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Covid-19 House Arrest
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  • Philip Davies

Covid-19 House Arrest

A blog about life under "social distancing" Read more
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  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 73

    May 30, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Saturday – got up quite early and did the key jobs that have to be done – washing cars (well just the Audi actually) and cutting the grass. New mower is really superb – dead easy to use and a lovely finish to the lawn. After that, Phil mounted the roof bars and bike rack on the Audi ready for the return of Claire in the morning – car will be full so bike needs to be on the roof.

    The Lunch was the remains of the Chinese al-fresco in the garden. After lunch Lynette and I did a lovely bike ride over Wisley common returning via Silvermere. We then did a 1-hour zoom with John & Julie – lovely catch up and we do look forward to meeting them in June or July hopefully. Following the zoom Lynette and Claire went off for a shop in Tesco.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 72

    May 29, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Friday – really looking forward to a nice weekend given the weather. Normal work day for Claire and I, in fact Claire’s last working day in Surrey as she’s moving back to her flat in London on Sunday. She received more IT kit from her new company – a 24” monitor and a Samsung phone. Finally got the Merc coupe back from the body shop who did a great job repairing the rear bumper that was damaged when the exhaust fell off. Expensive but less than 25% of the Merc quote which was ridiculous.

    I went out for a bike ride at the end of the afternoon – planned the route so I could check out the “route following” feature of the new bike computer – worked extremely well. I plan the route using the “Easy Route” app on the iPhone and then export it to the Wahoo app on the iPhone which then automatically synch’s it to the computer. After the bike ride Lynette cut my hair – she did a really good job using the new Braun hair clippers. So nice having short hair again! Evening meal was a fabulous Chinese courtesy of Claire (who’s now been paid!). Usual Friday evening excellent selection of TV.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 71

    May 28, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Early start today – slighter cooler but still sunny and very nice. As Phil had a telecon from 13:00 to 16:00 he went for an early bike ride just before lunch. The new bike computer worked very well – very happy with it. Early evening Phil finished working on Kate’s second bike – all working fine and looking quite good. Evening meal was a trio of lovely Pizzas made by Claire.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 70

    May 27, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    Another boring day in paradise. Weather so good now we are pretty much having all of our meals in the garden. For lunch did a BBQ – sausage, burger and chicken. For evening meal Lynette made a really nice pasta dish. Claire did another day of induction at Checkatrade. Late afternoon Phil did the daily bike ride. After he got back his new bike computer arrived – it’s a Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT and is amazing. Did a short ride around Dartnell Park to test it out. Evening – was looking forward to the SpaceX crewed launch but due to dodgy weather in Florida it’s delayed until Saturday. The other evening task was working on the 2nd bike for Kate – it’s nearly done now – just needs some cosmetic improvement plus Claire will test ride it.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 69

    May 26, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    The amazing weather continues – this spring really is like your perfect summer. Unfortunately had to work all day although managed lunch outside and a 45 min bike ride to Horsell common at the end of the afternoon. Hair is getting quite long now so ordered some Braun electric clippers from Amazon – Lynette will be using them on me soon! Evening meal was cooked by Phil – Kerala chicken curry – very nice.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 68

    May 25, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    Bank holiday Monday and what a gorgeous day. Decided to do two bike rides given how nice it was – a short road bike in the morning and an afternoon one with Lynette around Brooklands. In between had a nice outside lunch. On the way back over the M25 we spotted a convoy of trucks doing a charity drive for foodbanks.

    After the second ride did a quick drive around the Surrey hills in the R172 SLK – good to keep all the cars going for at least a 15 mile drive every week or two. Evening meal was a really excellent bbq of very thick cut steak cooked medium rare. Lesley took away Kate’s bike and dropped another one off which we plan on servicing during the week. Ended the day watching “Killing Eve” latest episode.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 67

    May 24, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Sunday morning and still internet or cable TV, Virginmedia website now suggesting it would be back on by 16:20 Sunday. This would be a 46 hour outage if that time turned out to be correct. Did the weekly Whick family Videocon on Skype using the iPhone 4G as a hotspot – seemed to work OK and we were on for almost an hour without losing the connection. Weather very nice again – sunny and getting warm again. In the afternoon we went out for a bike ride. On the way out we spotted a Virginmedia engineer at the Cabinet at the end of the road. He said he’d fixed it by flicking a fuse (which had probably just flipped out due to Friday’s power cut). Just before we set off Lesley Mungur dropped off Kate’s bike to be brought back into service – a job for when we got back.

