Day 36 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Disease Vectors

Day 36 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Disease Vectors

Byrichard

According to research done in Haute Savoie, France, children present a mild risk as disease vectors of the COVID-19 virus. According to this article in Le Matin, and a few other articles children are not as contagious.


L’enfant de 9 ans qui avait contracté le Covid-19 aux Contamines-Montjoie en Haute-Savoie n’a transmis le virus à personne dans les trois écoles qu’il a fréquentées,

The nine year old child, who contracted COVID-19 in Contamines-Monjoie in Haute-Savoie did not transmit the disease to anyone in the three schools where he went.


This would help to explain why they are deciding to open schools first, and to allow children to go to school. This is good news for children without brothers and sisters as they may finally have someone their own age to play with at last. Whether this means they will reopen swings is to be seen. I have seen seen individuals and their children playing on the swings on occasion.


If the return of children is a success then it means that parents too will be able to return to work in turn. For as long as their children are home they cannot leave them alone.


When looking at the roads today I think that I see more traffic both on motorways and on secondary roads. This might just be the monday effect, as shops open and people rebuild their stocks for the coming week.


I went for my usual two hour walk today and I went along a river before cutting up along a wood. In the process I walked by two tractors preparing fields for the next crop. When tractors till the soil they always attract swarms of birds looking for a free snack.


Agriculture during COVID-19


If you click through to the image on Flickr you will see birds of prey and seagulls looking for their snacks. This is a common sight. In the background you can also see that the fields of colza are nice, yellow and lush.


Agriculture during COVID-19


One of the side effects of the pandemic is that I have grown used to not hearing that many cars or planes during my walks and today, because traffic seemed heavier, I found that I desired for that quiet we had experienced to remain. It’s nice to walk without the sound of tires on tarmac all the time. After this pandemic is over I could quite happily go for a hike somewhere out of earshot of cars.


Day 36 Of Self Isolation in Switzerland.


I’m getting over two hours of exercise every single day during this pandemic. I’m getting enough sun and I’m staying healthy from that point of view. It helps with having good nights of sleep. I mention this because I see quite a few people mention that they are having difficulty in sleeping. So far although I could sleep more I am not finding it difficult to sleep through the night.


Day 35 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Hike To La Barillette.

Day 35 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Hike To La Barillette.

Byrichard

Today I went for a Hike from La Barillette to La Barillette. It’s a shame that the restaurant wasn’t open to the public. It is currently marked as private, and scheduled to open on the first of May. Today I didn’t expect to do a long and physical hike. I expected to complete my usual daily tasks and then to go for the usual walks around where I live. In the end I did do such a hike, but it involved a slightly different geographic location.





The road to the top is currently closed to cars but sneaky motorbikes and cyclists can still head up the mountain. Plenty of cars were parked along the road by the first barrier. Instinctively I expected that we would see plenty of people walking up and down the road to La Dole but that wasn’t the case. The road was busy with cyclists.


Groups of up to five cyclists at a time headed up to the mountain. Some looked comfortable heading up, others looked okay, and some looked to be making an effort. I was surprised to see one person riding up that hill on a tandem and to see someone else ride up the hill on an electric bike pulling a child’s trailer. I couldn’t see a child in either the child seat or the trailer but that’s still quite a bit of extra weight to get up a mountain. Although that’s a nice distraction it isn’t the reason for this blog post.


Self-isolation means that we have to keep distant from other people but walking along paths with high traffic makes that complicated. For those with a little more energy and a lot of time the solution is to walk from the base of the Jura to the top. Initially the plan was to go up via the road but my curiousity got the better of me so I checked on Komoot to see whether I could take a side road up to the top and when I saw that this was possible I took advantage.





You follow the yellow and the Red and blue markers. We took one wrong turn so we had to scramble through some underbrush and climb up an even steeper incline. At least two or three trees have fallen across the path but they can all be avoided by going either side of them.


