Environmental

Today I learned of the passing of a friend, due to complications after struggling to beat cancer. I was made ready for the news today by a post that he was very sick yesterday. I didn’t know the details at the time. It was one of the first posts I saw on Facebook this morning.

I would go to one of the local pubs and talk with the friend. We were studying on the same course and he worked at the bar so the pub became my living room. As I spent time at the bar I got to know the regulars, but I also got to know the town. I felt that I did know quite a few people well. If life had been different I would have stayed in Weymouth for the summer after the course and spent the summer diving.

Today I walked along roads that would be filled with non-stop traffic if we weren’t in a pandemic. As a result I could enjoy almost the entire walk without avoiding people. In the process I passed by colza fields, an open garden centre and more. The image above is of a colza field, looking towards the lake, the Alps and the Mont Blanc.

I like that flower shops stayed open during the pandemic because it would have been a shame for all those flowers to have been left in the shop to die and become compost without being enjoyed. It’s not that I’m a flower person, but rather that flowers perish, so finding a way to sell them safely makes sense. It also offers moral support for those that need it.

In normal times a forest fire in the Chernobyl exlusion zone would attract attention and environmentalists would actively speak about it. The world would pay attention. Due to the pandemic the news story is low on the agenda.

I mentioned that a coffee shop and a pet shop had reopened on Monday and this morning I read that markets would be allowed to take place. Instead of the usual 160 stands, there would be just 30. In articles When reading other articles I saw that there was a mention that in order to be more confident that the virus was slowing down there would have to be zero transmissions for 14 days or more. We are still far from that today.

I had a morning walk this morning because I found that there are too many people to avoid during my afternoon walks. During my morning walk I took images of flowering plants, bees collecting pollen from flowers, roses budding and Apple orchards getting ready to blossom.

During the walk I also listened to two Echo Der Zeit episodes in a row. I like to listen during my walks because I’m taking the opportunity to get used to hearing German, and as I become more fluent, so I can understand a bigger proportion of the podcast.

Today I went on my daily walk and found an island of tranquility. Instead of walking in one direction I reversed it. In doing so I saw the river from another point of view. I was on a trail and saw that I could get down to the riverbed and did. I saw a tree lying from one bank to the other and I thought, “Look, a bridge” but of course I didn’t cross it because I’d have fallen in.

Do you have that TGIF feeling like no one else does? In theory today is the day when people are happy, knowing that the weekend is about to start and they can do the things they love for the next two days. In this context though, that is unlikely. We’re meant to stay home.

This weekend is going to be extra special because the temperature is meant to reach 20°c, i.e. summer temperatures and so people will go out like ants on an applecore by the side of the road. If ever a weekend was likely to see a boom of cases next Friday it’s this one. According to the Swiss government people are good at following the rules but I still see examples of inconsiderate behaviour, both by young and not so young people.

Plumbing and scuba diving are not unrelated. If you understand o-rings and pipe/hose connections then you’ll be fine. I dismantled a system, cleaned it, and then reassembled it, checked for leaks and then ran the tap to see if all was well. Once I saw that everything was indeed well, I struggled to place the drawers and then moved onto the next issue. 

My website was hacked again so I am now writing this blog post in the day one app, rather than directly to the blog. During a pandemic it’s frustrating to find that your website is hacked because life is already limited without adding new issues. 

April Fool’s during self isolation is not fun. People made jokes about how our freedoms would be limited even further. In ordinary situations those jokes would be detected but because we have the freedom to get food, go for walks, and sit at home we have no other rewards as such. One of the jokes was that bandwidth would be throttled. The second was that Strava would be used to track people and the third was that bikes with handlebars would be allowed but not racing style bikes.

I was writing a Facebook post when I thought of the term Pandemic Solitude and I love it so much that I wanted to use it as a title for today’s blog post. For most people during the pandemic the order is, stay with the people you live with but avoid being close to others.

When you live with no one this means that you should avoid being close to anyone. Yesterday and today I exchanged words with petrol station workers from two meters away, and with a plate of plexiglass between us. I also talked to a scooter shop owner and here too I stayed about three meters away. It might sound distant in other times but that’s intimate during a pandemic.

Now that we’re in week 5 of self-isolation and Day fifteen of ORCA I am getting pandemic fatigue. As it’s Monday I could make the effort of going to the shops to get fresh food rather than deplete the reserves I have but my motivation is not there. It has come cold and windy and the rate of infection is still high. I expect that by the end of today Vaud will hit the three thousand case mark.