Tuesday 7 April:

Mr Johnson was taken into intensive care last night with worsening coronavirus symptoms (I’m no lover of his politics, but I wish him well). Somewhat ironically, yesterday also saw receipt of Mr Johnson’s ‘letter to the nation’ telling us all that the government was doing and urging everyone to obey the rules. Frankly, I’m appalled at the expense of sending such a letter (to every household) – there can’t be a single adult in the country who didn’t already know this ‘information’. It was perhaps doubly ironic that I also received a letter (see extract image) from the North Bristol NHS Trust advising me (although I already knew) that the NHS had identified me “as someone at risk of severe illness if you catch coronavirus… This is because you have an underlying disease or health condition that means if you catch the virus, you are more likely to be admitted to hospital than others. The safest course of action is for you to stay at home at all times and avoid face-to-face contact for at least 12 weeks from today…”. I have been warned!

Internet ‘stopped’ at lunchtime for at least a couple of hours (but now appears to be ok again)… and, suddenly, you realise how difficult losing connection altogether would be in our current times.

Drawing Group ‘home task’ was draw a self-portrait. I tried to produce a quick line drawing – but had to add pencil shading to try to mask a poor sketch. Hey ho! Did another couple of sketches too… AND I managed to dip my paintbrush in my cup of tea. Doh!

Anti-clockwise evening walk around the harbourside… hardly anyone about.

Early to bed to read.

Monday 6 April:

According to the government website: as of 5pm on 5 April 2020, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 5,373 have died (an increase 439 since yesterday).

I’ve been waking up ridiculously early recently (not altogether an unusual thing for me!)… at around 3am. Sometimes I’m able to go back to sleep but, more often than not, I end up lying awake until 5am and then getting up.

Spent part of the morning sketching – using another streetview image from Madrid – and listening to music (I’ve really enjoyed re-discovering stuff and have ended up compiling another four Spotify playlists).

Received a lovely Hugo delivery this morning – both fruit and vegetables (we’ve been out of fruit for the last few days). It made us feel very happy (see image)!

On our daily walk this afternoon, we came across a depressing number of young lads (perhaps aged 14-16?)(and, yes, I do understand how frustrating it must be for them) congregating in groups/ambling around together – COMPLETLY disregarding the social distancing ‘rules’… and certainly not exercising! In fact a couple of the lads were actually walking with their arms round each others’ shoulders! Not exactly surprising, perhaps, but SO depressing nevertheless.

I’ve set up another ‘virtual’ Urban Sketchmeet event (for Easter Saturday)… again using google/streetview. This time, the location is Taipei (Jennifer’s home city). Fingers crossed that the technology works!

Sunday 5 April:

Palm Sunday… no donkeys spotted all day...

A number of somewhat worrying developments: first, my mouth plate has developed a hairline crack (which will clearly only get worse and eventually split) and second, I was convinced that we had TWO instances where water had started to gush from our water pipes. Fortunately, the second instance turned out to be only a ‘worrying’ dream!

I received a letter from North Bristol NHS Trust yesterday regarding coronavirus (dated 1 April, but not an April Fool’s ruse methinks): “The NHS has identified you as someone at risk of severe illness if you catch coronavirys… This is because you have an underlying disease or health condition that means if you catch the virus, you are more likely to be admitted to hospital than others. The safest course of action is for you to stay at home at all times and avoid face-to-face contact for at least 12 weeks from today…”.

I have been warned!

Tuned into the Saint Stephen’s streamed service this morning – it’s a good, if somewhat one-sided, way of keeping connected.

I rang Iris, then Rosa, then Dan for brief catch-ups… and they all seem in very good form. It was very lovely to chat to them. X

Watched “The Third Man” as part of my ‘watch-again’ DVD season!

Moira and I went for an anticlockwise(!) evening walk around the harbourside (and, from what I’d read on social media, it seems that there were LOTS of people out ‘exercising’ in the sunshine today)... in the event, we hardly saw a soul.
The Health Secretary had issued a message for those flouting the social distancing rules in the sunshine this weekend… and there was even a suggestion that exercise outside the home could be banned if people continued to ignore the rules. Would that mean we couldn’t continue our daily walks?? That would be pretty awful, so let’s hope not.

Image: back garden in sunshine.

Saturday 4 April:

I think it might be 50 years ago today that I passed my driving test (I know it was 4 April… but was it 1969 or 1970?). Still adjusting to not really having weekends any more… Finished my Jan Morris book in bed first thing and then followed up yesterday’s virtual sketch meet-up – with a view to trying to set up another one quite soon.

The government is asking us all to stay at home this weekend (the weather forecast is good and they fear everyone will be attracted to various leisure hotspots!)… we decided on an evening walk for our daily exercise – which we duly did (around the harbourside via Vauxhall Bridge and Gaol Ferry Walk).

Very aware of how dependent we are on the internet at present (our home connection has become somewhat inconsistent on occasions over recent days)… the thought of us losing the internet altogether would have massive implications – no family zoom times; no church streaming; no Bloke’s Prayer; no bookgroup zoom; no facebook; no access to blogs; no emails etc etc. So we just keep our fingers crossed!

Keir Starmer became the Labour leader today… in very strange and trying times (no parliament and a pandemic to deal with).

