At Last a Reason to Celebrate

The path out of this pandemic was never going to be an easy one. The past four weeks of lockdown have been the toughest so far and it has become increasingly evident that people's mental health has been suffering. When you combine social isolation with an extended period of cold and wet weather, the result is not going to be good.

On a personal level, I cannot help but think of what I should be doing at this time. According to my diary I would now be in Maastricht in Holland, getting ready for the start of our ride around the Five Countries Bike Route. It would have been something special. Instead of that I am still locked in a 5 km bubble, unable to even meet with my children or grandchildren.

Well that's the bad news. Now for some better news. Over the past few days the weather has warmed up markedly, the trees are covered with new buds and blossoms and the magpies are swooping with a passion. All of these are signs that Springtime is almost here.

In fact yesterday was so warm that we were able to walk without wearing coats or jumpers. We bought some take away coffees and a couple of cakes and sat in the sunshine to eat them. It actually brought back lovely memories of this time last year when we were riding along the Loire. For some reason the surroundings triggered a memory of a particular village in France where we enjoyed our lunches in the sunshine. That is the wonderful thing about travel - the memories are all in the mind somewhere and they keep emerging when you really need them. It might be a while before we will be able to travel again, but I am so grateful for the storehouse of past memories that I can savour when I am feeling down.

Another cause for celebration is that the Tour de France started on Saturday. It was meant to take place two months ago, but was postponed due to COVID 19. Over the next three weeks there will be many late nights watching the riders make their way around France. Although the mask wearing spectators are a constant reminder that the pandemic is far from over, at least it is a small step back to the life we once enjoyed.

How long will the current "Level 4" lockdown last ? The premier keeps telling us that he has no idea. I guess this is just the same as his ministers had no idea of how to correctly conduct the hotel quarantine process that put us into this mess in the first place. The only thing that everyone now seems to agree on, is that we need to see a drop in the daily numbers of new infections. That is finally starting to happen.

Two days ago we breathed a sigh of relief when the numbers dropped below 100 for the first time in many weeks. A few minutes ago, the new numbers were released for today. The total was "only" 73. That was certainly the lowest for a long time, although there was also a tragic total of 41 deaths reported.

I am hoping that, by the end of this week, we might start to see numbers less than 50. Perhaps then we might be able to finally believe that the current restrictions could be relaxed a little. Anything would be better than where we are at the moment.

As a matter of interest I have been looking at the numbers and thought that it might be interesting to see how they looked in graphical form. This is shown below. You can certainly see what is meant by the dreaded "second wave".Read more