Covid-19 (’22)

Well, I have it. Now. (updated Day #4 – WE have it now)

It’s well over two years now since our ‘Dick’ of a Prime Minister said that

• A) “everyone should stop non-essential contact and travel” and later
• B) that the UK can “turn the tide of coronavirus in 12 weeks” (via this link). FFS!

During the first eight months Covid-19 unofficially claimed my dad (link) and ‘officially’ claimed my mum (link).

The UK Government eventually took two months from when the World Health Organisation declared a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’ to lock the country down.

During those two years, the Government’s political strategist Dominic Cummings broke the law by driving to Durham and then to Barnard Castle, to test his eyesight!  The staff and residents of Number 10 Downing Street held a variety of parties during 2020 and 2021, while the rest of us were ‘locked-down’ and restricted from seeing the rest of our families.

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59952395
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59577129

None of that seems to have affected the government, except for several by-election losses that they can afford (They currently have a working majority of 73 seats)

Final restrictions were lifted in March 2022. Too early in my mind, but hey ho!
(In Spain, they still have to wear masks on public transport!)

So anyway, I have finally succumbed to whatever the current variety of Covid is. (Link)

It started a tickly cough, a headache and a runny nose when I woke yesterday (a summer cold?). However, because it was Chester’s 4^th Birthday and they were coming around for lunch, I took a Covid test as a precaution. Well, I am led to believe that the NHS-provided antigen tests are not fool-proof and that they have often given false-negative results, but, their record for positive tests is exemplary. Mine didn’t take long to jump up to two bars and stay there.

I have the plague.

As the day went by I became very tired and my joints began to ache, so I took myself off to bed and dosed myself with paracetamol and ibuprofen. I slept fairly well on Sunday night but the headache and cough had become worse by morning. The cough continues to get worse as the day goes by. I’m still tired, but my joints have stopped hurting (which could be because I’m still in bed, or thanks to the ibuprofen). Nevertheless, had I not had the test I would have just put these two days (so far) down to serious man-flu.

Hopefully, this will quickly pass quickly and I will luckily have had the milder version, rather than the early 2020 version which no one was prepared for and which many, sadly, died from.

Cartoon Credit: https://www.boredpanda.com/comics-coronavirus-tips-jubes-comic-blog-julie-liu/
Screenshot image: via The Poke.
Man Flu image credit: https://www.pinterest.com.au/quinto2016/_saved/
Toon clips – link on image.

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Addendum

Well, day 3 wasn’t pleasant and it certainly wasn’t man-flu. It was also the day that Sharon tested positive and gradually went downhill as the day went by.

I had a thumping headache all day and my ribs became quite sore with all of the deep chest coughing I was doing. I still felt tired, so I tried staying in bed but the bang, bang, bang inside my head was far from relaxing. I eventually got up after lunch (I still have an appetite) and as the weather looked good, I spent the afternoon mowing the lawn and trimming the hedge. Whilst the various pains were there, they faded into the background. The headache seemed to recede as we watched T.V. but came back big-time as we went to bed.

Day 4 has started with the same bang, bang, bang inside my head, but the coughing doesn’t seem to be as deeply seated – it’s still painful but not as much as yesterday. Hopefully the corner has been turned for me. Sharon, on the other hand is more poorly than yesterday. She doesn’t have the same headache, or depth of cough, but she’s tired and listless.

Addendum #2

Sharon’s illness didn’t last as long as mine and she tested negative some days before me. My own negative test was on the tenth day. Luckily, as we had planned to travel to Wales on the Wednesday.

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Ireland – Dublin

I HAVE PUBLISHED THIS TO THE WRONG ADDRESS. 
SEE https://dsugdenholidays.wordpress.com/ FOR OTHER BLOGS IN THIS SERIES

We left the cottage about 10:00am on Tuesday morning. Sharon and I were dropped off at the railway station, from where we would travel, by train to Dublin. The others would continue on by car and meet us there.  We’d decided to do it this way as the journey would be much more comfortable for all concerned.

