it 3, have seen some enforced changes to life that will endure long after the current pandemic has passed. This is a personal perspective so doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone out there. This is the story of my experience of maintaining our household during the last few weeks.
The rude awakening for the stores and for people like me happened before the Lockdown was implemented. For a number of years I have habitually gone to my local Waitrose supermarket to do the family shop at around 08:30 on a Saturday morning. It’s a ritual that a small number of us religiously carry out – I’d guess there are around 30 of us normally in store at that time. Mostly we are on nodding terms and, in a few cases, happy to have a chat. So that first Saturday was a real shock to the system 😦 There were people there rushing around our usually calm environment, stripping the shelves of everything except the paint! Locusts had nothing compared with the hoards of panic buying selfish fools. On that day I got around 1/3rd of my normal weekly shop – it was enough. Fortunately, we have always held a stock of essential supplies to cover around 4 weeks of not being able to go out – because, well, you never know. The most galling thing about that experience was that many of the ‘Locusts’ bought perishables that they then didn’t use before the goods went off. A lot of meat and vegetables ended in the bins – selfish and disgusting. Meanwhile I have an image from an overheard conversation between staff – ‘There’ll be nothing left when I go off duty’ – clearly the staff were already worrying about their own family situations given the influx of panic shoppers.
I decided that day that I’d not be going to the main supermarkets until things calmed down – I don’t need the stress and I certainly don’t need the exposure to this virus given that my Wife is high risk. There are some good small retailers close to us and I usually give them some custom – notably fresh produce and milk. So I went there. It took around 5 days for the locusts to find them too. Things could have become very difficult but fortunately the lockdown came into force. With the Police empowered and guidance issued some form of order replaced anarchy. Most stores introduced security personnel to control entrance and limit the number of people present to allow social distancing to be maintained.
I continued to diversify my shopping, utilising my daily exercise as a way of getting to the stores for essential fresh goods. Our local Garage, BP / M&S proved to be a good reliable source of milk along with some vegetables and bread. The Little Waitrose also proved to be a good option in those early weeks when the main supermarkets were stripped bare. My local corner shop was a useful source for some vegetables, and some of the many canned items that were not available elsewhere. Some of the prices were really odd – chopped tomatoes £1-20p a can while tinned peas were 49p. I guess it was all about supply and chopped tomatoes were hard to get at the time. Shock-horror, the price of beer went up too! However, all this shopping in various stores was good for me because I was walking everywhere!
There are a number of things that I have taken from these shopping expeditions that I think will continue into the future. M&S at the garage do a rather nice stir-fry mix that will continue to be part of my shopping into the future. There’s also a couple of nice cereals that I probably wouldn’t have tried had this not happened. The sliced cheeses have also proved to be a useful stop gap. My local corner shop does nice bananas – though there is an element of luck about when they’re available. He also easily beats the supermarkets on garlic for quality and price. Tins of chickpeas and black beans are well priced too. I’ve just scratched the surface here. Suffice to say, some things will be bought locally now rather than from the main supermartket.
Last week I finally visited my main Waitrose again and things are getting back to normal although there are still gaps on the shelves. I haven’t been on a Saturday morning yet because my usual 08:30 shop is reserved for the truly elderly, NHS and other essential workers, and people classed as at high risk. Technically, I could go to shop for my Wife in that slot but I really don’t need the hassle of jumping through the hoops to prove it. Instead I go mid-morning, midweek and that seems to be a good option currently. Oh, and I haven’t used cash for a very long time – I guess we won’t need notes and coins in the very near future!
That’s a brief ‘how it was’ from me… How was it for you???
Images from Finchley 