Hiking To La Dole


The trail is not used as frequently as others so navigation can sometimes be more challenging. It’s good to have some previous experience of navigating in this type of landscape. There are no sign posts and the red and blue and yellow markings are irregular. Without Komoot I would have explored more. I know that the aim is to reach the top, so from that aspect the goal is simple, but you could spend time wandering around without getting where you want to be.


Hiking To La Dole


During the walk you go from paths that are wide enough for cars to drive along where orienteering is easy to narrower paths where navigation is hard.


Hiking To La Dole


In Summer, when the restaurant is open this would be a good variant. I would have enjoyed having a fondue or Entrecôte at the top. As it so happens that’s my dinner, but prepared by myself rather than someone else.


Hiking To La Dole


Hiking To La Dole


For people who love flowers now is the ideal time to go up. You see plenty of these flowers growing in patches all over the top of the mountain. You need to go just as the snow finishes melting to see them at their best.


Less worried about the Virus.


By meeting up with someone to do an activity I went against my self-isolation rules. Two weeks ago when I was asked if I wanted to go for a bike ride I flatly said no. Now that the virus appears to be on the decline and that the number of cases is dropping I am being less aggressive about my self-isolation. I still give as much distance between myself and others. We also met using two scooters, rather than catching the same car. When I was asked if I wanted to stop for a coffee I had to say no.


People were having a big song and dance about how we shouldn’t call it social distancing because social distancing has negative connotations. Today I wanted to say yes, and I wanted to get back to normal but I couldn’t because the rules are still in place and we’re not in the clear yet. Let me point out that this is day 35 of not having a conversation within normal conversation distance, or of a handshake or a hug. It would be nice to be able to say yes to all of these things.


People, in big families, will never understand what living through a pandemic, is like for people living alone.When we get the green light to meet people again we should celebrate, not by going to a bar but by going on a hike.


That’s it for today.

Day 34 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Daily Bike Ride
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Day 34 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Daily Bike Ride

Byrichard

When the Pandemic was just starting I thought that this would be perfect for a daily bike ride and I was tempted to go to the mountains and to do other things. I didn’t though, because emergency services said “Don’t monopolise our resources getting injured because we may be required to help with the COVID-19 situation. Within three or four weeks they changed their statement to “if you need help we’re still here, our emergency services are still working as normal.


Last year I broke my arm on a day of Canicule and I spent at least four hours waiting to be seen. The wait was so long that I started to lose patience. When finally I was seen, and the break was confirmed the doctor was smiling, almost laughing. “Normally when people break their arm they can’t rotate their wrist”. It shows that despite my interior monologue being impatient during the wait my exterior monologue was polite and courteous to the point where a doctor was relaxed and good-humoured.


I didn’t want to repeat this experience during a pandemic. My other concern, and reason for not cycling was that if the chain broke I would have to walk home, get the car, and then return and get the bike. To call for help would be to break self-isolation for myself and someone else and I was unwilling to do this. That’s why I walked everywhere within range of home.


During the bike ride I saw a lot of cyclists but what was really interesting is that there were more bikes than cars on the roads, at least on the roads I rode along. It was also interesting to see how I was cycling past some people so quickly. It seems that walking every day for so many months has a beneficial effect. It’s also because I am not fatigued.


If you view “Flybys” you will see that plenty of people are active.


As people can’t go to the shops, can’t go to the mountains, have walked enough, and more we find that plenty of people are actively cycling. Usually when I look at flyby information I see four or five bikes at a time. Today the map lit up in a way I have never seen before. Twenty people cycling simultaneously in twos or threes.


I overheard someone ask “so do we go down or do we go straight across”. They were new to cycling in the region. As I was doing the cycling equivalent of HYOH (Hike your own Hike), Bike your own bike ride, BYOB, not to be confused with the beer/beverage version, I just continued exploring.