Our tickets were €19.99 each – which I thought was a bargain for a journey took around two and a half hours. The weather was atrocious. Nevertheless, the rain had stopped when we arrived and we easily found the tram stop outside Dublin Hueston station and eventually made our way, via said tram, and short walk, to our hotel on O’Connell Street. We met the others there and then set off walking along the riverside to The Carlton Hotel on Macken Street, where Gail and Jaime were to have their antigen tests prior to travelling back to the USA. Randox, with whom they had their bookings had a facility there. However, having eventually found the hotel, there was a sign outside saying that Randox had moved to the Maldron Hotel on Pearse Street, which meant more walking, and now it was raining again.

Once all of that was finished we stopped in Sapori di Pizza, a small café on Pearse Street for a light (but very delicious) snack, prior to splitting up and continuing our late afternoon stroll. Sharon, Jaime and I walked on to Temple Bar in what was now pretty annoying rain and after stopping in a few places to shelter, we headed back over the river via the Ha’penny Bridge. Dodging in an out of shops, we eventually made it to Madigans, the pub next door to our hotel. Despite warnings that drinks in Dublin would be very expensive, we paid less than €10 for 1pt. Guinness, 1pt Island’s Edge and ½ local lager, which seems ok (£8.50 ish).

The others joined us for another round before walking around the corner to Brannigan’s for a ‘snack’. The snacks were not small, but we shared. Once we got back to the hotel Jaime, Derrick and I went to the bar for a final drink and then we were all early to bed as we had to be up early for our various flights. And that was that – a lovely first visit to Ireland.

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Reasons to be cheerful (not)

The fast transmissibility of the Omicron variant of Corona Virus has started to make life more and more uncertain for populations all over Europe. Governments across the continent have responded heavily to the threat of its quicker spread. Although first signs are that it is a milder form, it passes from host to host much more quickly than previous strains and would now appear to have replaced the Delta Variant as the most dominant.

Because of that uncertainty, our friends have returned to the UK from Spain a little early, not wishing to be caught out by whatever reaction the Spanish Government make over the coming days and weeks. The local Andalusian Junta have already decreed that anyone wanting to ‘enter’ any form of hospitality venue, has to show their Covid pass. For us, this has meant showing our NHS App, which details our state of vaccination.

Just today, the Spanish Government have reintroduced the necessity of wearing a facemask at all times when out of the home. The exceptions to this are if you are out in the countryside or on the beach, provided that a 1.5 metre distance can be kept from others.

We feel (rightly or wrongly) that one possible next move will be to forbid movement between Provinces (e.g. we would be prevented from leaving Malaga Province), but maybe not until after Three-Kings which is celebrated on the evening of 5^th January every year. A step up from that would be for the Province (Andalucia) to prevent movement between its Municipalities (e.g. we would not be able to leave Fuengirola to go to Mijas or Benalmádena). But, that would be going right back to the early days when deaths were increasing and hospitals were overflowing. Hopefully, that is not going to be the case just now.

The practical effect of all these changes is that airlines may cancel flights that they have currently listed, thereby making it harder for anyone to fly (home in our case). We can only wait and see, and hope that we can still complete everything we came here for.

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Daylight Saving

I had my Coronavirus (Covid-19) ‘booster’ jab yesterday.

Mainly because I understand that whilst the science behind it is not yet perfect, the vaccine will hopefully help to protect me from contracting a serious form of this virus. After all, I have had a ‘flu-jab’ every year, without a problem.

Along with wearing my mask in crowded places, shops and similar public spaces and regularly sanitising my hands – I feel that I am doing my best for me, for my family and for the public at large.

But at what cost!  My arm hurt so much last night that I felt at times like gnawing it off.

This morning it is still sore, but has been helped by the extra (luxurious) hour in bed that we are allowed every October when the mornings brighten up a little (but for only a short while).

Why, in this day and age do we still move our clocks backwards and forwards??? The Scots must hate it.

https://www.westerntelegraph.co.uk/news/19684128.clocks-go-back-2021-change-clocks-uk/

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/weather/2021/02/24/why-daylight-saving-time-

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Safe Keeping

When my dad started ‘clearing out’ after my mum had gone into a care home, I managed to rescue the safe we had bought for him some years ago. He never used it and I thought that I might.

However, the timing was not quite right as we very soon moved (or had moved) into an apartment, where there really was no room for it. It couldn’t be fastened down anywhere anyhow as we had underfloor heating. So, I put it in our newly built hut.

