Spring may not have reached the beech hedges but the tulips, bluebells, catmint and grape hyacinths are cheering things up
One outcome of the pandemic is simplicity. Normally for Easter we’d be up to London, or the boys would come to us or we’d all meet in Bournemouth. This year no choice: us here and them in London.
It’s very disappointing not to see them – but it’s the only possible decision. The weather is pretty good at the moment – I hope that people are sensible and resist the temptation to break the lockdown.
Of course, my wife had bought them Easter eggs before the lockdown began, which we can’t give them – and she has now sent them eggs through an online service. It means I have to eat my own egg and the spares that we still have for them. So much for weight control.
I did 45 minutes on the turbo on Thursday – the first of the year with the conservatory doors open – and I regretted the long sleeve shirt and long trousers.
On Friday I ran to the old hill fort at Badbury and then laps round it. It was lovely – a couple of hills to get there but then a shaded track to run on. In all, I ran a little over 5 miles and, for the first time this year, it was in just one layer. I ran in the souvenir shirt from the Rotterdam Marathon which the printing on the shirt reminds me was a year ago last Tuesday. So much has changed since then …
I ran with my wife on Saturday – I did about 4.5 miles in even warmer weather. It’s taken nearly 33 years of marriage but I’ve realised how fundamentally incompatible we are – she prefers running early in the morning and I’m an afternoon/evening runner. Probably too late to do anything about it now.
I rode outside on Sunday – just the second of the year. It started out very hard but I got into the swing of it by the end – 51km @28kph (about 32miles @17.4mph). Lots of cyclists and dog walkers out but the relative absence of cars is great – I even took a few roads that I’d normally avoid because of the traffic.
Two turbo sessions, three runs and a ride in the week – to say nothing of the croquet games we managed once I’d got the ‘best’ lawn under some sort of control.
It’s odd – we do not seem to have turned the corner in fighting the coronavirus in terms of deaths (a little more encouraging about cases) and there is still news about the cancellation of events – but there is also more talk about when things might resume.
I have no medical knowledge but to me at least, it seems that the lockdowns are not simply going to be removed – but will merely be eased in some way, at some point. At the moment, the UK confirmed cases are in the order of 0.1% of the population – there will be a lot more mild cases that will not have been confirmed, I’ve seen 4% as a guess as to the full infection rate in the country.
Despite the severity of the issue, that’s a very small part of the total population. In the absence of a vaccination, aren’t the majority of us going to have to get the infection before it starts to die out?
Isn’t the approach simply to spread the infections over a longer time to help the health services cope? I hope I’m wrong, but to drip feed the infections, won’t there need to be lockdowns of some severity or other for quite a while yet?
89 hours of NHS volunteering – no calls! They have obviously realised that I’m the sort of helper who can make things so much worse.
Confirmed cases of Coronavirus for Oxfordshire: population c. 690,000
14/3 – 22
21/3 – 44
28/3 – 113
4/4 – 356
11/4 – 653 (still under 0.1%)
(an Old Man in Lycra) 
Well, we are both lucky, it seems, to have nice places to run and cycle in the lockdown. And I think your summary of the Covid situation is right. I also reckon the antibody test will become the more important test to get, if and when such a thing becomes available. Stay safe.
(Once a Leicester boy, a long time ago!)
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