Corona Diaries

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Adam

“No separation is used in the supermarket, they have very little in the way of restrictions on shoppers. It seems things are bad if you have a blue-collar job. They get no protection at all”.

Background Information

Male, Aged 45-54, Lab Technician in a College, North East of England, White, Married to Emily, one grown up son, David, avid cyclist.

Late February early March 2020

The news contained stories about the virus from China. There were no cases here. It was seen to be spreading to other countries, but there was not much panic about it. It seemed just another news story. The Chinese made a hospital in a week, which later fell down. There was a big story about the cruise ship which had it’s passengers quarantined on it. They were not allowed to get off. Some of the people on it became ill. Eventually they were all allowed off and came back to the UK. This was more of an amusement article. There was not much else noticeable in the news about it. At the time the big news story was leaving the E.U. and its likely effects.

It began to spread to Europe and some other Asian countries. There was not much effect here. Those with symptoms, fever and a cough were told to “self-isolate”. They were not to contact GPs or go to hospital, but to use NHS 111 telephone service and website for details. I had diarrhoea on 2nd March. I called NHS 111 who put me through to Public Health England. They said this was nothing to do with it. I am not convinced this is entirely true. In China, there are cases where infected people get diarrhoea. Some of them have no other symptoms. With no testing there is nothing to support her claim. I went into work normally after taking Imodium. I was late.

Early March (first week of March) 2020

Emily (wife) has a work colleague who received a letter from her GP practice. She had been in the practice at the same time as a woman who was hospitalised with it. Self-isolate the letter said. Someone went round to her house and took a swab. This eventually proved negative. There were more news stories about it. The number of deaths began to be reported and a rumour started that there was going to be a shortage of toilet roll. At this time there was not. Things were still going on as normal. During the first two weeks of March the first effects became noticeable. I think it was round now it was given the name Covid 19. The Metro was quiet going in to work. It started that a few seats were noticeable, then the trains were like a School holiday service. Even the busiest times there were plenty of empty seats. From the first week of march rumours circulated that things were going to close. There had been deaths in Italy and everyone was watching the news. The virus was now the top story. It was given a lot of coverage. Toilet roll became harder to get. We had to use the newsagents at the bottom of the road to find any. Cases had been reported in the UK. There was a bit of tension in the air. This was noticeable on the Metro. Everyone watched everyone else for signs of the illness. Any coughing or sneezing seemed to cause a bit of a stir. People still

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went about their business, but there was a sort of hyper politeness in the air. People stood out of your way when you walked past, giving me a wide birth.

An email was sent to Emily’s school from the Department for Education (DfE) telling the schools to prepare to close. It was guessed that this would be on Friday 13th March. The Prime Ministers announcements stated that schools were not going to close. I suspect my own college had similar communications. This was never admitted too. Management were keeping tight lipped. Towards the 6th March 2020. There was more tension in the air. People seemed to know something big was going to happen but no one knew what it was. There was more panic in the shops. Toilet roll was hard to get and there was little bread or fresh produce.

9 MARCH 2020

Fights reported in shops by newspapers and friends who work in them. The railway rumour mill indicates extra trains for food and power station fuel. Sometime this week I was told that the railways may be renationalised. Trains are very quiet now and the train operating companies must be struggling to meet their costs. This comes at a time when airlines are struggling. Flybe went out of business despite a bailout given by the govt. Nationalisation is being considered to guarantee power station, fuel and food deliveries. More news about at risk people. I am in 4 of the at-risk categories and I should self-isolate. I did not tell work, but they seemed to know.

10 (17) MARCH 2020

– NB the numbers in brackets are the actual date. The other is the date I thought it was after becoming confused!!!

Called into a meeting today, during the middle of lessons and told students are going off timetable from tomorrow. At risk staff told to have a meeting with the head. I was told I could stay at home if I wanted to. I came home and talked about this with wife and decided to stay off. The students had heard before we did. They were coming into the staff room in tears worrying about their exams. Lecturers reassured them that something would be done. David’s summer holiday is now cancelled. He was going to go to Chernobyl to see the power station.

11(18) MARCH 2020

My first day of isolation today. I had still been given jobs to do by wife. I was sent to get some shopping. The one stop had no toilet rolls and no bread eggs etc. I walked further up the street and could see people walking towards me clutching them! I followed the line of people upstream to a shop. I went in and the woman in front got the last one from the palate. I wandered round the shop and another woman told me that there were more behind the counter. I queued up and bought two packs for £6.00 People were very polite but seemed nervous.

12(19) MARCH 2020

I did no shopping today, but cycled to X and back. It was easy on the path, as everyone stepped out of my way.

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13 (20) MARCH 2020

Cycling to X today. Coffee at the place in the car park. Everyone was queuing up distant from each other. I got telephoned from work today. I was in X when they called, so I did not answer. They called back at 3pm. They asked what work I had been doing so I quickly did some astronomy cards and said I had been doing those. They are going to call me every Friday.

20 MARCH 2020

Collected a hire car and went up to David’s (Son) house. He has gone to Scotland. We went up to David’s as we are house sitting. He is ignoring advice and has gone up to Scotland to celebrate his birthday with his wife, dog and car. We hired a specially disinfected co wheels car to get up there. Roads quiet. Pubs closed tonight. Theaters etc also closed. Wife reports that the pubs in towm were full of people drinking one last time.

21 MARCH 2020

Looking after David’s house. Driving between his and ours in the hire car up the A19. He is in Scotland – Loch Lomond. In breech of the current recommendations.

22 MARCH 2020

Lazing round at David’s house.

23 MARCH 2020

We were all told to stay in today. Only allowed out to get essential shopping. X is testing its repeaters (2m and 20cm) at the civic centre and the club’s repeater. They have been testing all of the others in the region. Felt a bit guilty about this. I should be out helping, not being a looked after invalid at home. Religious gatherings, weddings, baptisms and gatherings in parks have been banned. I am allowed out once a day for exercise. The police have powers to disperse gatherings of more than two people. We have been locked down for three weeks. The PM did not call it this though, but this is what it is. The message today was more a formal speech. The two advisers normally present, were absent today. The feel of the announcement was more of a formal instruction. We are going to get the rest of our shopping online. We have registered with ASDA. It may be my last trip out for a while. The talk on the Amateur Radio Club is all of the virus being man made conspiracy! As was the CB!

24 MARCH 2020

Stayed in all day. Emily made it into the back yard with the cats. I have been listening to the radio (ham) it has been quieter than it was yesterday. My mother went to get a prescription and she waited over 1h in a queue to get it. She should have stayed in and someone would have brought it to her. Emily is going in to work tomorrow. She has said she will get some shopping and beer for me. Looking forwards to the beer. I am losing track of time. Today I thought I had only been off for 3 weeks. I have just been of a week. The College is now closed.

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25 MARCH 2020

Emily at work today. I cycled to X. On the way there there was lots of police. Sniffer dog units unmarked cars and an armed officer standing outside of a house. They were beside the abandoned pub. They were not there on the way back. There are more reports from the amateur radio muppets about large gangs of youths going out and causing trouble. Emily was told at work today she is to be given papers which confirm her status as a key worker. Nurses are getting them now. David already has them. They will be used by the Police if they need to have a proper shut down. Prince Charles is reported to have contracted the virus. Emily found some beer in Sainsburys on the way back. They had potatoes so we had corned beef and potato hash. It was great. Network rail is asking for retired and ex workers to return. They are asking for signallers and crossing keepers etc. The amateur radio group have been being harassed by a person saying “pompous tit” and whispering. The whisperer was caught, but the pompous tit man remains at large.

26 MARCH 2020

More computer work today. Cards for astronomy were made today. I cannot access the College’s computers to be able to find the rest of my work. I think they have been taken down for maintenance. I cycled to the sea and back. It was a hot day outside, lovely and sunny with a sea fret offshore. It was unusually quiet. Very few people were around.

27 MARCH 2020

X died this morning. She was a councillor for this area. She is the first person I knew who has died. The PM is sick and his health minister is also ill. Prince Charles has it. I cycled to X, testing the range of my radio as I went. It seems to be able to contact home form the hill near the lighthouse. I cycled up this, the biggest hill I have gone up in a long time. I am getting fitter. At sea level it works to X ish maybe the TA centre or closed pub. I will try it again. I had a contact on the amateur radio guy who was from X. No net tonight for some reason. The pompous tit has not been caught. Other amateur radio muppet talk was about water fluoridation, UFO’s mind control and a war between god and the devil.

An act of kindness happened today. A woman in our street we know put an envelope through our door with a letter on it. She said she would go to the shop for people if they put a list and money in the envelope. She was a nurse and so was allowed to get out. She may know about the coming curfew. Emily texted her, saying she too could get out, and told her about my plight. I feel terrible about having to stay in. I could be out helping by volunteering in a lab.

28 MARCH 2020

Stayed in all day. Emily got out and went to Morrisons for a little shopping. She then went to the chemists up the road for a foot scraper and beer for me. David’s train had suffered an attempted burglary, (It conveys food) with someone trying to prise the curtain sided waggons open. High number of deaths continues. The USA is catching up the worst of the others.

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29 MARCH 2020

Stayed in all day. Went out for a walk to the beach with Emily who is increasingly worried about going out. The standing 2m apart is more vigorously enforced these days and there is the same nervous politeness about everyone. Some orders of cat food came by delivery. That is the only way to get many things. The shops have sold out of many things. We are waiting two weeks for a delivery of a weeks worth of food from Morrisons.

30 MARCH 2020

A lie in and a cycle to the car factory today. On the way out Sainsbury’s had a large orderly queue going into the car park. Everyone was 2m apart. I went to where the level crossing used to be, where the Polish crossing keeper would have worked after the war. It was nice and sunny, but a little cold and windy. A lot must have changed since those days. The car company has built 3 new large buildings across the road from it’s factory. I do not know what they are for. I wonder what the Polish crossing keeper would have thought about them. My Godfathers dad in law hated the Japs, as he had been a prisoner of war building the Kowloon railway.

I went into the shop up the road on the way back. I nearly did not go in, but I wanted to get Emily a thank you card. I plucked up the courage and went in. The atmosphere was a bit tense. There was not much on the shelves, but I was able to find some chocolates and a thank you card. I pushed passed some people and one man turned his back to me as I walked passed. The staff seemed flustered and did not want to be in. She (Emily) has been cautious about going shopping and is nervous about the lack of food we have and the fact there is so little in the shops.

31 MARCH 2020

The weather was awful today. So there was no cycling. We stayed in all day. I started the time lapse of the college being built on iMovie. I ordered some radio equipment. Leads, connectors, a case and a battery pack. Spending money is easy with nothing else to do. I cannot sleep at night. I have long lies in and so stay away late into the night. If this continues I will have to make myself get up. Emily manages to get up early and do bits of shopping etc. To make myself sleepy I eat at night. I ate Emily’s planned food and she is upset with me. I have not had any food made for me today because of this. Exercise days are easy to sleep after but not inactive days. Watching videos about the Hitler survival conspiracy. I am living like a slob. I usually do this if I am off work. I should do something about this during retirement.

April 2020

1 APRIL 2020

Not much joviality going on today at the number of deaths per 24h went over 500 today. That’s an awful lot of people. Most are in London. When people say they have the symptoms they are taken from home, to a temporary hospital and they are treated there, with whatever equipment you can get in a sports centre or a conference centre. Their relatives cannot go to see them and if they die and they are lucky enough to get a funeral only the priest and grave diggers are allowed to be present. The number is so high, they will probably be put in temporary morgues – freezer lorries or ice skating rinks. This is never mentioned on the news. The TV news is starting to be critical of the govts lack of facilities and poor preparedness. The news today had

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a picture of local councillor on it. I stayed in all day as the weather was bad. Today the College boss’s video told us that we will be losing our holidays. The government said that these should be transferred to next year. The boss says different and she said we must take out holidays when we are working from home because this is good for our mental health. I have 9 days remaining. This is a theft of around £600 from me.

2 APRIL 2020

The delivery race began today. The parts I ordered more or less on the same day began coming today. They came in the following order.

1. Battery pack delivered on an electric van at 0900

2. Power supply cable by the post office at 1045

The batteries are in and charging. I had some fun changing the charge time on the radio using a menu. No further deliveries today. I cycled out of town along the road, then over the big hill then back through the villages. I was quite good at getting up such a big hill. Going out every day seems to make me much better and I am recovering fitness faster. I may have another run on the weekend. The bike is a bit wobbly because the wheels need to be trued.

3 APRIL 2020

A ride to X today. We both managed to stay in all day. Things feel normal now. It is no longer a strange thing to have to stay in all of the time. We had a delivered kebab for a treat. There were quite a lot of people talking on the radio. On 2m I heard the astronomy/radio man. He was his usual self. A question came up. Would we need to stay isolated until an immunisation was developed? The answer is no. I went on and explained this to them, about doubling time etc but only got a grunt in reply from one caller.

4 APRIL 2020

Today I received;

1. Connectors

2. Pouch for the radio from I cannot remember. I will have a look. Emily got £50 worth of shopping. This included beer and peanuts! Every day we watch the news and the death toll is going up. It is up to 800 a day here. It is still increasing. The U.S.A. may end up with the highest. There is still the feeling of normality here. Stuck inside a house, there is no indication that this strange situation is going on.

5 APRIL 2020

The peanut monster ate Emily’s peanuts today so I was in the doghouse. Luckily, when I was out cycling some more came my way, w at X which I managed to cycle to today. All the way up the long straight hill. I had a coughing fit on the way up. On the way through town, (to get there) a driver actually stopped and let me pass in front of him so I could turn into a side road! wow! A kind person told me I had dropped £20 in a shop! The man who entered behind me told me he would have picked it up but it may have the virus on it!!! I should not have gone in, but Emily will like her peanuts. There was a passed out drunk behind the bus stop, and an ambulance was attending to him. I waited a long way off just in case. I sat up at the railway and

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ate crisps and drank water. The people in X seemed angry to see me. I am not a local. X has a village mentality and they do not like strangers. especially now. On the way back two boy racers raced passed me at great speed. at least they were able to give me a wide birth, as there is nothing on the road at the moment. This ride was 30km long.

The Queen gave a morale boosting speech this evening. It was a very good speech. It seemed to be written from the point of view of it was going to get worse before it got better. Key workers were thanked and the spontaneous shows of support were welcomed. She spoke of the time for reflection and thinking that this created. It was a bit of a plea for sanity and a hope that we could get through this without major troubles. I think that all of the time people have will make them think. I hope this will change things.

Emily’s brother was brought here by the Police. He had been caught trying to hang himself. He had been in the bushes near where he lives. A dog ran into the bushes. Its owner followed and discovered him. She called The Police. He has been suffering anxiety attacks about the virus. He works in Asda and has no protective clothing. No separation is used in the supermarket. they have very little in the way of restrictions on shoppers. It seems things are bad if you have a blue-collar job. They get no protection at all.

6 APRIL 2020

Sat in all day self-isolating. Emily did not go out and neither did her brother. Not at all stiff after yesterday’s heroic exercise. Not much to eat ether. The Prime Minister was taken into intensive care today. It was sunny all day, and warm. The ISS is no longer visible, passing during the day. Pity. The number of cases is going down. The charger for my hand-held radio broke today. The radio battery is now flat so I cannot get to the repeater to listen to the radio club members. The yaesu on still does not have a proper arial. More PhD writing up today. I corrected the introduction by putting some in it about the current crisis.

7 APRIL 2020

Cycle to X today. As I was sitting on my resting bench, I was quizzed by a friendly police officer. She puffed up the hill and seemed about as fit as me. I was asked about my bike and if I had plenty of food etc. did i live alone? was that an electric bike or a folding one? and where did I live. Coming from town got a mild telling off. I should have stayed in the town she said. I was congratulated on having gloves, and my wife she said, should have gloves on when out shopping. Nearly 1,000 a day are dying. I do not see any of this, because I am in most of the time. When out everyone seems used to it now. You would not think it was going on if you did not watch the news.

8 APRIL 2020

I cycled out to the road today, on the big mountain bike. I returned by the hill and villages. I get more tired on this bike. I lifted the seat and that was better, but still harder than the folding bike. I think it is because I go faster on it. The gears make it easier to do this. It was nice and sunny and there were plenty of people out and about. More people seem to be ignoring the shutdown rules. There is now a temporary hospital and refrigerated lorries in the town car park. There is a drive through testing station there already. This is for hospital staff only.

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9 APRIL 2020

Stayed in all day. B.J. is getting better and David Icke is getting into trouble for saying that 5g phone masts cause the virus. Some of the masts have been burned. None of the ones round here have gone, but there has been a long running conspiracy theory that local council use 5G to turn street lights on. They are of course claimed also to be used for some dark purpose. Maybe they are getting burned there. Youtube have banned content which spreads the theory and Ickes channel may be switched off. I am not sure if they can switch off CB radio. It seems to be spread by that medium too. The crap that is, not the virus.

Nearly 9,000 have died up to now. The official communication today was light on facts and instructions. It was full of platitudes and good sounding praise. Things must be going to get bad. Keep going he said. I ordered some fastenings today. These are for the folding mechanism of the folding bike the spokes (brass washers) and the earth of the radio.

10 APRIL 2020

I rode to X today. I went along the old railway lines. From there I rode up another railway closure to where the murder bridge used to be. I took a photograph and looked at how much things had changed since 1983 when the pit closed. There were lots of people out. They seemed happy and cheerful, almost unaware that nearly 1,000 people are dying every day in hospitals. There was no visible hint of anything wrong going on. There may be that many more dying in care homes and their own homes. There is no coverage of deaths of funerals or burials in the media. There have been odd stories about mass graves in New York. It’s been a long time since mass graves were dug. The final toll of this will be very high. The effect on the economy, along with leaving the EU and a recession starting after over 10 years of stagnant growth preceded by a double dip recession.

11 APRIL 2020

Recovery from cycling day today. The number of deaths is still just as high. It was nice and sunny in the back yard. The cats and rabbits had a time out. Emily and I made a decision today. We are going to become preppers. From now on the cupboard under the stairs is going to be filled with emergency spares and tinned food. I think I will give the big gun and ghillie suit a miss.

12 APRIL 2020

Lazed around the house all day. Spent most of the morning in bed. Impulsively ordered more radio things on the from online radio shops. I got an antenna. It was put on the credit card. £35.00

13 APRIL 2020

Cycled down to the TA centre today. a short ride but up the steep hill going past it on mere knolls road. much easier even on the folding bike. There are no aircraft in the sky. It is a long time since I have seen this. The odd one is seen, but these seem small ones high up. They may be private jets or air force ones.

14 APRIL 2020

Emily faced up to some risk and went to Sainsbury’s. She came back with a harvest of nuts, bread, pork pies, and a fray bentos pie in a tin! mmmmmmmmm. I had it for my tea with peas. Not as good as in the

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1970s when i used to get them for Sunday dinner at my Grandmother’s. Emily still has to queue and cannot go into the shops before 9am. This time is reserved for old people and key workers. There were still items she could not get. Lloyds chemists are saying they will have to stop selling Panadol. I am taking plenty because of the amount of coffee i am drinking. It helps with the cycling (the coffee). The pharmacist said it is not an urgent medication so they will not be getting any more of it. They have only 2 boxes left.

Cycling today was to X and back. (21km) I rode slowly there and saw a stoat running along a footpath. I could keep up with other cyclists along the road on the way back. This wore me out. There is more and more people out. Lots of families are out cycling. The cyclists seem happy, with a ‘cannot believe their luck’ on their faces type expression. Most say hello as they pass. Those with good jobs and socially responsible employers will not be having their pay cut. They seem to be feeling they are getting an extra very long summer holiday. The weather has been good. There are more cars and people seem to be becoming complacent. The fear seems to have gone. People seem happy go lucky in the shop queues. Newspapers make this worse, because they say the govt are thinking about opening everything, they are not. At least they have stopped talking about leaving the E.U.

15 APRIL 2020

Emily stayed in and I dosed up with coffee and continued my attempt to get fit. This is called Boris Exercise. I cycled 30km up to X and back. I took the hard roman road up there, after going along the Lane. The quarry at X was working. Lorry Drivers were furiously racing round. I was nearly hit by one. I sat in the beautiful hot sun at the top of the railway west incline. It is 45 years since I started sitting there. From there I could look out over the county, to all of the places I used to cycle when I was growing up. All the way to the moors. The air was lovely and clear and the sky blue. It was easy to see the horizon clearly. There was no murk in the air. There must be hardly any pollution. Over to my left was the hill where I used to play. In the valley was the east cost main line. I used to be able to hear trains on this when i was playing on the hill. The trains were louder in those days. It was on the railway I volunteered on, on the rope worked section. I remembered all of the happy times I had had in these places. With my hearing aid I could hear birds for the first time in years. It was a tranquil calm experience.

I made a fuss of a man’s dog and he began to talk to me. He complained that despite the lovely weather there was nowhere to go and nothing to do. He complained his dog got hot, because it was a black dog. He mentioned the coming economic problems. He observed we had only just finished paying for the second world war recently. It would probably take longer to pay off the debt for this he said. He talked about all of the Russian planes and subs and ships in our skies and waters. He suggested that this was something going on. It was probably germ warfare he said. I pointed out that insurgents always try to take advantage of troubled times.

People seem friendlier now. They are much more likely to stop and talk. They are no longer in a hurry or rushed. The conversation is slow and thoughtful. like it is between people who know each other well. I remember this in the early 1970s when my grandmother used to look after me. She would always bump into friends and talk. The talk then was of decimalisation and moon landings. Now it is about disease. There is plenty of time to slow down, stop and think. People seem more reflective. I hope this improves things.

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On the way back I went along the lane again. This is the local gay dogging lane. The Police surveillance was out. They were intelligence gathering from a “telecommunications van”. A lone man inside was taking pictures of the cars going past. This is quite common to see. There is sometimes a caravan there. There seemed to be two participants as I passed. I had seen a topless man with giant man boobs earlier. I am not sure if he was a participant or just very hot*. Hopefully he was just hot*. A cyclist and car driver were parked up and talking within sight of the van. They were talking to each other from opposite sides of the road. Nice to see them maintaining proper separation. I am not sure however, when night falls, if this separation will be maintained. Perhaps they will just talk dirty to each other. I hope they (the police) did not take pictures of me. I would hate to be on a database of lockdown breakers who cycle past gay people with man boobs.

*The opposite of cold.

16 APRIL 2020

Stayed in today. I felt terrible when I got up. Too much cycling over the past few days. The BBC website had a story about supermarkets. They said that the amount of food and toiletries that people were buying had gone down. The shops are still short of things. We had a delivery from Morrison’s today and they could not deliver toilet rolls, sausages, chicken, vegetables, flour, because they did not have any. They must therefore be short of things.

Emily was brave and went into lergie land. She got my tablets from the chemists. She also brought a harvest of beer and crisps. I have had half a tin and one bag. Some washing was done and the alarms are set ready to go out and clap for care workers.

17 APRIL 2020

Stayed in all day today. Received some deliveries today. Today was a box for rabbits to play in. No sign of the latest nuts and bolts or the radio antenna. Perhaps they will come tomorrow. David has been working in Scotland for the last few days. Today it was a food train full of soup! Tomorrow Emily is going to empty out the shed. I have a disassembled motorcycle in it, we plan to put it together and sell it on, when the lergie has passed. This will make more space in the shed. If I am going to be put onto insulin, I will have to get rid of them anyway. Over 800 people died in the last 24h. I watched a programme on TV about climate change. It attributed it to cow farts.

18 APRIL 2020

Today two fire engines came into our street. One at the top and one at the bottom. There was no visible smoke, but Emily came in and said she could smell burning plastic in the back yard. We were not on fire. In a sudden fit of boredom, we attempted to assemble the small motorcycle today. It is an MZ from 1975. We managed to get the front forks on and then the front wheel. We cannot find any of the nuts and bolts from it. Most of these have spent years in the shed and have probably been thrown out. Emily is suggesting we should get rid of it in pieces, without bothering to assemble it.

There were no deliveries today. I am still waiting for an antenna and some nuts and bolts for the folding bike. There has been a large number of deliveries in the street today. None of them were mine. These seem to be increasing since the lergie breakout. Smokey and the bandit was on tv. We watched it. I was not allowed

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to watch it when it was new. It was too ITV. This was one of the films that encouraged CB radio take up in the UK. It’s a pity that I am sitting here without antenna. There may be more people on because of the lockdown. It has been lovely and sunny today. The next four or five days are predicted to be like this. Cycling seems to be on the horizon.

19 APRIL 2020

I cycled today. I went along the old railway lines. It was very sunny. There were lots of people out today. The friendliness seems to have worn off now. Unless this was because I was riding in X. I was hassled by a man near X. he wandered across the path towards me and snarled at me. he shouted something about getting out of the way. He looked like a drunkard. On the way back, two strong and assertive women asked me how to get to Halfords. I told them, they were not far away. They had only to cross the bridge and turn right. They must have been pretty desperate to ask me. I encountered a Women’s walking group along the seafront once. It was full of strong women. They shouted at me as I rode past them. When I got home I told my wife they had chatted me up. She did not believe me. I looked on the internet and Halfords has remained open. X cycles was closed. I wonder if Halfords staying open during the outbreak will affect X.

The Morrisons food purchase contains decaffeinated coffee. At first my wife (Emily) blamed the shop. after further interrogation she admitted she had ordered it. I was drinking too much coffee she said, and I needed to come down and stop being hyper. Boooo Hooooo… I think i may sneak out and get some. I will put it into the decaf jar and see if she notices. I will soften the blow by getting some peanuts for her. Caffeinated strong coffee makes the cycling much easier. the legs ache less and it is not such a bind to go out. I do get hyper however. Especially now with the lergie lockdown in place.

A new problem has occurred with my trousers. They are baggy and sometimes wrap around the saddle. This happened at traffic lights. When I stood up to cycle off, my trousers were pulled down exposing my underwear. Luckily I was a long way passed the lesbians and not in the dogging lane, when this happened.

I was looking at the ferry website earlier today. I was daydreaming about going away in the summer. I could get to Amsterdam with the bike for £400. This is half of what it normally costs. The downside is there is no guarantee that the ferry will sail if restrictions are still in place. It’s a nice country to cycle in. Good cycle roads and flat as a fart. If I could manage 50km a day I could get up to Friesland in 3 days. I am currently on 30 a day. closer than I have been in a long while. In my early teens I went on an event. I was able to do 80km in 4 hours. That and the 65 needed to get to and from the start / finish. If I was still that good, I could do the 154km in 8h!

We had some facetime in the evening. I got to see my Son, his wife and their dog. He was running around chasing toys (the dog that is). My mother could be heard but not seen. She had been gardening in the good weather. David had also been planning holidays. He found a Gite in France. We are hoping to go to the car racing in Monaco. This will have to be 2021. This year’s has been cancelled.