It wasn’t fastened down in the hut either and took up space, so I decided to put some of my earlier year’s accounts in it – rather than anything that I might seriously miss if the door wouldn’t open one day. I checked that the door-code worked fairly regularly for a while but then, over a couple of winters – I didn’t – and the batteries failed. To open the door now, I needed to find the ‘emergency’ key.

When dad eventually went into the care home himself, we had cleared out his house and had found more keys than any man should own. We had found use for those we could and threw the rest away. None of them appeared to be one that might open a safe. So, for the last year at least I have wondered just ‘how’ I will open the safe and retrieve my old account records.

Well finally today, I have managed that.

• 

• 

I took a hammer and chisel to the back seam (well done Yale – that’ll sort us safe crackers) and peeled back the rear of the safe. How good did I feel!!!

Guess where the key was ……

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Online Medical Advice

I mentioned my Plantar Fasciitis in a post I made on June 19^th. https://saturdaywalks.wordpress.com/2021/06/19/plantar-fasciitis/

I still have the sore foot!

After two months of pain and religiously following the information and advice available for my condition on NHS site I was no better, so when I re-read the advice, I noticed that I had misread the ‘but see a GP if the pain does not improve within 2 weeks’ as 2 months!

After two months, it was much worse and I needed help.

However, what has happened to all the doctors? I was wary of calling the local practice because of all the comments I’d seen and heard about doctors (everywhere, not just local) hiding behind their telephones and not seeing anyone.

Since March last year, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been an understanding that doctors (and nurses) have been at the forefront of the crisis. It’s thanks to them that the NHS has survived the crisis (so far).  I’m not sure how close to the front-line family practitioners have been, but for most of this time it has been quite understandable that they have been cautious about when and how to see their patients. 

Anyway, I rang. I was third in line but was answered in less than 10 minutes (some folks talk about being seventeenth in line and of being ‘held’ for much longer than that). The receptionist was polite and patient as I explained the problem and she asked if it was urgent. I told that it was urgent only in as much as I had already had the pain for two months and simply wanted to know what to do that would help me get better.

A doctor rang me back within about two hours.

We discussed the pain and the exercises I was doing – he decided that something stronger than ibuprofen would be better, given the lack of progress my current drug regime was having and prescribed Naproxen to be taken twice a day. To prevent the stomach problems that often accompany the use of this drug he also prescribed Lansoprazole, to be taken once a day. This intervention seems to be working well, as after two weeks the pain is much better. It’s still not right, but I guess the residual pains I still have are those associated with walking strangely for over two months.

Naproxen is Long Acting and Ibuprofen is Short Acting

One of the most important differences is the length of time they act for. Ibuprofen is considered a short-acting NSAID, with a relatively quick onset of action. It is better suited for the treatment of acute pain […] Naproxen is considered long-acting, and can be given twice daily. It has a slower onset of effect and is better suited for the treatment of chronic conditions.

From: https://www.drugs.com/medical-answers/naproxen-ibuprofen-difference-3117722/

So, there you go. I’m getting better slowly, but the inability to go out on my 4-8 miles walks is driving me mad. Sitting around the house is boring (although I have borrowed a bicycle from a friend – which helps).

We move house next week, so look out for a fairly long rant about other professionals hiding behind Covid-19.

Picture from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_doctor_on_the_telephone_(which_is_linked_up_to_a_televisio_Wellcome_V0011546.jpg#filelinks – see CC licence there.

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Plantar Fasciitis

It’s been a good while since I first experienced plantar fasciitis, (PF) but this week it has bitten me hard. Luckily, I know all of the techniques for easing it and I have just picked up a spiky ball from Pennine Physio.

This will replace the tennis ball I have been using hitherto.

I’ve also bought a new pair of boots this week. Finally!

I’d bought a pair of Merrell boots last July and only wore them around the house and the village before flying out to Spain (without them) on August 31^st. However, once they got some real use, during the locked-down U.K. winter, they failed big-time. First of all, they leaked and then they split along a seam (despite regular and careful application of dubbin). I complained to Merrell, but they ignored me. Mr. Amazon understood however, and the boots were returned to them with a full refund.

