Friday 1st May and day 39 of Coronavirus lockdown. I don’t think we’ll ever have another April like the one we’ve just had. I wonder what the new month will bring.
Boris Johnson said yesterday that we’re past the peak of the outbreak. Figures today show that 26,771 people have died with the virus in the UK. Of course as we know, that figure refers to hospital deaths and only some of those those that lost their lives in the community such as in a care home or at home. He said there will be an announcement next week setting out details to explain how to get the economy moving, get children back into school and childcare, how people can travel to work and how to make life in the workplace safer.
I read that Singapore have had a second peak after easing their lockdown measures. Let’s hope that the same won’t happen here. I do think we’ll behave differently when we do get “let out”. There’ll be a new normal where we’ll all be more aware of social distancing. I get so close to patients when I examine the inside of the eyes. I’m just centimetres away from touching the faces of forty people every week. It’ll be interesting to see what official guidance we receive from optometry’s governing and advisory bodies, but I think many of us will opt to wear PPE in some form. Let’s hope too for the sake of the environment, that we make fewer non-essential journeys.
Anyway, back to today. I have to confess to feeling a tad, ahem, “dehydrated” after playing poker again last night. My beginner’s luck definitely ran out because I was out first. Harry won in the end. It’s lovely when the four of us does something together, it’s really quite rare, not least because Ian isn’t usually here all the time and Poppy’s at uni.
I ordered some oak picture ledges for my bedroom and they arrived today. I have a lot of the white Ikea ones in various places around the house, but I needed ones that are even shallower because they’re going behind the door. When I did an online search, these came up. I love them. They make a nice change to white and they match my vintage dressing table. When we’re “let out,” I’ll perhaps look for a tall, slim vase for the top shelf. I’ll see.
I posted a photo of the flamingo print on Instagram yesterday. I loved flamingos even before they became ubiquitous, but this one’s a little bit different. It’s an origami design by an independent artist and it will forever remind me of when I fell in a swamp in Calpe last year. I was trying to photograph wild flamingos and I lost my footing and fell in. (Read about it in this blog post). I have to say that since being in lockdown, I’ve had a lot of time to look online and I’m amazed by how many brilliant independent companies there are. You can find everything you want and support artisans and small businesses at the same time. Etsy has become my new go-to place to start.
Have a lovely weekend and I’ll be back on Monday. Stay safe x
Notes
Oak picture ledges: Willow and Stone
Flamingo print: Caroline Roles Design (gift)