20 APRIL 2020

The lack of full-strength coffee continued today. My morale boosting breakfast of fried farm produce was spoiled by the lack of coffee. We have a G plan percolator in a cupboard which was unearthed by our tidying activities. I may try to use it, if the drought continues. Wife continues to protest about being sent to the shops

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to remedy her error. The radio four program about domestic violence was played at loud volume. This did not yield any caffeinated coffee.

As I am currently working from home, I tried some scholarly activities. Huxley & Lee et al, published a paper in the J.A.M.A. in 2004 about this very issue. Their seminal work, Coffee, Decaffeinated Coffee, and Tea Consumption in Relation to Incident Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, showed there is a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes if coffee is consumed in excess. Too late for me then. Try again. Van Dijik and Olthof, published a paper in 2009 in the journal Diabetes care. In Acute Effects of Decaffeinated Coffee and the Major Coffee Components Chlorogenic Acid and Trigonelline on Glucose Tolerance, they find that glucose levels were reduced in 15 overweight men 2h after consuming 12g of coffee. Unfortunately, that was decaffeinated coffee. Caffeinated coffee increases blood pressure. (Smits et al 1985). Bummer.

The peer reviewed evidence seemed to do the trick. instant coffee, ground coffee, salted nuts, crisps, yoghurt and unimportant fruit things, were obtained by purchase from Sainsbury’s. The queue was shorter, she said, but there was much less on the shelves. The shop had no bread, eggs, meat, & milk. The staff had said that their drivers had gone off sick. I am still waiting for my nuts and radio antenna. Perhaps deliveries have slowed down because of a staff shortage.

Radio four today was considering next year. If we cannot get harvests in because of labour shortages or workers inability to move to where the work is, there may be a food shortage.

Refs.

AIME É E. VAN DIJK, MARGREET R. OLTHOF, JOKE C. MEEUSE, ELIN SEEBUS, ROB J. HEINE, ROB M. VAN DAM, 2009. Acute Effects of Decaffeinated Coffee and the Major Coffee Components Chlorogenic Acid and Trigonelline on Glucose Tolerance Diabetes Care 32:1023–1025, 2009.

P.SMITS, TH. THIEN & A. VAN ’T LAAR 1985 The cardiovascular effects of regular and decaffeinated coffee. Br. J. clin. Pharmac. (1985), 19, 852-854

Rachel Huxley, DPhil; Crystal Man Ying Lee, PhD; Federica Barzi, PhD; Leif Timmermeister; Sebastien Czernichow, MD, PhD; Vlado Perkovic, Diederick E. Grobbee, David Batty,; Mark Woodward,. Coffee, Decaffeinated Coffee, and Tea Consumption in Relation to Incident Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus A Systematic Review With Meta-analysis. JAMA Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(22):2053-2063

21 APRIL 2020

Today my nuts came. The antenna is still A.W.O.L. I tested them, (The nuts) and they are all the wrong size. The bolt is too big for the radio and the grub screws are too small for the bike. I think instead of sending me two grub screw sizes, they sent two types of alan key types of the same size. Perhaps I ordered incorrectly. The website is very much an engineer’s site. It is full of useful things, but is incomprehensible. I ordered some more, the next size up and down. I cycled to X today. I passed several mobile phone towers. None of them had been set on fire. The box at the base of one of them, made a contented whirring sound. It must have been working fine. Youtube has more videos from a certain sports commentator. In them he is claiming that there is no virus. 5G towers are responsible and there is no evidence of a virus. Bullshit. No wonder my parents would not let me watch ITV. Not surprising his site was taken down. The government are doing this,

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he said, because they want to control our emotions. He should get a C.B. There are lots of supporters on there. Support seems to increase late at night. Possibly this is in proportion with the amount of drugs consumed. If the government really could control what people think, would they not prevent people thinking about it?

More cars on the roads. There are many cyclists out. There are nearly as many cyclists as cars and all going much faster than me. Especially uphill. Some are well dressed with the latest fashion for cyclists. They are accessorised, as they say, with expensive bikes. What’s worse is they all have toned legs. None of them are fat. The families seem normal. They have everyday clothes on, and say hello. Only the pricks ignore you. I queued up outside of the shop using the ground crosses for guidance and when in, got a bottle of water and two lottery tickets.

The shopkeeper was pleased when i turned down her offer of two for the price of one for bottled water. To make my infarction less bad, I dictated my numbers too her. There were two large helicopters went over. The Police one and a Gray one. The Gray one was big. I was a little nervous to see the police one. What if they landed and saw my lottery ticket? David had arranged to come down to see us. He passed me in the village, and tooted at me from his car. I was in my dream world, so I did not notice him. I heard a car toot, but I did not look round. His car makes video recordings if you toot the horn, so there is a video of me, walking along the street. He called me when I was at the railway. I took two hours to get up there. I went up the steep way.

They were all here when I got back. David, his wife and the dog. Fish and chips were ordered for their visit. I undid all of my hard work by eating them. They had diligently gone into the back yard from the roller shutter (from the back street). This avoids going into the house. They sat at the shutter end and we sat at the house end. The food was delivered in the standard way, with the driver putting it on the step and walking away. The dog was happy to see us. Plenty of coffee and 3 breakings of the rules today.

22 APRIL 2020

To pretend to work from home, I have to log in to my employer’s website. Every five minutes the website automatically logs me off, so I have to keep doing this continually to pretend to be working. I shall have to have a rush of work at the end of the crisis to make myself look productive. The time lapse video is nearly done.

I have spent much of this morning looking at pictures of bicycles. There was an interesting youtube video of a very knowledgeable man discussing cycles. He pointed out the folly of buying expensive bikes, by normal riders. There was no way, he said that normal riders would ever be able to take advantage of the features of advanced bikes. Emily is at work today. It is her one day on two weeks looking after the children of essential workers. She also has to look after children in the care of social services. These have no safe place to stay. They go into school so teachers can keep an eye on them.

I tried communicating with the outside world using the radio. The amateur radio station has no takers on it. I do not have a CB antenna, so I have no idea what 1970s social media is like. Probably normal, with no one on it, other than nutters making chicken noises. My Baofeng radio has a broken charger. I cannot hit the local repeater.

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Emily came back from the work having been to the shops, to collect more bounty. She got, water, sausages, peanuts. There was no bacon. There were lots of people out in the town centre she said. Drunks and druggies seemed to make up a high proportion of those out.

The army has been invited to take part in meetings with the govt. The media are catching on to the long term effects of this. They now discuss food shortages next year and long term economic problems. The R.M.T. has sent out a communication, stating that it has been asked by the DfT, to return to running trains normally on May 11th. It has said it will not. I am not sure if refusing to return to work after the DfT told workers not to work to start with counts as a strike. It is worth noting here that the railways have been in effect, renationalised. During the crisis, the DfT makes all of the TOCs management decisions. They have taken them over. Crucially, the income the TOCs generate, now goes directly to the DfT. Strange that the Tories have not mentioned this in public. Even stranger that none of the press have reported it. We had mashed potato onion sausages and peas. mmmmmmmmm.

23 APRIL 2020

Today was the first Birthday I ever spent under government mandated isolation. I am 53 years young today. It only seems like yesterday since I was 52. Two years to go until retirement. I celebrated by cycling to X. I made it up there in an hour and a half. Lottery tickets were purchased. I have done so much essential work related cycling, I wore out a rear bearing. The wheel wobbles from side to side now. I do not know what type the bearing is. The old type just needs tightening and a splash of grease. The newer ones need parts which are unobtainable in the lockdown. The folding bike needs it’s wheels trued. Oh dear. I hope I can keep it up. My birthday tea was half a quiche and a scotch egg. I had a look at my bank account and I am on track to have £500 left unspent at the end of the month. This is a staggering amount. I get £1200 after tax. It is 15 years since I have had even £100 left at the end of the month. We have been buying less food, so that Emily goes out less. I have not been shopping at all, other than 3 visits for lottery tickets, crisps and peanuts. The mortgage has been lowered too. We seem to be having it very good at the moment. Improved fitness, lots of exercise, no cars on the road, no pollution and great weather. Could not be better.

There were a nearly normal amount of cars out today. Many had bikes fixed to the back, as people lucky enough to have jobs & pay, use it as an extra summer holiday. People are drifting back out again. Even though the numbers dying is still going up locally.

As it was my birthday, my wife forced me to have a shower. I hate getting washed. It is a while since I last had one. I think this must be my first in lockdown. It was still just as awful. If I can cycle to work when this is all over, I can pretend that I get washed there. They have showers for cyclists in our building.

24 APRIL 2020

Emily refused to get sausages for breakfast. No wonder there is so much domestic violence. The boss phoned from work and asked me to draw up a list of extra learning resources for students. There are online resources such as TED talks and a website called future learn. This will be given to the students as extension activities. I complained to him about the lack of sausages. He seemed unsympathetic.

College managers are trying to go back. It is probably too early to do this safely. The managers have been having talks with unions. Unions are trying to get people extra money for the expense of working from home.

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They say that people with pay-as-you-go internet will have to spend more. These will be the poorest employees. The college countered by suspending payments for our travel passes. This will save me over £50 a month. We should pay our extra expenses from that, said the College bosses. I will use it to pay for my essential work only cycle repairs. There was a piece in the paper about the Metro. It has lost 90% of it’s income. London Underground has just dumped a quarter of their staff. The situation on the Metro was so bad the newspaper claimed that it may close. If this happens then going back to work will be very hard. The busses and roads cannot cope when the metro is off.

Shops have reported a drop in sales of over 5%. Alcohol sales have gone up by 30%!. It’s not me. I have had very little to drink. The boy in the flat upstairs seems to be doing his bit. We can hear him staggering round most evenings. The drunks are everywhere. I am not sure if there are more of them out, or they are the only ones outside, so they are easier to spot.

I tried to get my cycle repaired. The local bike shop will not even let me take the wheel there for another three weeks. The owner said he is selling lots of bikes. A mechanic is off ill and he has over three months of repairs backed up in the workshop. It looks as if I am not the only one out cycling. I have an old bike in the shed I bought in 1985. I will be getting that one out soon. My folding bike and radio nuts came today. The radio nuts fit and the cycle grub screws fit. They are a bit short.

Leader of the western world Donald Trump today showed himself to be what is truly is. He suggested that people should inject disinfectant cleaners into their bodies to protect themselves from the virus. With idiots believing that it comes from phone masts, it is only a matter of time before someone tries it. Other news is that the EU is beginning to be discussed again on news programmes. This must show a return to normal concerns. Emily washed my feet. This is better than showering. It only involves putting the feet in a bowl of water. I have to wash them regularly because of my diabetes. They get washed and scraped to make sure I get no cracked skin. Emily has decided that this water emersion should include Dettol.

At tea time I was falsely accused of eating a pie and I won £5 on the lottery.

25 APRIL 2020

A cycle charity refused to repair my wheels. They have too much work they say, and not enough staff. I said I understood, and asked to go on one of their training courses when things return to normal. Resolving this problem would be much easier if I could do jobs myself. Their newsletter said that cycles are the new toilet roll. Emily went to the shop and resupplied our coffee. There was black pudding for breakfast. Off out on my old bike.

I made it all the way to the city. This was 42 km in 4h. (21 each way) My farthest yet. I am still being overtaken all of the time. 10km/h is still slow. The old bike, filthy as it is, went well. It has not been out of the shed for 10 years. It is harder to pedal than the others, but has a leather saddle, so I do not get a sore bum.

I went along the new cycle way beside the felling bypass. There are more and more cycle paths now. They are a great improvement. The newest ones are fully separated bike roads. When I started commuting by bike in the 1980s, there were none. Not even painted ones.

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The felling bypass is normally a busy main road. It was very quiet. I cycled to the flour mill and sat at the end of the millennium bridge. There was a steady stream of walkers runners and cyclists. There were no drinkers, or arts venue visitors.

I set off at 4pm. I returned along the dogging lane. This time there were no participants and no Police surveillance teams. It had been sunny and warm all day.

When I had been out my wife had been decorating. She wallpapered the wall above the wardrobe. Then she put two large boxes in front of it. The wallpaper cannot now be seen. This is a common feature of anxiety and school holidays in our house.

At home I took off my shoes and socks. My feet were red. Hot, red feet is a symptom of diabetic foot disease. It is caused by nerve damage. Mine seems to have been caused by Dettol. There is a perfect red / white boundary, where the mix came up to the top of my feet. I feel grateful she understands that Dettol is not for internal use. At least she is clearer about this than the leader of the free world. I will have to have words with her about this. Curry for tea.

26 APRIL 2020

I stayed in all day today. I did not sleep last night, as I had drank so much coffee yesterday. I kept Emily awake. She was irritated in the morning. The weather was worse today and there was a piece about the valley and the reservoir on Radio four. I can remember it being built. I spent today fantasising about going on long cycle rides and retiring. The peanut monster ate some sauce that Emily had allocated for today’s pasta. She became angry about this. She is frightened of running out of food, as this will mean going out and buying some more. The painting and decorating is usually a bad sign. We have very little food in the house. I am now having to ask permission to eat.

27 APRIL 2020

Emily was spied on by a drone. She was in the back yard with the cats and it hovered overhead. We are hoping that this was part of the trial announced recently and not the illuminati spying on cyclists. They are being tested for making deliveries. I am not sure what effect this will have on her outlook. It has not yet stimulated anxiety related painting and decorating. I anticipate being warned about my behaviour when outside soon. The painting will probably come after this.

My antenna did not come. Everything else I have ordered online has come. This shop must not have the antenna in stock. I emailed them and complained. I wonder what lies I will get from them.

I cancelled my motorcycle insurance today. I did this for three reasons. The bike does not work. We are being discouraged from going out riding. I am about to be put on insulin and will no longer be able to afford to have it. I spoke to two people from the insurer about this. I got a piece of persuasion about this from the first person. The insurance he said covered me if the bike was stolen from home. I should keep it he said. The bike is covered by my home insurance, as it is a cheap one. This call centre banter is normally jauntily delivered. It is spoken out rapidly as they say it from memory. This was all gone today. The call centre workers were talking from the hip. They did not seem to be reading or delivering memorised passages. They had an air of despairing resignation about them. The last of them I spoke to was a woman. She went through

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confirming who I was and where I lived. There was no complication or warnings about my not being covered anymore. I usually get told several times that the Police use computers to check if you are insured. I was not told to throw away the certificate. It used to be a common fraud to get insurance, receive the certificate, then cancel the policy and obtain a refund. She seemed very down about my cancellation. She seemed quite depressed. They must be getting a lot of cancelations. She knew I was not going out on my bike anymore.

Emily went to the shops. She got most things we wanted. There was still no flour. The shop is cordoned off and she is only allowed into a section if there are no other people in it.

Cycling this afternoon. Emily and I went to X. It was a lovely sunny day. The sea was calm and blue. The cyclists and dog walkers were out as usual. You would never think that hundreds of people are dying nearby. X has been found to be the worst place outside of London. Because of the lack of pollution, the horizon was pin sharp. Buildings on the river were visible. We could see from one end of the North Yorkshire Moors to the other. The hills, the valleys near X and behind X were all visible. We could see all the way to X. There is a plaque on a hill at the Eastern end of the Moors with a diagram of all the things you can see from there. Amongst them is X. The plaque was put up a long time ago. Now it is not normally possible to see that far. I bet today, it would be clearly visible. I think I will pop up to the hill and have a look in the other direction. It’s a pity I cannot get to the moors to look north. It would be nice to see it. The drop in global pollution must be dramatic. I hope things do not go back to the way they were before. Hopefully the new cyclists will demand more control of cars and pollution.

28 APRIL 2020

Emily had a sore bum due to the cycling yesterday. She wanted a rest from it today. We are going to stroll down to the beach after tea. My Dettol diabetic feet have subsided. They are now a normal skin colour. I spent today watching TED lectures online. I have made a list of those suitable for Astronomy classes when things return to normal at work. There are some very interesting ones. I will have to try to find some about disease outbreaks.

The radio shop said they sent the antenna today. It was sent by courier. I tried to enter the tracking number into their website. It could not find the parcel.

29 APRIL 2020

The naughty radio shop antenna is on it’s way and the Halford’s things are going to be delivered today. Good old Halford’s. I only ordered it yesterday tea time (a speedometer) I shall fit them to the bike and try them out. Unfortunately, I used the wrong towel when washing my hands. I selected one from the cupboard not the rack. The towel routine is that washed and folded towels are placed on the towel cupboard thing. A daily use one is selected and placed by my line manager on a silver warmed rack. I must use the daily use towel from the silver warm thing.

I watched a thing about an Australian (Nathan Milward) who rode a moped from Australia to London on only $A2,000 on youtube. It was an inspiration to see. In the spirit of long distance travel I have fitted my Halford’s speedometer to my old bike. I got it wrong to start with, because the magnet was too far from the sensor. It is working now.

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I cycled to X. 25km at an average speed of 13km/h. Still not improved from my speed notification camera on the way back. My maximum speed was 28km/h. it took me 44 minutes to get there and 1h 4min to return. There were four doggers on the way there. One went down the small lane. He was followed by an enthusiastic friend. There was no Police intelligence gathering, but plenty driving round.

On the way back, it started to rain. It was not a hard rain, but nearly a drizzle. The water smelled fresh and was cold. It was “countryside rain”. Rain made from water with no pollution in it. I have encountered this rain outside of the area microclimate. This is the first time I have experienced it in a big town.

30 APRIL 2020

Lots of parcels are being delivered in the street. I would say there is close to a dozen an hour. If I get some time, I will count them. I am going to get my antenna today. Yipee! Now I can listen to idiots talk about the virus and telephone masts. I cannot now log on to work’s email system. The computer said that my email account does not exist. I need to notify someone, but I cannot find their email address without getting on to the computer. I got paid today, so at least I have not been sacked.

May 2020

1 MAY 2020

I am still not connected to work by email. My line manager telephoned me. He said he would try to get my connection problem solved. I complained to him about my Dettol feet. He seemed a little concerned. This concern was more for my mental wellbeing than it was for my feet. I paid my credit card today. Paying for things is easy online. This lockdown would be much harder without it. Things must be bad for people who do not have it. Wife and I are going out for a short cycle.

I contacted the union about returning to work. I may have to stay off for longer than everyone else, if the return is phased. The rep said I may be furloughed if this happens. I have to wait and see. It would be a pity if I had to sue them just before I retired.

The cycle was lovely. Nice and sunny and not many people were out. We did nearly 5km. Going downhill on the Road, I did 43km/h! nearly 30 mph. Emily had a headache when we got to the beach, so we had a long sit on a bench. Sitting there, she discussed painting and decorating. This is bad, but not as bad as Dettol or who ate the peanuts. Many of the cyclists who passed us as we sat there, were out with groups of males. Very few women are out, especially cyclists. Perhaps this is why more males get the lergie than females. They do not seem to be from families. She had some gear changing training on the way back. Her seat needs to be raised, but she will not have it. The seat is still creating a sore bum for her. She has ordered a leather one from eBay, so when this is fitted, I will raise it a little. The last time I tried this she fell off. We had a kebab as a Friday treat. As we waited for this, the delivery drone was buzzing around.

2 MAY 2020

More drone activity today. I do not think this is a delivery trial. I think it is a vouyer watching everyone in their back yards. It seems to rise above the Street. Someone must be having a lot of fun. There are several

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DIY projects gong on in the back street. It must be fascinating watching people put decking down. The drone owner must be very bored.

I went out cycling today. I nearly left the house before 1030!. I first went up to the end of the millennium bridge. I went along the Lane, and the Bypass. There were no doggers today. There was the usual stream of cyclists. I was redressed by a pedestrian who told me I should be cycling on the road. I was on a cycle path I told him. He disagreed. There were plenty of blue signs. I told him he should look it up. The local newspaper is doing a great job of stirring up bad feeling between pedestrians and cyclists. They have a social media page full of vitriol.

From town I rode to X. I have never been this way. This ride starts off in all of the posh redevelopment of the quayside. There is very little evidence of the industry that used to be here. There a giant shiny turd near the bridge. This is called the X. It does not look very wise to me. There are also bars. One has a piano in it. There are no locals in them. They are full of what used to be called yuppies, when young people had jobs. I think this replacement of character and substance with bland crap is called gentrification.

It takes about 15 minutes to cycle away from the play area of the rich. After the posh flats peter out the path becomes almost rural. There are plenty of woods and the odd boat moored on the river. There is some old industrial land that has been bought by travellers. This is where the poor live. They keep their horses here and have lots of vehicles in compounds. These are home made from waste sheet steel and fence materials. A few compounds contain small, improvised scrap yards. There was no social distancing going on here. Work seemed to be going on as it had done before the lockdown. I doubt if anyone here would be on full pay without working. Their privateering enterprises must be doing very badly. They were gracious and polite to me. No one told me I should have been riding on the road. This is a long way from the comforted weekending pricks who go to the quayside.

Passed the travellers there were social gatherings. Some cyclists had stopped on the path and were drinking beer. These cyclists did not look as if they were on a stage of the Tour de France. They were wearing normal clothes and had cheap bikes. They all said hello. They did not offer me any beer. There were a lot of lads fishing and plenty of dog walkers. This is where the working class spends their leisure time. When I was growing up there was always abandoned cars and TVs dumped in places like this. It has been sanitised now. Today these places are called “heritage walks” “enterprise zones” and “nature reserves”. These terms are euphemisms. They really say “closed factories”.

This one is called the “Riverside Park” The spots along here were a good way from places the Police would visit. They tend to stay in well to do places, like my one time favourite tourist seafront seat.

I got to X. I had not known I would pass through here. The path came out on the Street beside the old ferry landing. My dad grew up in one of the streets near here. He sold his newspapers outside of the shipyard. The remains of this are still here. If this had been closer to the city centre it too would have an arts turd built on it. In X the land has little value. It has been left to rot since 1981 when it closed. Part of it has fallen down in a “fire”. Sometimes these fires happen to buildings that have listed status. They seem to ignite when developers want to build something else on the land. This happens a lot in the Quayside. Up the hill and passed the church. Left and passed The Pub. My Dad sold his greatest number of newspapers outside of here. There had been a murder in town that day.

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Onwards to X. The path moves into the towns and away from the river. The riverfront properties are still in use here. I was going to ride through the cyclist’s tunnel under the river. This has been restored and looks magnificent. A much better use of money than arts turds, southerner prick housing and riverside car parks. It had the deepest escalator in the Europe when it was built. The steps are wooden, so cannot now be used. There is a lift people have to use. Unfortunately, the old man in front of me in the queue started to cough violently. He got in to the lift and I decided to give it a miss. He had invited me into the lift with him. Talking to people seemed to be a novelty to him. Old men are usually ignored. He must have remembered the street when it was full of unionised, well paid and highly skilled workers. I doubt he would have seen any middle class prick cyclist haters in those days.

I cross X on an old railway line. The pit here had its own electric railway system. This is followed by a cycle route. I follow this home. David met me at several places along here. I had ran out of water, so he drove along in his car, and brought some to me. There was some black pudding and sandwiches at home. 50.01 km

3 MAY 2020

There was a separated birthday in the street today. A car pulled up outside of a house opposite. Two people got out and began to sing happy birthday! The young woman in the house came out and presents were placed on the wall! There was a story on the internet about a man who has managed to have affairs during the lockdown. He had a secret telephone and a second home in London. I made sure my wife saw me reading it.

Emily measured my waist today. She claims the cycling is making me thinner. It was 154cm in circumference. She is now clearing the cupboard under the stairs. She has found an old camera and my walking boots. We filled this cupboard when we moved into this flat. It has needed to be sorted for a long time. Unfortunately, this will lead to my line manager (wife) making me throw things out. She has found a saddle bag. Perhaps I will be able to put this on my bike and hide the things to be thrown out in there.

Going through the cupboard contents I found lots of old things. Some of the tools I made when I was on a Y.T.S. scheme were there. I made a centre punch, a precision vice, a normal vice and an unfinished tap turning handle. Looking at the these I remembered my instructor, “these will last your lifetime, if you look after them” he said when we started making our first tools. He had gone through the war. Things then must have been much harder in those days. Shops today are short of things, but not in the same way as during the war. Now, we have many types of olive oils and a wide range of foods from abroad. Then, they had one slice of bacon a week and egg powder. People of his generation fear shortages. He wasted nothing. He had the ability to rescue scrap from the bin and make useful things from it. I contributed greatly to the scrap bin in my time there.

It must have been easier to be poor in the war. There was full employment. Sociability had not been killed off. Friends in factories, with the skill to do things would help their friends out. This meant valuable gifts for weddings and free improvised repairs to bikes. Things were made to be repaired in those days and people had the skill to repair them at home. No matter how little money you had, a broken bike, fished out of the river could be repaired and brought back to life. No-one bought parts for things. Today the cycle shops overflow with repair work as no one has the skill to repair things themselves anymore. There was always something

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in the scrap that could be turned into a useful part. People lived off the things that factories threw away. Travellers like those I passed yesterday did that. There must be nothing being thrown out now the factories have gone. I was forced to have laboratory clear outs. I secretly save the best items. The oldest I found was a jar of zinc from 1939. That jar survived the war. I wonder what will survive this outbreak and be discovered 80 years into the future. That will be 2100. wow. People who have not known improvised repairing do not see the potential that broken things have. They only see rubbish that needs to be put into landfill. In X, the people have been thrown away.

My instructor would never be thrown away. He would not let anyone do it. He worked teaching us so that the skills he had did not die with him. He refused to allow himself to get old. He was very strict about this. When old age came, he would simply call it a weary bastard and tell it to fuck off. His cock, he boasted, was still rock hard. God help old age if it should lean against something. He was strict with us too. Especially with me as I filled the scrap bin with things that could be made into something else. He would not even let us sit down when we worked. We often speculated that he had no seats in his car. He must be spinning in his grave to see what is going on with people now. They are such a lot of weary bastards, they expect to sit down at work. The tools were not thrown out. I think I shall will them to my Son, who also went to that place to train.

4 MAY 2020

The stress of the clear out made me binge eat. I had a kebab. Today we fitted a pair of mudguards to Emily’s bike. We found these during the clear out. The rear one seems to be the wrong size. It sits too far above the tyre and looks ridiculous. The front one looks great. Emily did a good job of fitting them. I fumbled everything so Emily took over. In the interests of equality, I made hot drinks. It took us all morning to do this task. Emily decided that she was going to cut to length the mudguard supports. They seem to be too long. She ordered some bolt cutters.

She has thanked me several times for helping her to fit them. It was a nice group activity to do. The extra amount of time we have to do it, means the job can be paced better. When the support stays pinged off we had to start again. This happened several times. This was not a problem, because we had plenty of time to do the job. It was done in a calm relaxed way. More care could be taken and a better job was done. We seem to be getting along much better in the lockdown. We bicker a lot less than we used to and are enjoying each other’s company. This bodes well for retirement.

5 MAY 2020

Ran out of breakfast food today. Emily is going out to get some later. Someone at work has made a lockdown newsletter. I sent in a piece on how to see the international space station. It is going to be included next week. We replenished our shopping. This included large jars of coffee. The person in the flat upstairs got his shopping too. He had some toilet rolls and two crates of beer. He seems to have his priorities right.