Today’s route was different than usual because I had three variables. The first variable was that I wasn’t allowed to leave the Canton De Vaud. The second variable was that I couldn’t go into France so my usual ride segments were out of the question. The third variable was to ensure that the ride was not too short. I accomplished all three of these goals.


I got five personal records during this ride, which isn’t bad and for one segment I was in the top 5.4 percent. it won’t change my life. I got that time on a segment I love to race cars down. It’s a straight road and the bike lane is downhill so it’s easy to go fast. What was unusual is that I was giving so much power, but without burning out. When I stopped pushing it was to coast, rather than because I flamed out.


Blocksite is a Chrome plugin to block specific websites.


I downloaded a Chrome extension to block Twitter and Facebook. Neither of these sites provides me with what I need during this pandemic so rather than delete my accounts, as I almost did this morning, I blocked them. If websites don’t bring joy block them. Good mental health, during a pandemic, especially when self-isolating alone is essential.


As I write this blog post we’re getting the first rain in over a month. Finally the rivers will be able to get their fill. Imagine if I had been caught in the rain during my bike ride. I love the sound of rain on the veluxes.

Day 33 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A video walk
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Day 33 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A video walk

Byrichard

Today I went on a video walk with the DJI OSMO pocket three or whichever number it has and I took a series of frames. Before going for my daily walk I searched through the Vision Du Réel virtual Film Festival list of films and I found “The Bridge“. It’s available for all to watch during the festival. I didn’t watch it in full but from what I saw it’s a series of shots in the style of Dziga Vertov’s Man With the Movie Camera.


This inspired me to get out and go for a walk and try an experiment of my own. It’s nine minutes of footage of a village during lockdown in Switzerland. You can hear birds cheeping, banging of some kind or other, people playing in the distance and more. You can also see the occasional car, pedestrian or cyclist. If ever you wanted to go and get B-roll for a post-apocalyptic film it would be now.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsYjDnzj0EM
A few minutes of footage for a small village in Switzerland during self-isolation.


The footage was quickly edited using DaVinci resolve and I simply removed the chrominance. It would take seconds to prepare the version with normal colours. This is as an hommage to the vision Du Réel documentary.


Day 32 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Single Tab Open
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Day 32 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A Single Tab Open

Byrichard

I have a single tab open in Chrome at the moment, my main browser. This window, to write this blog post. We are now in Day 32 of self-isolation and I’m keeping myself distracted through blogging, making webpages mobile friendly and more. I’m also limiting the time I spend on news websites, social media and more. I have a five minute time limit on social media apps on my phones.


I wanted to write a Facebook post while on the escalators to go shopping but couldn’t because i was already up to the limit for today. Pandemics are funny because they end up being really boring. You can walk, you can run, you can river walk and you can cycle, but if you have technical issues you need to find a way home. You also need to creatively find routes that people are less likely to follow. People are discovering my snickets so I need to be more and more creative.


It would be so nice to get into the car and go somewhere but for now that idea is absurd. We have to wait for the right time. A few more weeks of nice weather and then, when the rain comes, we can start spending time outdoors again. I write this as a joke. It would suck if we did see that happen.


Coiffeurs, physiothérapeutes, jardineries et médecins seront autorisés à rouvrir leurs portes dès le 27 avril, a décidé jeudi le gouvernement.

Déconfinement coordonné et en trois étapes


From the 27th of April onwards people will be able to get their hair cut again, and to make it easier, people will be able to leave their children at kindergartens. On the 27th of April normal shops will be allowed to reopen and on the 11th of May children will go back to school. That’s if every step goes smoothly of course. In another article they mentioned that exams in Switzerland will be in August.


Poor teenagers, spending their summer holidays studying for exams. Does this mean they will head to university a month later?


When speaking with a neighbour/teacher two days ago he told me that some children and their parents went to secondary homes in France and other questions so the question is how will they get from their secondary homes back to Switzerland in order to start lessons on the required day? Is returning to Switzerland seen as a legitimate reason to drive over big distances?


