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Covid-19 House Arrest
  • Philip Davies
  • Philip Davies

Covid-19 House Arrest

A blog about life under "social distancing" Read more
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  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler
    1

    House arrest - day 26

    April 13, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    Final day of the 4 day weekend and although still bright and sunny the temperature had dramatically dropped from the mid 20s to 11. As such we didn’t spend much time out of doors although we all managed some exercise – Claire and Lynette walked to Byfleet for a bit of shopping, I cycled around Brooklands and Laura went for a run. In fact, purely by accident, I passed Laura on my bike while she was running just outside Tescos on Brooklands. In other news my photo of the empty M25 on Saturday passed 1000 “likes” – I’m pretty sure that’s a record for me. Lynette’s face mask manufacturing facility is now up and running although we are waiting for the supply chain to send us cotton, elastic and interfacing before she goes into bulk manufacture. For the main meal Claire cooked us a lovely Thai Massaman Curry of bee with teriyaki vegetables. Evening saw the return of “Killing Eve” – series 3 episode 1 was watched by all.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 27

    April 14, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 9 °C

    Very quiet day today – weather much cooler but it was sunny for most of the day. Lynette, Laura and I worked from home for most of the day. Claire kept busy e.g. doing exercise, walk and a tap dance class in the evening. Phil did a 45 min bike ride on the road bike – basically went to Woking and back but not exactly the direct route either way. In the evening Phil & Lynette watched the final episode of “Noughts and Crosses” – thoroughly enjoyed the series even if it had its dark moments.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 28

    April 15, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 13 °C

    Nice sunny day again and quite a bit warmer. Did some work at home, mainly in the morning, to leave the afternoon free for some jobs and a bike ride. Decided to buy some wine mail order and had ordered some a few days ago from "Naked Wines" which was delivered today. Key afternoon job was giving the mountain bike a spring clean – it was very muddy so cleaned it with degreaser, re-lubed the chain and finally popped on a new rear tyre as the previous one was pretty much worn flat in the middle section. Afternoon ride was then done on the clean bike – went out via Row Town to the McLaren roundabout and returned via Martyr’s Lane. Evening meal was a fabulous tartiflette cooked by Lynette.

    Evening was a TV binge – we watched the extra episode of “Tiger King” then episode 1 of “Quiz” the dramatization of “Who Want’s to be a Millionaire”. Finally watched the Channel 4 news special into Coronavirus – very good – in my opinion Channel 4 does better news and documentaries than BBC, probably on a tiny fraction of the BBC budget.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler
    2

    House arrest - day 29

    April 16, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C

    Weather still fine although there were a few drizzly spells in the late afternoon – managed a 45 min ride at the end of the day at average speed over 25km/h – that’s the second time this week and the fastest average speed since August 2017 so definitely a sign that fitness is improving. Rest of the day was mainly work but in the morning we popped out to Wickes to collect the wooden plank Claire will use as a tap board, on the way back we popped into Harvey’s to stock up on salt for the water softener. We normally get 6 weeks out of an 8kg pack but having 4 people instead of 2 in the house and all of us here almost the whole day has reduced that to 2 weeks per pack. Anyway, the 6 packs we bought should last about 3 more months of lockdown. Incidentally Harvey’s do a contact-free purchase and collection at their gates – phone through the order on the mobile, pay by cc, leave boot open and they deliver it directly into the boot of the car. For tea we had a lovely chicken and potato pie cooked by Laura. After that at 8 p.m. we went outside to clap for the NHS and other essential workers. Lynette and Phil then watched some TV and Claire attended a virtual “Tiger King” party dressed as Carol Baskin. Oh, one other thing, government announced another 3 weeks of lockdown today which takes us up to 7th May which will be "day 50" of this blog.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 30

    April 17, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

    Went out for a short MTB ride in the morning as the forecast was for some rain in the afternoon. This also worked quite well as had a couple of videocons in the afternoon. The second of those was the virtual “leaving drinks” for Chris Lee (Spock in the photo) who was retiring after 40 years working in the space sector – his last role was chief scientist at the UK Space Agency. We had a very “science fiction” oriented event on Microsoft Teams with over 60 people connected at the peak. Lasted two hours in the end. My impressions of Microsoft Teams is that is generally worked OK but it’s nowhere near as good as Zoom – maximum number of people we could see at any time was 4. It seems like it’s going to be at least a year or two before it has equivalent functionality to Zoom.