Emily was talking to a Taxi driver and he had spoken to a Nurse from the local hospital. The hospitals have no new cases coming in. The deaths are merely the tail end of who had been in from the start. If this continues for 8 days, (or whatever the latency period is) then it’s all over bar the shouting. Emily has continued housework. Today she oiled the door hinges on all of the doors. They are now impressively squeak free.

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I had a look at the travel websites. The ferry across the North Sea was nearly £500. Flying was £100 and the train was nearly £400. I told David and he said he was going to take us away. I wonder if he will let me take my folding bike.

6 MAY 2020

I received an email from work inviting me to attend an online briefing meeting. The meeting is to brief us about returning to work. The software I need to do this does not work on a mac computer. My line manager said the rumour is we will return after whit week. This seems to be too early. The govt seems to want a later return. no doubt we will be pushed into returning early. At least now I can cycle there to avoid the crowded metro. If we have a staggered return, as the press seems to be hinting we will, I will ask to go in early in the morning. Off out cycling today, so strong coffee to speed me up. The press said that traffic levels have fallen to 1970 levels. Lucky 1970.

I cycled to X today. The weather was bright and sunny. Outbound was quiet with the usual number of cyclists out riding. On the way back there were crowds of people out sitting in the sun. Several fish and chip shops were open and large crowds sat round eating. The weather is good for the next few days and most people seem to be making the most of it before returning to work. I did some work myself when I got back. I added to the list of extension courses available from future learn. Work emailed me. I stayed logged on to their site when out cycling. There is a version of the software for mac computers and I can link to it. Good. I think I will dress as a cat for the meeting.

I am absolutely itching to get away to the Netherlands cycling. The sea today looked a treat. It is years since I have been away. I will have to book soon. there will be a rush of bookings when word gets out it is over. The price is sure to go up. This could be the cheapest I have ever crossed the North Sea for.

7 MAY 2020

The big day. We have our online briefing today. We are going to be told how the College is going to return to normal work. The press are buttering us up, saying that restrictions are going to be eased. The bank of England predicts the worst recession since 1700! Pretty bad.

Online at 1509 but not able to watch the boss give his talk. I have no idea what was said. The link did not work as it was only for P.C. I could not get the online connection to work as I was told it would. Download it they said. Google it and download it they said. No. Google is a noun not a verb. It is not possible to google anything. I am not going to download anything. Why should I use my valuable disk space for that lot. They can email me if they need to tell me anything. The Union has said there is a return meeting on Tuesday. They have said we are not to go back to work until the discussions have been completed. What a wasted day, sitting in waiting for some stupid load of crap that could have been sent out in an email. I got annoyed about this, and shouted at Emily. I felt bad about this and said sorry later. She is used to my outbursts, so I hope I am forgiven.

I completed a guide to observing the sun at Midsummer. I will send it in to the newsletter after adding a warning about not looking directly at the sun.

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8 MAY 20200

I went into the back yard at 03:00h to look at the international space station as it flew over. It was cloudy when I went out, but the sky cleared in 10 mins or so, as the high clouds were blown out to sea. I was very lucky with the weather. It passed over right on que at 03:37h It was high up and so was visible for a long time. There were three people on it. I had the (amateur) radio out. Nothing was heard as it passed over. The station works on UK time, so they were probably asleep. The sun was lighting the sky, even at this time. It had rained overnight. Like the other day this smelled like fresh lake district camping rain. The lack of pollution is improving things for us. Even when it is cloudy, the clouds seem thin and weak. It never takes long for them to blow away and the sun returns. We are cycling to B and M as Emily wants to get something. Emily is in a mood today. I woke her when I was going out to see the ISS and now she is irritable. I think I will get her some hot milk, a dummy and a romper suit. That will make her sleep.

Today is the anniversary of V.E. day. I have never been told so much about this by the press. Newspapers resemble school History textbooks. There are morale boosting pictures of cheering crowds and the Red Arrows did a special fly past. We had to be quiet for 2 minutes at 11:00h. I cannot remember this happening before. This is just a lot of what might be called propaganda. Patriotic morale boosting we pulled together and won crap. The government must be expecting things to get worse. Perhaps this is to prepare us for the coming economic collapse. The post war years were pretty austere. Perhaps we are going to have to endure something similar. We are getting another address from The Queen. This must mean bad news is coming.

There seems to be news management going on. Leak some story to the press that everyone is going to be put in danger. Do something that puts only a few in danger and everyone feels relieved and accepts the change. The press claims that B.J. is going to ease the lockdown starting next week. They did not say how he was going to do this. They said that construction, and transport must be ramped up. The papers claim that schools will all go back. To start with this was happening on the 18th May. Now it has been “moved” to the 11th. The R.M.T. bought the line and is saying that public transport cannot be altered to run with social distancing. The number of people who use it will be reduced so much that hardly anyone will be able to get back to work. The RMT spat out a press release about this. It says, the govt has brought forwards their request to re start public transport. The Rail industries recommendations on reopening have been ignored. People, they say, are going to be put in danger when they all return to work next week. The GOVT know full well what they are going to do. The College gave the address over the internet as they have already been told what is going to happen. They receive emails from the Department for Education every week.

It is my mother’s birthday soon. I have not got her a present. I do not know what to get, where to get it or how to get it to her. She gets quite upset when I forget. I have two days to make an effort. I could tell her where and how to see the I.S.S. I do not think she will be impressed by this. I think I will try The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. This is a book about Trump’s mental health. I asked her if she did not mind it being delivered to her house.

We cycled to B and M. Emily bought some lights to go on top of the shed. They look like Christmas tree lights. I am not sure why she needs them, but she wanted them and I did not argue. This cycle was nearly 8km long. We stopped for nearly an hour overlooking the port. There was a small squat ship being unloaded. It did not look like food or anything important. We could see, even from the other side of the river,

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the dockers had facemasks on. It was a lovely sunny rest. From where we sat we could see all the way out to sea, between the piers.

9 MAY 2020

My mother went into hospital today. She has had diarrhoea for several days. This now has blood in it. She is talking immune suppressants drugs for arthritis, so she is at risk of the lergie. She has the habit of not throwing old food away. She has probably became ill as a result of that. We were summoned to the hospital to look after Dad. He has dementia, so needs looking after while mam is seen. The hospital did not want him to be there, so they waited outside. If my mother gets the lergie then we will have to expose ourselves to look after him.

She was sent home and given suppositories. These are great fun. I had them for piles once. They worked, but kept falling out. There is a real knack to get them in there. She is getting a book about Donald Trump and his mental conditions for her birthday. Something to read when sitting on the toilet.

Emily is also having bum troubles. Hers gets swore when riding on her bike. We have ordered an old leather saddle for her. We are waiting for it to come. It was ordered from the Netherlands and is supposed to be coming some time this week. A DPS van came, but it was for next door. The press are full of cycling stories. B.J. has told Mayors they must provide extra infrastructure. Bring it on!

I cycled to X today. It was lovely and sunny. The coast was beginning to look crowded, especially X I saw an aircraft and the Police helicopter. There are many Police cars around. The last few times I cycled to X they were parked in little haven car park. They did not ask me if I had came from town.

There is a great deal of propaganda on television. There are many war story programmes about pulling together and sacrifice. V.E. day, rationing, street parties, patriotic duty to suffer and footage of happy smiling children are common. There were many shots of bomb-damaged buildings. The ones on Channel Four have “stay at home” written in the top left of the screen. This is a lovely piece of subliminal messaging.

10 May 2020

My Mother’s birthday today. I will send her a text wishing her a happy birthday. Her book is still on it’s way. It is predicted to come on the 17th.

B.J. is going to tell us about the easing of restrictions today. He is going to speak at 19:00h. A 14 day quarantine is going to be imposed on travellers returning from abroad. This only applies to air passengers. I am sure it won’t be long before it applies to cyclists coming home on ferries. Looks like the holiday in The Netherlands is off for now.

Emily is becoming anxious. She is fussing about wearing masks. She has asked me to find some on the internet. I emailed Peacocks. They sell medical equipment to students at the nearby medical school. They should have some that are good enough. She is panicking and beginning to nag. She thinks she will be going back to work next week.

We cycled to X. It was very windy and cold. We did not spend long on the bench. Emily wants new tyres as the ones she has are splitting.

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The message from B.J. was of a plan of reopening. People who cannot work from home, (factory workers and construction workers (the working class)) are to be “encouraged” return to work tomorrow. There was no word on what encouragements will be used. They have been told not to use public transport. So, over the next 12 hours, there will be millions of people trying to get to work. There goes the air quality. Many of these workers will have to use public transport. There will be a big increase in bus and train users and it will be unlikely to maintain 2m separation. The R.M.T. have instructed members not to work if conditions are not safe. The government cunningly took direct control of the railways when this started. I feel a fight brewing.

Primary schools will go back 1st June. Colleges, Universities and Schools (year 10) will go back after that, some time at the end of June. In July, the hospitality sector will be allowed to reopen. The man upstairs is a chef. He gave out a whoop of joy when he found out he will be off until July! Simultaneously, Willow, one of our rabbits, ran loops round the living room. After the news, the BBC followed up with a patriotic morale boosting antiques roadshow. It was to feature artifacts from V.E. day.

I am to have unlimited exercise. I am not sure how this will effect me. I have been doing work from home. Knowing my employer, when it suits them, I will suddenly be no longer required to do this. I will have to wait for my telephone call tomorrow from my line manager. My mother seems unsympathetic to this. You are going to go back eventually she said, why not go back now. She is not the family Microbiologist.

11 MAY 2020

A return for some today. I got no call from my line manager. I am not sure if everyone has gone back. There is no email on their system, so perhaps they are all still off. I wonder if my line manager has retired? He was going to go after the June team building bash. That would be in two weeks but has been cancelled. I wonder if he has just gone. He came back out of retirement to do this job. He had previously retired because someone had set fire to his school and burnt it to the ground (I worked there with him and the three arsonists were in my class).

My Mother’s book is being delivered today. We are going to order her a box of cakes from a baker. The afternoon tea box cannot be delivered until next week. This seems like a moral boosting gift, after her stressful hospital visit. My book, and Emily’s bolt cutters came. She ordered a pair of them to cut down the mudguard stays on her bike. They are very big. Much bigger than is needed for this job. It seems hard to judge the size of things on the internet. In the photograph they did not look much bigger than a pair of pliers. I have never used online shopping and social media as much as I have now. When I was growing up, C.B. radio and Ham radio was hailed as emergency communications. Now the internet seems to have well and truly superseded this. I was always reluctant to use the internet in the past. I think this will change.

Emily went to the corner shop. She got sausages, bacon, peanuts and crisps. All of the lockdown essentials. There were no shortages in the shop. She was quite clam about this. She did not nag me about eating things in the night. She is however angry that BJ is now telling us we need to wear face masks when outside, on busses and in shops. She has been going on busses to the shops without one, for weeks. Emily sent a social media message to her aunt and uncle. They had found us online and invited us to be friends. They live in Cumbria, near the Lake District, in a mobile home. It is on a caravan site. Emily chatted with them on a thing called messenger. They were doing fine they said. Our children bring shopping, and we get out, but only as far as the bins. My wife said I had been going out cycling a lot. Every other day she came with me,

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but it was a struggle to keep going. Emily had told them about her Brother and the hanging attempt. She received a very warm and loving reply. Their Son had asked the Dad to take his wife out to cerebrate when it is all over. Take her further than the bins he said.

Scotland has still stayed closed. Wales has closed their border to English people going over. As we are now allowed unlimited travel for exercise, will Scotland close it’s border between England and Scotland for the first time in hundreds of years? I have no idea what the transport system looks like. The news has had no stories of chaos.

I received an email from someone persuading me to join a union. It came from the Labour party I think. They stressed the chaos that early release would cause. They mentioned the 40 bus driver deaths and the lack of protection that shop workers get. UNISON, which I am a member of at work, got 91 new members during the lockdown. This is a lot for my place of work. It is a very anti union place and no one bothers joining. All of the reps were sacked. I have been in touch with them, about going back to work. I am in four of the at risk categories, so should be isolated for longer. Neither the govt or my employer is saying anything about this.

12 MAY 2020

Shopping for Emily. The shops are only short of flour this time. We are not going to be sent back to work yet. I discovered this in an email. The leader of the free world took a huff and walked out of a press briefing today. A Chinese woman asked him a question he did not like. What a big baby. I stayed in all day with no cycling taking place. The weather was cloudy all day.

13 MAY 2020

Last night some peanuts and sausages went missing. My wife was very angry about this. She received a letter from the leader of the free world about it.

dEaR Emily,

lAsT nIgHt sOMe mEXicaNS iMNIgrANts bRoKinTo yOUr hUSE and pINchEd pEanutS aNd sAuSaGEs. tHey hAvE a magic kEy tO gEt iN lIKe tHE onE sANTa hAs. iT was nOt yOUr hUSBand.

lOVe

XXXXXXXXXXXX

dONAld.

I don’t think we will ever get to the bottom of this mystery. I was so tired after defending the household sausages from thieves that I needed a lie in. I tried to go back to sleep after breakfast. Emily came into the room and threw water over me. She also threatened me with her new bolt cutters. I am not sure if when she cut my willy off she would put it in the jar with the remaining hot dogs. Just in case, I decided that washing the old bike may be a good thing to do. It is very dirty. It must be many years since it was last cleaned. I think I will adjust the gears. They are hard to change.

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Emily’s school has announced that it is having changes in September. Lessons will be one hour long and they will have a two week timetable. These are a nightmare. The students never know where their classes are. She has been asked to do a wellness course by her employer. I am not sure if she is keen to do this. A vacancy has been advertised recently at a Primary school. It is a job my wife could do and she has always wanted to work in Primary. It is a Higher-Level Teaching Assistant post. She has just completed the qualification. The job asks for everything she can do. Medical work, small group teaching etc. She has done all of this. It is for a lot more money. She has stopped being in the huff and is now talking to me about work. The gears on the bike need replacing. The derailer spring is too weak to pull itself far enough to engage all of the gears. The tensioning nut on the front derailed has stripped threads. It is only holding the cable on because it has rusted in place. I will try to get replacements.

14 MAY 2020

We tried to complete putting the rear mudguard on Emily’s bike today. I had to cut the stays with her new bolt cutters. I cut them too short and the guard rubs against the tyre. We gave up and removed the mudguard. I will have to get a clip on one. Bummer. These are not as good, even though they are much easier to fit. On the food front it has been fried sausages, bacon and black pudding all day long. Great.

The government told us today that it was our patriotic loyal civic duty to avoid using public transport. They have given local authorities powers to close roads and widen cycle ways. None of this has been done round here. London Transport is about to go bankrupt. They have asked for more money from the government by the end of today. The government is responding by telling people not to use public transport. The transport company here is in a similar position here. I think they got the money they asked for. Here’s hoping Transport for London gets the same. Fish and chips for tea. mmmmmmmmmm.

15 MAY 2020

Today our dear leaders told us the R number had gone up again. They did not give an exact number, but they gave a range of between 0.7 and 0.8. It is highest where we live and has probably gone above 1 again. The PM did not make this announcement. He got an underling to do it for him. The lergie must be spreading again. Emily continues to be very worried about this. My weekly telephone call with my line manager featured this. The boss of bosses wants the college to stay closed. The boss of my building and his deputy want it to reopen. As I am Diabetic, Fat, Asthmatic and get flu injections I need to remain isolated. The govt website said I should stay home if I can work from home, or return if I cannot. Apparently the govt thinks that viral particles can differentiate between sick people at work and healthy people at work. The college has given me work to do at home, but this could change. It would be easy for them to say that if they re open, my work must be done in their building. Line manager said I need to see my G.P. I think he too knows there is a fight brewing.

The Unions know this too. They are spoiling for a fight. They correctly point out that employers must provide PPE to their employees. They must do this even during normal times. They cannot do this now. All of their correspondence is leaning towards instructing members to refuse to work. There are many local authorities who have said they will not open things up as instructed by the government. I will have to call my GP on Monday. The traffic has returned. There are still fewer cars, but the fast aggressive driving has returned.

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I cycled to X and back. 13km. When I was in Primary school I liberated a Geography text book from a bin. It was a guide to field trips the area. One of the trips was to the top of X. I cycled there from my home in X in around 1975 aged 8. I had planned to visit them all, but most were a long way away. The path today is overgrown. It is still possible to glimpse the features the book pointed out from the road. I think I will sneak along there and have another look one day.

16 MAY 2020

We took our wheels to the city cycle shop to have them repaired. I hired a co wheels car. These do not need to be collected from an office and they can be hired for a few hours. We got ours from the local University car park. At X I came within 1m of a man in the bike shop queue. He told me off. He looked a bit of a nutter, but I got out of his way. I was too close to him anyway. I handed all of the repairs to the man in the shop and explained what I needed doing to them. We gave him; two small wheels to be trued; one wheel that needs new bearings; and a wheel that needs a new tyre with an inner tube. One of these was only out of true because they did not put the new spokes in properly last time they had the wheel. This wheel has a hop. This happens when the hub is not in the middle of the wheel. It needs to be taken apart and rebuilt. I got the usual BS off him saying that it would need a new rim. They do this because selling a new rim nets more money in a shorter time than doing the job properly. He did not bother to write any of the repairs down. I am not sure if he will remember any of it. He did not take our names, so we may not even get them back next week. At least he has our telephone number.

After this it was off the beach form some fish and chips. We dropped the car off and walked back. I was very tired after this. Funny how I can cycle 50km now but cannot walk 4. We had to stop twice during this walk. Once was beside the port, where we watched a ship unload. The seemed to have a cargo of iron beams.

Our son came round, and he sat in the car talking to us. He had his dog and wife with him. He has been going out working, but less than usual.

17 MAY 2020

A lazy Sunday today. The shop stalking programme marine traffic shows the ship anchored off the coast. Dear Leader Comrade Worker Gove today told Teachers that it was perfectly safe for them to return to work. I wonder what the man in the bike shop queue would say to him? None of the classrooms I have worked in can have people at a 2m apart. Not with their full complement of learners in them. I think I will call my GP about this tomorrow.

I was asked what I wanted to eat for tea. I replied peanuts and crisps. She has refused to go out and get any. I think that I will have to fidget quite a lot tonight in bed.

18 MAY 2020

My mother got her birthday presents today. The box of tea goodies arrived first, followed by the book. She seemed pleased. I have found it very easy to turn into a slob. I am spending more and more time in bed. I have done this most of today. I got up and did a health and safety course online for my employer. I failed. I also failed to call my Dr. I have also failed to make much of this time to do any work on my PhD.

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Emily went to the shops and returned with crisps, nuts, bacon, sausages and black pudding. There was flour in the shop. The first time in months we have had this. mmmmmmm. After this she telephoned her brother. He seemed quite down she said.

The ship that I am stalking, is being dragged backwards up the river. This reminder of travel has caused me to need pepping up. I have ordered some maps of the Netherlands. I will cycle there when this is all over. I think I will do one lap of the large inland sea that was created when the aflusdijk was built.

19 MAY 2020

I completed my pretending to work training. I did a safety course. It was useful. I can get a section of the failing PhD out of it. I cycled to the Ferry. More and more places are open. The number of cars on the road is back to normal. People are out at the beach in groups. Some wear face masks. Our order from Peacocks came today. Beer and peanuts when I got back.

20 MAY 2020

Today’s beer caused shits prevented me from going out cycling. A pitty, as it is nice and sunny. I am a little annoyed by this. Still it was me who drank the beer. The day was spent pretending to work, by doing safety training on the computer. Today the training was about explosive atmospheres. I passed first time. This is nothing short of a miracle. Emily was at work for her fortnightly session on the rota. She found my camelback. This had been missing since Christmas. I will have plenty of water next time I go out. Hopefully the weather will remain sunny.

21 MAY 2020

Today was nice and sunny so I went out on the bike. There was a little runny poo in the morning. I was ok by 12, so with no danger of craping myself I went out. I was planning to go to X. I got to X and the boatman would not let me on the ferry. Essential travel only he said. He asked my what was the purpose of my journey, work, travel or exercise. I told him exercise. This was the truth. There was no one on the ferry, so I am not sure who I was being distanced from. This seemed an odd question. It may have been unasked on the river since the war. I was a little annoyed by his asking it and not letting me on. I got off and sat on the quay for the next few hours. I thought about sneaking under the river using the cyclist’s tunnel. This would add 16km on to my trip.

There was no one else getting on or off the ferry. The controller of passenger services could have given the man time off. There was no one using it. Fancy having to go in to work on a lovely summers day. All he was doing was going back and forwards with no passengers. No wonder he was pissed off. What a bummer.

Some big ships came up the river. A big red one came up and a dozen crew were standing outside in group. They all looked at what was on the river banks. The Pilot had brought them in, so perhaps it was their first trip up the river. This part of the river has been redeveloped. It has a College, a Library (with a fancy name) and a Theatre on it. This one (Theatre) is much nicer than the shiny turd under the Tyne Bridge. It is in an old building.

There were some non socially distanced lads fishing on an old wooden quayside. Smoke started to rise up beside them. It liked like a barbecue at first. The smoke got thicker. The fire brigade turned up and I went

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along that way to have a look. I had never spectated a fire before. The underside of the quay was alight. Flames were jumping up about 50cm from between the wooden beams. A fireman clipped himself to a rope and put a life vest on. He dangled himself over the edge to examine the underside while water was poured on from above.

As they did this people walked passed. They offered various theories about the fire. It was reported to be;

1. caused by cigarettes.

2. caused by broken glass

3. caused by spontaneous combustion

4. set fire to on purpose by the fishermen before they ran off.

I do not know what the correct version was. Perhaps the fishermen had tried to get onto the ferry.

Once the fire was out, The firemen removed one of the beams and scraped out the ashes. This took quite a while. As the regular firemen were packing up, two special ones turned up. They were wearing red and had lots of climbing equipment.

The cycle shop called me today. The wheels are ready to collect. 4 jobs for £30. They cannot have done much too them.

22 MAY 2020

I called the Dr today. It is up to my employer she said to provide a safe workplace. They should do a risk assessment and put measures in place to make it safe to work in. This means I will go back if asked. I can cycle in to avoid the metro and could spend my days in the prep room. They could pass notes under the door to communicate with me. If I can manage riding in every day, I will be riding 50km a day; 250 a week or 1,000 a month. That is four hours a day. If I burn 400kCal an hour I will be using 1,600 kcal a day. Half of a normal day’s consumption. I hope I can manage it.

I spent today waiting in vain for my weekly, pretending to work, telephone call. It never came. What did come was an email from my employer. They are going to progressively open the College. Over next week the boss class will go in and dream up a method of safe working. The week after one-way systems will be marked out. The week after that, the return begins, with small numbers of special needs students going back. I was asked on the telephone by my line manager about what Emily’s school is doing. This method of tutoring children known to social services seems to be being copied at the College. I may have in advertently contributed to my own return to work.

I received a text message from my mother. My brother’s wife has been told her cancer is terminal. It spread to her liver and my brother was told she will be lucky to be around at Christmas. Because she is receiving radio therapy, we may not be able to see her again.

The car was booked for tomorrow’s collection of repaired wheels.

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23 MAY 2020

We took a hire car to the city to collect the wheels from the bike shop. We got the bus to the car’s collection point. This was the first time I have been on any form of public transport for months. It was nerve racking. The repair man said there was nothing wrong with the small wheels. The wobble was from a tyre fault. The mountain bike wheel had something loose inside of it. He tightened this and fitted a new tyre to Emily’s wheel. When we got back, I put the small wheels on the folding bike. We went for a ride in the car after wheel collection. We drove up X. At X the road was closed. We wandered round aimlessly trying to find a way past, but gave up. So now I need a new tyre and the old bike wheel truing.

I was so stressed when we returned I binge ate a whole tub of ice cream. I have the shakes now. This came to nearly £7.00. This seemed a lot. I have been spending this amount several times a day before the lockdown. No wonder I have so much left at the end of the month. This month I will have around £350 unspent.

24 MAY 2020

We fitted the wheels to the cycles today. They are now in their proper resting places. To celebrate we had a Sunday lunch from the cafe on the corner. We had to book this last week. Our slot was after 1pm. I was very hungry waiting for it. I think I will go out on the X later on. It is quite windy, but is nice and sunny.

I am not looking forwards to returning to work. I always get aggressive when I am outside. I am not sure how I will be able to cope. At least I will have cycling back and forth to calm me down. Psychobabbleologists say I should have something positive to look forwards too. I am looking forwards to a holliday. All of the cycling I have done should prepare me for this, and for a retirement of going out for rides every sunny day. This should become possible as restrictions are lifted. I hope the ferry company. say they will be resuming services in the summer. There is still quarantine in place, so I cannot go away until this ends.

Emily is trying to find her certificates. She needs them to apply for a job. She has the ones from school, but cannot find the ones from College. These are the important ones.

25 MAY 2020

David and his wife came down to visit today. I was going to go out cycling but felt ill. Good job I stayed in. We went down to the beach on a socially isolated visit. David and his wife went down in their car, we cycled down there. David’s wife was reporting that her department at work is going to lose staff. This was in part due to some worker’s pay demand from last year. It was made worse by the financial troubles caused by the virus outbreak. The beach was fuller than I have seen it in a long time. We enjoyed ice cream from an illegally open ice cream shop. This was washed down with fish and chips. We ate these back at home.

All of the early friendliness seems to have gone. The traffic has returned. Drivers now go faster and are less courteous. The feeling of “pace” and not enough time seems to have returned too. Today the PM was rumoured to be giving us some more lockdown opening news. He did not. I would not be surprised if the virus came back. All it takes is one infected person in a crowded place. There are lots of crowded places now.

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Emily cycled half way up the TA centre hill, and got into the correct gear. Her saddle is still too low, but she is getting better. There is still no sign of her leather saddle, or my maps.

Some more news manipulation has been occurring. The PM has been questioned by the Police about misconduct in a public office (when he was mayor of London). The Police said he should have been prosecuted, but someone high up prevented it. All of a sudden Dominick Cummings has been outed as having travelled to Durham. This happened nearly one month ago, but no one seems to notice this. A neighbour apparently waited this long before reporting it to the Police. As did someone who saw them in Barnard Castle. This old news story has been placed and done to death. There has been a trickling out of details over a week. This culminated in a statement made today. This story has been placed, perhaps by Cummings himself. It is being used to stop the press from asking questions about BJ’s taking of taxpayer’s money and giving it to a female friend. It has worked very well. It is very hard to find reports of BJ’s alleged criminality in the press.

26 MAY 2020

I had intended to do some Health and safety training. I opened my emails this morning and on Friday (22 May) I had been sent an email from the boss of the office. This was the same day my line manager retired. The email was about marking registers. For all the years I had worked at the college, I had written down names and got someone else to enter them into the computer. I am not a lecturer, so I do not have the password to access the special lecturer software to do this. Before Christmas 2019 I had been asked to use the lecturer software and was given a password. I had used the new software to do my registers ever since.

