Day 75 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Switzerland Expects to Return to Normality within weeks

Day 75 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Switzerland Expects to Return to Normality within weeks

Byrichard

Switzerland “expects to return to normality” within the next few days and weeks. As of tomorrow groups of up to thirty people will be able to meet. That’s good for all of the activities that I like to do. It means that the Via Ferrata, hiking, climbing, and other seasons can begin shortly.


D-Day – 6th of June 2020


From the 6th of June onwards cinemas, theatres, zoos, ski lifts, camps, swimming pools, and higher education will begin again. The article doesn’t specify whether people will have to space themselves out in the cinema or if people can cluster again. From that day groups of four or more will be able to meet in restaurants.


D-Day + 2 – 8th of June


From the 8th of June public and private events grouping, people of up to three hundred people will be possible with protective measures still in place. It’s not clear whether this means maintaining the two-meter rules, no contact, etc.


Businesses will be able to recruit from the EU and other countries from then on.


How It Feels


It feels awesome to read this news. I didn’t dare get my hopes up, or allow my enthusiasm to trick me into being disappointed yet again. At this stage it looks promising. We’re a week or two from social lives for those living alone to be booted up again. It’s such a relief.


I think that to ease back into normal life I’d like to hike, cycle and do other such sports where proximity to others is less frequent. I don’t feel the urge to return to climbing and Via Ferrata yet. The advantage of hiking and cycling is that we don’t need to use a car to reach the starting point.


I feel no urge to rush back to using the car for every sporting activity.

The Walking Paradox
|

The Walking Paradox

Byrichard

Today I noticed how quiet the world, or at least the area in which I was walking, was. I saw very few cars, very few people walking, and very little noise from other people.


This doesn’t mean that people weren’t out and about. Although my route was for the most part deserted of people I did encounter crowds at two or three points. I think a man said “hello” but I ignored him for the cardinal sin of not walking single file, down a path, with his companion during the closing days of a pandemic.


“What does it matter?”, you may ask. I would love to do a group hike or a group Ferrata but I can’t because from a scientific point of view Switzerland is not yet clear of the virus. Meeting in groups of more than five is currently still forbidden. The groups I usually go with could be up to twelve people or more. I don’t know how long I will have to wait for the opportunity to do social activities once again.


Day 63 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A 15 Kilometre Loop

Day 63 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – A 15 Kilometre Loop

Byrichard

Today I walked a 15-kilometre loop because I saw people walking two abreast and decided to retrace my steps a short distance before trying a new bifurcation. By the end of this walk, my legs were starting to get tired. I walked non stop for over two hours before a quick stop at a petrol station to get some drinks before heading home.


Before going on my walk I finished the CSS course on Linkedin Learning before starting another one on HTML. It’s not that I need to learn about HTML so much as I have a desire to complement what I already know.


After passive learning I re-worked some more pages on the HTML part of my website, adding CSS to two or three pages. As a result of what I have learned over the last two or three weeks doing the same thing as I did for the index page for another directory took half an hour or less. What I learned is sticking in my memory. I still cut and paste, but the process is much faster.


Links from HTML Essential Training by Jen Simmons


The more I look up and learn, the more ideas I have for how to modernise my website. For ages I wanted to keep my website as a museum of what the web used to be but as I made pages mobile friendly that desire to keep things the same has altered and now I want to modernise it.


From a visitor point of view this may be a waste of time, as certain parts of the website have little to no traffic. This doesn’t matter, because in the grand scheme of things every page I modernise gives me experience in dealing with CSS, Javascript, navigation design and more. I may be slow on the first pages but as I work my way through the website my efficiency will go up, and with that so will my employability.


We constantly need to learn skills and working on a website, rather than browsing social media, is a great way of doing so. As I looked through Flickr galleries I saw that some people have images of people re-enacting Roman soldiers and other people have images of Rome as it looks today. I could easily breath life back into that part of the website by contacting people and getting permission to share their images.


I’m glad I am working on my website as a project again. It is effectively filling my time, encouraging me to learn more, and getting me ready for a line of work I enjoy.


See you tomorrow.

Day 60 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – The Sixtieth Day of Solitude.

Day 60 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – The Sixtieth Day of Solitude.

Byrichard

It’s the sixtieth day of solitude for some of us and if we look at Twitter we see that people in other countries are suffering. One person spoke of the dark dog whilst another expressed distress. A third expresses another emotion. Around the world we see people suffering and trying to cope in their own unique ways.


I went for my daily walk but I wasn’t fully motivated so it was a relatively short circuit. Just 7.65 kilometres according to my SUUNTO Spartan HR Sports Wrist, Black. It’s the watch I’ve been using for at least three or four years by now. I am no longer tracking with the Apple watch as I was tired of deleting duplicates.


