Lockdown Part 2! (Blog 186)

I’m finally getting used to the idea that cycling and pizza are the only things I truly look forward to. It was definitely a blow at first, but life goes on. However, cycling isn’t without its problems. As you’re only allowed to do one form of exercise a day (have I misunderstood?), I wouldn’t be able to walk home if I had a punctured tire, I’d have to keep cycling, which would ruin my wheels. Could I phone my dad for help? No, because you can only leave the house for exercise, medical reasons or work in special circumstances. (Have I misunderstood, again??) ‘Why don’t you just go for a jog, then?’ Unfortunately, my knees are still recovering from a running session that went too far. I could probably run a few minutes without problems, but say I did run a mile or two away from home; if so and I messed up my leg joints again, I wouldn’t be able to walk back as that would be a different form of exercise, too. I’d have to keep running, and in agony! Dumb laws, right?

As I’ve had lots of time looking at the back of cars on my cycling travels, I’ve invented a new numberplate game, not really with any winners or losers, it’s more for just for fun. All you have to do is make an acronym out of the last three letters on a plate. E.g., with ‘AXU’, you can have ‘Avian Xylophone Utilities’, or with ‘REH’, you can come up with ‘Renegade Ear Hopping’. I HAVE thought briefly about the rules, but didn’t really get anywhere. Certainly not in the two player version, anyway. However, with more players, I guess the participants can write down what they come up with in secret on a piece of paper, and the players could vote on the idea they think is best, without knowing who came up with it.

Changing subjects to the highly yet strangely related issue of toilet paper - anyone visiting England from unaffected countries (let’s just say that would be allowed in these times) would think there’s some serious diarrhoea disease going around. I understand supermarkets running out of bum papers, but it seems Amazon are in very limited supply, too. Very strange. I don’t mean to sound ignorant, but why not just make more? It’s not exactly high technology is it? And it’s not as if the material is rare… It’s not as if the stuff can only be mined from deep down inside icebergs in Antarctica, right? Interestingly, papers used for washing up seem to be easy to get hold of. Are they really so different? Do they come from any old tree? I really don’t know.

I’ll end on a medication anecdote that isn’t at all funny, but I guess it’s interesting. I got a message from my psychiatrist in a very serious tone, saying I needed to see her ASAP. It was an emergency. ‘Ohhh (expletive)’. I thought… ‘My medication has gone bad and has weakened my immune system’. (That is known to happen). ‘And with all the flu going around, too! :S That’s not good at all!’ I tried to phone the person back, but she was out of her office. I later tried again, to no avail. Then I got a call telling me I had to be at home, so my medication could be delivered! That is NOT an emergency! What the hell?! Was that some kind of joke?? I could die in these times if my medication went wrong! My word! Fortunately as I’ve been on the stuff about half my life I should be completely fine and you’d think I’d get a warning from my doctor telling me to completely isolate if I was at risk, but then again, maybe not. Anyway… Bye!