I had thought this was all over. Changing how I do registers is after all a simple thing. Today however I received a formal letter saying that this was not all over. It is going to continue when we return to work. The strangely worded letter said that they had simply not been able to continue this process due to the lockdown. It included the telephone number of a confidential emotional help service. Strange considering that I had been doing registers the way they asked. This is the start of the new way. The boss of bosses did media studies when he was a Teacher. He does not understand how Technicians work in Science labs. I was tipped off by my outgoing line manager that he would be “rationalising” technicians soon. Outgoing line manager and his wife were pro Technician. They retired the same day I received the email. Talk about strike while the iron is hot. It looks like they are trying to get rid of me. As I am over 50, harassing me out of my job will be cheaper than making me redundant. I get a week and a half pay for my 10 years of service. Over £5,000 of statutory redundancy pay. The solution to this is to go on the sick until I am 55 years old. I can resolve this by going on the sick for a year and a half. Bastards. I am going to stop pretending to work now and go out on my bike.

All but one of my maps came. Emily’s saddle came.

27 MAY 2020

Today we went to my Brother’s house. His wife is very ill. We travelled in separate cars. My wife and I got a Co wheels car, collecting it from a car park in town. This one was electric. It had been selected by my son, who has an electric Tesla. I collected it alone, after cycling to Gateshead. I passed through the dogging lane

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to get there. This time there was no Police surveillance. In the lane, two cars were following each other up and down. They drove up to a junction, then, one at a time, did a three point turn. They then set off in the opposite direction. They did this several times in the time it took me to pass. I am not sure which part of dogging this is. Do they have to assess each other’s driving skills before beginning? Perhaps one was shy and the other keen.

My parents did not want to come. They had wanted too, but it was late when we set off. My Mother does not like driving in the dark. We travelled in a convoy of two cars, with a family in each. We got there quickly and tested our eyes by reading signs in Barnard Castle. We got into his village and found his house. The village occupants were very local. We were watched by the residents as we parked and approached his house. It was a nice rural village, but looked as if strangers might be burned in bonfires at midsummer. We placed gifts on the ground outside their gate and left quickly. We parked up on the way back to try to see the ISS and the manned launch to it. It was cancelled. We got some more electricity on way back.

28 MAY 2020

I dropped the car off after Emily did some shopping. We got some extra to put in our prepers store. We now have close to half a weeks supply. We have no ghillie suits or weapons.

I cycled back after dropping the car off. I went to X; X along the old railway line; X; and along the coast home. The tea brown murk on the horizon has returned. This is a photochemical smog, formed from car exhaust pollution. If it is not windy, this forms layers. I think this is called stratification. This was a ride of four hours. I was harassed by motorists in a passing car. They shouted at me as I rode up a very big hill. This normal part of pre lockdown behaviour seems to have returned. I was struggling up the hill in granny gear. The shouted message was I should sit down and have a rest on the seat at the top.

It was hot and I was very tired when I got back. I had a shower. Something I hate doing.

29 MAY 2020

Another hot sunny day. I spent the day recovering from yesterday’s ride. Emily sent in a job application. I did another online safety course, before I realised it was half term and work was shut. There was no need for me to have done it. Not today anyway. We found one of Emily’s co workers had died recently. He has had a heart attack. He had been a Teacher at her School. He was only 40 or so years old. We ate a Friday Kebab.

30 MAY 2020

We went out today. We got a hire car (the one you collect from a car park) and went in a two car convoy, with David, his wife and their dog. We went up to the beach at X, where the dog played in rock pools. He went in swimming to retrieve his ball. I went in to a garage to get some petrol. The floor had been marked out with 2m lines and instructions were written on the door. The toilets were closed. We also got fish and chips. Customers queued outside, 2m apart. They placed their orders at a table across the door. No one went inside. They order was brought out when it was ready. The staff at both places seemed very friendly and helpful. Much more than normal. The area gets all of it’s money from tourism so they must have suffered

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greatly during the lockdown. They must be relieved things are allowed to open up now. The public toilets were still closed and only some of the car park was open. The lack of toilets caused us problems.

I think much of the reopening is being done informally. Traders seem to be deciding for themselves when they will reopen. No one at the petrol station asked if my journey was an essential one, unlike the at the ferry. They just seemed to be glad I was there. The council had been on TV recently and had said that the car parks were all closed. I cannot help but wonder if the traders moved the cones and signs after the officials had gone.

The visitors seemed happy to be there. Much happier than the normal weekend crowd. There was more playing going on. More families with children playing organised beach games. Groups played to. Groups of friends, or multiple family groups. The beaches here normally have old people walking dogs. Today there was a different feel to it. The traders know something. They seem to know they are on to a good thing. After the lockdown, people will appreciate simpler things. They will be frightened to travel abroad. Places like this beach resort will have a boom in visitors. There will be more as people stick to traditional, comforting, old fashioned, holidays that remind them of better times.

After playing in the sand with the dog, David took his wife to work. After this we drove up to X. This is a pass between England and Scotland. We went there to eat our chips and try to see the spaceX rocket. Emily had to use the toilet on the way for a wee. Nowhere has their toilets open, but there is a lay bye near the airport. There is a well worn path from there to the other side of the bushes. It is used by taxi drivers waiting for incoming flights. We used that to find a discrete spot. A poo seemed to be working it’s way out into the world, but I ignored this feeling. It was not my time of day to poo and we were in a hurry.

We got to X with 40 minutes to spare. We parked and stayed in our cars, watching the launch streamed onto the TV screen in my Son’s Tesla. The launch counted down as the rockets were fuelled. Everything was going normally. Much better in fact, than a few days ago. The launch that day had been postponed by bad weather. Unfortunately, both Elon Musk’s rocket and my poo came into action at the same time. As the countdown got passed a minute I gingerly walked off over the fells to find a quiet spot. The slope is gentle here and I had to walk quite a long way. The poo could not wait and had to be removed from my underwear against it’s will. I wonder what Elon Musk and the space men were thinking about as their rocket launched into space. Perhaps it was to do with the majesty of the Earth. It may have been about the beauty of the heavens they were entering. I do not think these thoughts would have included me or the remote upland pass I had shit myself in. Space launches do not normally conjure up images of obese, bald, 53 year olds. Especially if they are trying not to topple into a pile of there own excrement, while cleaning their bum and underpants with surgical face masks. We drove home slowly.

31 MAY 2020

We spent most of today sitting round the house. The washing machine is now broken. Emily has booked a man to come and repair it. He is coming tomorrow. David came down and we donned face masks to go for a ride in his car. We went to a charger and filled it up with electricity. Emily has been communicating with her co-workers about the death of the teacher from her school. It now appears it may be a suicide.

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JUNE 2020

1 JUNE 2020

The washing machine repair man came today. I sat in the bedroom with the cats while he was in the house. When I was a teenager I saw a pornographic film about a man who came to a woman’s house to mend a washing machine. He had come all the way from Sweden. I observed his work through the internal window. He was well prepared (for a disease outbreak) with a face mask and gloves. There was no inappropriate activity taking place. The drum was broken, so he will bring another and fit it.

A news report today stated that sex in a home between people who do not live in the same household is unlawful. A solicitor had read the new legislation and said it is confusing. The law he said does not apply to outdoor sex, so that may be legal, as long as the participants are from the same household and are complying with the decency laws. Sex with a sex worker in a home may be lawful, if the courts say that sex work is necessary work. No one commented on how this might be policed. I wonder what effect this will have on our dogging friends. He did not say whether the outdoor sex had to take place between persons at least two meters apart. It is now half way through the year.

2 JUNE 2020

A short ride to the beach with Emily today. It was lovely and sunny. The shops not permitted to open had managed to open their businesses outside. They are using caravans and trailers to sell their goods outside. The mood was friendly, apart from the driver that went through a red light and nearly knocked me off. She barked at me and gestured at me. Halfords have traded with me today, I am receiving my new tyre an inner tube between 1500 and 1600.

3 JUNE 2020

We stayed in all day as the weather was bad. Emily has started to paint things. She has painted the inside of the boiler cupboard and the bathroom door. This is a bad sign. This normally happens during the late stages of the summer holidays. It shows that Emily is bored and stressed. I am now braced for DIY projects hopelessly implemented and conceived. The last time this happened she fell off the shed roof.

The cycle charity I use has placed videos on you tube of basic cycle maintenance. This is advertised as an online version of their “my own bike” training course. This course is done by people who need to learn how to work on their own bikes. It includes mending punctures. This is shocking. That people cannot repair their own punctures is a sad inditement of our fatherless times.

I examined my folding bike and looked at the tyre and wheel. As I expected, the wheel is out of true. It is not only the tyre that is creating the hop. The hub is not in the centre of the rim. The workshop did it wrong. I wasted over £40 on a new tyre and inner tube. Repairing it properly will now have to wait until the lockdown is over. I will have to learn to do it myself, as all the repair places are interested in is selling new replacement parts. I bought my son an inflator and an adapter. He had asked for one so he could go out on his bike.

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4 JUNE 2020

A ride out to X today. It rained when I got to X so I made for my Mother’s house. We sat 2m apart and I had a cup of tea and dried out. I went from there to X and watched trains on the main line to London. I saw some Azumas and some of the new ones that go to Manchester. Only one of the trains I saw was a Diesel. A big improvement. There were lots of new bikes passing me. Many of the riders of these bikes, looked wet and miserable. There were some of the new type of what is called a gravel bike. These seem to be like “road” bikes but with slightly fatter tyres. Bikes have changed a lot since I cycled in the 1970s. All of these different types of bikes seem to have been invented to get people to buy things. These categories include; mountain; road; touring; racing; track; gravel; etc. A gravel bike seems to be to be what used to be called hybrid. I bet they could all do any type of ride.

Before the lockdown I would not have been able to do this ride. I would have a bad headache and have to get a lift back. The last time I cycled to Mother’s house I begged a ride on a bus home. It was much easier this time and I could ride at a much higher speed.

Emily’s internet pad now has a cracked screen. I am naturally being blamed for this. One of the cats was walking on it and there is now a discussion going on about this. I think the cat is heavy enough to do this. She does not. The news media is filling up with stories other than those about the lergie. They include; the EU negotiations; a car factory; a new suspect in Madeleine McCann’s abduction. This is now being called a murder. The Police have pictures of addresses associated with the suspect. There may be a body to recover. Those poor parents. They have spent all this time hoping that she is alive.

5 JUNE 2020

I received my telephone call from my line manager today. He had not retired, as I suspected. This will not happen until the end of August. In the meantime, the College is reopening on the 15 June. Returning to work is optional. None of the other technicians are going to return, so I will go along with this and avoid going back. I think the choice also extends to students. It is likely there will be no proper teaching until September. Year 12 have gone off into the big wide world already.

Emily is going shopping today. I will ask for beer and peanuts as a treat. I think that the shops are short of nothing now. We tried to order my medication today. The receptionist told us that we had enough and could order no more until next week. I must have some lying round the house somewhere.

6 JUNE 2020

We stayed in all day and enjoyed a restful Saturday. I washed my bike, but failed to fit the new speedometer on it, as it did not dry quickly enough. My Son and his wife had taken their dog out in their car. They went up to the roman wall. The dog (a Border Collie) had tried to herd the sheep they were passing. The painting has continued…

7 JUNE 2020

My son and his wife and the dog came down today. Emily had suggested that we ride to the beach. She must be very bored to try this. But as they came down, we went to the beach. We had a correctly separated walk to the beach and back. I was very stiff when we got back. We all had a subway sandwich from the

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reopened shop. This is the first fast food I have had since the lockdown. There was no queue outside. This is not like McDonalds, where the press said there have been hour long queues to get served in a drive through.

I am not walking very far these days. I used to walk an hour a day before the lockdown. Just too and from train stations on the way to work, but more than I do now. Now I cycle, but I have stopped walking. I can ride 50km, but I cannot walk 3. My legs are very stiff. I will have to stand in the shower device and get wet to try to cure this. The painting has stopped. This is a good sign.

8 JUNE 2020

The washing machine repair man came today and replaced the drum. He was properly equipped with mask and gloves. I stayed in the bedroom as he worked. Emily watched him.

I cycled to the river to watch the ferry. There was a cruise ship docked. I have no idea where this will be going, or even if anyone was let off. Around half a dozen people got off the ferry with each crossing. I have asked David to find out if it accepts passengers who are exercising. If it is, a trip to X is on the horizon. It was nice and sunny.

I emailed work and told them I would be staying off. All of the other technicians are refusing to go back. They are all Scientists, (two Microbiologists and one Chemist) so their actions speak loudly about the safety of returning to work. The boss of bosses did media studies. It is claimed that one of them is close to thinking immunisation is a conspiracy.

9 JUNE 2020

I got a reply from my line manager about my request to stay off on the 15th. He said I was being sensible. The govt however has backtracked on their reopening of schools. They are not now going to open all Primary schools on the 15th. This is going to be put off until September. As older learners can get themselves too and from school. Secondary Schools and Colleges will probably still open.

I cycled to X again. I was tired when I set off today. I went over the hill again today, so I was even more tired when I got back. The hill is pretty steep. I did over 50 km/h on the way down! I stopped on the seat before returning. I saw a ship leave the river. I had seen this one at the port yesterday. I looked it up on the MarrineTraffic website. It was on it’s way to Brazil! It had a tug and the Pilot boat alongside.

I tried to buy a pannier rack and panniers. I will need these if I cycle to work. They are listed as out of stock in Halfords. The nearest 5 shops, have none. The painting has resumed. I must now not touch the door and the door frame. Oh dear.

10 JUNE 2020

Emily was at work today doing her rota duties. She has had difficulties getting the Children to behave. The Teachers have set work for them, but they only want to play games on computers. If they go back before September, with a partial re opening, they will simply refuse to work. The teachers she said, are too keen to “befriend” the children and will not discipline them properly. She has applied for a job in Primary and she is

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hoping to get this and start soon. She was unhappy when she returned from work. She had clearly had a hard day with her teenage charges.

I stayed in all day as the weather was bad. I watched Catherine Cookson’s The Dwelling Place on youtube and Shane on Film Four. It was a long time since I had seen Shane. It was still just as good.

I sneaked out to the shop, to buy some bacon sausage and eggs etc.

11 JUNE 2020

I am trying to get up early. I have had so many lie ins that I cannot sleep at night. I am turning into a night shift worker. I made it out of bed at 0720 this morning. If I cycle to work on my return I will have to wake at 0500 and set off at 0600, so be able to start at 0800.

12 JUNE 2020

Emily is going to her work colleague’s funeral today. I tried to get booked in to visit the cycle shop. I have waited all week to book an appointment to go in. They have ignored my email requests. I was one trying to get some panniers. There will help me return to work safely, by avoiding public transport.

My line manager called for his weekly chat today. I was given instructions on how to get the latest version of work’s software. This has something on it called analytics. These spy on you and record what you do. We talked about the strange register marking email I received several weeks ago. I was asked did I have written proof of my vulnerability from a Dr. Do I have the government letter telling me to isolate. I should hang on to these when I return he said. They are going to “do that thing they we do when you are off sick more than three times in a year”. This is a competency hearing. I had been taking my leave when I was ill to avoid this over the last year. It seems I am to be disciplined and subject to a competency thing. This is how they harass people when they want them to leave. It is cheaper to do this than to pay redundancy money.

This will become a thing over the coming year. We have not done our recruitment days because of the lockdown. Our student numbers will be down next year. Our income will therefore be down because of this and the money we get from the govt will be cut too. They need to make savings to pay for the extra borrowing. Oh well. Looks like there is a long sick note going to go in. Only 2 years to go to very early retirement. That works out as four 6 month long sick notes. Scotch pies from the pie shop today. mmmmmmmmm.

My mother called me today in the afternoon. She said that my Brother’s wife had died this morning at 10:30h. Just as Emily was going to her colleague’s funeral. What a shit day. I think I will watch this is spinal tap on youtube to cheer myself up. Nothing like dwarves dancing round an 18 inch stone henge.

13 JUNE 2020

I made it out of bed at 10:30 today. A bad start to my attempts to get up early. The weather continues to be poor. It is cloudy and on the verge of raining all day.

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14 JUNE 2020

Shopping and homework today. I spent most of the day doing the glossary for my PhD. I do this when I need to avoid real work. Emily went shopping. The queue was very long, but the shops had everything in. I now have a full pantry. This contains beer, cheese, bread, but no peanuts. I think we will have to call Bob Geldof.

I cycled along the lane this evening. There were no doggers. The council had re-laid the road. They have done this to improve it for the nearby extension to the car factory. It is now lovely and smooth, with no potholes. From now on car workers, Police surveillance teams and the doggers will have a nice smooth road to go about their business on.

15 JUNE 2020

Today is the first day back at work for the volunteers who decided to go back. Non-essential shops are opening. I still cannot stand closer than 2m to another person and I have to wear a face mask on public transport. I am, once again, a truant. 15 of the College’s staff have gone back.

We are going to cycle to the beach after a nice breakfast. While I was waiting for this, I heard an aircraft fly over. It was a military jet, high up. Within the hour there were reports on the news about a U.S.A.F. jet crashing in to the North sea. I am not sure that the one that flew over crashed. Perhaps this was part of the rescue effort. The crash happened in an area used for refuelling. The pilot is currently missing. He has spent all day floating in the North Sea. We cycled down to the beach, but could see no evidence of a lost pilot. It was quite foggy perhaps that is what is making his recovery difficult.

There was a woman hobbling along the cliff top path with her dog. She was talking to someone and she said it was 3 months since she had been out of the house. The dog was struggling to walk and she had a zimmer frame. It must have taken her all day to get there. Both the dog and the woman seemed to be enjoying the walk. They seemed to have walked all the way along the cliff top.

On the news this evening the U.S.A.F. said their Pilot had died. They did not say how.

16 JUNE 2020

I tried to find out if the ferry was accepting non-essential travel today. The website does not mention it. If it is then I can try a big ride to X. My wife got my tablets from the Pharmacists today. They are only giving a month’s worth at a time.

Things must be going on at work now. Pictures were sent out giving details of a new one way system round the building. I was asked for a copy of an inventory I had been compiling. I sent this into the lecturer who will now become my Line Manager. This was an old job, but I think they will be using it to put stickers on the equipment cupboards. This will make things easier to find if they do practical’s over the summer and I am not into set things out.

17 JUNE 2020

Emily was at work today. I went out to X on the bike. I tried to get to X, but the ferry is still essential workers only. I am not important enough to use it. The sea was calm as a mill pond. It was a hot day. What my

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Grandparents would have called Close. Thunder storms may be on their way. I rode along the cliff top path. This is hillier than the road, so I am worn out.

A cycle I had been watching on ebay has been won. It sold for £210. This is good value. It was a Dawes Super Galaxy. These bikes have gone out of fashion, so they can be bought at very low prices. A Galaxy is a lot of bike for £210. Other members of the CTC had these when I rode with them in the 1970s. Many of these riders worked as dentists. I remember there were several pairs of breeding (married) dentists. I had always wanted one. (The bike not a pair of dentists) I dithered about buying it and so it went to someone else. There is Raleigh touring bike coming up. This was made in 1983, the year I started work. This may make a good retirement bike. It has been in the world for the whole of my working life. It too, began it’s life in a British factory. Me in X, the bike in Nottingham. Like many things these are now outsourced to somewhere in Asia. These ones seem to go for less then the more prestigious Galaxy bikes. This low status is something which lends it to reflect my working life accurately.

I saw an old road bike on the path, but could not see what type it was. It had old panniers and a handlebar bag. It was clearly a traditional set up. The rider, who said hello as he rode past, wore a sun hat. These stoic Middle-Class tributes to sensibleness are clear markers to how long ago he began riding. He clearly did not think about what others thought about him. Putting practicality before style, is a clear Middle-Class trait. I wonder if he had been part of a breeding pair of Dentists in 1976.

18 JUNE 2020

Emily had a zoom meeting today. I made a bit of an effort too, by downloading the software. Work has given me some training to do today. I cannot get the link to work. It is safeguarding, so it is important. This urgent you must do it today, is a test. They are checking that I am on my computer and working for home. I think I passed the test, as I replied within a few minutes. I sent a flurry of emails to try to impress them. One to my line manager. He seems to be able to get things done.

19 JUNE 2020

Emily decided that we had to collect a seat from my Mother’s house. We cannot hire a van to do this, as they are all booked out. We are getting the seat next week and are hiring an electric car to go for a walk. I think that is permitted under the current restrictions.

Emily did not get shortlisted for the job she applied for, she is down about this and went off to the iPad shop herself to get hers repaired. We had intended to go together on the bikes. Boo hoo.

20 JUNE 2020

We went up to X in the hire car. We got an electric one. It was lovely and sunny up there and we met up with our Son’s in laws who got there before us. We parked up and walked along the lakeside to a nice spot where we had a picnic. We went for a short walk after this. It was more like a normal summers day, with lots of bikers out in the sun. There were loads of bikes up at the visitor centre.

After X we went to X and onto the Beach. The dog liked the sea and went for a swim. The cars got some electricity. The sea was lovely and clear. It was easy to see underwater rocks form the cliff top. We then drove to X where the cars got some more electricity and we got some chips. Back home tired at 22:30h.

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21 JUNE 2020

We returned the hire car to it’s car parking space in town. Emily came and we took the bikes with us. We cycled back home. I was surprised that Emily came on this mission. This is nearly the farthest she has ever ridden.

Dropping it off at 07:30h there was not much traffic on the roads. We rode into the town centre, coming back along the felling bypass.

This is only the third time I have cycled along the A road re-designated cycle path. I used to come this way by bus on teenage Saturday trips to and from the city. I notice much more about it when I am cycling. There is a street called X. I had a friend of that name and the street always stuck out because of this. I passed it with him on one such trip. I must have looked at it every time I passed it. I think of the day we first noticed it in 1981 every time I see it. Today I could look in the gardens and see the people living there. A baby born there in 1981 would be middle aged now.

There were lots of cyclists out. These seemed more the club type rather than casual ones. They all said good morning and several asked if we needed any help, as we were stopped eating sandwiches. One was waiting at a road junction. It looked as if he was waiting for a pick up with a club. An old cyclist stopped to chat about bikes when we were nearly home. He had a modern mountain bike fitted with hub gears. He seemed a cycling connoisseur and knew the story of my folding bike’s maker. I hope we meet him again. It took us 3h to return home.

22 JUNE 2020

A nice sunny start to the week. Emily went shopping. She said that the separation in the shop is beginning to be ignored by shoppers. The Taxi Drivers are happy as they are getting busy again. I had the best intentions to go out. Instead I lazed around and wasted a good sunny day. I also ate too many crisps and nuts.

23 JUNE 2020

I managed my first online networking meeting today. I got all of the software to work and connected up to over 80 other people. It was a bit invasive seeing my bosses faces in close up in my bedroom. I was very uncomfortable with this. I did not want them to see my bedroom, so I angled the computer towards the window. I can imagine this becoming a problem with workers who have had problems with each other. What do people who are having affairs do? This may be a new way of catching someone at it.

They talked mainly about what lecturers were doing over the next few weeks. Boring but at least I made it to this one. I wanted to put a tin foil hat on. I was so busy setting the computer up and getting it connected that I ran out of time to make one. In the evening I cycled to the glass centre and saw two large ships. There were lots of what seemed to be students walking by. Emily is doing one of her days at work tomorrow. I may spend the day cycling as she will be out all day.

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24 JUNE 2020 - Midsummer

Emily was at work and so I got up early. I ate a breakfast that had been cooked yesterday. I do this because I am not allowed to use the cooker unsupervised. I packed and set off North on the cycle way at 09:30h. It was a hot sunny day. I got to the ferry and eyed up who was coming off. None of them looked like essential workers so I tried my luck. Yes! Single or return he said. With not a hint of questioning about the purpose of my journey, I was on.

North of the River is a different place to the South. Riders pass through several zones as they go North from here. There is a zone of normality at first. The fish quay. This is a working place. Here, Bafta nominated Playwright Tom Hadaway worked at his day job in a wet fish shop.

An invasion is taking place in this zone. Things called Gastro pubs and foodie shops have opened. They came after the building of yuppie flats. Next is the middle-class zone. This begins at X. When I get to X I become invisible. Today a woman spoke to me! she said I had done well to have cycled up a steep hill. She said this in a patronising way. She had an electric bike and was a Southerner. Normally, no one looks at me here. Everyone is tied up in themselves. People here are filled with worry. This zone is a lifestyle zone. The cycles here are decorative concept cycles. I saw my first beach bike here. Beach bikes are styled machines with enormous tyres. These machines have no purpose whatsoever. They are utterly useless at anything other than making people look at the self-obsessed pricks who ride them. In this zone there is a shortage of old people. Perhaps they left in despair. In this zone, well dressed tall teenagers walk the promenade and young families play on the beach. The children here are well equipped. The have branded clothing and many toys from the Early Learning Centre. Today their push chairs were parasols up. Even pet dogs here are stylised pooches. Kennel Club dogs do not sniff me as I pass. South of the river a dog is a dog. Dogs in X stop and make a fuss. I get a licked hand at least. Not here. Not so much as a sniff.

In the middle-class zone, no one drinks coffee. They have flat white or skinny. A shop nearby asks customers their name and they are written on the cup. I was in a hurry one day and gave a serial killers name. I still have the cup.

After X (where the smoke cell was invented) I cycled through X. X used to be a community. It is the beginning of the end of the middle-class zone. Today it is just a lot of Southerners who moved North. They did this after The Sunday Times told them how nice it was before they came. I wish they would all fuck off.

After X comes X. Here the normal zone returns. There is an original 1930s concrete cycle road here and a green lane on a footpath. This is near an island. The planes going to the city’s airport turn here and go inland towards the airport. It is a busy airport. Cycling past slowly as I did, I would normally see dozens of aircraft. I saw one today.

The path then goes towards the sea and into the dunes. It follows the dunes to X. X is a normal place, so I stopped and rested. People were happier here. More of them, especially the cyclists on tatty bikes, said hello as they passed me. There were more old people here and a dog seemed to be a dog. I was sniffed and licked once. The long dunes car park, a onetime dogging spot, was full of cars cruising round trying to find a vacant spot. There were no inappropriate activities going on. Not that I could see anyway. The Police were here just in case anyone got the wrong idea. I rode all the way to the top. Here I should have avoided

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doggers and the middle class. I stopped and sat on a wall. After getting my breath back I gave in to the temptation of ice cream. Unfortunately, even in this zone, the vans sold Atisanl Ice Cream. I turned round and headed home. Artisan Ice Cream is a bad sign.

The beaches North of the river were crowded, but only Bank Holliday full. When I got back to X, it looked like a 1950s postcard. I have never seen so many people here before.

I now have a terrible tan. My head is striped from the gaps in the helmet. My wife keeps making me put cream on it. Yeuch.