There is a cruel irony in society going from soft lockdown to rebooting in safe mode because our consumerist habits can return and crowds are re-emerging but as single people living alone we are stil not allowed within two meters of others unless there is plexiglass or we’re on a video call.


I saw a large crowd of people all standing together. I write this as a joke. The “crowd” was a cluster of toddlers at a kindergarten. They were going out of their classroom to play on the swings outside. I didn’t linger as I saw this as I was starting my walk.


During most of this walk I felt warm enough to open two layers of clothing. In theory I would have been happy in a t-shirt while I was sheltered from the rain. I wasn’t rained on but the wind was active so when I was exposed to it I closed my layers.


I passed over the motorway and it’s back to pre-pandemic levels. People are once again using their cars as much as before. It’s a shame that despite the short re-starting of society the use of the car is so quick to grow in amplitude.


In the US the pandemic is affecting farmers. According to the New York Times meat plant closures mean pigs are gassed or shot instead. Some slaughterhouses are closed so there is no one to process the meat in some cases and in other cases the animals have become too big for the slaughterhouses to deal with them. Plenty of animals are dying needlessly as a result.


On the lighter side of the news people are experiencing flute solos at Stuttgart Airport. It’s interesting that they would choose to do this. It reminds me of an industry, although only theoretically.


The Economist wrote a column titled Casual sex is out, companionship is in but this column is boring because it looks mainly at dating apps and the cardinal sin of dating apps is that it forces lonely people to know who is interested for exorbitant amounts of money. They speak about video dating but the best app I played with was Seesmic back in the day. I’m still in contact with many of those people. Seesmic was as effective as Twitter for creating new friendships and relationships, back in the day.


The closest we have to online flirting in an open society is Tik Tok. On Tik Tok you see that we can play, flirt, and collaborate together in a way that is similar to what we did on Seesmic back in the day. During this pandemic Tik Tok may be the only place for us to have fun. Last night I did a planking duet, and I see a few more duets that tempt me. We will see if I get round to them.


I really need to play and laugh. Tik Tok made me laugh out loud several times yesterday. It is an oasis of companionship in a sea of solitude. As I mentioned at the start of this post, plenty of people are unhappy and struggling to cope during this pandemic so we must do what we can to endure it, and to come out ofthe other side in a good mental state.


I’ll leave you with a video about cooking Lasagna and cake in a van for a change of ideas.





A Demain.

Day 59 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Thunder As I Got Home
| |

Day 59 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Thunder As I Got Home

Byrichard

For once I walked in the drizzle, rather than the rain but I could hear thunder as I got home. I have almost reading Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home during this walk. Poetically I was listening to her about walking with a storm on its way whilst a storm was thundering over the Jura.


The rain became heavy just as I got close to home so today I am not drenched to the bone, and in need of a change of clothes like yesterday. I started today’s walk by running for the first two and a half kilometres, using the Guardian’s running podcast week three, for the fourth time. I didn’t run last week and I prefer to give my legs time to acclimate to running before pushing too much.


I spent most of my waking hours today working on the website. I’m still working on the front page and I think it’s almost ready to go live. It’s built with CSS, a little javascript, and grids. I have it behaving as I want it to behave. It looks good, whether viewed on a “desktop” or a mobile phone.


What I learned while working on the front page has helped. When I was making web pages mobile-friendly a week or two ago was bare bones and I didn’t change much. Now when I re-worked three or four pages today I used CSS where I could. I replaced tables with CSS and with pages where I had lists I used CSS to enhance lists. There is one page I still need to re-work, but I need to think about how to do something interesting.


See you tomorrow.

Day 58 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Writing For Future Generations Now.
| |

Day 58 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Writing For Future Generations Now.

Byrichard

I’m writing for future generations now. As I looked at the stats for the most recent posts i see that readership is low. I’m tempted to start writing about something else as a result. In two or three weeks if we’re still seeing low numbers of new cases I might.


The biggest change since two days ago is that when I went to the shops I saw that InterDiscount and other places are open. Restaurants are open too. I saw some people in these places but without counting.


Inspiration to write usually comes from meeting people and having conversations but it’s at least 58 days since I met someone new and had a different conversation so it’s hard to explore new ideas.


The CSS front page I’ve been working on for the past three or four days is almost ready to be shared. I still need to tweak three or four things. I’m happy about this. When I replaced the time I spent on social media with playing with CSS I gave myself a great opportunity to learn two or three new skills. I was afraid that I would be confused and lost but so far I’ve found the opposite to be true. I’ve found it relatively easy.


The biggest challenge is getting the content to be desktop and mobile-friendly so every experiment I run has to look good on both. So far this has been a good experience. It’s something that I haven’t done, possibly since social media came along, and distracted us. It’s a shame that social media didn’t grow in quality of conversations but it has benefited my drive to learn something new.


