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War in Ukraine

Pic of the week 27/2/22

With no home matches this Saturday, I wasn’t needed to referee so finished the day a little earlier. It was a beautiful day and, as I arrived home, Becky – who had at last tested negative after two weeks of positive tests – was about to set of for a walk, so I joined her.  Parking at the Hood layby, we walked down into Compton Dundun, looped round the village and back to the car.  It was only a 40 minute romp, but it was lovely to get out in the sunshine and se definite signs of spring on its way. A real treat.

Today, after swimming (I pulled/tweaked my hamstring last Saturday, so haven’t run since – could possibly have run today, but decided to give it a bit longer to heal) I spent the rest of the morning in the garden – another beautiful day with blue skies and warm sun – when you were in it. I continued to tidy the area by the compost bins, and then gave the buddleia a significant chopping back, only stopping when the car could fit no more for a tip run.

And yet the dawning of spring is marred by conflict in Ukraine.  Earlier this week, Russia launched an invasion into its neighbour. It is bloody and brutal, full on shooting war in Europe. The only positive is is that it doesn’t appear to be going the way Putin planned it, the resolve of Ukraine has been steadfast, Russia has become a pariah state, the west is unifying around the need to support Ukraine and, I suspect, in the long term this will mark the end of Putin and weaken Russia as a global player – it has been shown that if you stand up to them,  they can be beaten. However, the price Ukrainians (and, to be fair, many of the Russian soldiers – mere conscripts who are not sure why they are there) will be high. I think we are living through an event as globally important as the fall of the Soviet Bloc in 1989, 9/11 and the Covid pandemic. The world will be different a year from now.

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Plague House!

Pic of the week 20/2/22

It was, perhaps, inevitable. Since the pandemic arrived two years ago, none of the four of us have had Covid, until now.

Last Sunday, Becky started snuffling, and blaming me for giving her my cold. On Monday morning she did a Covid test and it was positive.  She has since tested daily, and each day the two lines appear, returning a positive result.

So that scuppered our plans to meet Sam in Bristol on Tuesday, but he also did a test on Monday which came back positive.  So both Becky & Sam confined to barracks for the week.  Sophie & I (Sophie came home on the Friday before Becky tested positive) tested daily, but negative.  I suspect that Becky may have picked up the illness when she went to the theatre (with Sophie!) on Saturday 12th Feb.  Sophie returned to Reading on Thursday, but then, today, Sunday, tested positive.

I’ve kept my distance from Becky, been sleeping in Sam’s room, and the house is well ventilated so, one week on, I’m quietly confidence I will escape its clutches. However, if I do fall ill, not sure what I’ll have to do as tomorrow our idiot Prime Minister Johnson (the worst PM of my lifetime) is set to abandon all Covid protocols …

We wouldn’t have been able to do anything on Friday anyway as we were battered by Storm Eunice. At least we new it was coming, we were in a Red Warning zone and my, were the winds strong, starting a little later than predicted at circa 9am and lasting the morning and into early afternoon.  Next door (down the hill) had  a few ridge tiles blown off their roof, narrowly missing the Corsa (which sailed through its MOT this week – I had put two new tyres on the front, and new wiper blades – all it needed was a drivers side track rod end) and my recycling centre got blown over (fixed it yesterday), however given the damage that was done across the South West, I think we got off lightly.  Is now windy once again, but nothing as bad as Friday.

Storm Eunice – the aftermath

I have done a lot in the garden this week – plenty of cutting back.  A good time to do it before all the new growth kicks in.  All the while I’ve been outside I’ve enjoyed the clumps of daffodils that have sprouted in my lawn.

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Hall

Pic of the week 13/2/22

We’ve decided to have the hall re-tiled.  Becky has found the tiles she (we!) like, and a man to come and lay them. On Friday he announced that he was ready to come and do them – perhaps a little sooner than we had anticipated.

Anyway, I spent much of the weekend lifting the carpet, underlay,  gripper rods and lino from the utility room and taking it to the tip, and then giving the floor a good clean,  Today we ordered the tiles (circa £600) – will probably come later this week – and then hopefully get them laid the week after, so exciting times.

Relapse.

Having said how I’d got over my cold in last week’s blog post, it came back with a vengeance. Perhaps swimming on Monday evening was not such a good idea, on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday I felt pretty grotty; by Friday I seemed to be over the worst and that does seem to have persisted into the weekend – not having to work (am now on half term) has probably helped.

First daffodil.

Got home earlyish from work on Friday (Half term began at 3pm) and spotted a single, yellow daffodil flower in a trug at the bottom of the garden.  The first of the year! Just as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, one daffodil doesn’t mean Spring has arrived, but with its appearance, along with a number of others showing promise and lighter evenings (’til, say, 5.30pm?) one does begin to hope that the worst is over, and better days will come (although it looks like halve term is going to be grey, damp & windy, rather than filled with blue sky and sunshine, which is a shame.)

 

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Sore Throat

Pic of the week 6/2/22

This week I have been suffering with a sore throat.  It first manifested itself on Saturday last week (29th Jan) which coincided with me being pinged by Track & Trace as a close contact, so I initially thought “well, this is it …” but I’ve tested daily and all have come back clear.  So just a good old fashioned sore throat, five weeks into term.

I didn’t swim on Monday as it was really quite sore, on the right side of my throat, and also manifesting itself as a little bit of earache.  As the week went on, it swapped to the left side, was still quite sore on Wednesday and Thursday. I woke up on Saturday and it had pretty much gone by then and today has been fine as well.

The pic of the week is a today’s “Wordle.” I began playing this game in the Christmas holidays, and have got Becky into it, who got the children to start doing it too. I like the way that it is one puzzle a day – something to challenge on a daily basis, but not something all consuming.  I wonder if I’ll still be playing it on a daily basis when I re-read my year’s posts at the end of the year, or I’ll be going “Wordle, oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that.”