Day 58 - Sunshine!

Thankfully I am much recovered from the shock of Leo’s announcement eight days ago, and I am enjoying lots of things about lockdown again. For a start, it’s lovely to be able to go 5km from home for exercise. I know we all talked about how changing from a 2km to 5km restriction wouldn’t make much of a difference, but it actually has. I’m now able to do a big 10km loop that brings me up over the Lee Valley, and it has the most stunning views, especially on a sunny day like today. What I also like about this route is that, while about half of it is on paths in the city, the other half is on narrow country roads through the countryside and you feel, mentally, like you’re quite far away from everything coronavirus-related when you’re out there! Thinking back, it now seems so strange that we were all restricted to a 2km radius from our house at one stage, and that we couldn’t even drive anywhere! I’ve been doing all of my running this week in the same area by the Lee that I’ve been going to for a few weeks now though - I wonder is it a case of Stockholm syndrome?!

Before my run today I did the parkrun Global Quiz, as is usual on a Saturday. After the run, I returned home to find that our neighbours had put a bouncing castle up in their back garden. Strange, but thankfully they didn’t have any visitors over for it, which was what we were expecting to happen.

Around lunchtime, I collected our Tesco Click and Collect shopping and, just after I got home, our landlord and her husband called in. Our washing machine is completely broken, so they’re going to buy us a new one as soon as possible. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long, as the washing is really starting to pile up! It was strange having our landlord and her husband in the house, fully kitted out in masks and gloves. However it’s understandable as she lives with her mum who is quite sick and, as such, has been fully cocooning for the past two months.

Today was the nicest day of the year so far here, in terms of weather, so me and Peter sat out on the decking all day reading. I had bought the paper in our local shop, for the first time since lockdown, and we both read it cover to cover. It’s such a novelty for us to have a newspaper! It made for sad reading at times though, especially the section that gave the life stories of a number of people that have died from covid-19. Most of the coverage to date has been about the numbers that are sick and in hospital, so seeing the faces being these numbers really gave me pause for thought.

Our evening was interrupted at about 8pm, by a big group of Spanish people, on the green in our estate, partying, singing loudly and playing drinking games. It’s strange that you would draw attention to yourself in this way! Anyway, moments later, the Gardaí pulled up in a van and the most hilarious scene ensued. The entire group of grown adults sprinted into the thin line of bushes beside the field as soon as they spotted the Gardaí. They weren’t able to hide very well though, and I could see lots of branches quivering. Meanwhile, an overweight Garda was scuttling around in the bushes whooshing everyone back out again. What a scene! Everyone went home again anyway and all was quiet for the rest of the night thankfully.

I think scenes like this are being repeated all over the country though. Fiona texted this evening to say that there was a big carnival atmosphere in her estate, and that her neighbours were having people over for parties. It’s weird, I can’t imagine texting someone to invite them over to my house at the moment!

In some good news, the number of new covid-19 cases has been below two hundred for the past two days, which sounds really promising. On some days in April, it was at over eight hundred! Anyway, the trend seems to be going in the right direction, thankfully, and I’m feeling a real sense of hope and optimism with all of this news. In particular, I’m wondering if they might bring forward some of the phases of relaxing the restrictions. Peter tells me not to get my hopes up, in case I end up disappointed, but it’s hard not to. Everything feels wonderfully optimistic in this sunshine!

This morning, on our run, me and Fiona talked a good bit about the importance to the human psyche, of having things like holidays, or even just brunch with friends, to look forward to. We also talked about that lovely feeling you get when you step off a plane in a foreign country, and we pondered when we might be able to go on holidays again, even in Ireland. We’ve decided to replace our yearnings for foreign holidays, with the feeling of looking forward to a family reunion holiday in Rosslare. That will happen sometime soon, and it’s going to be just brilliant. In the meantime though, we can imagine we’re abroad, especially when the sun is shining!Read more