draxil | Entries tagged with the plague times

I'm really over having covid. However

kr0nulus seems to have turned the corner, so hopefully my turn soon.

Praise be to strepsils.

kr0nulus test positive for the Covid this morning. Lateral flow says I don't have it, but I don't really believe it. Thankfully symptoms aren't too bad (so far, touch-wood).

This coincides with my first "knock off early: because payday" from new work. But of course I shouldn't leave the house or do anything because we should really isolate. Oh, also the weather is lovely.

Plague seems to be rampant at the moment, but just not really getting much airtime due to the war, and of course BoJo saying the plague was over. Not at all to distract everyone from the party behind the curtain.

So it's all fun and games here recently! On the job front, still shaping up to be pretty chill and nice. Which is such a huge improvement from the crazy place.

Amazing that the government reaction to surging cases is to boast about removing one of the most effective measures of preventing the spread: masks.

I imagine if BoJo were a fire marshal he'd react to flames by chucking the extinguisher out of a window?

Glad dead ringers is on the air for now, it helps to preserve sanity..

Until I remember that the torys are also planning to take a wrecking ball to BBC and channel 4 soon as well.

If you'd told me before the end-times that I'd be totally gripped by a minecraft series then, I'd have laughed at you.. At best.

But I've really really enjoyed sitting down with the Mrs and watching 3rdlife. If you don't know what I'm talking about it's basically a bunch of youtubers playing a sort of battle royale in minecraft where they only have three lives. On their third life they become "hostile" and can attack their fellow players.

That all makes it sound a bit serious and much less big hearted and fun than the reality. Really enjoyed it all the way through, and they handled the overlapping viewpoints so well that it was fun to watch everyone's episodes.

We've enjoyed watching it so much we're going to recreate it soon, playing with our friends.

Also: team crastle for life.

Got my jab today. All pretty quick turnaround, got a call yesterday and then got jabbed today. I got the Pfizer one, all very quick and efficient!

I was just getting grumpy because lots of people younger than me had seemed to be getting it. Still all sorted now, or rather 1/2 way sorted.

More pleased that my dad got his 2nd jab this week!

We went and had a barbecue in SOMEONE ELSE's garden last night. Quite the most exciting thing to happen in months!

That and the long bank holiday weekend coming up which I am reallly looking forward to!

Hello journal!

Not been scribbling much. Been a bit up and down to be honest, but back on the up right now.

Today the competent contractors at work all finish.. So it's likely to be "exciting" for a while on that front.

Slowly restoring my swimming count. Went this morning which was my first "Friday swim" for a while. It was pretty much a "dedication day" (cold, wind) today, but that makes it feel all the better afterwards.

I can't even comment on the despicable acts of the people running this island recently, but that's been pretty bad. And the chances of us getting a decent government don't seem to be improving.

Overall: coping. But I really need to go to a gig! Like medically.

This helps though: https://soundsofthepub.com/

Just awoke from a dream of crowds...

It was a reunion or something, and there was music.

At the end of the dream there was about to be a tune played that everyone was expecting and wanted to dance to. The crowd divided such that there was a gap in the middle of the room, and we were all squashed together. People shouted out with excitement and anticipation.

It was a nice dream to have in these times!

I survived a week at work.

It was a bit stressful TBH, but the last day where I actually finally got to DO things made it a lot better. It's weird (in good and bad ways) to go from such a tiny company to such a large one. Also odd to go from being the guy with all the answers to the guy with all the questions, which I have say to gave me a bout of (temporary) imposter syndrome.

Also both me and Kr0n have been a bit ick. Pretty sure it's nothing covidious, but I have posted off a test today just to be on the safe side.

Onwards and upwards though! I expect to feel a lot more comfortable this week and hopefully better to boot. I think both the job and the ick disrupted my sleep making everything worse.

Oh also for context when I'm reading this back in a years time the US "president" got barred from twitter, and also Scotland. :D Happy day.

Current Music: Help Is Not Coming - For Giants

First day at the newjob™

I had to *GO* to work.

In a city.

Given that the closest I've got to a population centre since last March is going to the Morrisons in Chapel-en-le-frith, this was a big deal!

However the train was virtually empty:

IMG-20210104-082411

And Well itself is running on a skeleton crew, so far so safeish.