Juggled with my blog during the course of the afternoon and decided to separate the ‘diary’ from ‘reflections’… so now have two blogs (essentially just for me): this one for diary and ‘don’t stand so close to me’ – working title! – for reflections.

Watched another ‘Portrait Artist of the Year’ programme (they’re very good).

Image: tonight’s moon (it’s in its ‘waxing gibbous’ phase apparently).

Friday 3 April:

Dry and bright. Went for an early walk down to the Avon lockgates (see image: poster hoarding). On my way home, I saw an elderly couple (ok, they were probably younger than me!) doing their morning exercises. As I passed them, I noticed that they were following a video ‘gym routine’ on their iPad/tablet… and their iPad/tablet was set up on a traditional old music stand. It made me smile.

I went to Madrid to sketch today with a group (maybe 12 of us?) of urban sketching friends! In these difficult times – when we’re unable to get together to draw – we experimented by choosing a Madrid location (Ana’s home city) for accessing via google maps/streetview… combined with zoom (so we could talk and share our final sketches). It worked very well (despite the odd technical glitch!) and people have suggested we repeat it in a few days’ time.

Ruth+Stu managed to buy us some baked beans, tinned tomatoes and cheese to top our supplies (we’ve got another supermarket order in the pipeline, for Easter Saturday, and and also a Hugo delivery in the pipeline)… so we’re fine.

Moira and I recently discovered that we were able to watch ‘Portrait Artist of the Year’ on SkyArts catch-up (last year’s series?)… and we’ve been really enjoying the programmes – SO much better than the BBC near-equivalent.

Government’s updated coronanvirus figures (5pm 2 April): 3,605 UK deaths (30 March: 1,789 deaths; 18 March: 60 deaths).

Having appeared with some colleagues on 1 April (after serving just 5 days out of his SEVEN days in isolation!), Mr Johnson – according to this evening’s BBC website – “will carry on self-isolating after continuing to display mild symptoms of the coronavirus including having a temperature”. “Do as I say, not as I do” (don’t get me started)!

Thursday 2 April:

Spent the first part of the day reading, pottering (updating online stuff) and sketching some Purple Sprouting for my Drawing Group’s ‘vegetable challenge)… not brilliant, but quite quick.

Set up some links (and sent off invites) for tomorrow’s ‘Madrid’ urban sketching challenge.

I actually tried to write some poetry in the afternoon (well, maybe ‘prose’)… the results were pretty awful, but I later made various changes to it and was quite pleased with the end product (for me!)… sadly, I then clicked the wrong button when I tried to ‘save’ and lost the entire revised version (which I can no longer remember… and which, of course, was a literary masterpiece!!). Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow?

Moira did some gardening and planted seeds (using compost from our wormery).

Moira and I later walked around our local neighbourhood for 30 minutes (see image from the end of our street).

Watched the National Theatre’s ‘live streamed’ “One Man, Two Guvnors” on YouTube (via laptops)… but didn’t watch until the end (a bit disappointing… and not for me).

Wednesday, 1 April:

Got up pretty early… my mind had been on lots of coronavirus-related stuff and so I thought it would be useful (for me) to try and write down stuff (see today’s Reflection).

After breakfast, spent a very helpful hour talking to my “Bloke’s Prayer” buddies… lots to chat about and reflect on, as you can imagine. Robin made us laugh by dressing in a jacket, bowtie, yellow/cream trousers, white shirt and braces especially for the occasion!

While I was ‘zooming-with-my-mates’, we received our online supermarket delivery… which was good. Sadly, it excluded LOTS of stuff we’d ordered (eg. bread, cheese, chicken, tinned tomatoes, baked beans etc). Hey ho! Later, we also had a delivery of vegetables, bread and cheese (sadly, no fruit) from our lovely local greengrocer Hugo... which was good news. 

Moira and I went for our regular harbourside walk mid-morning… hardly saw a soul (and enjoyed walking in the middle of roads!)(image: always nice to see Banksy’s ‘Girl with the Pierced Eardrum’).

As an experiment, my urban sketching friend Ana and I ‘got together’ to do some virtual sketching. We chose Underfall Yard as our location, then each selected a ‘view’ from the google map links… and then ‘met up’ again via zoom for a show-and-tell chat after an hour’s sketching. Although it was hardly the same as our usual urban sketching ‘sketchmeets’ (and, of course, you were sketching from google ‘streetviews’), it was good fun… and we decided to invite other sketchers to a similar ‘virtual sketchmeet’… and ended up choosing a location in Madrid(!) – Ana’s home city – and setting up a drawing session for this coming Friday.

After supper, I took part in another ‘zoom’ group discussion. This time our lovely StorySmith bookgroup… and, again, it worked surprisingly well and it was lovely ‘seeing’ everyone again. We’re going to try to repeat it next month – provided that Dan is able to source purchasing a batch of one of our short-listed books (their two suppliers have had to shut down due to the virus) – but, even if this proves impossible, I think we’ll end up ‘meeting up’ anyway (perhaps just to discuss our favourite books or whatever).

PS: Feels very strange not to be using money (ie. notes and coins) or our bank card at the current time (since we self-isolated and don’t go ‘proper shopping’ anymore).