Un été blanc et sec attend les festivaliers


Annulations Historique! Paléo, Montreux Jazz, Caribana, la Cité… Les grands rendez-vous prévus d’ici fin juillet devraient tirer la prise de leur édition 2020.

No festivals this summer


This summer may be one of the quietest in decades or even centuries. There is a chance that all of the music festivals will be cancelled for this summer. In one article I read that, if so many countries are still in lockdown then it isn’t worth going on a tour, as a band for just a few gigs.


The risk of forest fires is now severe enough for fires to be banned.


Although it feels like we’re nearing the end of the pandemic we can see that it’s still a month or more away, so our current lifestyle will have to be resilient enough to carry us through.


Time for a walk. See you later.

Day Thirty-One of ORCA in Switzerland — Plenty of Dust
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Day Thirty-One of ORCA in Switzerland — Plenty of Dust

Byrichard

You build up plenty of dust as you plow the fields at the moment. The drought continues, as does the desire for this pandemic to be over. For now, the downward trend continues so we could feel optimistic. I’m still optimistic than in two or three weeks recycling centres will go back to normal. At the moment recycling centres remind me of something else.





Looking at this queue of cars reminds me of something. All the engines are off. All the cars are lined up. Plenty of people are in their cars waiting. If you saw this in Calais you’d expect them either to be waiting for the Eurotunnel train to get back to England or for the ferries to take them.


This is an image of Swiss people waiting to get into a recycling centre. Despite this being the 31st day of the pandemic Swiss peoples’ desire and compulsion remains strong. For many people this is the lazy person’s equivalent of “getting out of the house for a bit”. I go for a one and a half hour walk and they sit in their cars, enjoying the fresh air, the tweets of the birds, and best of all a great view on the Mont Blanc. For the last two days we’ve had a good view.



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Colza and the Mt Blanc.

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Today I have spent very little time on Twitter and Facebook because I still can’t stand either of them. I’m thinking of deleting both accounts when this pandemic is over. I spent time modernising my weebsite instead. Pages that haven’t been changed since the late 90s are finally being updated and included within this CMS. The inspiration came as a result of seeing that Google told me in an e-mail that 21 pages were not AMP compatible.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEujwsNUxiE
in 1919 people made their own face masks as well. Getting a face mask on a cat does seem troublesome.


Last night I watched this during and after having dinner last night. I feel the need for watching people hike, and socialising. We’re now on day 31. We’re officially a month in. If we were in a different context then I would have almost completed one Via Alpina route by walking several hundred kilometres.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxg6Z6I4mxk


When I started reading about Thur-Hiking it was in blog form, with pictures, and then books, and occassionaly podcasts and then, during this pandemic, I started watching videos of people’s hiking adventures. It’s a way of seeing nice landscapes and imagining what would be possible in Europe. It’s good to plan for the future, and it’s good to have plans that do not require much or any contact with others. Via Ferrata, climbing and other sports may not start again for a while after the last new transmission of the virus. Hiking, however should be possible.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5F1llzscsQ
I haven’t watched this yet.


My project, for the next few days, is to continue shifting all my old website content to this blog. I should learn something new in the process.


I need to eat dinner now.

Day Thirty of ORCA in Switzerland — A Strong Desire to Go Hiking.
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Day Thirty of ORCA in Switzerland — A Strong Desire to Go Hiking.

Byrichard

I have a strong desire to go hiking. I would like to go on a hiking excursion that lasts for a few days. In theory I could do the Via Alpina route one starting in Nyon and ending in Lichtenstein. It’s a 21 step hike going north.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RsTPWkKZKk


I had lunch watching one and a half episodes of this video series. They’re short, lasting just ten minutes each so easy to fill spare time with. As I’m trapped walking around in various circles around where I live it’s nice to see people walking in a straight line from one side of a country to the other.


