Lunch in the centre of town and then a visit to the doctor as Toni isn’t feeling well and hasn’t been for the past week. He does not have the symptoms of the virus, so there is not the panic than would accompany that diagnosis, but he is feeling unwell enough to necessitate further treatment.
This is not a visit which is being undertaken lightly, but Toni is a person who takes advice seriously and he will not take any risks and will abide by all the rules and regulations. The visit was swift and the result of the consultation is that we are going to cut down and out all of the sugar in our diet. Well, who hasn’t put on a little weight in the sedentary paradise of lockdown?
My evening bike ride was transferred to the doctor’s to pick up something for Toni and I called into the sports club on my way back as I had noticed quite a number of cars in the car park on my way there.
It turns out that swimming will recommence on Monday. But not as normal. All swimming must be booked in advance and there will only be five swimmers allowed each hour. This makes sense as our pool has five lanes. We will be allowed to use the changing rooms, but the only showers to be used will be those at the edge of the pool itself and the showers in the changing room are off limits.
The café in the club will be fully opened on Monday, whatever that means. As far as I can work out, the terrace will be operational and up to 50% of the interior can be used with well-spaced tables.
The entrance has the counter behind screens and there is a bottle of alcohol soap to use as soon as you are inside. There are the regulation adhesive strips on the floor to mark out the necessary distances, but there is also a sort of determination on the part of the staff to make the place be as normal as possible. And, I’m sure that we will be abiding by the new rules as if they have been in place for ages in no time at all.
So, on Monday at 8 am I will go for my first swim for months. I wonder what lane I will be in. I have not been able to book further ahead than two days in the new app that we have had to download to access the new booking system. We will have to see how this all works out.
The situation in the UK does not seem to be getting any better with the number of deaths now reaching 40,000 – double the number that the chief scientific advisor said would have been a good result. This is, by definition, a disaster. And a continuing disaster, as the government seems to be flying by the seat of their collective pants and reacting to situations in a tardy and fatal way rather than being proactive.
The UK progresses to the next stages of loosening the lockdown with nothing like a solid programme of tracking and testing in place. Indeed, we have been told that a fully functioning system will not be operational until September! You couldn’t make up their uselessness.
Tomorrow is Saturday, a weekend in the days before our movement to the next stage in the freeing of restrictions. It will be an interesting indication of how things will progress and how seriously people are going to take the crisis as we get further into the summer months and the number of cases and deaths fall.
Every day as we go through the summer gets us nearer to the autumn and the traditional flu season and, unless something dramatic happens in terms of treatment or vaccine, who knows what September to January is going to look like.
As long as I am around to watch!
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