I’d started to wear Merrell’s footwear following my first bout of PF because their trainers were comfortable and supportive.  They also had a good reputation. The first few pairs I bought were perfect for walking here in England and up in the coastal mountains of Spain. Over the years however, they have become much less reliable – I guess that’s due to poor and inconsistent quality control in the sweatshops they use for manufacture. I’d bought the boots I mentioned earlier, because a previous pair had lasted three or four years and had been great.

Poor show Merrell.

So, once the boots went back to Amazon, I was without any walking footwear and, due to the continuing lockdown, getting to a specialist walking shop was impossible. So, I bought a pair of cheap boots locally, to tide me by. That was a bad mistake which resulted in painful toes and the loss of one toenail.

I heard of Mountain Feet in Marsden via Facebook (someone in the Marsden group had asked for his details – so having not previously been aware, I did some research and like what I saw).

Mountainfeet’s major speciality is in expert footwear fitting. [They are] highly committed to educating customers on the benefits of knowing more about their feet and good fitting practice.  To this end [..] Mountainfeet offers a much more comprehensive service than most other footwear shops.

The online booking system works a treat but despite offering up to ten 1-hour appointments per day, I had to wait almost two months to get mine. My fitting and unrushed discussion of needs, including my ultimate purchase, took up most of that hour.

Hopefully, when my PF feels a little better, I can get around to trying them on for a real walk. I’m fed up of ‘resting’ my foot now – at least in Spain I could use the scooter I bought following my previous bout of PF. https://dsugdenholidays.wordpress.com/2016/03/23/semanta-santa-2016/

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Voting

Once upon a time, I actually voted Conservative.

I’d just gained the age to vote and Edward Heath seemed to be a really nice chap. He became Prime Minister on June 19th 1970, having defeated Harold Wilson nationally. However, my vote didn’t affect the local result and the incumbent, J. P. W. Mallalieu (Labour) retained his long-held seat. He had been the sitting M.P. for Huddersfield or Huddersfield East, since 1945. His role in Huddersfield has, since 1979, been taken up and maintained by Barry Sheerman, who is currently the second longest serving Member of Parliament. It is my experience that he is approachable and works hard for his constituents.

Only afterwards, during Heath’s tenure, did I really start to notice (and as I began working, after college) how little the Tory Party cared about the NHS, and how little they knew about people like me or cared about people with backgrounds unlike their own. In my mind they were the selfish party; the party that looked backwards, rather than forwards. That’s not to say that there are no decent Tories, just that they tend not to rise up and take power.

From then on, I tended to vote for whatever the Liberal Party called themselves both locally and nationally and I did so for an awful long time. I even canvassed for them once. Their policies seemed to be fair.

I’d moved out of Huddersfield by now and our local Liberal M.P. Richard Wainwright was a great chap. He worked for his community and for the people he knew from visiting local clubs end events.  After him came two terms of Tory (hard to say how effective he was, we hardly saw him), three terms of Labour (which passed me by), and two terms of Tory again from 2010. In 2017 we actually elected a really great M.P. (Labour). Thelma Walker involved herself in all areas of local life and she’d even stop and chat to constituents whilst shopping in Aldi, or passing by in the street.

Sadly, she lost her seat to her predecessor, following the media fuelled public backlash against Jeremy Corbyn.

My current, Tory, MP is not seen about as often (certainly not by me) and he follows the party line pretty much all of the time. I wrote to him recently to ask if he could oppose the takeover UK doctors’ surgeries by large American corporations. The reply was a mealy-mouthed, company script that compounded the lies we see and hear about the NHS every day from his party.

I stopped voting Liberal after the 2010 election when their leader Nick Clegg got them into bed with David Cameron’s Tories. That was it for me – never again. I should have realised that it might happen as my friend Jim, now sadly departed, always used to say “scratch a Liberal-find a Tory “.  At that election the liberals had their best chance of achieving many of their main aims such as free university education, and most importantly, proportional representation. Both, sadly unrealised as the party revelled in their position as Tory lapdogs.

We have local and Mayoral elections coming up this week. So now, with my hopes of a successful outcome to Brexit dashed and a raging pandemic that has given the most crooked Tory government I’ve experienced every opportunity to raid the coffers and to line their own pockets – I have the chance once again to choose who I vote for. I’d like to vote Green throughout but they have very little chance of upsetting the two-party balance. Nevertheless, Andrew Cooper has my vote, alongside Tracy Brebin. I wish either of them every success.