To do a long thru-hike would be social, at least in the US but also possibly in Europe. Hiking is usually a social activity. That is probably why I want to go hiking. In theory it has been thirty days since I last shook a hand or gave a hug. It may be even longer than that.


One of the things that isn’t discussed about self-isolation is that if you’re living alone when self-isolation hits you’ll be alone for the duration of the pandemic. It means that for however long the pandemic lasts you will have only yourself as company and conversations will, at best be from two meters away, but quite easily from one balcony to another, or from two sides of a road, taking wind into account.


I found that I really can’t stand Facebook and Twitter anymore because they’re used as RSS rather than a chat room and I’m looking to find conversations that I can join. My use of Flickr has gone up because at least that’s about sharing images. I also find that blogging helps.


“It’s incredibly useful both for us personally and on a historical level to keep a daily record of what goes on around us during difficult times,” said Ms. Franklin, author of “Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life,” which won the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award for biography.

Why You Should Start A Coronavirus Diary


The New York times has an article speaking about why it’s important to keep a diary. The reason for which I’m blogging on a daily basis about life during the Coronavirus pandemic is that it’s a historical record of thoughts I’ve had, but also to some degree a reflection of how self-isolation is experienced. The three-year-old toddlers who are experiencing this today will skirt the topic if they study modern history. Modern history is up to fifteen years ago so in their final year of school they will explore this pandemic.


During the Pandemic


Clicking on the image above will take you to the photos I have taken and added to the “During the Pandemic” album on Flickr.


See you tomorrow,

Day Twenty-Nine of ORCA in Switzerland – A Desire To Go On A Hike
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Day Twenty-Nine of ORCA in Switzerland – A Desire To Go On A Hike

Byrichard

We’re in day 29 of ORCA in Switzerland and I have an ever increasing desire to go for a hike. During today’s walk I listened to two podcasts about hiking and I walked yet another variant of my usual walk. Apple tree blooms are increasing in number and the Colza looks almost ready to harvest.


We’re also going into a dry summer. During this pandemic we have hardly had any rain for a month. The whole of Switzerland is either yellow, orange or red with the risk of fire. I’ve been walking outdoors with a t-shirt.


We could be under the illusion that Switzerland has beaten the virus but that’s an illusion, because the risk of a new center of contagion is possible. We have to continue self-isolating. Today two children cycled too close to me so I crossed to the opposite side of the road because they stopped and would pass me again.


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@ladylockoff had some fun photo shopping this picture of @marcusblatherskite and I. It reminds me of a similar picture that our friend Matt photo shopped. When I posted Matt’s ball pit bouldering photo my poor mother thought it was real and asked me how long it took to clean up all those balls. ????? Good times. 1rst photo by @ladylockoff 2nd photo by @matt_likes_climbing #climbingphotography #climbing_photos_of_instagram #climbinginspiration #climbing #climbinglovers #climbinggirls #climbing_is_my_life #climbing_worldwide #climbingrocks #climbingnation #climbinglife #outdoorclimbing #crackclimbing #tradclimbing #climbingpicturesofinstagram #iloveclimbing #climbing_pictures_of_instagram #climbingpics #rockclimbing #rockclimbinglife #climbon #liveclimbrepeat #climbingisbliss #climbingnation #climbingday #doyouclimb #rockclimber #climberlife

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Day Twenty-eight of ORCA in Switzerland – A Photo Walk
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Day Twenty-eight of ORCA in Switzerland – A Photo Walk

Byrichard

Today I went on a photo walk. Since walking far is now out of the question if you want to be consistently socially distanced it makes sense to go out with a different purpose. When the purpose of the walk is to take photos you can afford to walk up a hill, or between two people to avoid being too close.


A cat naps in a courtyard in the middle of the day during the 2020 Pandemic in Arnex-Sur-Nyon.


When I passed by the barn where cats love to spend time I found at least two of them having their afternoon siesta. Sometimes at this barn you can find quite a few of them.


Easter Road traffic during the 2020 Pandemic between Founex and Nyon.