    For the evening meal Lynette and Laura popped over to the Fish & Chip shop in New Haw and we had a lovely takeaway. Friday night TV is generally good so did the usual HIGNFY, Googlebox & Mash Report.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 31

    April 18, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    Weekend! Spent Saturday morning doing jobs on the cars – quick wash of the outside pair and hooked up the two garaged SLKs to chargers as they are hardly being used so good to keep the batteries topped up. Did the lawns again – we’re definitely now in “Spring mode” and a cut is needed each week. Afternoon job was reconfiguring the WiFi to remove the "notspot" in Claire's bedroom - we now have 3 WiFi access points in different parts of the house - our experience is that the 5GHz works much better than the 2GHz.

    Weather was fine and the afternoon bike ride was just a short MTB around Byfleet and Brooklands with Claire. In Byfleet we did the detour down the river Wey in the SE area up to Byfleet Manor (one of the venues in Downton) – it was covered in scaffolding, so the photo is not mine but stock off the internet. Came back over M25 which was very quiet again. Evening meal was a BBQ – lovely burgers and sausages and we then retired to watch the excellent episodes 2 and 3 of “Quiz”.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 32

    April 19, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Another lovely sunny day – in fact, it’s forecast to be sunny for the whole of the coming week. Couple of small jobs done – put two layers of Danish Oil on the outside table so it is well prepared for the coming onslaught of eating outside. Did one annual tasks on Lynette’s SLK – a treatment of Gummi Pflege on the rubber seals and lithium grease on the mechanisms for the opening roof. For exercise Lynette and the girls did a walk on Horsell Common – I dropped them off at “Anthony’s” car park (which is shut BTW). They walked back along the canal and were out for 2 hours. While they were out I did a bike ride to Weybridge via Addlestone returning through Byfleet. Over the last week managed a ride every day and over 105km in total. For the evening meal we had a ham roast which was fantastically prepared by the team! Evening TV was the highlights of the Lady Gaga organised concert from start houses.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 33

    April 20, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    Interesting start to the day today – Laura got a message from Fran who’s currently staying in the Peckham flat to say there had been a plumbing emergency in the night – some water was leaking into the flat below. Consequently, we decided we needed to visit the flat to assess what we needed to do (so essential travel!). As it was sunny, we took the white SLK and had a nice and easy 50 mile round trip with the roof down in the sunshine. After clearing out the cupboard under the sink we located what must have been a slow leak that built up enough water to leak through to the flat below. After clearing the cupboard and drying everything plus some tightening of the joins it seemed to be OK. However, we will get in a professional plumber to check it out later this week.

    On the way back we stopped at Claire’s friend Kate’s house to leave her some chocolate brownies. She was there so she popped downstairs and it was nice for them both to be able to say hello albeit always maintaining the 2m separation. Kate is a teacher so works some days each week as an essential worker so she has to live alone at the moment. Got back around 1330 and had a relaxing afternoon – I rode to Horsell Common on the MTB and cycled past “The Sandpit” where the Martians landed in HG Wells “War of the Worlds”. Final evening activity, after a really nice chicken wings meal, was to go outside and watch 6of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites fly past.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 34

    April 21, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    Another sunny day although I spent the whole morning from 9:00 to 13:00 in videocons, the only way of holding collaborative meetings these days. After lunch did some more work and late afternoon went out for my daily bike ride. Lynette and Laura worked for most of the day. Evening meal was a Chili con carne cooked by Lynette. Went out again to see the Starlink satellites – watched about 15 go over at approximately 30 second intervals at 21:00. Tomorrow (Wednesday) there’s a plan for another launch so if the skies stay clear we might get to see these soon after launch when they will be much closer together.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 35

    April 22, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Beautiful sunny day again and getting quite warm – reached the 20s today. Spent the morning working which included a Videocon with exactly 100 people present – it was done using Microsoft teams which seemed to work OK although we were all muted apart from the speakers and we had to ask questions using the chat feature. In the afternoon went out for a 1 hour bike ride on the road bike – did a loop taking in Fairoaks airport. Roads are still very quiet and most cars are behaving responsibly but have noticed quite a few who see lockdown as an excuse to completely ignore speed limits, often cars with “phut, phut, bang” exhausts as someone on twitter noted. Doesn’t always end well – see photo of car (from the local news feed) that ended up 12 feet down a bank on a road (Sheerwater Road) with a 30mph speed limit – difficult to see how that could have happened if car was close to legal speed limit.

    In the evening we watched the live launch of the next batch of Starlink satellites – they took off from Florida at 20:30 – beautiful launch into a clear sky. Exactly 22 minutes later we saw the satellites pass overhead from our garden – amazing to think that a load of hardware sitting on the ground in Florida was passing West Byfleet 22 minutes later.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 36

    April 23, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    The good weather continues – the days tend to merge into one another – most weekdays are like the day before or the day after – for me it’s work from home for around half the day, do a bike ride, do a few chores, eat lunch in Garden etc… Friday tomorrow and then some variation as it’s the weekend. Lynette did a really big shop today at Tesco – took quite a well and cost a fair few £££. But, thankfully, we are well stocked up on nice things to eat and drink. We continue to make use of delivery companies for some stuff – veg from McLaren hospitality (yes, the same McLaren who build formula 1 cars – it’s our local car builder), meat from JL butchers, beer from craftybrewing and Beer52, wine from Naked Wines and coffee from Nespresso.

