March 28th: Technology, toilet rolls and sparrows

Our best friends FaceTimed me this morning. A 100% rock solid video chat on my iPhone whilst sat in my kitchen. It's a technology we now take for granted, but what if we didn't have it? Only yesterday I was chatting to my daughter about how she's keeping in touch with her boyfriend who lives a few miles way, but she now can't see for the foreseeable future. I mentioned that if this was the "old days" the only way they'd have of staying in touch would be a telephone call, and before telephones were invented by writing letters (as my parents did). And for those of a certain era - mine, what about "pen friends"? Remember those? I had a penfriend in Brunei. Had to write proper letters on airmail paper (lightweight so it was cheaper to airmail). Nowadays with FaceTime/Skype (other apps are available) you can video call anyone anywhere.
And as if my magic, there's a thought provoking article on the BBC website this morning asking how we would have coped if this virus outbreak had happened in 2005? It's not that long ago, but technology has moved on immeasurably in those 15 years.

However, having praised the technological era we currently live in....
I'm trying to find a way for the cricket club committee to "get together" as we are due a meeting in the next couple of weeks and we have a lot to discuss. There's about 14 of us, so the tech options are great, but the problem is our technical skills range from the excellent to the luddite, so not quite sure how it's going to work yet.

My wife and I went for a 30 minute constitutional around the local park this afternoon. Not many people about as you'd expect, a couple of families kicking a ball about and a few dog walkers. Still feels very odd and slightly disconcerting consciously moving well out of the way of people as they approach. At the end of our walk we went to our local Lidl for a few essentials. Bread (which was almost non-existent (it was 3pm on a Saturday), a few fresh vegetables, tomato puree (none). There were some toilet rolls, and we did buy some, the first time we have since "toiletrollgate" kicked off. Walking back to the house I mused that 1) there was almost a feeling of guilt for carrying a pack of toilet rolls, and 2) we were quite possible a high target for a mugging for the same reason.

Still on toilet rolls, saw this photo on Twitter posted by the author Stephen King. Thought it was quite funny. If you're not a SK fan, you'll have to Google It (see what I did there? 😉).

Copyright Stephen King

Whilst I'm trying to keep this log of my experience of the whole coronavirus situation fairly light touch, and not dwell on the science, politics and so on, be in no doubt about how serious this is. I saw another tweet earlier that suggested we were fighting two things. coronavirus and stupidity, and there's enough of the second to make you wonder just how idiotic some people are. Like those people from Bristol who today were urned back from walking up Pen-y-Fan by Brecon police, or those out in the Peak District having a picnic. This isn't an excuse for a holiday folks. This is serious. And if you didn't understand that, then the news today that the number of UK deaths has risen above 1,000, but that the Medical Director for England thinks the UK will have done well if it can keep the number of deaths below 20,000 should make you stop and think. That's another 19,000 deaths - and if that is the figure we'll have done well........ that's why we're doing what we're doing what we've been asked to do. Stay at home. #stayhomesavelives

Cat update.
Me 1 : 0 Cat
Saw her sneaking round the side of the house with a sparrow in her mouth earlier. Got her to drop it, and for a moment I though it was an ex-sparrow lying there apparently all mis-shapen and breathing it's last but as I went to pick it up to dispose of it, it flew away. That's one life saved anyway.

Footnote. I know this blog only has a handful of readers (thank you all). It's as much a cathartic experience for me as anything else, but please feel free to share.