We have to keep upskilling, and upskilling by working on a website is good, because we learn skills that others can see and assess within seconds. The more time I spend tweaking the first page the better it will look, and the more knowledge I will come away with.


See you tomorrow for day 59. We’re just two days away from two months without being within two meters of another person.

Day 57 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Another Walk In The Rain.

Byrichard

Walking in heavy rain for two and a half hours doesn’t make much sense. You don’t see much. The more time you spend outside the more of you is wet, and by the time you get home you’re cold and in need of warming up.


It’s day 57, the 11th of May. In theory Switzerland has rebooted in safe mode and we can start returning to normal life. I don’t know whether the shops or other places were busy because I didn’t go into any shops.


View this post on Instagram

My daily walk.

A post shared by Richard Azia (@richardazia) on

Day 55 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Long Horned Cows

Day 55 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Long Horned Cows

Byrichard

Long-Horned cows are a rare treat. We usually see short-horned or even de-horned cows in Switzerland. To see longhorn cow is a treat. I took a tiny detour from my walk to get some pictures. I have walked by the field a few times before seeing them close enough to the fence to consider taking pictures again.


Untitled


One of them started to approach the fence so I moved back. I later noticed that some calves are in this field too.


Untitled


We are now two days away from the 11th of May when shops will re-open and life gets one step closer to being “normal” again. We are going to be in a dangerous phase of the pandemic for two reasons. The first reason is that people aren’t going to be as careful about who they come in contact with so the virus will have a new opportunity to spread within small communities.


The second reason is that I see people driving two or more hours to do activities in the mountains rather than staying locally. By combining the two the virus may grab the opportunity to start spreading again.


I am not critical of the government. I am critical of the people who are taking liberties that don’t yet make sense. In theory I could be climbing Monday afternoon but I won’t, because I think it would be wise to wait to to three weeks before enjoying such luxuries.


Untitled


The best sport that we can do for the environment, and for each other’s safety is cycling, whether on mountain bikes like these two people. or on road bikes like others. By cycling we are staying within a three hour radius of home, where our range is limited by our physical health.


It makes sense to continue enjoying what the local area has to offer. By now we should have seen that there are plenty of things to do locally. This is especially true for people who have experienced the pandemic in Switzerland.





Did you find some interesting walks by staying local?

Day 52 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – More Cows, and Cascading Style Sheets
|

Day 52 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – More Cows, and Cascading Style Sheets

Byrichard

While some of us have gone fifty-two days without being within two meters of another person due to the pandemic others walk side by side down country lanes, forcing those walking alone to make the decision of whether to risk infecting the vulnerable couple or stepping off the road and waiting under an electricity pylon while the selfish people clear the way.


Untitled


In the image above we can clearly see two couples walking side by side. If these couples could walk single file then single people would be able to move around more freely. That’s why I went for walks in the rain, why I walked through muddy fields and paths that became streams. It’s the only way to avoid these people. Solitary confinement may be the reason this behaviour bothers me so much. It’s hard to see people that are not alone, when we are.


If I was walking in open fields at the moment I would have been charged at least two or three times by cows protecting their young. The reason for this is that they’re with calves that are just a week or three old. You can see them stand defensively and that they’re ready to charge you if you get too close.


Now would be a very bad time to walk into an enclosure. Now is a good time to be careful when hiking.


@richardazia

##switzerland ##calve ##veau ##jeune ##suisse

? Barden Bellas – joealbanese

Day 51 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Only Two People At A Time

Day 51 Of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Only Two People At A Time

Byrichard

Today I went in to a shop without knowing that the limit was two people at a time. Paradoxically there were not two but five people in the shop because if you’re a parent with a child you’re allowed to be two, so there were four people. I saw no sign on the door because the door was open so I didn’t know. The shop in my village doesn’t have that rule.


It seems stupid to ignore the rule for two parents and their kids from separate families. I thought that I would walk my traditional summer route today but of course that was a mistake. A trio of three people from one family were walking lined up making it impossible for me to pass them without them entering my two metre exlusion zone so I waited by a petanque field for them to pass.


A girl and her mother were distracted doing something and the bike began to roll down a slope and I questioned, “How do I help without touching the bike. I thought of running and stopping it with my foot but as it gained momentum I ran out of time. It rolled into the road.


I was thinking “How can I help the mother walking with her children and I came to the conclusion that the safest part of the bike to grab and place it back on the pavement was the down tube. Saddles and handlebars are always touched but it’s unlikely that people, in normal circumstances would touch the down tube.


These are the things we need to think about during a pandemic. Helping someone as a spur of the moment thing is temporarily out of the question as a moment’s kindness could lead to tragedy, not that I expect either of us to be at high risk of catching the virus from each other. According to a recent article there were just 40 new contaminations yesterday. Now we’re even further into the long tail of the pandemic.


View this post on Instagram

Cat nap.

A post shared by Richard Azia (@richardazia) on