    Our friend Geoff popped around today with some professional grade flour which is pre-yeasted so quite easy to make into bread. Phil cleaned up the old breadmaker which has been dormant for 10 years and made the first loaf which was quite a success actually – lovely bread, probably a bit too big so will make slightly smaller next time. Evening meal was a lovely rice dish with Chorizo cooked by Laura. In the evening we did the clap for NHS, extra claps today for the two nurses we know – my niece Phoebe from Wales who is a recent qualifier and our friend Sue who is a retired nurse who has gone back to working to help out at this time. After that we tried and failed to spot the new starlink satellites and watched BBC’s “Big Night In”.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 37

    April 24, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    TGIF – another sunny day, worked for a chunk of the day but also managed a bike ride with Lynette in the afternoon around Brooklands – it really was quite hot. Around the back of Mercedes Benz World we did the obligatory “Concorde Selfie” and stopped for a drink of water. Managed to get a new Patio gas cylinder from the boathouse at the end of our road – they are still quite tricky to get. They typically last us 3 years and we bought the last one in Summer 2017 so unlucky we needed one now but we should now be fine until 2023.

    Evening meal was a really nice Chinese takeaway – crispy duck pancakes for starter followed by beef, sweet & sour pork and chicken satay with rice and noodles.

    Today was our wedding anniversary, the 38th to be precise so we celebrated with a bottle of Piper Heidsieck champagne which was very delicious. Usual excellent TV on Friday evening.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 38

    April 25, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    Start of the weekend and another lovely day, this weekend is forecast to be nice but not so good from Monday onwards, colder, cloudier and damper weather is on the way. Phil spent the morning in the garden doing a “full service” for the front and back lawns including the strimmer. Lawns looking quite nice so long as you don’t look too closely. Afternoon exercise was a bike ride with Claire to Horsell Common – I’m really enjoying this place – nice network of wide paths with a good surface and few people. Evening meal was a BBQ – burgers, chicken skewers and ribs although 3 of us were so full we left the ribs for a future meal. Watched a bit of TV in the evening – some classic comedy Outnumbered followed by Episode 1 of Fawlty Towers, all of which is now on Netflix.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 39

    April 26, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    Last of the warm sunny days for a while we are told. Started the day with the Whick family skype call – lasted almost an hour, everyone in fine spirits. Did some outside jobs today – cleaned the patio (and found a hidden message – see photo) and cleaned some of the downstairs windows (ironically on Monday morning we got a text from the window cleaner saying he was coming on Monday). Afternoon exercise for Lynette and the girls was a lovely walk on Horsell Common – I dropped them off in the Audi and collected them in the Merc so getting two cars some miles. In between I did a 23km bike ride down to Burntcommon . Lovely Sunday roast cooked by Lynette. We popped out for an hour to collect a bike for Claire which we spotted on Facebook. Needs quite a lot of TLC but it was free, the work will commence this week.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 40

    April 27, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    In the end the weather was OK today – the big rain event now scheduled to start very early Tuesday. Cloudy in the morning but that didn’t matter as we were all working (Claire was doing a job interview in my office). Early afternoon Phil & Claire worked on the bike – so far we gave it a general cleaning by blasting it with water from the Karcher, got the very rusty drivetrain working using plenty of oil and got the front brakes working fine, we replaced the V-brake unit with a Shimano Deore unit that Phil had taken off a mountain bike about 10 years ago that still works very well – much better than the unit we took off. Main tasks for next session are raising seat, fixing front puncture, rear brakes, gears – may need new cables plus getting the mudguards aligned properly. Once that’s done we’ll do a deep clean with Surfex and re-lube all moving parts.