25 JUNE 2020

The day after Midsummer and I failed to celebrate once again. A missed opportunity of clear sky. I did have a peep at the twilight after sunset and before sunrise. When I worked nights I first became aware of just how little darkness there is this far north. The sky is only properly dark for a few hours. I was driving up the A road 11 years ago when I realised this. The Sun, I noticed was nearly rising in the North. This is such a magical thing. It is a pity it is ignored. It is not even widely known about, even amongst the people who live up here. In Northern Scotland, it never gets dark. There is a twilight glow from the sun over the northern horizon all night.

Emily was off and I spent the day resting after my 61km ride yesterday. It was sunny and hot. The beach must have been crowded as there were people walking up and down to it all day.

26 JUNE 2020

Emily is in at work today. I have been entrusted to use the cooker unsupervised today. I fried four eggs. The first two were burnt, on account of a complex interaction I had with the toilet, so they were discarded. The second two were nice.

I received a communication from the cycle charity I use. They cannot open fully, even though the govt will now allow them to do so. They cannot get parts from suppliers and are still overwhelmed with repair work.

The boss of bosses sent us out a video communication. The background changes every time she does this. Today it looked like a kitchen. She had a wine rack, but not too big a capacity, a microwave and nice white cupboards. I could not see any sink, cooker, oven, or washing equipment. There was no island bench, which is all the rage in expensive houses. The large full-sized fridge had a picture of a cat on it. Full marks for that, but it was on the side of the fridge. This would not be visible from a normal standing place in the room. It may have been placed there (along with a bottle opener) for dramatic effect. Its position made it easy to spot from the point of view of a viewer. I do not think this was a real kitchen.

I received an email asking me to submit my lockdown holiday request. I have nine days left so will have to take them in June or July. If I do not, I will lose them as I cannot carry them over into August, the next holiday year. The union asked for this to be done, but the bosses said no. I have asked for them in late July. I think I will go for 21 July onwards. Perhaps I will be able to do a cycle tour up the coast.

I did a health and safety training module online. It was about lifting. I got a bad back by just watching it. I shudder to think of all of the things I used to have to lift. My first lab job I had to lift 25, 25kg boxes of salt

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water up 3 flights of stairs every month. These were lifted off the floor. that is 15kg over the maximum weight I should have lifted from that height. This was in 1988. I got paid less than £4,000 a year for doing that shit. Even the student grant was more than that. The people who I worked there with were a bunch of cunts. I am glad I left.

I ate two pies at 1230. As it is Friday, I may be having a takeaway when Emily returns from work. Emily has been saying I have lost weight. I tried on some work trousers, and they are as tight as ever. I have not lost any weight. I will have to go on a diet if I am to weigh less and be able to cycle farther. I had boasted in my weekly telephone call of my long bike ride to X. I had better live up to the promise.

27 JUNE 2020

A lazy day of lounging round the house. My son and his wife popped into the back yard. They brought me a father’s day present and we took the dog down to the beach. I got a travel book about train journeys.

28 JUNE 2020

The dog came down to be looked after today. Son and his wife are going to the zoo for a birthday treat. The zoo they visited was shut down recently. It was closed because they were not looking after the animals correctly. I hope they look after their visitors better.

29 JUNE 2020

Emily went in to work today. She had gone in to sort out her medical files, so they are ready when everyone returns to work. I get paid tomorrow. I have £138 spare. The smallest amount that I have left over after paying for everything. Still, it is more than I have had pre-lergie. It is lower because of the hire cars and takeaways we have had.

Son came down with his dog and wife. A pair of Dolphins had been seen off the coast here. We walked down there but could not see them. We saw a dredger and what looked like a tug with a crane on it.

Scotland is still shut down, so my dream to cycle to Edinburgh has had to be put on hold. All of the B & B will be closed until at least August. Perhaps I should be content with X

It was my Brother’s wife funeral today. Only a few people could attend. No one from our side of the family attended. Those that did go, most were not allowed into the church. They walked behind her on the way there and stood outside of the church. It is hard, even to go and see him. My mother is isolated so she cannot go and see him.

30 JUNE 2020

I received an email from work today. It is about the saga of booking time off for holidays when already off. Apparently I should have been signing in every day on the computer on work days. If I have not done this then I should book annual leave for those days. I am sure I have not been doing this. Oh dear. More hassle when I get back. They will use this to try to get out of paying me. I emailed this to the union. I will see what they have to say about it.

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The newspapers seem to be hyping up the outbreak problem. They say we are about to be locked down again. The official figures say the rate of spread is low. Emily keeps reading the news and proclaiming we are about to have another outbreak. It is very hard to find reliable information, now that the daily briefings have stopped. There is a lot of talk about Leicester being locked down again, but all they are doing is extending the current conditions by two weeks.

On Saturday, pubs are going to be reopened. The minimum distance between people has been cut to 1m. No doubt to get more people inside pubs. If the R number has started to creep up, then a reopening like this may cause a more rapid spread to start. It will be mid-July before this is discovered. More people will be back working by then, so the increase will be rapid, if it happens.

JULY 2020

1 JULY 2020

The Union replied and told me that I do not need to book time off if I forgot to sign in, as long as I do not normally sign in at work. so there. We collected a hire van and went up to my Son’s house for his wife’s birthday. We had a socially distanced sit in his garden with burgers, sausages and tea being brought out from the house.

2 JULY 2020

We collected a sofa from my Mother’s house in the van. It was very difficult to get it into our house. Son’s wife had the bright idea to remove the cushions. It was easy to get in after that. After this we drove up to X with the bikes in the back. We cycled north through X. It adds an extra zone onto the ones I passed through on my big ride last week. It is a post-industrial zone. An add man would call this the brown field zone. There were once vast industrial complexes here. It is full of travellers. These used to make a living from the cast offs of this industry. They raked for scrap metals, or took sea coal off the beach.

The beaches are very nice. The golden sand with tall dunes made a strange sight with a heavy industry backdrop. There is the odd survivor from the industry. Some mismatched buildings stand along side abandoned land. These are the ones who have found new uses. Some level crossings with nothing either side. A bridge over nothing and the remains of buildings. The bus stops look out of place here. They are too big, for today’s traffic. We rode 8km.

3 JULY 2020

I took the van back today. I cycled back over the new bridge. I received an email from my PhD supervisor. It was very serious in tone. This means I am in trouble. I have more writing up to do. The corona virus outbreak is working in my favour as I can write a new section on lockdown and it’s role in limiting disease transmission. This is a state mandated form of immunity. The government’s attempt to introduce contact tracing is the first that has ever been tried on railways. The airlines already have one that the W.H.O. created. I cannot get into the lab to do the rest of my samples. The lockdown is bad, but not much worse than normal. The Uni refused to order reagents for me and I did not get a lab pass until one year before I was due to hand in. I am being pushed to provide more write up. He is asking for the survey results writing up. I will have to do that now.

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The standard of supervision I have received is terrible. I get an occasional meeting and am told to get lost and go to the Library. An old lecturer I once knew called this Bugger Off and Do it Yourself learning. He was an old lecturer. One who worked before Higher Education was incorporated and turned into a business. The university is a very corporate university. The supervisor is crap.

4 JULY 2020

Today my son was told that his job was at risk of redundancy. They have lost a contract and there is no other work in the North. He is applying for other jobs including all of the other employers who have approached him and offered jobs to him. Jobs which he turned down to stay loyal to his current employer. What a bunch of cunts.

I tried to repair my motorcycle. We bought some fuel line from Halfords and tried to replace the split one. We bought the wrong diameter. I actually went in to Halfords to buy this. The shop was quiet with tape at 2m intervals. The other customers followed the separation rules. I was able to see some of the things I have seen on the internet. It was easier to get an impression of size and features than on a computer.

The pubs opened today. There was no sign of this here, apart form a few loud drunks walking along the street late at night.

5 JULY 2020

A Sunday of not much. It was windy and raining. Son applied for 9 jobs. The cycle charity is closed again. They have too much work to do and are going through their backlog of work.

6 JULY 2020

Another dull day of staying in. I watched a film on TV about some colonialists going to another planet on a space ship. A robot went with them. There was a robot already there when they got there. This one had gone mad and genetically engineered the local population. This turned them into monsters. This film seemed less plausible than the second I watched. This was about a boy from India who was cast adrift in a lifeboat with a tiger, a zebra and a hyena.

The number of emails from work seems to be dwindling away. I get less than one a day now. I am not sure if this is because my line manager is retiring soon, or if it is because everyone who normally contacts me is doing no work.

7 JULY 2020

Cycled to the beach. I watched a large ship being pulled into the river by tugs. I did some more note taking for the PhD. I took notes on the lockdown. I will have to look at them and see which are relevant to the study. Many of them seem to be about giving the police powers and dealing with the dead etc. There are relaxations of how to register a death and dispose of a body. Relaxations of who is allowed to be a social worker and a doctor. The ones seen on T.V. about staying home and being alert, do not appear anywhere in the W.H.O. guidelines or the UK government’s 2020 lergie act. Not that I can find anyway. They are in public health advice, on a general advice web page. I am not sure how all of the press stories about arrests can be true. The advice about staying home and not congregating in parks is not actually a law.

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I find it harder and harder to get any work done now. It is a struggle to get a few pages of notes done. Emily has received an email from her head saying she will be returning to a full timetable in September. All of the students are going back. The school has to draw up a new timetable. They are reorganising all of the classrooms and will have to have half the number of students in each class. Lessons will have to be chalk and talk lessons, as group work will need the teacher to move close to the students. This means we will be going back soon. Oh no! On a brighter note, the ferry company are starting their ferry service between Newcastle and Amsterdam. £600 in the cheap seats. £300 by North Sea Ferries. Perhaps I should stick to a ride up the coast.

8 JULY 2020

I cycled down to the docks today. A ship was in. It had came from the Ukraine with a load of steel ingots. It was very rusty below the water line. The Government today outlined its plans to help the economy recover from the lockdown. We can apply for £5,000 for ecological home improvements and our employers will get £1,000 if they do not sack us. Quite impressive. I think we will look into the £5,000 as we may be able to spend it on solar panels. Yippee!

9 JULY 2020

Press reports claim that a hospital in London has been closed because 70 staff have been infected. There is a person on Facebook I receive posts from. He is opposed to the notion of a second wave. He is a Scientist so he should know about stats and how to use them. He produces valid peer reviewed data and puts it on Facebook. He has been using the death rate and comparing this to the normal death rate for this time of year. It is currently lower than average for this time of year. The problem with this data is it only counts deaths. It does not count the number of people who get it and survive, but pass it on to others. I think I will bet on a second wave. They have happened in other countries. The second wave in the USA was bigger than the first. Normally they are smaller.

10 JULY 2020.

Today I paid money to eat out of somebody’s bin. There is a new membership shop nearby that grants low paid public sector workers the right to pay for and eat food that has been thrown out by other shops. There was food from a great range of shops. Aldi, One-stop, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s all sold their waste to this entrepreneur, instead of putting it into the bin. Even Waitrose was in on the act. I have never even been to a Waitrose. The food was mostly not very much cheaper than when it is in it’s home shop. The stuff that was cheap was in catering sizes and was very close (today) to its sell buy date. It was mixed and matched. A full weekly shop could not be bought from it. We hired a car to get to it, so this made it more expensive than our normal shop. Another great way of ripping off poor people. Food is not cheap if you need a car to get it. That adds thousands of pounds a year to a food bill. Getting it delivered may work out to be the cheapest way of getting it.

We had our end of term team building event online. This was a very strange thing, done using Microsoft Teams. My computer is in the bedroom. I did not want my co-workers to see the inside of my bedroom. I angled the camera so it pointed at the window. This was very bright, making everything else look dark. The cat tree was placed next to me, in the light. When the cats were in attendance, they were more clearly visible

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than I was. One cat was there at the very beginning. One of the bosses got the joke. I could see him laughing. Over the years I have grown to like this event. It was very strange to have it at home with over 90 others people isolated, but tuned in. This year’s leavers were read out. At the real thing they get to make speeches and say goodbye. It was very different today. It was parting in absence. I cannot imagine what it must be like to lose a loved one and not be able to see them in hospital or attend their funeral.

11 JULY 2020

Today we walked (tried to) round the reservoir. My son and his wife invited us on one of their walks. They drove us there and we walked anti clockwise round the lake. Parking was difficult as there were so many people out. There was a footpath for the first quarter of the walk. This was very busy. It took us to the place where I go with the Astronomy club, X’s car park. This was full. It was unusual seeing it in the daylight with so many people in it. At night there are a few Astronomers and the odd dogger.

The path runs out here so we walked along the North shore passed the Yacht club. I ran out of steam at the bridge over the River. My blisters got the better of me. My wife and I stopped there as son and daughter-in -law walked the Southern half and collected the car. They kept their promise to return to collect us. I walked 8km. Strange how I can cycle 60km but walk so little. When I was 11 years old I walked 67.5km in 18.5h when I did a walk with a school party. 8km is less than I walked to and from school every day (that was 10km)

Comet NEOWISE is easily visible in the sky at the moment. This is the third comet of the lockdown. The earlier two were not very bright. This one is visible with the unaided eye. I am surprised that conspiracy theorists have not made more of this. In the past comets were blamed for bringing disease outbreaks. I had tried earlier in the week to see it by getting up a 3am. This is too late as the sky is too bright at this time. I did manage to see the N.C.L. clouds. The first time I have ever seen these. The sky tonight was perfectly clear. Unfortunately, I slept through my wife’s attempts to wake me at 2am. Better luck tomorrow.

12 JULY 2020

A long lie in to sleep off the effects of my long walk yesterday. My feet and legs are still swore. The ship has unloaded and is anchored off the river. There is no other vessel in it’s berth, so it may have moved to save money. It costs tens of thousands of pounds an hour to be tied up in port. It is cheaper to wait for whatever they are waiting for at sea.

I received an email from the ferry company. They have cut the prices of crossings by hundreds of pounds and offer free food. It seems as if they have not been inundated with passengers booking crossings when they open up. The traditional British holiday locations all seem to be busy. I think a return of the stay at home holiday is about to return.

13 JULY 2020

A lazy day at home today, spent recovering from the weekend walk. The sky was clear so I waited until 23:30 and went out to Whitburn to try to see comet Neowise. I rode round the headland to a place with an unobstructed view of the horizon. This site is good. It is dark, for place near towns. It is on a footpath along the clifftops. I could see the ship at anchor off the coast. Because the site is on a footpath there are no cars.

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This means no doggers or drug dealers. It also has a wall, on which I can rest my binoculars. This makes for pleasant observing.

There was a cloud in the way to start with, but that thinned away as it got darker. I followed the two pointer stars as instructed by the comet watch website and there it was! The first comet with a visible tail I have ever seen. I could see it as a white smudge with unaided eyes. With binoculars on it, it looked spectacular. Neowise takes nearly 7,000 years to go round the sun. The last time it was here we lived in a primitive society. Will we still be here when it comes back? It is difficult to imagine what 7,000 years of technological and social change will bring. On the other side of the sky was Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. It was a great evening. I did not even have to use a car to get there.

14 JULY 2020

Spent most of today in bed, recovering from yesterday's night out observing the comet. I tried to get some sparkling water from the shop. They have not had any for three months! I think this is because the CO2 in it comes from the brewing industry. There has been no brewing since the pubs closed.

15 JULY 2020

Emily is in work today. I am finding it easier and easier to do less and less work. It is easy to spend all day in bed. It is a struggle to write up the PhD and I go out less on the bike. My work online training has now slowed to a weekly event.

I have managed to order some panniers and maps for the trip. After ordering them, the shop said they had no front panniers. The shop now says it does not have any at all in stock. They say they will come early next week. Ha ha. I doubt it. They asked me if I wanted to cancel the order. This means they will either take ages to get them or will not get them at all. They were steeply reduced, as if they were selling old stock. I doubt I will ever get them. I bet this will cause problems. I should have just got ones from Halfords. They are much quicker.

The ferry company’s ship I wanted to go on is setting of from Ijmuden for it’s first post lockdown trip across the North Sea. I watched the ship shunting and fuelling to make this possible on Marine Traffic.

16 JULY 2020

I got up early and watched the Amsterdam ferry come in. This was a 25km cycle to go to the river. This was the first one since March. It looked as though it had spent some of it’s lockdown time being repainted. It was on time, at just after 09:00. Seeing it made me want to get on it and go somewhere. There was about 10 people on the decks. If that is all that was on it, it must be running at a heavy loss. I will not be surprised if it stops running again. I also saw a dredger a freighter and lots of fishing boats.

17 JULY 2020

Emily is at work again and I am waiting for my weekly telephone call from work. The sky was clear last night so I went into the backyard and saw the comet again. It was an impressive sight. Cycle to X.

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18 JULY 2020

Shopping for a rack to go on the back of the bike and a trip to my son’s. The shop has even stricter isolation measures in place. Now we have to stand at the door and things are brought out to us. I went in this shop earlier and I could walk straight in. The owner told me that all of the summer’s bike production, all round the world has now been bought. There will be a bike shortage for Santa to contend with soon.

We took the dog for a walk along the beach. It is becoming very hard to find information about the rate of infection now. The Daily Mail claims it is 0.9 in Sunderland and above 1 elsewhere. I am not sure if this is a trustworthy source. Newspapers get pretty hysterical about even simple things like weather. They are claiming a heatwave this weekend, even though the temperature is 17C nearby. Early in the outbreak the data given out during the daily briefing seemed much more plausible.

19 JULY 2020

Fitted a pannier rack I bought from the bike shop yesterday. It went on well, as my old 90s mountain bike has eyelets etc for fitting them. The only problem is one of the bolts is too long and I cannot use two of the smallest gears. I will have to be careful or the chain will jam. I have not yet received the panniers I ordered. The shop emailed me today, impressive for a Sunday and said the order had been posted and should come tomorrow. I am nervous about the trip.

20 JULY 2020

Packing for the trip. Still need a tent and a haircut. and the bags have not come. I went to Halfords to get some more panniers and tried to cancel the ones ordered online. The independent shop had none either. My wife’s bike was lying on it’s back waiting to be repaired. I am very nervous about the trip.

21 JULY 2020

Today is the first day of the holiday I am having from being off work. I have had to book my holidays, even though my place of work is closed. I set off at about 10. I was utterly terrified as I departed. The first turn of the pedals was the worst. After crossing the river I used the new covid avoidance cycle way along the sea front. It is excellent. The council has closed half the road! There were loads of cyclists on it. I went up the coast retracing my path to X. I got there at about 1130. From there it was all new ground to me. The going was slower as the path weaves upstream and downstream to get to bridges to cross two rivers. This was a dodgy place. There were strange people sitting under bridges and waiting round doing nothing. These people did not look like cyclists. This would have been frightening at night. It was nice and sunny. I got to X and the traveller camp soon after. I speeded up after this as I was worried I would not get to my B and B in X at the time I said I would get there. (1800) I went along past X and the bay quickly. Hard work in the heat. I had an encounter with an Audi driver going into the bay car park. The driver decided that I was in a part of the road he wanted to be in. It seems my cycle was too wide a vehicle for him to drive past. He gesticulated at me and waiting at the entrance so he could shout some more. I shouted back. From there it was a short run into X.

I asked a couple where the street was. I did not follow their instructions correctly and had to ask a woman with a gaggle of happy-tired children where it was. I got their in the end. The B and B was lovely. Named

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after its street number They had secure bike parking and a lovely modern room. I got £15 off because I was alone. Haggis and Chips for Tea and a lovely shower. There was no one wearing masks here. Not one. The chip shop que was socially distanced and I had to sign a declaration at the B and B that I had not been in contact with anyone with the lergie. I also had to give my onward address telephone number and home address should I need to be contacted. This is in case anyone turns up to have the lergie. The B and B had a guest in that I recognised. I think I worked with her or went walking with her (in a club) in the past. The evening’s entertainment was a drunk trying to get into his house across the road.

22 JULY 2020

X to X (nearly) It rained all day today. I continued to ride up the coast today. I found it harder to keep yesterday’s speeds up. The cycle way was mostly on minor roads. These are not flat as before X. The hills wore me out. I stopped for Tea and chatted with other non-mask wearing and non-socially distant tea room customers. One of them had cycled the route I was doing.

The people in this part of the country seemed very courteous and friendly. I stopped at X base bus stop. Bus stop occupancy was introduced to me when I was in the CTC. We used them as shelters when it rained. Bus stops in these places are well built. This one was made of breeze blocks and had a proper roof with wooden joists. It needed to be strong. There was one bus a week. I took a photograph of the bike and sent it to my parents. Yes they replied, we remembered this from the 1970s!

A cyclist shot past me after this pause. Are you going all the way? No I am going to X. I’m going to John O Groats he shouted back. He was Australian and he looked as if he could make it in one day.

I got slower and slower as the day wore on. It was a struggle to maintain 9km/h. I could keep up 20 when I set off. I found an excuse to stop and watch trains at X. I saw two and my son called me. He was on his way down from Inverness and would meet up with me. I was to continue my grind to X and my digs for the night. By now I was struggling to ride. I pushed the bike into X. My phone died on me and the pay one had been closed. Oh Poo. Knackered and with no way of contacting my rescue nor my logins. There was a B road to the village. I rode along it. Up a gentle constant gradient then down a hill. I managed that bit.

I had to stop on the next hill. I was dizzy and nauseous. My legs had nothing in them. I think this is called the bonk. As I started to walk, my son drove up behind me, beeping at me as he came. I was never more glad to see anyone. He loaded my bike into his van and we drove home. With my phone dead it had been hard for him to find me. Wife had told him where I was headed and he knew where I crossed the A road. He had followed my route exactly and had even seen the same woman looking for her dog I had when I was trying to use the payphone. Dear reader, take good care of your children. You will reap the rewards one day.

I needed to stop, but I wish I had gone a bit farther. I could have visited one of the first cub scout camp sites I stayed at in 1975. Oh well. Some other time. This is close to the farthest I have ever ridden on a trip. It was my first overnight “tour”. A pity 50,000 people had to die so I could become able to do it.

23 JULY 2020

I spent all day drinking water and coffee and sleeping.

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24 JULY 2020

More sleeping.

25 JULY 2020

Even more sleeping. Now I hobble round the house as my knee hurts. We went out walking with my son. We walked 11km. to an old pit heap. It has an artwork on top and a good view. The car park had people in it selling coffee from the back of their car. There seems to be much more of this entrepreneurialism this side (north) of the river. The dog liked this and was well behaved.

26 JULY 2020

I rode my bike back from Son’s house. 22km. As I crossed the river on the foot ferry the Amsterdam ferry went down the river. There was about 30 people on deck, more than last time. It got down the river and into the sea much faster than I could cycle! It beat me to the lighthouse, even though it moves away from the coast at an angle.

27 JULY 2020

Son has an interview in Glasgow today. It is with a rail freight company. He has been looking forwards to it, as his own job is now at risk of redundancy. Hopefully, the bigger firm will be better to work for. David was in his interview for over 2 hours. His wife drove up with him and waited nearby.

28 JULY 2020

We cycled to the beach today and had a picnic. It was sunny but windy. This is a short ride but I found it easier to get up the hill. Emily found her bike easier to ride after its repair. There were lots of people out. Many cyclists and dog walkers. Emily told me not to talk to the dogs. Pity. I like to do this.

My knee is still clicking. I hope the Dr can get me some sort of support bandage. I am due a blood test to measure my sugar levels. These are sky high. I should have been in sooner, but the tests have been delayed because of the lockdown. I may be put on insulin; they are so high. No more driving and motorcycling for me. I have tingling fingers and toes now. This is a symptom of nerve damage caused by badly controlled sugar levels. My control was always good, but the lockdown has prevented me from having my medication adjusted.

29 JULY 2020

Son got the job with the large freight company. He starts on the 9 August. He will be starting in Scotland then transferring down to Tyne Dock. That will be the closest to his home he has ever worked. He is looking forwards to this part of his new job more than anything. My knee has stopped hurting, but it is still clicking.

30 JULY 2020

We are going out cycling today. Just a short ride to look at the ships in the port perhaps. There is a survey vessel in port. The one I have been tracking has rounded the cape of good hope in South Africa. What a way to spend lockdown!

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31 JULY 2020

Another day of lazing round. I got paid and not much else happened. Work sent me an email today. It said I could, after all, carry my holidays over into next year. The next holiday year begins tomorrow.

AUGUST 2020

1 AUGUST 2020

I paid off £200 from the credit card. The bike shop who failed to deliver the panniers claim they have refunded my money. I cannot see it on the statement. I have emailed them about this. Typical August weather has begun. It is now raining heavily. I was going to go out on the bike. No ships in to watch, but a hill I have not gone up in a while. It may be better this afternoon.

I think I have put on all the weight I lost early in the lockdown. Here is hoping the shops close again so I can lose it again. The rumour is of another outbreak in the autumn. The rate is going up again, slowly, with pockets in Northern population centres. Both feet and hands tingling. My feet were a lovely state of pink and felt red hot last night. 5 days to go to my 7-month late Dr appointment.

In anticipation of more lockdown, I spent some of the afternoon virtual trainspoting using an online train tracking programme. I monitored train 6N61 from Billingham into Tyne Dock. This is one of the trains my Son will work with when he starts working there. His move to a new employer has netted me some more high viz clothing. When he starts with his new employer, he will get new PPE. I will get the old. I cycled 14km. Av speed 15km/h.

2 AUGUST 2020

I cycled down to the dock today to see a vessel. It had came from Sweden. It did not seem to be unloading. The onboard cranes were being used to suspend a platform with painters on it. They were painting the crane. There were lots of people out and about, both cars and cycles. The press are full of rumours about the R number going above 1. In the nearby city 3 pubs have been closed again. Their customers have had it while they were open and may have passed it on. It is around 2 weeks I think since the pubs were allowed to open. The rate is claimed to be going up 10 days or so after this.

3 AUGUST 2020

Son is off up to the far North of Scotland. The log train he won the contract for (shortly before being told his job was at risk of redundancy) is up there. I think he is taking a stop board up there for it. He sent me a text saying our nearby city is going to be put in local lockdown soon. This may be information from the Railway Masons. It may be accurate. The government SAGE committee which deals with these things said the local rate of R = 1.0 is likely to be an underestimate.

4 AUGUST 2020

Raining today. Another boat unloading, but I stayed into avoid getting wet. Perhaps it will still be there tomorrow. It is another Swedish one. It has sailed from the far North of the Baltic.

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5 AUGUST 2020

A cycle to the port today. No ships in, other than a tied-up survey vessel. The Harbour Master was inspecting the moorings in a small semi-inflatable boat. This may be looking for drugs. A lorry turned up and collected some steel coils from the warehouse. The driver was a heavily tattooed woman. She would not have looked out of place on a mad max film. She stood in a cruciform shape on the back of her trailer with the wind flapping her pink high viz waistcoat. Wife V1.0 came with me and we had some crisps and water when we got there.

