April 2020 - Part One

The pandemic was growing worse day by day, with over 10,000 deaths so far, and the news that new pop up hospitals were being set up to take additional patients if hospitals became overwhelmed. I think this was the news that started to make me feel very uneasy and nervous as to what was going on around us.

Work was just as busy as ever, although staffing levels seemed to becoming better and steadier and the level of panic buying seemed to be calming down. Still no toilet paper, although James managed to source some just as I was about to start rationing the bog roll. How have we come to this?

On my days off, I continued to walk around our local area, saying hello to the pigeons, and having a closer look at this fountain that sits on the edge of Asylum Green. What a beautiful fountain, we don't build them like this anymore do we.

Someone was writing a poem each day and putting it at the entrance to the common which was such a lovely idea. It was nice to stop for a moment and read something that this local poet had written.

James told me that these are from the days when Southampton used to have trams, they are the tram boxes, and you can follow them on the old tram routes, as many are still intact. He thought it was something to do with changing the points, but we weren't sure. I found an old Tram map online, when lockdown ends I'm going to walk each of the routes and see what Tram memorabilia is still in situ.

Not even any ducks at the pond! Talk about social distancing. But what a beautiful view too.

More fridge magnet boredom. Can you guess which song the lyrics are from?

Also, we had been playing board games every night and on our days off together as we couldn't go out. After a while though, we had played them all and was getting bored of them, so we tried to design our own one. I can't really remember quite what it was about, but you had to get all your tokens to one side while claiming squares as your own. It was complicated and I don't think it really worked, but it kept us occupied for an evening!

In an odd thought I had while writing this, it seemed so bizarre that people were dying, the country was shut down and we were here making board games. We seem so far removed from the situation of real life that it seems incredible. But that was the right thing to do, because the less time spent mixing with other people, the less chance of catching Covid-19, and which then meant it was spreading less.

The true hero's of the pandemic were the NHS staff that worked through it. They literally put thier lives at risk in order to save others. What I was doing stocking shelves was nothing compared to what the NHS did every day. And the fact that all they got was people clapping for them once a night was disgusting. Years of under funding and overuse had left the NHS in a perilous place, and Covid-19 could have overwhelmed it. I know I'm writing this 4 years later, but NHS staff even now have never been properly thanked for everything they did during the pandemic, but also what they did before and after. Hopefully that changes one day.

We saw this super cute kitty while out for a walk, I wanted to pet, and I think the kitty wanted to be petted too, but the news had said there was a chance that Covid-19 could spread between humans and cats, so we could only say hello to this kitty.

This time, we made our own version of A Ticket To Ride, the train line building game that we had actually really enjoyed playing. We did it based on the Southampton and Greater Hampshire area, but I would like to point out that it is not to scale, and it is certainly not geographically correct, nor is there actually a train station at Shirley or the General Hospital, which for some reason I thought there was. Don't ask me why, I have no idea where I got that idea from. Maybe there should be a station there, would making getting there much quicker than by using the bus.

Thankfully, it was getting slightly warmer, and the flowers were starting to come up, snowdrops and bluebells were the first on the common, and I couldn't resist getting down and taking this picture. Isn't it beautiful!

Another flower shot, and this kitty below wasn't interested in flowers, but was interested in one of my trainers. I'd obviously stepped in something that smelt interesting. Hopefully not dog poo again though!