    Had a nice lunch with bread rolls made from the flour and evening meal was a fantastic Chicken Satay cooked by Claire. Phil’s bike ride was 45 minutes MTB to Woking and back. Evening TV was episode 3 of the latest “Killing Eve”.    Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 41

    April 28, 2020 in England ⋅ 🌧 7 °C

    Well the horrible weather certainly arrived today – pouring with rain and cold. Worked most of the day but did manage a 30 minute bike ride at the end of the day around Brooklands. I have to say I think the amount of traffic on both local roads and the M25 is going up – still relatively quiet but not as quiet as a week or two ago. Claire did a job interview which seemed to go quite well – afterwards she found out she has got through to the final shortlist – fingers crossed. Made another batch of crusty rolls which we had for lunch. Lynette made a lovely cake yesterday evening which she finished today which will be the afternoon treat for a few days. Evening meal was pasta and meatballs, rather yummy!Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 42

    April 29, 2020 in England ⋅ 🌧 11 °C

    Weather improved slightly today so did a couple of sessions on Claire’s bike at end of morning and end of afternoon. Front puncture repaired. Seat now raised to ideal height for Claire, replaced outer and inner brake cables to rear brake and adjusted brake. Cleaned all surfes – rust removed with “dremmel” and cleaned metal with Bilt Hamber Surfex. Cleaned the complete drivetrain with degreaser and re-lubed moving parts. Micro adjustment made to gears which actually work very well. Final job was new handgrips (not on photo as that was taken just before). Tomorrow we’ll clean and replace front basket and chainguard and it will be done. Lunch was based around another batch of crusty rolls and evening meal was a fabulous spicy veggie taco made by Claire. Today’s bike ride was kept short due to it still being cold – managed a bit more than yesterday – 40 mins.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 43

    April 30, 2020 in England ⋅ 🌧 10 °C

    Another changeable day – some showers and thunderstorms. Managed to get out late morning and finish Claire’s bike – remaining jobs were to clean and re-mount the basket and the chainguard. It’s all working fine now. Late afternoon ride constrained by the showers so did a short one round Brooklands taking in two sections of the banked track and finishing off with a loop of Dartnell Park. Evening meal was pizzas – made around 1kg of pizza dough – enough for 4 12’ Pizzas and Laura rolled out the bases and topped them – absolutely delicious and a great success – we must do them again.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler
    1

    House arrest - day 44

    May 1, 2020 in England ⋅ 🌧 13 °C

    Another month - we started this lockdown in March and now it’s May. Getting into the routine of daily bread now – usually make rolls. Worked for a little over half the day and then did a nice road bike ride down to Send Marsh as far as Potters lane / Vicarage Lane – just over 20km. Evening meal was a lovely curry from New Haweli and then relaxed with the excellent Friday evening TV.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 45

    May 2, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    What a nice Saturday – the sun came out and Saturday morning was spent by Phil doing outside jobs – mowing rear lawn and washing two cars. Lynette did inside cleaning and the girls did garden exercise etc.. After a lunch outside we went for a bike ride – now possible, since Claire has her bike running, for all 4 of us to go together. We cycled don past the Anchor pub at Pyrford Lock and continued to the RHS gardens at Wisley. From there we did a loop on Wisley/Ockham common which was “just about” do-able on Claire’s “Urban Cruiser” (the rest of us had mountain bikes so no problem). On the return home we did a detour to Byfleet Manor. After the return home we sat in the garden and had ice creams. Evening meal was a BBQ after which we watched a film, “Control”, about the (short) life of Ian Curtis the lead singer in the band Joy Division.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 46

    May 3, 2020 in England ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    Did a few jobs this Sunday – vacuumed the interior of Lynette’s SLK and cleaned the flat roof over Lynette’s office and the utility room – the battery powered leaf blower is proving a real godsend for this sort of job. Did a reasonably long bike ride – out via Rowtown, Foxhills to Chobham returning via Woking -26 km in total in just over an hour. Claire’s new bike lights arrived so we tried them after dark. Sunday roast was an absolutely delicious roast chicken with some great veg including cauliflower cheese, which is my favourite veg.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 47

    May 4, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    Another working day – weather not too bad so some outdoor activity – managed a 12km MTB ride in the late afternoon. Phil quite busy at work now that he has taken on a new project. New project came with its own laptop and iPhone so Phil now using 4 laptops and 2 iPhones! Evening meal was a lovely sausage in onion gravy with mash meal cooked by Laura. Ended the day watching latest episode of “Killing Eve” with a very surprising final scene.Read more

  • Philip DaviesCovid-19 House ArrestTraveler

    House arrest - day 48

    May 5, 2020 in England ⋅ ⛅ 13 °C

    Quite a nice sunny day with a lovely blue sky but a bit windy and quite cool especially if you are out of the sun. Quite a busy day in the work areas – Phil had a couple of videocons, Claire had a job interview and Laura and Lynette both worked for most of the day. Phil & Claire managed a very nice bike ride to Ripley in the late afternoon sun – crossing the Wey navigation at the Weir. Claire had a very active day finishing off with an hour of tap dancing in the garden. Lynette did Rock Choir, virtually of course. Phil cooked the evening meal – Spaghetti Carbonara.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

  • 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

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