    Bike ride was the nice loop through Wisley common, over the M25 and back via the Manor in Byfleet.

    After we got back we discovered the TV and Internet was now back on, yay! After an ice cream Claire and I worked on Kate’s bike which was generally in an OK condition. We re-taped the rims, replaced the rear tyre and put the wheels back on. After that we gave it a good clean, degreased the drive train and re-lubed all the moving parts. Adjusted the seat a bit higher and tuned the indexing on the gears. All working again.

    Evening meal was grilled lamb with lots of nice veg plus gratin dauphinoise. Watched a bit of TV and the news then went to bed.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 66

    May 23, 2020 in England ⋅ 🌧 16 °C

    Saturday morning and still no internet or cable TV, Virginmedia website was suggesting it would be back on by 16:20 but, alas, no. Anyway managed to fill the day quite nicely. Started off using the new lawnmower which worked really well – it came with 2 batteries and the whole of the main garden was done on battery 1 and the front garden took about 1/3 of battery 2 so plenty of margin even as the batteries lose capacity with age. In the afternoon did a lovely MTB ride through Wisley common. Weather was generally OK but in the middle of the day there were a few short-sharp-showers.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 65

    May 22, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Final day of work before a long weekend 😊. Change of weather – quite a bit cooler and very windy although it was still sunny. New lawnmower delivered today – battery powered Bosch Rotak 430. Set up at lunchtime and will be used in earnest Saturday. Big evening event was the short power cut which also took out Virginmedia in the whole area so no internet or cable TV all evening. Evening meal was a local fish & chips. We heard today we are getting the ski holiday costs (less the excess) back from the travel insurance so we celebrated with a bottle of pink Freixenet.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 64

    May 21, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    Another day with very nice weather, 28C in the afternoon which is amazing for May. Mid day took the Merc to the body shop – when the exhaust fell off it damaged the back bumper so now its at the local body shop – quote should arrive on Tuesday! Did a drive in the silver SLK, good to get it fully warmed up and driven – also filled it with Petrol on the way back. It’s very frustrating having two convertibles, beautiful weather and not being able to use them ☹. Still warm in the evening so did a BBQ of burgers and sausages.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 63

    May 20, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    The weather today was absolutely amazing – high 20sC in the afternoon and warm right through into the evening – in fact we had our evening meal outside which is quite unusual for May. Again it was another day of work and videocons – I guess this is the new normal and likely to last into 2021 at least. Phil tried and failed to fix the lawnmower – managed to install the new drive belt and it worked for a while but there was another problem which caused the whole assembly to “rapidly disassemble”. Bit the bullet and ordered an new battery electric cordless one from Amazon – due to be delivered on Friday. Phil did an awesome bike ride at the end of the afternoon – cycled to Wisley and then off-roaded thorough Wisley common, over the M25 and along the river Wey eventually appearing in Byfleet near the manor. Was still 25C when arrived home after 18:00. Evening meal was a lovely mushroom risotto cooked by Claire.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 62

    May 19, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    Another working day with all 3 of us in videocons and telecons for big chunks of the day. In fact Phil was pretty much in videocons from 0900 to 1730. This meant the bike ride was quite late and quite short – took out the road bike and did fastest average speed in a ride for 4 years – definitely getting fitter. Evening meal was a lovely tuna pasta bake cooked by Claire. Weather today was amazing - mid 20'sC in the afternnon.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 61

    May 18, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Weather really fantastic again – 23C, blue sky and sunny when I went out for my daily bike ride just after 16:00. Forecast is for over 25C for the each of the next 3 days and generally good all through next weekend which is a long weekend with the late May bank holiday on the Monday. Quiet day here, now down to three of us – Claire and I had lunch outside but Lynette was in telecons so had hers later. Today’s bike ride was down through the woods next to Silvermere golf course. Came back over the M25 which is a little busier although still way down on normal rush hour traffic. Local traffic has increased at a much faster rate than the motorway. Fun fact of the day – since 25th March I’ve cycled 772km.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 60