However going to Manchester Picadilly station was kinda scary and I witnessed one guy hacking into his mask, and if he didn't have Covid I don't know who does. I mean there's a chance he just had bronchitis, but either way I was giving him a wide birth.

Actual work was largely a series of video calls, some corporate hoo-ha and some reading. Time will tell. Oh but I did get my first lanyard, which I found very exciting.

A few flies buzzing around the house, not a huge problem. Except, Blue really objects to any move to kill them. The slightest hint of swatting at them and he comes running and crying to give you an accusatory look.

I've tested him out a bit with random clapping and such and he's not bothered by that, it seems like he's really worried about them. Although I know he worries about us as well because something else that freaks him out is us walking anywhere near a wasp.

On another front my bosses parter has had a stroke. Very worried about the both of them, she's far too young for my conception of when people would be expecting such an event. 2020, please stop it we've had enough already.

I went out into the (I think premature) world of open shops the other day and got my phone fixed. Was very novel being able to go and buy a coffee! Thankfully Buxton was very quiet unlike the hysterical pictures of people crowding into some of the city shops. Still after getting my coffee I went and sat in my car while I waited for the fix job.

Life's become a bit of a haze.. Keeping busy with work. Baking quite a lot, but in a utility fashion. Looking after the herd. Reading a lot more than I have in a long time. I've started to forget about "the situation" a lot of the time, usually up until the weekly shop which is still a fairly dystopian process.

Weather has been amazing, any other circumstance this would have been an incredible time to be out and about. Have been living in the garden a lot, although the actual gardening doesn't reflect that entirely. Although have been harvesting lots of broccoli and land-cress, and have plenty of spuds growing.

None of which has particularly lead to much in the way of journaling. But as granny weatherwax would say: "I aint dead". Which given everything, and our useless government, isn't bad going.

My sleep is really messed up at the moment. I'm not entirely sure why, but there are a lot of contributing factors:

- Our geriatric 20 year old cat

solidcat is in one of his "yelling at water at 5AM" phases.
-

kr0nulous is in a "goes to bed about 6AM" phase.
- I'm a bit more stressed than normal, because of the unpleasantness.
- People are always tempting me into multiplayer games of Civilization ATM, which isn't doing my bedtime any good.

I really wish I were able to nap. Or even go back to sleep once I wake up fully!

Very glad to get my flour shipment through! Now I can feed my sourdough, and make bread!

So glad to be a baker at this time, however my copious flour stocks have been reduced to making "empty the cupboard" bread tonight. Hopefully the shop roulette will grant me some more flour later in the week.

I'll make sure to feed Harold (my sourdough starter) before I purge my stocks though. Hopefully won't have to put him into suspended animation. I've not been making proper sourdough recently because it's harder on the flour stocks, although I always through a bit in for flavour anyway.

Managing to go a decently long time between shops, and getting eggs (and hopefully meat soon) from our neighbours helps!

Speaking of neighbours we might have a few more soon...

I've been saying for years that they should build houses down at the old mill site at the bottom of our hill. Well they have now proposed to do just that. However the planning application is for 110 new houses! This would be a significant proportion of the current population of Bugsworth, which seems absolutely insane to me. I've put in an objection, but I know that given recent government dictats most planning is accepted nowadays. And this mostly being on brownfields land (although not entirely) is even more likely to go ahead.

It's annoying because it's much better than a lot of the stupid greenfields building that's happened recently, but it's far too big for the local infrastructure. Grumble.

We'd have been isolated for two weeks by now because of Corona/Covid-19, except for have done quite a bit of dashing to the vets. Ventured to the shops yesterday which was an adventure, thankfully people seemed to panic buy different things in different places. We're still getting milk delivered for now, and the butcher was taking orders through the glass (and contactless payments, likewise) and dropping the bag out of the door when they were done!

It's all very surreal, and just what survival games and scifi have been preparing me for all these years!

Still we're holding up!

The vet rushing was due to

solidcat, our 20 year old kittie being very ill. Thankfully he seems to be rallying.

My brother is trying to get back from the Cayman islands as they're shutting down all travel there, and their income is dependent on cruise ships which aren't going to be a thing for some time! Last I heard they couldn't get back direct but have hopped to Jamaica and should be able to get back from there. He's planning to quarentine himself in his camper van to prevent contact with our elderly parents when gets back.

It's all fun and games isn't it! Keep safe everyone.