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Boot lids

From our apartment, we have the ideal vantage point for seeing many of the comings and goings along the canal nearby.

We often see groups (not always as dictated by Covid rules) take picnics along the bank. When I say picnics, I mean fish and chips from one of the two chip-shops or burgers from Rumpus. That’s fine – everyone takes their rubbish away with them (although the local rubbish bins to get over-full at weekends). We also see groups (ditto Covid rules) walking along the canal, enjoying take-away coffees from one of the many hot-drink vendors in the village.

• https://www.facebook.com/northernsolecafe/
• http://www.ruddisretreat.org/menus/
• https://www.facebook.com/VanillaBeanSlaithwaite/
• https://thecookhousecafe.com/
• https://www.omiswheretheheartis.co.uk/

However, the funniest thing we’ve seen in a while was this morning.

A car had parked opposite us and the owner had obviously been taking his/her dog for a walk along the canal. When they returned, the boot was ‘electronically’ popped open and the dog jumped in. The boot was then ‘electronically’ closed and the driver returned to his/her driving position. However, the dog’s tail or something else must have stopped the boot from closing properly and we saw it pop back open. The driver didn’t notice and set off up the towpath. 

The dog fell out!

The dog was unhurt, but looked completely nonplussed – as if to say WTF? It took a second or two for the driver to notice that he/she was driving without the dog and that the boot was open.  All ended happily with dog inside and boot closed properly.

So, be careful with your electronic boot.

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Subscriptions

Readers will have seen adverts for Britbox and ITV HUB+, both want to ‘sell’ the same (or at least similar) service to us. They are subscription channels. You have to pay to see repeats that you have already paid for in one way or another!

They ‘sell’ programmes that have previously been broadcast terrestrially via BBC or ITV (or both in the case of Britbox). But surely, we have already paid for these programmes via the U.K. T.V. licence (which has to be paid ‘by law’ if we want to watch live T.V.) and by watching the advertisements on ITV. I know that the subscriptions are advert free – but why do we have to pay to watch those programmes AGAIN? Why?

For almost a year now, because of Covid-19, our evening entertainment has been limited to whatever we can find to watch on T.V.  Prior to Covid, we could go and see friends, go out for a beer or maybe a meal.  Of course, we didn’t do that every night, nor every week, but because of the various Covid lockdowns last year and this, those other options for evening entertainment have been restricted.

We rarely watch live T.V. anyway, despite paying the annual T.V. licence as required. This is partly because we no longer have the Humax to ‘freeze’ the live broadcast and also because even with our Smart T.V. we find freezing (pausing) live T.V. impossible.  We like to ‘freeze’ a programme whenever we make a cup of tea for example, or when someone phones – otherwise we would miss a great deal of whatever we were watching.

Because of our trips to Spain, where we have no access to U.K. T.V. we have a subscription to Netflix, so that we might watch something on dark winter evenings. We also have a subscription to Amazon Prime, partly because Sharon buys so much online (and Prime does ensure prompt delivery) but also because we can watch their Prime Video service too. Both services have steadily improved over the years and there are some really good programmes to be found on there.

When lockdown #1 started last year, we also decided to subscribe to Disney Channel as it allowed us to watch all of the Star Wars films (and a couple of related ‘series’) and all of the Marvel Avengers films.  We’d seen most of the films before but not in sequence and – a big bonus to me as Sharon does not like watching the same film twice – we had agreed to watch them all again – in order (which helped to make more sense of the Marvel Avengers Universe).

Here in the U.K. (but only via VPN whilst abroad), we watch BBC via iPlayer and ITV via ITV Hub. As I’ve said, we rarely watch anything live, so we can choose when to watch programmes and via catch-up we can ‘freeze’ whenever we want. Other catch-up channels are available too, and depending on what we want to watch, these might also be utilised.

But will we subscribe to Britbox and ITV HUB+?  No.

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Avengers image via https://www.flickr.com/photos/tales2astonish/6976087418 – with thanks.
Old T.V. image via https://www.flickr.com/photos/potrzebie/6088059547 – with thanks.
Star Wars image via https://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonliebigstuff/2342481284 – with thanks.

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