Motorway traffic was quite dense today. People were apparently choosing to drive from one point to another. We will see what the impact of this public holiday will be on the number of new cases one to two weeks from now.


Three groups of people walk along an agricultural road in between Eysins and Mies.


This weekend plenty of people were walking along agricultural roads and as you can see they’re walking two to three abreast. These are single lane agricultural roads so if I had been walking along these roads I would have come within two meters of many people.


I really wish that during the pandemic people would have the same decency as hikers on narrow paths. That decency is to walk in single file, and to allow people enough space to pass safely. I look forward to when I can walk my ordinary paths, without worrying about passing too close to people.


People walking during the 2020 Pandemic in the Canton de Vaud, with the Alps in the background


Aside from having the pandemic as a reason to avoid large groups such as in the picture above I think another motivation is to avoid the feeling of loneliness that some of us could feel. Tomorrow will be week six without human contact for many of us. No hand shakes, no conversation closer than a meter and a half. No break from the solitude of a pandemic.


Solitude is when you’re alone living as usual. lonely is when you’re reminded of what you’re missing and you pine for something that you may not really need. When the order is to stay two or more meters away from people for one and a half months seeing other people with the company of another person is already sub-optimal. Imagine seeing a crowd of up to five people.


I started compiling a collection of hiking documentaries on Youtube. One of them is a hike from Switzerland to the mediterranean and the others are hikes in the United States. It may seem paradoxical that after so much walking I would be thinking of walking even more but I love the idea of walking for a few days and seeing different places. I like the idea of leaving civilisation for a while.





There’s a good chance that rock climbing, via ferrata and other sports will not be possible for at least a few weeks so it makes sense to think about things we can do alone or in small groups. Maybe this will be the year when I do at least one variant of the Via Alpina. We will see, once the pandemic has run its course.


Camera used to take pictures










Day Twenty-seven of ORCA in Switzerland – River Walking
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Day Twenty-seven of ORCA in Switzerland – River Walking

Byrichard

My shoes are wet and my socks are wet because today I tried river walking. If a child was to do the same it would be called immature and irrational but when an adult does it then it’s adventure, and trying something new.


My motivation to river walk came from the pandemic, or more precisely from how people behave during a pandemic. When I walked yesterday I had a runner pass right by me and then spit on the ground a few meters ahead of where I would have been going. When I walked through the woods yesterday I could hear groups of people so I avoided walking along the same routes.


That’s why I placed both feet, and the shoes they were in, into the river and walked. I didn’t get that far. In fact I was only able to walk a few dozen meters before finding that the river would have required wading. I wasn’t prepared to do that. We’re not in a heatwave yet.


Channels are dug into the rocks


Although you can’t really see it in the image above grooves have been worn into the rock strata. As a result you shouldn’t spend all of your time looking forward because you’ll be caught out. River walking requires you to look at where you’re placing your feet. In the image below you can see these erosion patterns more clearly.


Grooves in the rock
Grooves in the rock


I’ve walked along the routes so much that now I’m starting to get to know the details. Now I know that the river is beautiful and that if you’re willing to get wet you can see some nice features. There are a few places I need to return to, and document through photography.


This morning I was looking through to see if Thru-hiking had started and to see whether people would still try to thru hike any of the main trails in the US and from what I see most people have not started and those that did have postponed their hikes for now.


As a follow up to this I listened to this episode of the Hiking Thru podcast. It’s about Chris Smead going for a lesser known Thru hike with eleven lenses, seventy five batteries and a monopod to document a hike with a group of people. The hike sounds like an interesting experience. It also makes a nice change from listening to so many news and current affairs programs. A moment to dream.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=161&v=dbkE6UbIiAU


I will keep exploring. To a large degree I treated today as if there was no pandemic and that was refreshing. I still washed my hands as soon as I got home. I just didn’t stay cooped up indoors without treating myself. Exploration is a treat.