Anyone would think it had been a normal week… a dash about from Pilates to Medical Research Group meetings. A touch of bridge. Drinks with friends. Tea with the Yellow Cardies. Pizzeria Al fresco…. Popped (over the airwaves) to the elderly parents, to dispense technology and shopping assistance. Emergency wine was what they needed! .. Sang to the grandchildren and comforted our exhausted children. One of whom is NHS front line. 
Of course that was all in fact from my shielded location, ie home! 

I have lost track of what day it is let alone what week it is, was or will be. The new routine, and routine seems to help, involves a prompt get up and go. Domestic goddess I am. Not..

But a hoover and mop seems to work wonders.. 

A pilates session from our Yellow- Cardie- in -France each morning. 
This had started, 5 weeks ago, as a trial with one or two of us, now she has about 38 logging on. #Legend. Amazing and uplifting. Not least seeing France and hearing the chirruping birds. We Yellow Cardies still meet, but by-zoom for our weekly bridge. Well I say bridge. I mean chatter a lot and chuck some electronic cards around. It is utterly zoomingly cheering: giggling and whinging and grinning.-
Then there is the zooming bridge lesson. It has taken the group a while to figure it out, behave with decorum and play with some sort of aptitude. Bit of a bun fight the first week! But then it’s the only outside link for many. Our magic sub-group of 4 surreptitiously meet for a relaxing game and chatter and Big giggles.

Meanwhile helping out with some research projects and a charity with their accounts, projections and management takes up the rest of my time.

Zoom moments include an arguing couple during unmuted pilates, teenager: crawling behind his surgeon mother, whilst she spoke and of course the mute/ unmuted /connectivity/ check /out the background * delete as applicable! My friend Jess had to remove her African fertility figurine, after an unfortunate camera angle caught the Masai with his pants down…

Our elderly neighbour Min comes each day to wave from a safe 5m distance. I chat from the upstairs  window and lower down a bag… something like a can of gin and tonic. She extracts that and puts in a packet of wine gums or sometimes a book! Then having checked we are safe she goes off to walk 5miles to the public Orchard to gather apples. Checking on her elderly friends as she passes.

Medical Ness…. Raging bloody infection last week. It took a week for msu result via gp. In the meantime a courier was despatched from London. To pick up pee pot. Bike back. Pick up form from hospital. Take to lab. By the time it got there I guess it was a bit old and useless! 
Perchance Jerome intercepted an email to dispense wisdom and medication plan. He’s got much bigger stuff to be doing than stupid bloody urine pots and kidney infections. GP also rang. He rang my mobile. But I was on another call… to my parents’ gp in fact. I heard my land-line spring to life, a rare event!
Dusted the handset off. Picked it up. It was my gp.!
Phew he said. You ARE shielding. We’ve been ringing landlines to check!! 
he confessed to having a bit of time to chat. Of 78 reserved covid appointments, only 2 had been used that day. We chatted about his take on the Covid situation. His advice re my parents. Meds for me. We pondered the low levels of Covid here. A major London commuter town I expressed my astonishment that more were not ill. 
Added to that, he said, we have a massive Italian community too. 

Meanwhile, my dentistry qualification is on hold. After trying to take a photo of the inside of my mouth. Well… YOU try!! The lovelylabrador school ed receptionist consulted the dentist. The response was: we cannot do emergencies. 
Two hours later half the tooth broke off and fell out. But I could not see the drill bit. That must be still in the remaining tooth. I guess in due course I will join the queue of all emergencies- at- a -dentist after lock-down! 

  I’ve heard very sad stories from friends unable to attend funerals, visit sick relatives and some sad mental health issues are emerging. The knock on effect of this is wide and huge. 

Please stay safe. 
Especially all you in NHS. 
Let’s get through this.