6 AUGUST 2020

32 happy years ago today I went to the local city civic centre and got married. The day was just as sunny and hot as it is today. This time in 1988 (13:51h) I had just been married. We had a simple low cost reception after the ceremony. Then we went by train, to a lake district campsite. I went there recently (before the lockdown) and it has turned into a hipster glamping park. It is now full of log cabin “lodges” and rich pricks pretending to be poor.

When we were there, we stayed in a non-family zone of the site. It was full of young people. 16-year-olds that had saved their money and ridden from a long way off. They rode 50cc motorcycles. They wore general purpose clothing from catalogues and angling shops. Not a Rohan horizontally zipped trouser in sight. Campers ate beans and sausages from tins on stoves. The pricks who stay there now go out in their luxury MPVs and eat in Michelin starred establishments that used to serve beer and crisps to locals. No young people go there now. What will they do for customers when the current bunch die off and there is no one to replace them?

The lockdown seems to be generating more domestic holidays. This year they will do well in the short run, but only if they can find enough mugs to buy lodges at tens of thousands of pounds each. We celebrated the event with a take away curry. This is the first lockdown anniversary we have had. We are putting plans in place to make sure that Christmas is not a disappointment. We are taking delivery of a small chest freezer. This will be packed with our prepper’s hoard of food. In addition to the lergie lockdown we now have the prospect of leaving the E.U. This will happen at the end of the year and it will probably be done without an agreement.

I went to the doctor today and gave some blood to the practice nurse. My sugar has been high, but I have not been able to have my medication adjusted because of the lockdown. This Hb1A test is long overdue. It should have been done in March. I have been having tingling feet and fingers. This is caused by nerve damage.

7 AUGUST 2020

A first today, as I received a congratulatory telephone call from the doctor. Normally these are to warn me of bad health. They take the form of an invitation to make another appointment. If the receptionist calls I have to see the nurse. If the nurse calls I have to see the doctor. The worst is the doctor calling. Then I have to go to hospital. The nurse called me today. My sugar levels have fallen dramatically, the she said. They are down by nearly half!!! I have been eating the same things, so this must be due to lockdown cycling.

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What a pity nearly 50,000 people had to die for this to happen. When we return to work, I will hopefully now be able to cycle there. This will be 50km a day. Easily enough to keep the sugar levels low.

8 AUGUST 2020

I got a hire car today. We had planned to go out with my son and his wife for a short walk. On my way to collect the car, the Metro had broken down, so I got onto the replacement bus. This then broke down (a light fitting fell off inside the bus) so I had to wait for a replacement bus. When I collected the car, someone crashed into me at the bottom of the road. I cannot remember reading anything about social distancing after a road traffic accident. The other driver seemed to do his best. Perhaps he was frightened he would be punched. I returned to car to the hire place and we got a lift up to the reservoir. There were many people out, much more than normal. The car parks at the reservoir were full. There is never more than a few cars there. There seems to be a lot of vans converted to live in now in every car park we go to. There are lots of camper vans too.

We walked towards the dam. We had intended to go to the dam, but when the dog sat down and refused to go any further we had to give up and turn round. It was a nice day and the dog had plenty of fun eying up the sheep.

I could see the ridge I walked along in 1981. This went from cross fell up to a fell with air traffic control radar on it. It was nice to see it again. It brought back a strong feeling of being up there with all of the people I knew from the Scouts. One, had kindly spent the entire walk picking up rocks and putting them in my rucksack. This was done without my knowledge or consent. I think the collective noun for such people is friends. We could see the reservoir from up there and one of the leaders, talked about the controversy that building it created. I never thought all those years ago that I would one day be walking round the reservoir far below with my 30-year-old son and his wife.

After this we drove to my mother’s and collected her & dad and went up to X. A lovely fish and chip supper was had on the beach in the twilight. This car park too, was full of vans and campers. Some were enjoying a fire on the beach. It was a lovely and had a scout campfire like atmosphere. There was no car traffic, no rush and anxiety. Only peoples voices and food being cooked. This van dwelling thing will soon be stopped. Allowing people to enjoy themselves, in a way that no profit can be made from, will not be tolerated. What a pity, it must be great to be free.

9 AUGUST 2020

More shopping was obtained. This was loaded into the prepper freezer. My wife had found dandelion and burdock, something much nicer than generic all prevalent coke. It is sunny today, something which makes it harder to do my writing up. I have now got some data about women leaders and the death rate from corona virus. Perhaps I can relate this to hygiene on the railway. The reason why poo is dumped out of the bottom of trains may be because the mostly male bosses on railways are a bunch of dirty slobs. This may be a good time to mention the Swedish public toilet study. In this, sensors were attached to the flush, the tap, the soap and the air blower in a male public toilet. The results showed that when the toilet was flushed (when the user had had a poo) the tap, soap and dryer were not activated in two thirds of cases. i.e. two out of three men in Sweden do not wash their hands after having a poo. No wonder there is so much lergie there.

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10 AUGUST 2020

More sitting round the house doing nothing today. I did some more of my write up, putting in sections about female leaders and the death rate. My Son is in Glasgow being trained for his new job.

11 AUGUST 2020

We cycled to the glass centre and had a picnic. There was a ship in. It looked as it had been unloaded or was waiting to be loaded. There were more lorries collecting coiled steel. One of them had came from Wales. It was very hot by the river. Uncomfortable to sit in the sun. We watched the birds catching fish and came home after a few hours. I would have stayed longer, but there are no open toilets near. 5km cycle. My back and neck are both stiff now. No doubt this has been caused by the crash.

12 AUGUST 2020

Another hot humid day. A little cloud today so it was slightly cooler. I spent most of the day lazing in the house. I received a knee brace that wife V1.0 had ordered. This was great. I can push much harder on the peddles with it on. This is my second piece of old person’s kit. The first was my hearing aids. I received them both during the lockdown. I am now fully qualified to complain about young people and loud music. Anyway, things were different in my day… look how young the Police are these days… look at the state of teachers etc etc…

After passing this important life milestone, some more of the PhD was written up. This time it was the survey results from passengers. I have no idea how to write this. If I was still at work, I would be going nuts with stress. I would not have the time to do this properly.

In the evening I cycled to the dock. It was still hot, even at 10pm. Around the bend, hundreds of fish were rising to a swarm of flies. There was so many fish they made as much noise as a boat passing. A large ship was tied up in the quayside. I could see the crew. The hot weather must have brought them out. They were standing round in groups talking.

This ship was an oil rig supply vessel. There was a big helipad on top and two very big cranes. These picked things up off the dock and loaded the ship. As I sat and watched, I noticed a man was walking round the helicopter landing pad. He was the only one not in a group. He kept on doing this over and over. He had a brisk pace and lifted his knees high as he went. He had a straight back. Round and round and round he went. High up on top of this big ship. He looked as mad as a hatter. Perhaps he had just noticed how young teachers look.

13 AUGUST 2020

Another day of lazing round in the house. No emails form work, or anyone else. Bad weather.

14 AUGUST 2020

Cycled to the beach with wife V1.0 today. When we got there I set her saddle and handle bars at the correct height. The tyres were inflated correctly. It made riding so much easier she said I got a kiss for my troubles!!! It was misty and wet (the weather not the kiss). No ships were seen but fish and chips were had on the way back.

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I received communications from work. They are doing risk assessments for returning in September. Looks like I will be going back. I had to state what my medical conditions were and what alternative working arrangements could be made. There was quite a long list of health problems. I told them about my health and that cycling to work would be better than using the train. I suppose I could stay in the prep room all day. A certain local former polytechnic replied about by request for a six month extension to the PhD hand in date. I was given an extra three months. Terrible. I have lost more than that. I have been off since March - six months - not three.

I emailed the car club hire people. There was a television interview in the car park where the car is left. I could not see it in the background. I assume it is off being examined. I cannot see it on their website.

15 AUGUST 2020

The car club people replied, the car was not badly damaged and it is being hired out. The certain former polytechnic supervisor replied and I can ask for another three months.

On a health note, a family member has been taken ill. He has the lergie symptoms so he has been tested. Wife V1.0 has had contact with him around two weeks ago. If he tests positive, we will have to stay in for two weeks to see if we get it. I emailed work about this, as it may need to be included in their risk assessment. I should have emailed them in the middle of the night. That would have made them panic more, giving me more of a chance of extra time off.

It was decided by our Son we should be tested. Wife V1.0 entered our details into a computer and we were given an appointment at a test centre. This only took a few minutes. He came to our house and drove us up to a local business park.

This is one of the hardest places to get to in the area. It is squashed between a housing estate and the A road. The centre was in a temporary car park and had a dozen staff. We were waved in and were handed kits through the window, after they checked who we were. This checking was done by a pattern of squares on mobile clever telephones. Mine of course, did not work. I identified myself the old-fashioned way, by saying who I was. We were given instructions by a second member of staff. This involved;several bags; a card; the opening of some, but not all bags; snapping the swab; a sample bottle and a swab in a packet.

We drove to the top of the car park where we unpacked. First I had to swab my tonsil for 10 seconds. This was easy enough, once I had located my tonsil. I found it behind my tongue at the back of my mouth. The vanity mirror of the car was useful in doing this. We were not allowed to touch any other part of the mouth. I did manage to touch it, but not for the full 10 seconds. It was more like a half. We then all sat in the car for 10 seconds with swabs stuck our noses. After looking like something from a Benny Hill film we put the swabs into the tube. This had coloured liquid in it. The cotton wool end had to be put into this. The handle had to be snapped off, making it just the right length. This was sealed and put into an unsealed bag. I dropped my bag on the floor. The bag inspector was summoned by flashing lights. Good job this was not a dogging car park. Who knows what this would have summoned.

He checked our tubes, announcing my stick was too long. This was corrected then the tubes were placed in and sealed into the bag. This full bag, with the air removed, was placed into another bag. This one had the

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biohazard symbol on it. It must have been important. We drove back to where we started and were identified once again. Our identities were linked with the bag’s bar code and we were done.

16 AUGUST 2020

Our results came back early this morning by email and text message. We all tested negative. The family member is still ill. If he does not get better soon, he will be taken into hospital.

17 AUGUST 2020

An irrational painting of walls has begun. Wife V1.0 has tired of complaining about things being too loud and she has taken to painting. This smearing of paint is taking place in the passage between the living room and the front door. I am surprised it did not begin sooner. The colour is white and the type of paint being smeared is called emulsion.

Our students are being allowed to have the grades predicted by their Teachers & Lecturers. Not surprising really. The people whose futures were nearly trashed will be first time voters at the next election. First time voters are notoriously fickle. They have no loyalty and vote for what is best for them.

I cycled to the port. There were no ships. I had a naughty ice lolly (a FAB) and texted my son. He was doing groundwork on the trains today. This is opening the doors on the wagons and loading them with wood chip (biomass fuel). This eco fuel is being burned in power stations instead of coal. This, despite it being a worse polluter than coal. There were several trains for me to spot that afternoon, so I cycled up to his dock and sat outside a petrol station. Sure enough a train pulled into view on time. It moved at exactly 2.4 km/h. At this speed the wagons pass under the filling hoppers slow enough to be filled completely in the time it takes to cross the weighbridge and out from under the hopper. The train is so long, that it has to pass over a road bridge and move out of the yard to fill all of its wagons. I watched it do this.

The place I was watching from was the location of Catherine Cookson’s birth. The original road bridge was at the end of her street. Her community has been obliterated (redeveloped). It was a place that produced over 90 novels and countless films. Now it is a tree covered embankment. The trees are dirty, too close together and are about 20 years old. They do not look nice and have been planted to hide the missing dock arches. There is also a petrol station (with toilets); a road widening scheme main road; “industrial units” (pretend factories); an improved road junction (to get to the tyne tunnel and leave) with traffic lights; a car dealership with a bright sign; and a drive in American chain coffee shop. It is a bland place of in betweenness. No one lives there anymore. There is nothing there, other than the things needed to get somewhere else.

The modern free form jazz muzak, seating, tables and nice coffee make it a good trainspotting spot. Unfortunately, I doubt it will ever inspire much creativity. It was the only “industrial” location I have watched trains at in over 25 years. All of the others round here have gone. My son said the dock has railway signals inside it which date from the time when it was used to EXPORT coal. Now that must be a very long time ago.

I met up with son after work and had a coffee with him outside the chain. We watched trains and chatted. He told me about his work and the railway. He went home after a text from his wife and I cycled home in the dark. I did not like this. I was harassed by people hiding in the bushes. These cycle tracks are bad places at night. It was misty on the coast which made it hard to see the cyclists on the coast path. 40 km cycle

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18 AUGUST 2020

I spent much of today in bed. Wife V1.0 spent the day putting non see-through covering on the roof window in the toilet/shower room. She has developed a fear that she is being watched by neighbours. She is not. it is 1) not possible to see in through the window because it is on the roof. 2) no one would want to anyway.

We did have a local perv at one time. He moved a long time ago. A man and woman across the back street used to undress in front of the window. They did this at night with the light on, so everyone could see. I am not sure if anyone watched. I did not. True to form, wife V1.0 put the backing material on the window, not the window covering. It seems as if painting and decorating is returning to normal.

Today the magnificent Britanic government has abolished Public Health England. I met the one time head of P.H.E. at a conference. She was an accomplished expert in public health. Now the head of the new body has; organised the Cheltenham festival and been in charge of Talk Talk. She has no public health expertise whatsoever. She did go to University with the Prime Minister, and will no doubt say whatever he wants her to say. The new method of calculating the death rate seems linked to this. Only deaths occurring within 28 days of infection (not hospitalisation) are being counted. Infection rates are increasing and are now over 1,000 a day. New method deaths are 12 a day and surprise, surprise are not going up. God help the N.H.S. with this lot of cunts in charge. The Tories used new counting methods in the 1980s to fiddle unemployment figures. These now do not include women or anyone out of work for over 6 months.

19 AUGUST 2020

Stayed in all day. I had another online meeting today. The first was at 0930, the next at 1000. I could not get the software to work for this so I sat round and waited for the 1300 one to start. This was the wrong one. I was supposed to be learning how to enrol students from home. I need a PC to do this. Emily got some shopping. We now have peanuts and ice cream! Not that I ever eat ice cream. I think we have a ghost that steals it.

20 AUGUST 2020

Her Majesty’s Britannic Government declared that people who are shielding can go back to work. I received an email today from my new line manager. Line manager V2.0 has found out that I am returning to work tomorrow. She would like a meeting with me she said. I replied, expressing my confusion about this and asked for clarification. I think this is to do with enrolment. Perhaps she does not know that I have not done the training. Maybe they have a PC set up for me to do enrolment on. I asked for clarification from several different people - line manager V2.0s supervisor and line manager V1.0. This will take several days for them to get in touch with each other. It will delay my return to work until sometime next week.Wife V1.0 and I cycled to the beach. It was a nice hot day and it was very crowded.

21 AUGUST 2020

No email from work this morning. Ha got them. They have cancelled the meeting normally held on Friday too. I wonder what is going on. Line manager V2.0 has not replied and line manager 1.0 has passed the buck onto the manager of line manager 2.0. She passed the buck back onto line manager V2.0 who has not replied to my emails. The first rule of management - never make a decision.

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After a day of emailing and discussion line manager V1.0 instructed line manager V2.0 to do the risk assessment. She is going to do this. I was once again asked to get onto the shared area and desk top. I cannot do this. In addition to this my phone, to which codes are sent so I can access my work email, has broken. This must now be repaired, or I cannot access anything from work. A new tyre inflator came from Halfords. It is a stirup pump type, so now I will have nice firm tyres when I return to work.

22 AUGUST 2020

A short cycle ride today into the town centre. My tyres were at 4 bar so it was quite a bumpy ride! I think I will let some air out next time. This was done to take a phone to be repaired. I could not find the place it should have been taken to, so wife V1.0 took it for me. (I had been standing outside of it) It works fine now and has a nice lime green case. Wife V1.0 is being a little noise sensitive at the moment. Painting has been suspended, but a suspiciously large amount of white goo remains in the tin.

23 AUGUST 2020

A day in today. It rained all day and there were no ships in (a big one gets here tomorrow in the evening) No cycling, but a mid-day snooze was had. I will not be able to sleep tonight. Tomorrow I will get to find out about going back to work. They will have done their risk assessment and will all know who is doing what. Bo hoo. I may have to go back sometime next week. What a bummer. At least I know I can cope with retirement. I can go in 2022. No painting, but wife V1.0 is still brooding and complaining about things. The complaining has mostly been about eating.

24 AUGUST 2020

Today a large wooden box appeared in the back yard. I was not expecting it. It was delivered by two men in a van. I had a peep at it through the spare room window. It seems to have a pallet like construction and a hinged door. Wife V1.0 has been out there all day painting it. When she comes in, I will ask her what it is.

No mention of going back to work yet, but a 1:1 meeting has been arranged for 11:30 tomorrow. There is also going to be a discussion of how we can do practical’s under the new working restrictions. This will be done on Teams. I have yet to admit that I cannot download the software needed to get onto the work desktop. This is because I do not know my own system admin password.

I have been following this ship on the ship stalking website marinetraffic. It has came from the Ukraine on the Black Sea, through the Med, up the Bay of Biscay and the channel, then up the North Sea to the local city. It is the same company and ship type that brought the last delivery of steel ingots. This one is in much better condition. It looks almost new apart from a few bashes at the water line.

I knew it was coming in at 1900 so I cycled down there for 1800. She was at anchor with two tugs and a Pilot boat heading for her. She was pulled in by the tugs at the right time for a high tide. She looked huge coming up the river. The deck structures dwarfed the dock buildings. After getting alongside the quay the tugs pushed her into the side hard. Just this push took one hour.

The process attracted quite a crowd. All types of people stopped, watched and took photographs. They were excited to see the ship come in. An old man talked to me about the area’s dry docks. There were two on the other side of the river he said. Ships at that time had to be inspected every year. From his house, he could

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see the ship his Dad sailed on. His brothers and Sisters ran down to the dock. They peered over the wall to get a glimpse of it. In the 1960s it must have been quite something to have a Dad who travelled the world. He too bemoaned the passing of industry in the area.

The fish too seemed aware of the event. A seal and flocks of birds were optimistically waiting near the quay. They were not disappointed. Lots of the birds ended up catching the fleeing fish. I took some pictures for my Dad and cycled home. He was a tug spotter when he was young.

At home I looked on Facebook. The local city news site had some footage of the ship coming in. As the film maker walked towards the stern of the ship he stood behind me filming. I was captured in some of the footage. I looked like a dork. No wonder the beautiful people on my ride had not looked at me when I cycle there. I am going to have to stop pulling my old man style trousers up my shins when I cycle.

25 AUGUST 2020

The function of the wooden box is to hide the bins. These will be placed inside, with plants on top. When she was painting it, wife V1.0 got inside. It would make a nice wife cage if she ever got out of hand.

A teams meeting this morning. I discussed with my new line manager what would be done when I return. I am going in to work Thursday and Friday of this week. A compressive risk assessment has been worked out. The students are all on a new timetable, they will not be in if they are not having lessons, the start times are staggered, there is a one was system and all of the practical’s in science will take place in two rooms not one. My suggestion for the risk assessment is that I cycle in. The Metro is my biggest risk, so cycling in eliminated this, and improves my health. Just in time for terrible weather. I thanked her for agreeing to take me on. Managing me can be a roller coaster ride of pain and anguish. Wife V1.0 seems to know this better than most. As it rained all day I stayed in. Wife V1.0 could not be persuaded to go and watch the big ship being unloaded.

26 AUGUST 2020

The last day of this bizarre freedom today. I have to return to work tomorrow. I cycled down to the dock to watch the big ship being unloaded. It was carrying steel coils. Something that would have been made here in the recent past. The cranes took them out of the hold and piled them up on the quayside. I looked up the place the ship had came from. It was from a place called Mariupol, in Ukraine. On internet maps, the steel works was easily spotted by the sea. It was a large complex. It had plenty of railways, big biles of ore and coke. There were several long buildings where the steel ingots and rolled sheets were made. The blast furnaces were further inland, with houses all round them. The town looks like an old Soviet town. I bet nearly everyone there works in the plant. I wonder how they are coping with the outbreak. The dust from heavy industry produces many lung problems. This would have given them a higher death rate.

I cycled upriver a little way to increase the distance I did. Part of the way back, I had that tell-tale feeling of looseness from the rear. A puncture. The tyre is now worn down after my summer adventures. I should replace it, or it will get punctured more and more. I walked home. As I got to our street, a woman approached me. This is not something which happens very often to me! She asked had I far to go. She had tools she said at her home. I could use them if I wanted to. I was about 100m from home! I thanked her for her kind offer and we both continued our separate ways.

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I cannot risk being late for work. As it is too late to get a new tyre in time for tomorrow, I will have to go in on another bike. Both of the others have something wrong with them. They both have out of true wheels. The folding bike is the worst, but this can be put on the Metro easily if I get another puncture. I would prefer the road bike. This is in the shed and wife V1.0 will have to get it out. Well my last day off. Wife V1.0 is betting it will start again. If it does, I bet we will not get any time off. It will just be new ways of working for us all. At least I know I can cope with retirement. Just as long as there are still ships and trains to go and watch. I think I will cycle to Mariupol to watch the ships being loaded when it is my turn to go.

27 AUGUST 2020

I was very nervous about returning to work. I did not sleep at all last night. I failed to cycle all the way in and broke my requested part of the risk assessment. After getting up at 0500 and setting off at 0600, I made it to one extra stop away on the Metro and gave up. I got on the train. It is much harder to pedal the folding bike than the big one. There were very few people on the train at this time (0630) and everyone was correctly distanced.

Line Manager V2.0 seemed happy to see me. The others seemed resentful that I had been off a little longer than they had. One, had a swollen black eye. I cannot imagine what lockdown story resulted in that. I spent the day rearranging desks so that students can be properly distanced. I tidied away things that were not needed. This makes the labs easier to clean between classes. It is going to be hard doing all of the practical’s with a reduced number of students in labs. I get paid tomorrow.

Wife V1.0 has ordered the shopping online. It is coming from Iceland (the shop not the country). She does not normally do this. It will save the cost of a Taxi she said. The food is frozen, so will last longer if the lockdown is reapplied. The news reports that food shortages did occur at the start of the lockdown. So many people were off work, less of it got into the shops. Now we have Brexit and the possibility of more lergie. What fun this may turn into.

28 AUGUST 2020

I sent a farewell email to line manager 1.0 I thanked him for looking after me, even though it must have been a tough job full of despair! He said it had been a pleasure to work with me. I think this must be one of two occasions when I have done this. I continued the tidy up in readiness for the return of students next Tuesday.

I managed to cycle home. It took me two hours. The cycle routes are much improved from the days in 1988 when I rode to and from my new job in the hospital. We have our own little roads now. There is even a cycle traffic light at the end of the high-level bridge. I was seen as an oddity when I worked in the hospital. They could not imagine how it was possible to cycle all the way there from my home village. In 1988 I could do it easily. I thought of those days and the people I worked with when crossing the river.

I think more about the people I work with now than when I was younger. This is true more of the old ones. I have started to work out when they started working. My first head Teacher, in 1973 seemed ancient. They all look young now. This Is not because they are, but because I am older than I was. He retired as I was at that school so he would have been around 64 in 1973. If he started working at 21 he would have began work in 1930. He will have seen many changes between 1930 and 1975. He must be long gone by now. I wonder if he ever cycled over the high-level bridge. As I get older, I see this more as a loss.

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I remember him telling us about the schools centenary year in an assembly. The year the school was built, was the year the US cavalry fought natives in the battle of little big horn. Another teacher I had in 1983, used to tell tales about fights he got into in bars in his Army days. He played bagpipes in the class. Once, he dared a boy to write virginity protection device on a girl’s hockey stick. He was quite a strange teacher. He taught us about contraception and the birds and the bees, in a Geography lesson. His take on gender equality was not so modern. He confidently pronounced that woman only went to University to get a meal ticket for life. He had similar views on racial equality. He spoke at great length about the views of Enoch Powell and what a great man he was. (The MP not the teacher) He particularly liked the rivers of blood speech and seemed to know it by heart. If he was 40 then, he will be nearly 80 now. I wonder if he survived the outbreak. He must be very difficult to work with in an old people’s home. I cannot imagine him as old.

In nearly 30 years working in education, I have seen many students. Those I first encountered (students at the local Polytechnic) would be around 50 years old now. There was a lock down for them too. How had they coped? I hope they had done well. I hope they to will see many changes and I hope they will be for the better. Someone born today will be 80 in 2100. I wonder what the world will be like then.

29 AUGUST 2020

Our son took us out in the car today. We went up to X and had some fish and chips. The dog came with us and we walked him along the clifftops. We picked up his wife on the way back. She had been at work.

30 AUGUST 2020

A day spent lazing round doing nothing. It was sunny out, but I made the mistake of waiting for wife V1.0 to make a decision about what to do. She decided to sit in and laze around as she always does. There was a lot of drunken shouting in the pub down the road. It is a bank holiday, so it is to be expected. This normally carries on until the small hours. It stopped early today. Perhaps the landlord was frightened of being closed.

31 AUGUST 2020

Wife V1.0 has returned from Sainsbury’s. She has brought bread, bread buns, black bags, crisps, chewing gum, coleslaw, salad things, toilet rolls and printer paper. Her bike has a puncture. I must have been blowing the tyres up too hard. My bike broke on the ride to the beach. The clamp used to hold the two folding parts together snapped. The bike is a generic far Eastern folding bike with a badge on it. This brand no longer sells bikes of this type. If I cannot get the parts, or improvise some, then the bike cannot be repaired. What a bummer. I could buy a new one, but the man in the cycle shop said all of this years production had been sold. It’s the ones he has in the shop or nothing. There goes cycling in to work.

SEPTEMBER 2020

1 SEPTEMBER 2020

More back to work. They have made me go in alone. There were two meetings this morning and they were held online. I could have stayed safe and attended them from home. There is no work for me to do there, as there is no one in. At least I am back to being a productive member of society. Plenty of other people have gone in during the lockdown.

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No replies from the defective cycle company. I can get a new inner tube on Friday. The old bike is being withdrawn from the shed by wife V1.0 so should be available by Thursday.

2 SEPTEMBER 2020

Some bewildered students attended today. They did their best to follow the one-way system. On a starting note, line manager V2.0 is giving vague instructions. This will lead to problems. Put things away she said. O.K. So I put them in the prep room. When she looks in there, that will be untidy and she will say put that away. So I will put them back where they came from and the first place will be messy. This is a similar management style to wife V1.0. The badgering me to do a complex inventory is linked to this. They do not know what we have or where it is. An inventory gives them a manageable list. They know what we use, so we can throw the rest out. I hate throwing things out.

We must get the old cycle out of the shed now. This is difficult because of all of the un-inventoried crap we have in our shed. We too need to have a purge. Cycle in tomorrow. Hopefully, I will not get any air leakage on the old bike.

