I wrote the following entry a year ago and then decided not to publish it given the uncertainty over how COVID would affect everyone. It seems okay to publish it now as a way to look back at this time last year.

There are rainbows in windows. Mostly hand drawn, mostly the work of young children but others are clearly the work of parents with a steady hand and a good eye for a radius while drawing onto a window. I didn’t know what they were so, for the last two days, I thought that Pride had moved indoors. That’s nice, support the LBTG+ community. However, it turns out to be a project started by schools and spread online to encourage children to put up paintings to spread hope. This week the rainbows have been joined by soft toys. Teddy bears and plush dolls hanging in the windows next to the rainbows. Now it looks like Pride has moved indoors and started lynching Big Ted.  

On Thursday we were outside walking the dog when the clap for the NHS started. We were in a park and could see people stand on their doorsteps in the houses which surrounded it. As the clapping started, as people banged on pots and pans, I joined in and thought: “this must be what it’s like to be a footballer for a team with no supporters. I thought of ‘doing the airplane’ and maybe a celebratory knee slide but joining in and clapping instead was the right thing to do.  

It’s peak week. Two weeks into lockdown and life has a routine. Get up at 7am. Breakfast. Mrs TwinbikeRun walks the dog and I start work at 8am and she starts at 9am. Team call at 9:15. Less about work and more about seeing everyone. Yesterday we were asked what we did at the weekend. I said: “On Friday, I watched One Man Two Governors streamed from the National Theatre. On Sunday, I watched Swan Lake from the Paris Opera House. God, I miss Scottish football.”

I was called a middle class tosser. I couldn’t argue with that.

Lunch is 12:30. Mrs TwinBike Run has tried lunchtime yoga while I have a toastie. If you want to survive the apocalypse, don’t get flexible, get a toastie machine. You’ll run out of stretches, but you’ll never run out of fillings.

Work until 5 then close computer and try not to check work again until next day. We’ll have dinner, walk the dog and then watch some television. Normally I would have the news on a loop but I don’t think it’s healthy to have hours of virus news with updating death scores and speculation about what might happen next. I like my news with indirect consequences. Brexit. Politics. A disagreement about ideologies not a scythe cutting through the nation. Boris Johnson is seriously ill. Last night he was admitted to hospital and has been given oxygen to breathe. I do wish him well though. I disagree with his complete lack of beliefs but I offer my best wishes to him and his family. And his family. And his family. And his American IT woman. And the woman he met down the pub on Tuesday night. And…

[Postscript. Boris got better. Wait, that’s not right. Sorry. He recovered. He didn’t get better, he’s still useless.]

A young man, carrying a very large box up the driveway of my house, screams, “this is too heavy. I can’t carry it any further.”

An older man is supervising the lift. He shouts back, “stop your whining!”

The young lad retorts, “its too heavy! My fingers hurt!”

I do not think he is suited to life as a delivery driver.

He is carrying a rowing machine. I ordered one a long time ago but due to a rowing machine shortage and delays caused by Brexit it had taken 6 months to arrive. Which means its unlikely I will now be able to qualify for this years UK Olympic rowing team. That’s definitely the reason that has stopped my selection….

I decided I needed a goal for my rowing so I tried to find out what is a good time and distance for a row. I came across the answer from an unlikely source, Australia’s favorite singing mutant – Wolverine or as as he prefers to be known Shug Jackman.

Shug is what people in Scotland call people called Hugh. I have no idea why.

So there’s my goal. I decided to try to get good enough to do 2000m in seven minutes. If so, i’ll be as good as Shug.

I decided to do a test row of 2000m so I’d have a benchmark time to improve on. I didn’t row too hard but I kept a good pace. I did 2000m in 6 min 45s.

Bugger! It turns out my target time was set by a man who is not very good at rowing.

Oh well – I’m now off to check if any of the other X-Men have set a better time that I can aim for.

I wrote the following entry a year ago and then decided not to publish it given the uncertainty over how COVID would affect everyone. It seems okay to publish it now as a way to look back at this time last year.

I thought I had trouble breathing last night. Every so often I’d need to take a deep breath while I could feel a heaviness over the top of my chest. It didn’t help that I was also coughing… and had turned green and smelt faintly of decay.

Those last two symptoms might be hyperbole.

Did I have the Coronavirus? Or, after 130 minutes on the indoor bike cycling through Zwift, was I just tired?

We seem to be gripped by a fear that everyone is about to die. Even though the statistics show that we’re not. That most people will pick up the virus and then recover a few days later, we’re treating it like the end of the world, which is depressing. I thought the world would end in fire and brimstone, not with a mountain of bogroll and tinned tomatoes.

Maybe we’ve been spoiled by films and television. We see the endtimes in terms of the spectacular when, in fact, for everyone but the heroes battling to save the planet, it ends with a full fridge and a clean bum.

I worry about catching it. I’m being irrational but still I scour websites for “What are the symptons?”, “What does it feel like to have the virus?” and “how many 42 year olds have died from the Coronavirus?”.

It’s pointless. I’m looking for answers to confirm a fear. I should be looking for “How many people have recovered from the Coronavirus?” and “How many 42 years olds have won the lottery?” because the numbers are much more comforting. 

At work today we had a call to plan how we’ll deal with the virus. Travel stopped between offices. Cancelling meetings. Limiting use of the kitchen. Asking people to let us know if they think they are ‘vulnerable’ and what to do with someone who decides to self isolate for two weeks then comes back only to self-isolate again and again until it starts to snow in December and they can take the Christmas break.

We have an action plan but it’s already out of date. We issued it 5pm. By 5:05, Boris Johnson was recommending everyone worked from home and that whole households should isolate for 14 days if one member showed symptoms. Maybe the extra toilet roll has started to make sense?