    May 17, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Big day today – Laura moved out! She’d been here for 55 days but decided to move back to London, initially staying in Hackney Wick with Josh, probably returning to Peckham in June. After the weekly family video chat we set off in the car, taking the central London route past Parliament, Whitehall, the City arriving about 12:00. After unloading the car we had a walk around Victoria Park and had our packed lunch with “socially distanced” beers from the local pub who were offering a takeaway. After arriving back Phil did a 20km bike ride past Fairoaks Airport and we had a lovely roast ham evening meal courtesy of Lynette. After that settled down and watched film “Darkest Hour” about Churchill – amazing performance by Gary Oldman as Winston.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 59

    May 16, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    Weekend! Phil did jobs in the morning – lawn mower packed in about 2/3 way through doing the lawn – needs a new drive belt which is on its way this week courtesy of ebay. Washed the Audi. Food was “non standard” as we were playing a late afternoon teas so we had a brunch around 11:00 – nice bagels with avocado, bacon and egg. Phil did a MTB ride in the afternoon and we had the afternoon tea around 16:30 – ‘twas really good – supplied by local company Mclaren hospitality and washed down with a bottle of Prosecco from Claire.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 58

    May 15, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    Took the car for its service – on the way it made a strange noise which I assumed was a stone trapped between the brake disc and the dust shield – this happened once before on the Audi. Anyway I was wrong – garage phoned to see part of the exhaust was hanging off as a bracket was missing. My guess is that it got damaged in March when we went over the pothole in Wales that caused a puncture but I guess we’ll never know. Probably going to be expensive – we’ll find out next week. Other than that it was an uneventful working day. Managed a late afternoon bike ride with Lynette to Ripley. In the evening we received a surprise ‘thank you’ present from Claire & Laura – a lovely gin set based around a bottle of silent pool. Evening meal was a takeaway curry courtesy of Claire.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 57

    May 14, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    Another nice day – sunny and starting to get warmer. At the start of April Phil booked the big Merc in for a service – guessing it might be possible after mid May he chose 15th May but heard nothing back. This morning he got a text saying Merc is back doing services and the one booked for the 15th is on, was not what we were expecting. Another day of Videocons, at least for the 3 workers – me, Claire and Laura. Lynette works for Aqa on Mon/Tues/Wed but not Thur/Fri. She did the weekly shop – queues are getting shorter. Phil went for a bike ride late afternoon and noticed a lot more local traffic although the M25 is still quiet however busy than the last few weeks. Still nothing like a normal rush hour though. Thursday meal was home made pizzas again – really excellent – thanks to Claire and Laura for doing the creative part. As it was Thursday we went out at 20:00 and did the weekly clapping for the NHS. For lunch Phil made baguettes but forgot to photo them, apart from the last piece – I’ll try and remember tomorrow.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 56

    May 13, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

    Another day of lots of videocons – this is part of what some folk are calling “the new normal” and I expect this will continue for a lot of the rest of 2020 and maybe also into 2021. Phil started early with a 1.5 hour one with some of the folk in Australia hence early morning UK which is late afternoon Australia is probably the only time of day when everybody is awake and sober. Claire started her new job – she had some virtual meetings and also spent quite a lot of the day reading various documents etc… Laura was very happy when her new Garmin GPS watch arrived but was quite annoyed when she couldn’t get one of the key features to work – the ability to stream her Spotify music to her headphones. Anyway, after a call to Garmin support she managed to get everything working so was then happy.

    Phil did a 20km road bike ride and at the bottom of the “Engliff Lane” short climb decided he would try and break his record. According to Strava he’d done this climb 68 times before with a best time of 32s done twice – once in 2014 and once in 2012. Anyway, today he did it in (drum roll) 31s. result. Also made him the 69th fastest of all time out of 1502 people. Evening meal was a Chili-con-Carne cooked by Phil. Did the weekly phone call to Angela in Wales – all seems OK with their family and her daughter Siobhan has managed to get a new teaching job 10 mins from their house.