3 SEPTEMBER 2020

A tough day of cycling today. My old bike seems as if it is much harder to ride than the other. Anyway, I got over 40km done today, but was very tired at the end of it.

4 SEPTEMBER 2020

No cycling in today, but a quiet day in which no one else was in, but I was not told to go home. The Chemistry technician is off ill and he will be off for two weeks. I was not told with what. The metro home was more crowded than the one in, with ex-offenders sitting beside me with no masks. These people seem to get on the train at X. They may have came from X where there is a magistrates court. They are all drunk and usually talking about their cases and how they won or got sent down.

Emily’s school has been open three days and it has two positive cases. If the school is not shut down it will lead to a further local outbreak. The two year 11 pupils were sent home, but would have had contact with hundreds of students within the three days they were at school. We are betting on year 11 being sent home next week.

I received emails from the folding bike seller. They have asked for pictures and frame numbers. They are going to try and source a new clip. If the bikes are not being made anymore, I am not sure how easy this will be. The interesting thing this is, as this is a cycle to work scheme bike, it is still the property of the seller or my employer. I am still technically hiring it, so perhaps I can get another bike. Hiring something that is not working seems a little controversial. I am not sure how this will turn out.

5 SEPTEMBER 2020

I attempted to cycle to the cycle shop. I made it 500m and gave up. I spent the rest of the day lazing round. The local university website is broken after a cyber-attack. This has taken their computers offline for two weeks. I cannot access my PhD files. The Microsoft Onedrive files they are on are linked to through the University. The Police are investigating this malicious attack. I do not know who it is. Perhaps it is Extinction

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Rebellion. They prevented the newspapers being delivered today. I wish they would stick to gluing themselves to trains.

6 SEPTEMBER 2020

Another dull stay at home day. I cannot get onto the university website to do my work. I will spend all day waiting. Waiting for Emily to be told about next week. Waiting for Halford’s to deliver my new inner tubes. I think that will have to wait until Monday.

7 SEPTEMBER 2020

The innertubes came today. I also got my new pair of workboots. These are long-lived ones and they may last until I retire. I hope. I have had several pairs of these before. They do last a long time. I used a pair at the railway centre when I volunteered there.

8 SEPTEMBER 2020

Emily counted up all of the absences at her school today. There were 17 pupils with X marked against them in the register. This letter was not in the key. The X means covid-19. She was able to work this out as some of the entries had notes along with the X. These notes always related to +VE test results. The managers of the school have said nothing about this.

The news said that the area had gone from 3 cases at the end of last week to 50 today. About a third of these are in the school. Local lockdown anyone? I failed to cycle in again. I had a panic feeling about riding in so I used the train. It’s the getting up early I do not like.

At work we have students in today. We had them in both of my classrooms. I stayed in the prep room most of the day. Our one way system and spread out re time table classes work well. I never see more than 12 students at a time. Most of the staff are off, so the risk must be quite low.

9 SEPTEMBER 2020

The outbreak continues at wife V1.0’s school. The Managers of the school continue to fail to inform their human resources of this. Wife V1.0 is their designated medical person and even she has not been told. Wife V1.0 is getting very stressed about this. She fears bringing the disease home to me. She is regularly tearful about this. The college continues to do well, with students obediently waltzing round the one way system and avoiding public areas. They are even not congregations in the smoking areas. Nor are they eating in the canteen. It is going very well there. My extra duty is to swab all of the desks with Virkon. This is a powerful disinfectant. I do this every morning. It makes the place smell like a toilet. I hate the stuff, but it is very effective.

I cycled to the X car park and back. This seems to be a good dogging spot. It is dark and a long way off the road. I was a little worried when I got there because of this. It featured the standard anonymous van. This was parked up in a spot with a commanding view of the whole place. Just as would be expected from any self-respecting Police surveillance vehicle. The entrance is gated. The gate has a sign on it saying NO PARKING. I wonder why it says that at the entrance to a car park. The parked cars all seemed to belong to dog walkers. Several returned to their vehicles with dogs as I cycled past. The new tyre did not go down, but

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I think the weak sidewalls are a bad feature of modern tyres. They make the bike sway round corners, feeling as if the tyre is going down.

10 SEPTEMBER 2020

I failed to cycle in again today. I set out my first class today. The equipment will be used tomorrow.

11 SEPTEMBER 2020

News reports today say the R rate is 1.7. There are now 200 ill people in the area. This is doubling every week, according to the papers. There is a member of staff off ill with it at the College. (he worked in the other building). The school at which wife V1.0 works at has at to put out a press release to control rumors. In it, they said they had no confirmed cases. Pupils had been sent home as a precaution. I will have to tell work this, if they think I have been lying to them I will get into trouble.

It is only a matter of time before we have a local lockdown and then another national one. The students going back to universities will make things worse. A former lecturer, who moved to the civil service, is not going back to work until March 2021! Things should be getting to a head, just about the same time as we leave the E.U. We have a lot to look forward too. We have a fully stocked freezer, just in case. We got a big bag of toilet rolls today.

I also failed to cycle in today. I had the runs first thing. Even though I got up early enough, I spent a lot of time on the toilet. I was not out of the house on time. This is beginning to irritate wife V1.0. She has to get up early to help me out. This makes her irritable with the lack of sleep.

12 SEPTEMBER 2020

I tried to mend my motorcycle today. I failed. There is a hose which carries petrol somewhere which needs to be plugged onto something. I think it goes onto the carburetor or the fuel pump. I cannot find where. It may be a breather pipe. If it is not however, than I will get petrol leaking all over my legs if it flows the wrong way round the system. I gave up and will try to send it to a repair workshop.

Doing this spoiled my chances at cycling. My Son is working tomorrow, so I think I will head out and do some son spotting beside the bridge. I think I will take a radio there. The Ports communications can be listened to. I may get to hear him. If I go later on, I will be able to meet him when he comes out.

The lergie is on the up again. There are 3,000 new cases a day being reported. The deaths are still low. Perhaps there were this many infections all along. The extra testing being carried out now may simply be finding more victims.

13 SEPTEMBER 2020

I cycled to the dock today. I sat outside of the coffee shop scanning the 70cm waveband to try to hear my Son talking on the radio. I could not. I did contact someone on the amateur radio. He asked who I was. I told him and said I was sitting outside of a coffee shop watching trains. I did not hear from him again. Strange person. I got a lift home from my son. He reports that the power stations are stocking up on fuel to prepare for E.U. sanctions, another lergie outbreak and leaving the E.U.

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The Daily Mail today claimed that I was going to be getting a letter from my doctor. It was going to tell me what to do if the outbreak gets worse. I cannot imagine this being any different from today. I am not in the highest risk group. It is going to be a clear night tonight. I think I will get the binoculars out and have a look at the night sky.

14 SEPTEMBER 2020

Back to work today with the news that the lecturer I work with was negative.

15 SEPTEMBER 2020

Another normal day. I spent today disinfecting equipment and setting it out for the students. The students seem unusually quiet at the moment. The first years are unusually subdued. In fact they seem terrified. At least this means they comply with the new regulations. My Dad has been taken into hospital today. He had an infected Gaul Bladder. His dementia however is making things worse. He does not know where he is, or why he is there.

16 SEPTEMBER 2020

I built an air swimmer today. These buoyant Helium balloons are shaped like fish and birds. They “fly” through the air when their tail is wagged by a tiny electric motor. It was not working when I went home.

I nearly pooed myself on the way home so I used the train station toilets. This took some time. As I was sitting there letting the world pass out of my bottom someone banged on the door. I finished off and left. The knocker had turned round and was pretending to have a wee. He had a two-way radio and looked like some kind of undercover investigator. The radio was chirping away when I left. I have no idea what is going on in these toilets. There had been no one in when I entered. Perhaps I had caused the long queue. I encountered on the way out. This may have been because they were enforcing the three in at a time rule. At least they were clean.

Dad had security called on him twice today. He must be a little unsettled. If he was anything like he was on me, I am not surprised they called in the heavies.

17 SEPTEMBER 2020

Our Son came down and took us up to his house. We saw his dog and wife. We ate a curry together. We picked up his wife from work and took her home. It will be the last time we are able to do this for a while. Our dear beloved leader has locally locked us down. I can not see people from another household. Unless of course I work with them or meet them in a pub, before 10pm. Do these loons think the virus can tell the difference between a household and a pub? The response to the disease is turning into a farce. This may just be a coincidence, or it may be because the owner of Wetherspoons is a Tory party funder. I could not visit my Dad in hospital. If he was well, I could have gone out drinking with him, but not seen him if he was dying. The hospital allowed one concession. They allowed my mother to stay in overnight with him. He still recognises her, so she can control him.

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18 SEPTEMBER 2020

Fewer people on the train today. It was more like the 6am service with a person in every cove of seats. Several more students have the virus. When a student calls in sick, or is sent home, the rooms they have been in are all swabbed. The College notifies the authorities, and we get an email. We have had several this week. I don’t think we had a single person ill at the start. If this continues, things may be worse.

On Television, the P.M. admitted a second wave was on the way. It may be worse this time, as the lockdown measures will not be as strict. Strict lockdown measures cost Tory funders money. What a terrible shame that is.

I swabbed some benches down and did as little real work as I could. Line manager V2.0 sent me an assertive email. It asked me if I had done my list of jobs I was working on. I had done one of them. I am looking forward to retirement. The students these days all sit quietly in classrooms . The passively receive lectures. The teaching is chalk and talk. They do a lot of paperwork, get tested a lot and take notes. It used to be like this in the past. In schools I do not think that the pupils could cope with old fashioned lessons. Things have gone too far the other way.

Wife V1.0 has hurt her ankle. This may be an old wound. She broke it when I worked away. She is in a lot of pain.

19 SEPTEMBER 2020

Dad continues to improve now he is out of hospital. His doctors have talked about removing his appendix etc when he is better. He has some pain killers. He is taking Codine. I took this once. It turned me into a zombie.

The second exponential curve continues to climb. I am very frightened about going to work during it. I am angry that I am being exposed to this risk, just to protect the business interests of Tory party funders. I know how my wife felt going to work when it first started. This time we have the added fun of leaving the E.U.

I did not go out cycling today. There is a ship in port, but staying in is the only way I can reduce my exposure. I watched some cycling on the TV. The cyclists were racing round Luxembourg. I tried to spot places I recognised from living there. I could not, other than general areas. I am not sure what race this was part of. It may be a one off. There are lots of small races like this in Belgium. It may be shown here as there are no other sporting events to televise. I might have a go out tomorrow and try the bike for next week. I am going to have to make a serious attempt at cycling in to work. The Metro is quieter, but i can avoid it all together.

Wife and I spent some time talking about what would happen if either of us was to die. I was instructed to use her superannuation money to pay the house off. This was done jokingly, but it must be a conversation that is being had many times now. I think I will prepare a will. The Union has solicitors that can do it for free. I told her that if she had a good time with my money, I would come back and haunt her.

I have been emailing shops to try to buy a new bracket for the folding bike. The shop I bought the bike from passed the buck onto another shop. This shop does not stock the parts. The bike cannot be used without this part. This is a disgrace. This bike is only a few years old. The Raleigh all steel cycles made in the 30s

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have lasted nearly 100 years. The first bike I ever got was a hand me down. My Aunt gave me her Raleigh R.S.W. It had been made in the 1960s and it too, was a folding bike. I could not ride it properly and failed my cycling proficiency. It was heavy, slow and hard to ride. It was still big when it folded. It did not however fall to pieces after three years. It could still be ridden today. Crucially, bikes of this era could be repaired. They were made in such a way that when they broke, spares could be improvised, or bought. Bearings for instance, could be adjusted, as opposed to discarded and replaced. My current machine was bought under the cycle to work scheme. I am technically hiring this bike. I am hiring a cycle that I cannot use, because the company that I rent it from, does not sell parts and cannot repair it. I think I will be calling the union legal help line about this.

20 SEPTEMBER 2020

A lazy day today. The lack of coffee has brought on a headache. I have spent most of the day in bed. It was sunny and I had planned to go out. Instead I have been poisoning my liver with paracetamol.

Wife V1.0 continues to be nervous about going in to work. The number of mystery X’s in the register areas up. If it is true the doubling rate is 7 days, there will be a further 3,000 cases by this time next week. Perhaps as many as one third of those will be from round here.

Dad continues his recovery at home. I do not know what they will do if his condition flares up during a second outbreak. Perhaps he will be seen in the hospital before 10pm. According to our Leader, the virus is only active after 10. It does not work at all in pubs, where substantial meals (including a scotch egg) are consumed.

21 SEPTEMBER 2020

A quiet day today. More work and more students sent home with the lergie. I spent much of today frantically scrubbing things with disinfectant.

22 SEPTEMBER 2020

We received a special broadcast from the dear leader today. He needs to lockdown again, but will not. He has a special friend who owns lots of public houses. The infection rate is now nearly as high as it was in Spring. But all those sober people not fighting or being sick on the pavements, will not help the economy, or the special friend.

I had a Teams meeting with my PhD supervisor V1.0. It was positive. He praised what I had done and was impressed by my Glossary. It is now big enough to be a book in its own right. He talked about it. Not directly, but saying that part of an opening paragraph could be used elsewhere. This was an odd thing to say, but I did not realise it at the time. He is very clever. He has much experience in research and knows the system inside out. After thinking about it for a while, he was trying to tell me something.

A long time ago I was bored. I was sick of waiting for supervisor V2.0 to return from tax payer funded international travel. For a bit of fun, I included a section on railway ghost stories. I included it just to check he was actually reading it. This was about halfway through my time. (three years ago) By now it is quite a large section. Nearly as large as the whole thing needs to be. To apologise for this unscientific inclusion, I wrote an introduction to them. They were not ghost stories I said, but railway oral history training. Ancient

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tribal societies teach their young in this way. Wise tribal elders sit round fires and tell stories to children. These stories contain hidden messages about life experiences. They are passed from one generation to the next. On early railways this training style will have been used. It is now, after all. None of the staff in those days could read and write and they started working very young. The children who worked on railways could not read complex books about rules and regulations. Children need a different training method than adults do. They would have been told stories. Stories about danger could have been ghost stories.

So, he said secretly. Reframe the study. It is no longer a microbiological investigation. It is a test to see if the modern railway oral training about poo on railways works or not. The modern story is told in newspapers and magazines from unions. The Prime Minister’s televised speeches have became the story about disease. Does the story reach passengers? Is this effective training? does it modify people’s behaviour and protect them from disease?

Supervisor V1.0 is a genius. Perhaps someone told him a story about how to do this long ago.

23 SEPTEMBER 2020

Thrilled by the realisation I may be able to create some kind of coherent document, I spent half of today hiding from line manager V2.0. I made the glossary even larger. I continue to do this, this evening. The lergie story continues. There is more of it in Scotland now than ever before. I think this will be years before it goes away. Wife V1.0 has been summoned to the Civic Centre. She is going to talk about a risk assessment.

24 SEPTEMBER 2020

Now that the dear leader has sent us all back to work in the midst of a major outbreak, the mood on the Metro has changed. There is an atmosphere of tension and anger amongst passengers. People without masks and those who sit close together are scowled at. Some shops, like M and S do well at implementing social distancing measures. Others do not seem to give a shit. Sainsbury’s is good. Their tills have turned into a canyon of plastic sneeze guards. It is a bad picture. It will get worse before it gets better. The papers are now filling up with dire warnings about leaving the E.U.

More crap at work. The lecturer who requested equipment on Monday has not used it this week. This is his usual trick. Since going back to work, my health is getting worse. My weight is up as is my sugar. I am getting no exercise, other than walking to and from the Metro. This is a struggle.

25 September 2020

More work-related crap.

26 SEPTEMBER 2020

Another visit to the dock and another large ship from the Ukrainian steel works. It was rusty and weatherworn. A man stopped and talked to me. He said the steel was taken by road to the local city. He wanted it to be moved by barge or train. It went right past his house he said and the lorries made his house dirty. He had written to the public health about this. The steel works, he said, had been privatised at the end of the USSR. An Italian firm owned it now. At least there’s was still open.

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27 SEPTEMBER 2020

A much more pleasant day to sit and watch the ship. This time the hold doors were ajar. Nothing seems to be happening on it. It looks quite high in the water. Perhaps it is already partly empty. Perhaps they are waiting for light winds so it can be turned safely in the river. There is another from the Ukraine waiting in the anchorage.

28 SEPTEMBER 2020

Back to work today. I worked enthusiastically today. I did so much work in fact, that I discovered the one ship had set sail and the another has take it’s place in the dock. I bought some train spotting magazines today. I studied them, earnestly. This of course was part of my professional development. Nothing to do with looking at pictures of trains all day. I checked 28 circuits for continuity. The students will appreciate having experiments that work.

29 SEPTEMBER 2020

I was injected today with my flu immunisation. I get this every year. This time I was offered immunisation against Pneumonia as well. I have never had this before (the immunisation not the disease). This was a first. The doctor’s surgery had special measures in place. I queued up along with all of the other patients. The queue was in a gazebo on the emergency exit grass. I waited my turn, then, when called, I stripped topless at the edge of the car park and was injected. It was all well behaved. I was the youngest there. Others in the queue had family who were travelling. One had a son who was in Poland. There was no quarantine on the way back, so he went.

Several bars are closing voluntarily. The managers in the news were quoted as having said that no one was going out. The rules were confusing, he said, with families not able to meet at home. They could meet however, where there was a till and alcohol. Most people seem to have seen through this rouse. They are all staying at home as much as possible. Even the Metro is quite quiet.

Line manager V2.0 had asked where I had to go to be injected. I think this was to measure the amount of time I had off vs. Distance travelled. It took me 2h 15min. nearly the same amount of time it takes to cycle one way. I hope she was impressed with the speed of the round trip. I went on the train.

I want to go out cycling again. I find it hard to do this however, when it gets dark soon. It is so easy to sit down after eating and go on the internet. Easier still with an eye pad. I can lie in bed and rot my brain looking at short films of pasta making or turning coloured pencils glued together on a lathe. My health must be worse now. Weight is up as is sugar. Pay day tomorrow.

30 SEPTEMBER 2020

I woke up this morning with the symptoms. I have very mild ones. They are not enough to stop me doing anything. Yesterday I received my immunisations. These may have caused these symptoms. I emailed work and told them all of this. I was told to stay off until I had been tested.

The testing system is great fun. I have no car, so I cannot use a drive in centre. I can opt for a walk in centre or a home delivery kit. The home kit will be best. The walk in centre will be full of people with the

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lergie. If I do not have it now, then I will have it when I leave a tent full of infected people. The website said there are no home kits available. Try again in 2h. it said. It has said this since 0700h. The walk in centre had over 170 slots at first. Now it has 120. when on the website, it is possible to watch them tick down towards none. It must be very busy out there.

OCTOBER 2020

1 OCTOBER 2020

Sitting in waiting for a lergie test kit. I received an email from the courter who say it is going to get here today. it was put on a van at 0850 so should be here soon. What a bummer this is. Sitting in all day waiting for Amazon to deliver a package. It’s sunny too. Amazon being a company who makes their staff shit in buckets because they will not let them go to the toilet during work time. I am going to have to get more exercise when this is over.

2 OCTOBER 2020

I paid more off the credit card today. There is only a few hundred pounds to go. I took the lergie test and posted it in the special designated post box this morning. SonV1.0 became angry with us today. A teacher at wife V1.0’s school has tested positive. Our son wants her to stay off work. Her employer is not following the rules. No school ever would these days. Under threat of sacking she goes in to work. He became very upset and threatened to grass the school up. He offered to pay the mortgage if she got the sack. None of this is likely. I am unlikely to have the lergie. I have a red blotchy patch where my injection was. I am merely having a reaction to it. The school is likely to be closed by public health when they have large numbers of infections there.

Certain former local Polytechnic had 770 cases amongst its students. They have over 26,000 students, so it’s not much of a surprise. I cannot help but laugh. No wonder my microbiology supervisor refuses to go in. I wonder how long the test kit will take to be done. They should get it tomorrow or Sunday.

3 OCTOBER 2020

A day spent inside in isolation. My sugars are sky high with the lack of exercise. I have tingling feet now. They feel hot at night.

4 OCTOBER 2020

I received my email from the lergie testers just after midnight. I am negative. Out on my bike now, hopefully I will return before it rains. I need to do at least an hour of cycling to get the sugar down.

5 OCTOBER 2020

A dull return to work with a nice welcome from line manager V2.0. I spent today doing the inventory. It is now up to 62 items. Cycling in the evening to look at the big ship. It was dark when I was out. It took a big push to be able to get going. Eventually I made it to the light house car park. This ride goes past a closed pub. I think this is being used to grow drugs. It has been raided once by the Police.

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6 OCTOBER 2020

I babysat a student doing an exam today. I had asked her about cycling in to work earlier in the day. If I was to get in late as a result of cycling, would it matter? I asked. She ignored my email. The old Union negotiated flexitime it seems is dead. No more can I get in at 0930 after cycling in to avoid the disease which has killed a million people. I might have a go at cycling in tomorrow. The weather is going to be good.

The local university is being balloted for strike action. The Lecturers are refusing to go into classrooms and teach students face to face. Good for them I say. They have nearly 800 ill students. One in each class will infect thousands more. I hope they win the ballot and the strike goes ahead. It may be the first strike caused by a disease outbreak. Something that can easily be included in the write up.

14 OCTOBER 2020

The lecturers won. The uni backed down and Lecturers now do not teach students face to face. I myself have had had an email from my supervisor. I feel touched. It was to tell me he had done nothing.

The lack of containment measures continues. There are more and more ill people. Nothing is being done to protect us. I watched a programme on youtube. It was about the making of not the nine o clock news. I was not allowed to watch it when it came out in 1979. It was on after 9pm. I had to be in bed by then. I see lots of things like this. A sort of after the fact viewing. Others are The Young Ones and The Tube. The tube was on ITV. I was not allowed to watch the other side. I got to watch them later, when I was much older. This leaves a strange feeling of an in absentia childhood. Like looking back at something done by other people on my behalf. They are still very funny.

I have begun a collection of fingernail scrapings. I will give it to everyone I work with when I leave. Along with the ear wax and the finger nail scrapings. I think this is called passive aggressive behaviour. I will check this with a psychiatrist when next I am at the funny farm talking about I.T.V.

21 OCTOBER 2020

I have started measuring my blood glucose level. I got a high result yesterday, but today’s was lower. Not as low as my good news telephone call from the doctor. It seems to make me want to eat less. It is now dark when I return from work.

I am writing a section on mandated behaviour changes for the PhD. I am waiting to hear from my supervisor. He said when he next contacts me he will discuss my options. He said this two months ago, the same time he would be in touch next week. This means that after 7 years of spending years waiting for up to a year for email replies I am going to be told to do a Master’s degree.

22 OCTOBER 2020

Today my beloved employer closed the college for next week. This was after I sent in my holiday request to have next week off. There goes five days of my annual leave. At least I do not have to attend online meetings this time.

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23 OCTOBER 2020

My first day of lergie rest today. I had a long lie in and a cycle ride to the glass centre. It’s cafe is now open. There were no ships in, but there are two on the way from the Ukraine. I cycled 11 km today. My after tea sugar was 12. The same as it was this morning when I had not eaten. We will see what effect the cycling makes. Hopefully it will be lower.

27 OCTOBER 2020

Much rain today so no repeat of the previous cycle to and from son’s house. Blood sugar is close to 20. Very high. I had a mashed potato pie and lots of juice today. I also had three pieces of fruit. Perhaps this accounts for it. It was 9 this morning.

The big ship is in, so we are going to cycle to see it. We may then go to Halfords to see the folding bikes. I do not seem to be able to get mine fixed. Not without buying one of many of the scrapped ones on eBay. Many of these have snapped in the same way mine has. I hope the Halfords one will be better. It seems to have a different type of frame clamp.

28 OCTOBER 2020

We both cycled to see the big ship today. It was not as big as the others. It had steel coils at the front and ingots at the back. The cafe was open in the glass centre so we had a cup. When Emily was in the toilets a student asked me had I cycled far to get there. No I said. She asked if there were any good cycle paths around. I told her up to X and X. She seemed to be writing this down on her phone. Emily returned from the toilets and we went our ways. This happens quite a lot down here. I told my wife I had been chatted up by an attractive young woman. This had no effect on her (the wife not the student).

29 OCTOBER 2020

RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN. at least. I am getting paid tomorrow. I have managed not to spend £184 of this months pay.

30 OCTOBER 2020

We got up early this pay day morning (5am) and went David spotting. He was assessing a train driver today. To do this David observed a driver take his train from the docks, through our nearest station to a power station in Yorkshire. We watched his train emerge from the sidings on tracksy a train stalking application for clever telephones.

The signallers let train after train out in front of him. Eventually his signal went green and he rolled slowly towards us. It was very early when he passed (05:44). We did not get a hoot. It was too early for this. Train Drivers cannot toot before a certain time. It wakes people up around the lines. Tooting too much can put people off listening for toots. If people hear them all of the time, they ignore them. We received a dignified wave.

The train rolled through slowly. They are only allowed to go 50km/h here. In addition to this slow speed limit, it has had to follow a stopping Metro service. The train must have had Yellow signals all the way from the

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port. The driver seemed tense and worried. He looked into the gauges of the engine, as if he was breaking a secret code. He did not seem to notice us.

After watching the train roll serenely by, we went home. I followed it to it’s destination on the application. It arrived nearly 15 minutes early. We ate our breakfast. Bacon, eggs, sausage, black pudding, mmmmmmmm. We have done this many times. Even this hour long wait in the cold and dark was great fun. Watching David drive trains, after many years of taking him spotting them is a great moment. I never get bored of it.

I went down to watch the big ship. There were lots of women at the cafe this time. 10 women and 2 men, including myself. I was invisible to these women. They must have had money, or something to do. It seemed as if the ship was getting ready to depart. There were two tugs loitering nearby. I could not stay to watch however. The train stalking app showed that David’s return train was already at X. I cycled up to the station. Wife V1.0 was already there.

David’s train was the next one through. This time the driver seemed more relaxed. He seemed to think the sight of David’s parents waving them through the station was funny. We still did not get a toot. I like living next to a railway station. A place without one feels pointless and unworthy.

David called us and in invited us up to his house. He came and picked us up in his car. As I was getting in, I said hello to a big dog. I like dogs, especially big happy ones. This one was bouncing along the pavement with it’s tail high in the air. I walked up to it and held my hand out for it to sniff. The big slobbery dog jalopied up to me and bit me! My wife seemed to find this very funny. If this was a cowboy film someone would have to cut my hand and suck the poison out. When she stops laughing, I will point this out to her. This will probably be when I have had an unpleasant injection in my bum.

31 OCTOBER 2020

Another day of rain today. I cycled down to the dock as it was getting dark. The big ship was to be seen moored at the anchorage. I think it goes there to wait for its next job. It costs a lot of money to stay tied up in the port. The next shipment of steel is currently at the northern end of the Bay of Biscay. That ship is very big. It will get here in a few days.

