Day 341 – Reflections on Lockdown

Today is Saturday – my one day to have a lie in!

Honey woke me up at 8.45am to get up, as soon as she senses me coming out of a deep sleep, she is there pestering me to get up and go out!

So we got up at 9am and I took her for a walk still in my Pyjamas!  I decided to take a different route to our usual morning walk up to Bruntsfield Links.

It was cloudy, but the sky was slowly clearly, with a blue sky starting to appearing.

It was still pretty quiet out and about and I enjoyed the quiet and stillness.

There were small queues outside cafes on the streets, I realised that this is the perfect situation having a dog, as I don’t have to leave Honey outside the shop (which I wouldn’t do anyway) as you are not allowed inside anyway.  So we stopped off and I bought a Pain au Chocolat.

Then I went back to bed!

We then got up about midday, had a shower and started boat chores.

First up was filling the water up on Discovery (blog cover photo), the last time was 2 weeks ago, so I worked out it would take about 25 minutes.

Whilst it was filling up, I made a second breakfast – bacon toastie.  It did in fact 25 minutes to fill up 🙂

Just as I was finishing, Gilbert shouted over from me on the other side of the canal, he was heading home after getting his vaccine at the EICC (Edinburgh International Conference Centre).  You may remember Gilbert from ‘Face Mask Corner’ on Day 159. We chatted for a while across the water, then I invited him over for a cup of tea.  We sat outside on the picture bench.

We chatted about the vaccine, side-effects and all other things about lockdown restrictions, before moving onto other things.  Gilbert used to use The Melting Pot and it was about a year ago, that he told me that Covid was likely to affect the UK for a few months.  I remember him saying “if you have something else you have always wanted to get on with, like writing a book, for the next few months, you could use the time to do this“.  I remember, getting really worried about my income with no magic work and how was going to survive.  I just had enough to survive until June.  I remember talking to various people about my worries and they reassured me that we weren’t going to be affected in the UK like the rest of the world.  But Gilbert was right!

Although, I didn’t get to write a book in the last year, I have written about 300,000 words in this blog – which is probably nearly 7 books!!!

Was great to catch-up with Gilbert.

Then I continued with my boat chores, which was to do a big clean of Discovery.

However, I soon heard from Danny, who I have bubble with, asking if I wanted to go round to his house for dinner.  So a full clean of Discovery has been postponed until tomorrow!

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Lockdown Restrictions Corner

Over this blog, I have highlighted and reflected on the changing conversations that one has, when first meeting up with someone, whether IRL (In Real Life) or virtually, related to Covid and lockdown restrictions.  Once this is covered, conversations move onto everything else!  In the early days of lockdown restrictions corner, it was discussing on how we are all coping with lockdown restrictions in relation to work, mental health, etc…In more recent months, it has been speculation on when restrictions will be lifted.  In the last few weeks, it has been –

“Are you going to have the vaccine?” or “Have you had the vaccine?”

If people have had the vaccine, they often go on to describe the experience – where they got the vaccine, how long they queued, etc…

If there is more than one person, discussing the vaccine, the question is “which vaccine did you have?”.  The answer varies a little from “Pfizer” or “AstraZeneca” and sometimes “Oxford Vaccine”.  As there are only two vaccines available, the answer is usually one of these three.  For those who don’t know ‘AstraZeneca’ is the ‘Oxford Vaccine’.

The next question, leads onto side-effects.  From conversations, it seems that AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine has more side-effects, most common a headache which can last up to 36 hours and/or feeling sick for a couple of days.  Apparently, if you’ve had Covid, then you are more likely to have side-effects, as your body already has antibodies and so is more over active to attack the vaccine (apologies to the medics if I have got that wrong – please correct me!).

 

Today in The Guardian, there was an article about how once people who’ve had the vaccine are less likely to keep to lockdown restrictions rules – https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/27/people-less-likely-adhere-covid-rules-after-vaccination

In Israel they found during the vaccine rollout, there was an increase in Covid cases, due to people not sticking to the lockdown restriction rules.  People think they are more immune once they have had the vaccine.

In the UK there are some areas where cases are increasing again.

Talk on the street is that by April, no one in the UK are going to be sticking to the rules.  If this is the case, it will be interesting to see how the government controls this and if there is an increase in Covid cases across the whole of the UK.

 

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Nostalgia Corner

Have you got a favourite blog?  Or a memorable feature or section or ‘Corner’ in the blog?  Maybe one of the photos I have shared you love.

As I move towards the full year of writing this blog, I thought I would start this section.  So please think back over the last 341 blogs and let me know what are your favourite memories of the blog.  Perhaps a particular section that has made you laugh out loud?

If you can’t remember where it is in the blog, just describe it to me and I’ll find it 🙂

 

To kick this Corner off, I am returning to Day 104 and one of my favourite poems that appeared in ‘Poetry Corner’.  I also included a YouTube video of me reciting the poem, so you could see how it sounds.  Check it out below –

 

 

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As I come to the end of this blog, I am tired!  I didn’t get back from hanging out with Danny, until after 11pm, so the blog was late starting, it is now after 1am!  That is the main problem with writing the blog and may become a challenge if I continue it too long after the first year of writing it.  I have to write it, so if I go out, I have to write it when I get home, whatever time that is!  I prefer to write it at the end of my day, rather than before, but I may have to start writing it earlier if I know I am going out in the evening.

After Gilbert dropped by, I was reflecting on how lucky I am living by the canal.  So many people just drop by to say hello – when I lived in the flat, hardly no one just ‘dropped by’, in fact hardly no one actually came to visit!  The canal is a main walk route for so many people, they can see if I am about as they walk by.  I also realised, something I also love living on a boat is that I am outside so much more, compared to living in a flat.  I am so much aware of the weather, how warm it is, etc…which just didn’t happen living in a flat.

Today it has been really warm, but not so much sunshine.  This evening the temperature has dropped again, a little.  Another day of no rain 🙂

Hope you’ve had a Super Saturday 🙂

Jim x