The Coronavirus Diaries – 7th April 2020

The Coronavirus Diaries

I have decided to write a weekly diary of our time through the Coronavirus pandemic. To keep for the future. It’s such an unprecedented time and full of so many mixed feelings and events we have never encountered before it is hard to process it all.

1st April 2020

April Fool’s Day, if only it was an April Fool and this wasn’t happening. But alas… On social media, some parents tricked their children and told them school was open again. They got them in their uniform, some even drove them to school. Honestly, I cannot fathom why anyone would do such a thing, I can clearly see my children are struggling with what’s going on. This would just be cruel and if I did this I know they would cry. April Fool’s was cancelled in our house, except for Logan putting wet toilet paper on Aria’s chair!

3rd April

I mentioned in last week’s update that I knew there was a good chance I had to go to the supermarket because of trouble getting an online delivery. Technically we’re not classed as shielded, so we’re not given a priority slot. But with 3 of us being asthmatic, I have been trying to avoid it. While I have managed to get a slot for next week now, we’re low on fresh fruit, veg and bread, so off to Sainbury’s I go.

It was such a weird experience. It’s the first time I have been out, other than for Aria’s elbow injury, in 3 weeks. I had been told that supermarkets were disinfecting trolley handles before people went in, but there was no evidence of this. I was grateful I took some disposable gloves with me on my Mum’s advice. Quite a few people were wearing gloves, and a few face masks even.

There was a queue to get into the supermarket, everyone queueing 2 metres apart. The line crawling round the car park and front of the supermarket. The entrance had been changed, one way for in and one way for out. There was a limit on the number of people allowed into the store at one time due to social distancing. It took me about half an hour of queueing to make it in. Glad it wasn’t raining!

I’d read about there being 2m grids on the supermarket floor to show people where they should stand and even security guards to make sure people were keeping apart, but they weren’t doing this in Sainbury’s. For the most part people were doing their best to stand apart, and wait for someone else to finish browsing a section before they could move into it. Not always possible when an aisle isn’t that wide though. There was one exception, a man that couldn’t be patient to wait for me to select the cheese I wanted to buy, he just pushed right next to me to grab what he wanted taking me aback and causing me to quickly step out the way. I guess it’s just an example of bullying, or someone that doesn’t quite comprehend the risk.

I was quite taken aback that a lot of staff didn’t seem to be sticking to social distancing rules. While queueing I watched two walk out together for a cigarette break and a lot of people not paying much mind to it working in store too. I wonder if they are exposed to it so much everyday, they have become blasé about the risk?

Anyway, I got what I wanted and got home, grateful to have the food I needed for my family until our next online delivery.

4th April

I have felt really emotional today. I didn’t sleep well. I broke down in tears on my husband this morning. Half of this battle is a mental one. Finding a way to remain upbeat all the time and entertain your family when you cannot leave your house. Not knowing an end date. Simple things like the holiday we have booked and wondering if it will happen. Watching the days out and celebrations I probably should have deleted out of my diary pass by. The news is unrelenting and in hindsight I should have backed away from it, I know seeing less helps, but sometimes it’s almost compulsive.

The death rate was shocking today too, over 700. It’s clear we are following Italy’s trajectory. And yet, people are still not adhering to lockdown rules. Meeting for picnics, having barbecues, do they think they’re not going to get it? Have they not read about the 5 additional emergency hospitals the government is building?

6th April

A better day yesterday, the glorious sunshine really helped. Had a bit of difficulty with the children mis behaving. But that’s to be expected really. I think another problem here is the lack of differentiation between the days, it’s very easy for them all to blur into one. I am trying to treat the weekends and weekdays separately, but ultimately with the children off school I am still doing work at the weekend to catch up, so it’s not always possible. The Easter holidays have started now which also means we have two weeks off home school. So even the structure of home school days has gone a bit.

I really wanted to get out on my bike yesterday, the sun was just lovely. But I have seen that people are not really social distancing on the bike paths, so after deliberation I decided against it. It was announced that if people don’t start taking lockdown seriously, we may go into full lockdown where you cannot even leave the house for exercise. My husband runs every morning and I am not sure he would cope not being able to do that.

The big news last night of course was that Boris Johnson has been admitted to hospital. He says he is still running the country from his hospital bed which sounds ridiculous to me. I guess we shall have to see how the next few days go.

Personally, I have decided to set myself a lockdown goal, and that goal is to get fitter. It started when I began joining in with the children’s Joe Wicks youtube fitness sessions, my aim this week is do it 3 times and improve my cardio fitness. My Pilates instructor has also started doing video lessons via video, so I will do that once a week as well.

Easter is coming this weekend and it’s going to be strange not visiting any friends and family over this time. For the most part I am trying not to think about it. We have the ingredients in for a family roast, I’m going to bake a Simnel cake and Easter biscuits with the children. I am hoping to manage some kind of Easter hunt in the garden, if the weather behaves itself. I am finding focusing on the positives helps, so that is my goal this week.

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