    Final fun fact - the Internet went down in the afternoon and when it came back up Phil did a speedtest to check it was all OK. What he discovered was that it's now faster - over 200Mbps download and over 20 Mbps upload. And all for no extra charge!    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    Hoise arrest - day 55

    May 12, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

    Improving weather – sunny all day and bit warmer but still cold. Due to lots of late afternoon videocons Phil had to do his daily exercise at 12:00. Nice bike ride – just over 14km - to Wisley Gardens and Claire came along too. Evening meal was a really excellent Mac’n’Cheese with Chorizo cooked by Laura. Latest Amazon delivery was a baguette maker so we should be getting some perfectly formed French sticks in the coming days. Finally, today was Claire’s last day of freedom, she starts her new job tomorrow – first paid work since December.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 54

    May 11, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C

    Back to work! However, as the weather is now much colder and very windy spending a day working was not too bad. Made a small loaf which we had with the left over BBQ food for lunch. Evening meal was a lovely Haloumi and roast vegetables dish cooked by Claire. Phil decided that his space zoom background should be replaced – as most people on Zoom seem to prefer a bookcase as their backing I decided to have my virtual background as the bookcase to end all bookcases which is the reading room of the British Library. Managed a short bike ride today round Woodham and Pyrford.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 53

    May 10, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    Last day of the long weekend and the cold air was set to arrive from the north. Started off quite temperate in the high teens but as the day progressed it got colder and colder dropping by around 1C per hour through the day. Did most outdoor things in the early part of the day – washed the 2 outside cars and did a bike ride to Woking on the MTB. We had a fry-up late morning courtesy of Claire and Laura – very tasty. Evening meal was a raclette, also very tasty, followed by a cheesecake cooked by Claire – delicious. The big announcement in the evening from Boris hasn’t really changed a lot for us, main change seems to be we can now drive somewhere well away from the house for exercise and can meet somebody else so long as we stay 2m away from them. Some other folk will now be expected to go back to work but not us as we can work from home.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 52

    May 9, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    Second day of the long weekend and the weather was just amazing. In fact it was too hot to sit in the sun in the afternoon and I sought out the shade to relax. Morning bike ride today – just over 22km to Walton Bridge and back via Weybridge. Lovely day and lots of other folk out running and cycling. Cycled back past our favourite pub, the Old Crown on the banks of the Thames in Weybridge. Looking lovely with lots of baskets of flowers outside but rather sad and forlorn die to being shut now for almost 7 weeks. Evening meal was a BBQ – chicken kebabs and spicy lamb skewers.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 51

    May 8, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Bank holiday – and luckily, lovely warm weather to go with it. Morning spent doing a few jobs like mowing both front and back lawns plus the monthly use of the strimmer near trees etc.. Also cleaned and “Danish Waxed” the black “Pub Table” at the back of the garden. In the afternoon we had a family bike ride – cycled over to Horsell Common and did quite a long loop through the common which was looking fantastic and not many people. There were a few folks having VE day arties in their front gardens.

    The evening meal was a Thai take-away, thank you Laura! It was really, really good – quite possible the best takeaway since lockdown (although the Chinese with crispy duck gave it a close run). Watched the VE day stuff on TV in the evening finishing with Gogglebox.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 50

    May 7, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Great news and celebrations here today – Claire got the job for which she had been interviewing over zoom. She starts on Wednesday as the “Customer Insights and Brand Marketing Manager” i.e. in charge of marketing/advertising etc… for the company Checkatrade.com. She did really well to get the job having been through 3 interviews, the final one being with the CEO where she had to do a 20 minute presentation using PowerPoint through the zoom Videocon software. Apart from that it was a busy day workwise for Phil – he did 3 videoconferences, the final one being a webinar where he presented for 20 minutes to about 90 people logged in. Late afternoon bike ride was just Phil and he went to Ripley via Wisley on the MTB. Such a shame that it's shut as the Rhododendrons are in full bloom.

    Earlier in the day Claire had cycled to the PO depot in Brooklands to post an Amazon return item. Lynette did the weekly shop in Tesco – long queue to get in today. Evening meal was a superb fish pie cooked by Lynette. As Friday is a bank holiday we declared Thursday as the start of the weekend and had some G&Ts.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 49

    May 6, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    The lovely weather continues and getting warmer – up to around 20C this afternoon. Another full work day and a final interview for Claire for one of her job applications – good luck! Short bike ride for Phil in late afternoon – Brooklands-New Haw loop c.40 minutes. Did weekly phone call to Angela in Wales – they’re fine although it seems that the 4 in the cottage (including Phoebe and Pim) have had the virus although the tests so far came back negative. Evening meal was a Brazilain chicken dish cooked by Claire – quite spicy but very nice. Finished evening with 3rd episode of “Trial of Christine Keeler”.Read more

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