The PM came on television today and made an important announcement. He was a little late appearing, but eventually turned up with his loyal assistants. He declared the start of another lockdown. This starts next week. The cause of the second outbreak was the return of schools. Naturally, schools will be staying open.

A union man spoke on TV before the PM. He said that 50 times more cases were linked to schools than any other source. No wonder they are going to be left open. He asked for the adoption of the social separation model used in sixth form colleges to be adopted by schools. Looks like I will be working through the second outbreak. At least the Metro will be less crowded. 2020 seems to be to resemble the early 1970s. There are lots of crises. In the early 70s they were oil, strikes, power cuts and petrol shortages. There were no disease outbreaks then. Currently, there have not been any economic problems. We have yet to see the effects of leaving the E.U. This sparkling event happens on the 1 Jan 2021.

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Happy Birthday to my Brother. He is 50 years young today. I remember being driven home from the hospital with him in the car. I was given a toy di cast steam roller. I was told he had bought it for me. I knew that could not be right, but hey, it was a free steam roller. That memory is 50 years old. How time flies. In another 50 we will all be long forgotten. I eft the steam roller out when playing with it on the new road that was being built next to the primary school. I went back to collect it the next day and it had been rolled into the roads foundation by a real steam roller. Pity. I like to think of it still being there. Driven and walked over by generations of children going to school. They too were brought home from hospitals in cars. There must have been a lot of children through the gates since then. The road has been relayed. If the first stone foundation is still there, it may still be down there. I tried to go back and see it once. The carefree relaxed security of the 1970s no longer prevails. There are now big security gates and shutters over all of the windows.

NOVEMBER 2020

1 NOVEMBER 2020

Out cycling to X today. I waited for a gap in the weather and went out. I am tired after doing this, but my blood glucose is down to 9.2 mml/l. That is during the day! Wife V1.0 received an email from her employer. It said the school is willing to allow extremely vulnerable people to stay at home. The college is likely to do this too. Neither of us will be getting any time off.

I still do not know why the P.M. is insisting schools stay open. There is not much reason to do so. Perhaps parents go spare when they have to look after their own children. This lockdown is going to last until December. One month after that, we leave the E.U. Senior figures of the government have hinted that it may be extended. Perhaps they are just trying to shorten the queue for food when we leave the E.U.

Now it is raining.

2 NOVEMBER 2020

More rain so no cycling. Pity. A crowded metro today. No one seems to care about the rising numbers of cases. Never mind. In 100 years no one will care.

3 NOVEMBER 2020

Work related issues.

4 NOVEMBER 2020

A quiet day spent ringing round trying to get union representation. They did not seem keen or excited about this. I think they know what is going on. I have never been to old at work before. This is a new experience for me. Too old for work, too young to retire.

I have been discussing my experiences with my son. He recommends a job on the railways. He encourages me to take grievances out against those concerned. This is very stressful, and the voices are getting worse. I talked to the Unison rep. She was astonished they were even doing this to me. She reassured me. They will not be able to sack you over this.

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5 NOVEMBER 2020

A pickup of a hire car today. I collected a cowheels from X. I zoomed to X to collect a hamster. it was taken to X where I collected a wife. then we went to X to get an injection from the vets (for the hamster. The animal was returned to X. No wonder there is so much climate change. X has changed a lot. There is a big supermarket on what used to be the site of the working men’s club. The butchers on the corner has gone.

6 NOVEMBER 2020

I took the animal for a second injection. Then we went to David’s and returned the animal. We had a nice coffee from his new coffee maker. I have been a bit worried today about all the work troubles. After getting the metro home (the car had to be dropped off) we bought alcohol. It was quiet in the city, with the second lockdown beginning to catch on.

7 NOVEMBER 2020

The employment campaign bought printer ink today. Getting it was like getting drink from a speak easy. The order had to be placed online, then the shop had to be called to book a pick up slot. I arranged this and cycled along there. It was shuttered up and looked as if it had been closed for months. I had to call again and give the secret code from the car park outside. I then had to move to bay A out the back. A masked man came out of the emergency exit and handed me the package. I had to confirm I was not a fed, by showing him ID. The roads were quiet, and it was a still clear day. It was cold. The mist from bonfire night has still not gone. I think i may pop out and see the big ship tonight. If it is still there.

9 NOVEMBER 2020

The big ship had gone. There was lots of steel on the quay. Much more than normal. I huffed the Unison rep today. She said that she was not allowed to work with reps from other unions. oh well. she was rubbish anyway and would have just let them walk all over me.

10 NOVEMEBR 2020

Work related crap

13 NOVEMBER 2020

Work related crap

15 NOVEMBER 2020

A short cycle to Halford’s today. We waited for the sleet/rain to stop and nipped out in the cold. I got there and was lied to by a shop worker. He did not know when we could get a Brompton. They were made abroad. The importing of cycles had been banned because of the coronavirus outbreak. Rubbish. They are made in London and always have been. Bikes are imported into the UK. If they were not, there would be no Halford’s own make bikes. In fact there would be almost no bikes at all, because these days they are all imported. Brompton is the only volume maker that has their own factory here in the UK. Even Brit based firms like Raleigh make them abroad now. I think I may just get the snapped bike repaired. I only need to find an aluminum welder.

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22 NOVEMBER 2020

I cycled to X today. I got the train to X and peddled up a B road through X. It is a long time since I have cycled round those roads. It was during the CTC years in the 1970s. It seems to have changed a lot. In those days workers in the fields stopped to say hello. The road verges were mown and manicured. The roads were smooth and mostly pothole free. The B roads were red. They were laid with granite stone. The coal tar they were laid into gave a smooth ride and was not prone to cracks and potholes.

These days the verges are wild and overgrown. The roads are patched and awful. The old men in the cycling club started cycling in the 1930s. Some still had the same bikes. One, bemoaned the invention of the derailer gear changer. Hub gears were best, he claimed. Derailers were a fad. He went to great lengths explaining the benefits of perfectly symmetrical frames and straight heavy chains. He had four gears on his bike. In his day, three was thought to be plenty. Another member picked dead animals from the road. Pheasants were his favorite. To continue a wartime habit, these were taken home to be cooked by his wife. They were quite nice in a stew, he assured me. I was not tempted. While hub gears are making a come back, as predicted 50 years ago, he is not. In the dormitory villages and yuppie foodie gastro pubs, I knew he was gone. I looked around trying desperately to remember who they all were.

The villages are now illuminated with streetlights. They are filled with the urban rich in pretend farmer cars. The real farmers have pick-up trucks. These wizz past at frightening speeds with border collies peering out of the back. Agripretenders strut around wearing perfectly clean wellies and jumpers called Pringols. These seem to be matched with unusually coloured trousers. I saw a pair of orange ones on one person. They themselves are called names like; Tarquin; Crispin; and Kim. They cruise the foodie tea rooms and gastro pubs. None of these sell meat, that was recently hit by a speeding car. If Tarquin had a bike, it would have derailers. Like the amplifier that goes up to 11 it would have too many gears. Crispin would be wearing brightly coloured plastic clothing. He would have shorts that make his manhood look enormous. I am told to wear these you must have no underwear and special cream on your bum. The last time I had no underwear and cream on my bum, I was being sexually abused. No wonder people from the countryside hate townies.

24 NOVEMBER 2020

I am getting a new clamp sent from TGC. It will repair my folding bike. More shit at work.

29 NOVEMBER 2020

I still continue to be gainfully employed. My study supervisor has replied and we are going to have a chat about how to keep going. I am going to have to include some of the covid events. I would like to look at conspiracies and why people believe these. I hope this will be enough. I need 30,000 words. The weather this weekend was poor so I only managed a short 5km ride. This felt easy after last week’s marathon ride.

30 NOVEMBER 2020

I went to work on a real train today. I cycled in to the town centre and I got on the Diesel train to the city It was more civilised than the Metro. Toilets, staff on the train and a big place to put my bike. 13km give or take. I think I will do it again tomorrow as the weather is predicted to be good.

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I missed a PhD supervision meeting today. oh no. I’ll just tell them I was at a conference representing the University. That seems to work for them.

DECEMBER 2020

1 DECEMBER 2020

Metro today. I failed to get up early enough for the real train. It was a quiet day, with no false intrusions into the labs to check up on me. The classes I have set start tomorrow and the short concise inventory is on its way. I have done one set of cupboards in one lab. I will try again for the real train tomorrow. Wife V1.0 is very tired. I will have to be more considerate about getting up and sleeping.

6 DECEMBER 2020

Wife V1.0 continues to be ill. The children at her school are behaving badly and the school is being turned into a business by its new owners. The world is going to shit. At least our part of it is.

10 DECEMBER 2020

More work crap

12 DECEMBER 2020

More work crap

13 DECEMBER 2020

Watched Cinema Paradiso. Wife V1.0 has decided we are not going to visit anyone on Christmas day. We will be spending it at home. Mam and dad are going up to David’s for the day. Wife V1.0 fears that we will spread the lergie. When I was younger I hated Christmas. I used to go out walking and avoided everyone. I like it more now that I am older. It is going to be a miss this year. My uncle died last Thursday. There will be a 10 person funeral and no wake. My mother is the last of their family.

14 DECEMBER 2020

More work crap

23 DECEMBER 2020

The government is saying there will be a phased return in the new year. There is another outbreak occurring, French ports are closing to us. The new outbreak strain may be centered round children in schools so I may get some more write up time.

I have two weeks off. Yesterday we took the bikes in a hire van round the park. This park is made from the remains of a giant pit heap. It is much nicer now. There are several lakes and plenty of wildlife. It was a nice ride out. There were many people out walking. we sat and recovered after a 5km ride beside the pond. We watched swans take off and flocks of terns steeling food from geese. It was an impressive sight.

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I had a supervision meeting and I now have to produce three results sections. Luckily, I have the results. I think I will be able to use the plates I did years ago. Interestingly the hard hitters, the Department of Transport and (what is left of) Public Health England have hit on some 1.9 million of public money. They are investigating the covid risk from train travel. Not that I am jealous or anything. Not much anyway. I bet they do not have to wait 7 months for a reply from their supervisor when he fucks off to the South Pole on a jolly. With all this interest, I may be able to make a wearable PPE monitoring device.

It is raining today. Tomorrow we are cycling across the causeway. The tides are favorable from 12pm to 9pm.

24 DECEMBER 2020

The cycling tip to the island was reduced to sitting in the car with a picnic. It was very cold with squall like sleet showers. We came back through the rain. The Snowman was on and I had a good cry. I also got to watch Casablanca.

25 DECEMBER 2020

My first socially isolated Christmas today. We went down to my mother’s after meeting son at the motorway services. It was icey outside. Today was declared a white Christmas. All of the gamblers who bet on it will be very happy. The bookmakers not so. It had snowed here overnight, but none had stayed on the ground. Over the next few days it feels as if we will have more. It is very cold. The puddles in fields have frozen.

We went to mother’s to spend about 20 mins exchanging presents in the garden. She looked tired. She had been crying. Her last remaining brother had died a few weeks ago. My brother lost his wife in the summer. She is finding looking after my dad, who has dementia a strain. She seems to be living a sort of aloneness, as all of her family are gone.

The strangeness of this year exposed other missing things. The absentee Christmas created a longing for chocolate coins, nuts and tangerines. When I was young, I only ate tangerines at Christmas. We had prepared for this with wife V1.0 diligently getting tangerines, nuts and a pair of crackers. These were fine, but some of the nuts were moldy and there was an absence of Brazil nuts. We overlooked chocolate money, but my mother came to the rescue. I was also short of a selection box and socks.

The makers of chocolate money seem to be hedging bets on the currency markets. I remember receiving my first chocolate money. I did not know what it was and had to be shown that it should be opened and could be eaten. I was tickled by this concept. I kept some of it every year. I found some when I moved house last. I found even more of the foil wrappers. These can be aged. My early ones were pre decimal currency. Chocolate money was then decimalised. Over time these coins became smaller. When it stopped being minted in the UK, the foreign mint, created chocolate Euro. This can be sold in more countries. Perhaps the Bank wanted to make more by selling their currency in more than one country. This year’s chocolate money was Marks & Spencer money. Perhaps this is a sign of how leaving the E.U. will affect the value of the pound.

After receiving the best crypto currency ever invented, we headed home. We spent the first Christmas in 32 years of marriage at home with only ourselves for company. No wonder the Queen speaks to her subjects

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who are alone every year. It must be very important to them to have this important link to their past. Living as they do now, having outlived their family members. It was quite a tearful day.

JANUARY 2021

1 JANUARY 2021

The first day of 2021. I could not sleep so my usual activity of going to bed early was not applied. I heard the fireworks and sent text messages to family members. The weather was bad so we stayed in all day. I did some writing up. Wife V1.0 did not hibernate, so she has been in a mood all day long.

We are in Tier 4 now. This is just like the first lockdown, except that we have to go to work. Schools seem to be still being discussed by the officials. They are going to be delayed going back by two weeks. Wife’s school however knows more than SAGE and the PM. They are opening straight away. I am not sure what the college will be doing.

2 JANUARY 2021

Snow today. The motorcycle cover has a thin layer on it as did the back yard first thing this morning. This is the worst effect of global warming. I miss the snow a lot. Growing up there was always a generous covering lasting for months. There was plenty of play out in it. Everything seems different in the snow. It is quieter, and the sky has a strong glow to it. Now we are lucky to get a heavy frost. The weather is predicting more over the next week. My brother posted a picture of his street on the internet. He has a big covering in his street. He lives out in the countryside.

3 JANUARY 2021

I cycled to the docks today. There was a large ship in. It looked the same type as a steel carrier. It was not being unloaded, perhaps because of the high winds. It was very cold down there. A hail squall blew up so I cycled home, getting caught in it. Nearly 6km.

The government and experts are arguing about whether schools should go back. The Microbiologists say no. The government want a free babysitting service, so they said yes.

4 JANUARY 2021

A team inset today done over the internet. My contribution to it was to have a cat jump on my lap and demand a fuss. This amused everyone. It is very cold today. No snow yet, but is feels as if it will soon. The nearby shops are mostly closed again. Wife V1.0 is very upset about her school’s lergey response. She is going to be forced to go in. The children are not going to be forced to wear masks. There will only be 22 children in. I cycled to the beach and it was very cold.

6 JANUARY 2021

I had an extra all staff briefing today at 0840. I had a pleasant day of overeating and not cycling. I tried to cycle, but between seeing blue sky and getting ready it had started to snow. Bummer. Wife V1.0 is now calmer and is sleeping at night.

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7 JANUARY 2021

I cycled to X today. It was very cold with snow on the way there and back. The puddles had frozen so was very slippery. I found riding very hard. That ride used to be very easy. Today I was worn out half way through it. There were not many cyclists out. It seemed to be only the “serious” riders out. There were no family groups.

I watched an old film from the 1950s when I returned. It was all I could manage. It was the one about the oil prospector who beat a dam builder to a find. These old films seem much better than new ones. I used to look forwards to being off sick to see them when they were on during the day.

10 JANUARY 2021

A walk to the beach today. Wife V1.0 came with me and we sat on a seat. Like genuine old farts we sat on a seat and watched all of the dogs go by. There was plenty of them. It was cold, but not as cold as it has been. We agreed to get a thermos, sandwiches and start moaning about young people. This will make us prosper old farts. There were not too many about in the cold. Young people or old farts. In April, it will be six years to my 60th birthday. amazing. I never thought I would live that long.

11 JANUARY 2021

My online meeting with line manager V2.0 was cancelled. I spent the rest of the day checking to see if a trap had been set, to see what time I went online. There was not one. I spent the in-between times trying to pick the courage up to go out cycling in the cold. It was dry, but cold today, with some rain forecast for tonight.

12 JANUARY 2021

A cycle ride along the seafront and up the river. There were no big boats in the harbour. I spend a lot of time on youtube these days. Too much time in fact. I looked up some recordings of a video of the local railway. It had been made professionally, for broadcast before the invention of video bloggers. My Son and I were on it. We walked passed the camera when the narrator was talking about volunteers. We looked so young. I was thin and David looked very young. It was filmed 16 years ago. In that time David has left home, got married and bought a house. The place has stopped running trains and was shut down once by the railway inspectorate. They said it needed to be improved. I became very emotional watching it. This happens to me more and more now.

19 JANUARY 2021

Two trips in to work to try to get a lap top working for home use. I got it working at work but it will not work at home. It will not connect to the internet. The run of good weather has ended. it is now going to rain for over a week. As I am not connecting to meetings the threat of sacking looms. I missed the meeting yesterday. I cannot see the point of them. They are all for lecturers.

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26 JANUARY 2021

As the lockdown is going on, it does not feel very locked down this time. I am off work but outside there is no fear of being out. This is even though there are as many people dying in a day as there was during WWII. The number of cyclists is down. Perhaps this is the weather. It is now very cold with regular frosts.

The young person in the upstairs flat kept us awake all night last night. Wife V1.0 is disturbed by this. She cannot work properly when this happens. He had his girl friend up there with him. In the best spirit of old farts we will have to start complaining about young people. There may be a call going in to the ‘grass up non socially distant people’ hotline soon. He is very quiet in the mornings. He is now.

I ventured out. Breakfast was from Greggs. I had bacon and sausage in a bun, tea and a corned beef pastie. The tea is now cold. It is not as nice as I could have made myself.

31 January 2021

I sent in my most recent request for an extension for my PhD. The lergie has worked in my favour. The uni is not permitting people to go out and sample or interview people. I cannot do it because of their rules. We are asking for nearly another year.

I went out cycling today. A lockdown breaking 20km. I am finding it hard this time. I was still able to keep up 25kmh. I sat on the bench where i was questioned by the Police and looked out to sea. No ships came in, but it was very busy on the beach. The lockdown is not like the first. People have lost their fear, even though many more people are dying this time. The friendliness has mostly gone too. A woman did speak to me about her disgust of abandoned littered face masks. We agreed that the trouble was, they could not be put in a bin, because they may be covered in lergie. The bike got washed when I returned. Tea was beef and veg from the slow cooker. mmmmmmmmmmm no roadkill for me.

This lockdown my weight is up along with my sugar. My testing machine warns me that i may be weeing ketones now. My problem is I am getting too much work from work, so I cannot get out as much as i could. an hour is just as much as I can squeeze out of them. The new laptop makes me fear being spied on. It is easy to do with these devices we are being given. It is a little dangerous to have people being able to see into your house during meetings. Many of the managers have taken to false backgrounds or fuzzed out of focus pictures. I would not want a nosey student peering into my home.

FEBRUARY 2021

1 FEBRUARY 2021

I stayed in all day today, apart from pies and scones in the back yard. It was nice and sunny, but still cold. The weather man said it is going to snow. I hope it snows lots. I used to love the snow. I have been looking at bikes on ebay. I found two Raleigh folding bikes. The Raleigh R.S.W. These were controversial bikes in their time. They did not fold very small. They were heavy and hard to ride. They got the blame for making small wheeled bikes unpopular. I had one of these for my first bike.

It came to me because my mother had an eye for saving money. She cleverly estimated the low seat height of folding cycles would enable me “to grow into it”. This would make the bike last a long time. That and the

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fact it was given free from her brother who did not want it. It took a long time for me to grow into it. The seat came halfway up my back. To turn, I had to stop, scoot it round then start peddling again. I failed my cycling proficiency because of that bike. “Tell yer mother to get ya a proper bike” said the tester. My mother told me off when I passed the message. It had been great to cycle round the school yard.

The other boys I played with had racers. I wanted one of those. The racers had fancy gears. I went on many adventures on my bike. Some of these were too far for my age. X station; one stop away from my current home; the airport; and the beach some 13km from my then home. I helped an old man mend his puncture on the green by the beach. He gave me 10p for my troubles. I spent it on ice cream. He was old. If he was over 70 then, he could have been born in the late 1800s.

I loved that bike. In 1973 during the FA cup, I peddled round the deserted streets. As I waited for the score, I observed, signaled and looked over my shoulder. There were no cars that day. I spent the power cuts checking my lights worked. My cycling proficiency man would have been proud of me.

5 FEBRUARY 2021

I have been working hard doing pointless online tasks for my employer. I have managed to attend all meetings and even sat in on a class. It was remarkably interesting. I now know more of what I am supposed to know. My cycle part came today. I can fit it at the weekend. It looks tricky to fit. It will need circlip pliers etc and has to be fitted with springs in tension. It looks a hard job. By Monday, I will have a functioning folding bike. YIPEEEEEE. A folding bike is a very useful utility thing. I can put it on buses and trains. I wheel it into shops so there is less risk of theft. The Brompton type can even be turned into a shopping basket.

This comes just in time. My weight is going up and my sugar is high. I am out of breath just sitting still. It is a long time since I have been out of the house. The weather has been bad all week. Next week it is predicted to snow. It has been forecast to snow for several weeks now, but never has.

My wife banned me from going outside today. I refused to wash my clothes and she said they are dirty. I have had a packed lunch of ham and tomatoes. I added to this marmite on toast. This is less than I have been having of late. Pies and large pasties have been the order of the day up to now. Today I even went without my breakfast from Greggs.

6 FEBRUARY 2021

It snowed and stayed on the ground today. Yipee. I hope it lasts until tomorrow. I took the folding bike out to check the clamp. The bike stayed together as I rode it round the block. That bike was the one that got my fitness going. It enabled me to cycle to X. Now I only have to sort out the wheel wobble. I am writing a summary of my PhD up now.

8 FEBRUARY 2021

Line manager V2.0 communed with me on teams today. She was less formal than normal and the meeting was much shorter. This was a great improvement. She was less intimidating, and her camera was turned off. She seemed not to have her notes from last week. Perhaps she is off on a buckshee Holliday. It is half term at some schools.

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I went for a stroll to the beach today. There is a strong easterly and snow flurries. The wind whipped the sea up and piled the water up against the sea wall. The waves were big and broke a long way out. Up the coast, there was not much of the beach that was not covered. The storm is predicted to continue. There will no doubt be a burst of cliff erosion and stay collapses. This usually happens after storms which bring easterlies. I felt very refreshed by the walk. I was red faced and flushed by the experience when I returned. The cats seemed un-nerved by the cold. The temperature was bracing. More PhD.I am up to summarising the findings section.

10 FEBRUARY 2021

My exercise was a walk into my hometown today. I took the metro to X and walked along the old railway line. I crossed the river and walked up to my first school. I passed my grandmother’s old flat and the park (where I got stuck under the roundabout) on the way there.

I remember my first day at school. My grandmother and a friend took me. The friend had been selected because she was a teacher. Her educational experience would make her well placed, to deal with me and a school. We sat in a row of chairs in the hall, waiting to see the head teacher. We were summoned into the great man’s presence one at a time.

I spent a lot of time in that hall. I remember the policeman. He told me never to drive more than 50 mph. I saw films, one was about being lazy. I also saw a girl being beaten because she would not strip down to her underwear for “movement and drama”. This was dancing to music on an ancient valve radio. We had to sit quietly while the valves warmed up. This room was subsiding. It was closed every summer because of this.

I was interviewed by the headteacher in his study. I was screaming and trying to get out. I did not want to be taken away to where the other pupils were going. He asked me questions. It was like going to the doctor. He had no ability to “get on” with children at all. His view of me, was, he would have a lot of trouble from that boy. The first two weeks I hid behind a bookcase, sitting on a radiator. These radiators were the hot old fashioned type. Spacious, large, old, plenty of water and a desirable location - they were hidden from the teacher. They were heated by coal and a boiler man. This was delivered by a coal man in a special lorry. He filled large sacks and tipped down a chute into an underground room. This was covered by a grate. Peering down it, I occasionally saw the boiler man. When girls saw him, they screamed and ran away. In this room the coal burned all year long. The radiators were so hot, crayons melted when placed on them. Those were the days. The days when schools had enough money to put the heating on and employ people. My wife’s school currently (-1C outside) has the heating turned off. They cannot afford to run it.

My school had a centenary during my sentence. That heating system was 100 years old. Wow. Somehow I do not imagine the current school’s system lasting that long. My school is no longer open. It closed and had a school for autistic children built on the field. I was not sad to see it go. The last classroom I served in is now under a road. This, the outdoor toilets and our time capsule. I got January and February off because of those toilets. They froze all winter long. The radiator pipes did not reach that far out.

The capsule was inspired by Blue Peter. They laid one down regularly. I think they dug one up every 20 years or so. What a terrible punishment for everyday objects, to be buried in the Blue Peter garden for 20

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years. This seemed like an eternity when I was a young. When I think of the things we buried, they do not feel old. It seems too soon to dig it up.

A great pity was that my last teacher was not buried under the road along with his classroom. He will be 80 now. He needs a time capsule all to himself. His should take the form of a coffin. There must have been plenty of pupils who would have assisted the builders. One, a boy who was beaten until he confessed to stealing money that had gone missing. It probably was not him who took it. I would have helped too. Me, for the beatings I received for having messy handwriting. It was a long time since I had been there. I wonder if the boiler is still there in that underground room.

12 FEBRUARY 2021

I started the day with my weekly teams meeting. It contained very little. There had been a quiz earlier in the week. I had not participated. The winning team were congratulated and everyone else was praised for their great spirit. This is true. It is quite a fun workplace. To celebrate this great achievement, I took a bus trip to X. I bought my favourite bus ticket - the Explorer North East, for £10.50. This got me four hours on a bus (the 78) winding it’s way through pit villages. It used to be a quick journey when we had express busses. These were phased out with deregulation. Now the route is even slower. It goes through tiny villages on the way.

X is on top of a big hill. It is very cold in the winter and there was lots of snow on the ground. There was as much as there used to be here in a real winter. I went down to the Steel works site and sat on it’s modern art installation. This is nice, but I would prefer a steel works and rolling mill. From there I followed the old railway to the steel hopper. There is a seat there. Local people are very friendly. They all said hello as they passed. Dog walkers and opportunists off work enjoying a ramble in the snow. It’s a nice spot in the summer. The moors can be seen in the distance.

My geography teacher at school lived here. When he was not telling us how great Enoch Powell was, He boasted about this. He bought cheaply when the steelworks was open. When it closed, he predicted, the town would become a haven for social class A, and B. (Middle class yuppies). These would seek out the leisure opportunities the North Pennines offered. There would be skiing and walking and cycling he said. All within an easy commute of the city, with it’s abundant white collar class A, B, work.

Since then a K.F.C. and a McDonald’s has opened and there is now a supermarket. This, as all geographers know, will not create jobs. Any that are created will be offset when all of the independent shops close. Some of these have been here for generations. The money made by international chain shops will be taken out of the area.

Some of the social class A, B, leisure cyclists cross over a disused viaduct near here. This is the local hotspot for suicides. I saw one jump when I was out walking long ago. I saw him fall. Later when I walked over the viaduct I saw his corpse at the bottom. In addition to this yuppie junk food and suicide opportunity, there is a disused dogging spot. This is near the steel hopper. It became disused when two participants were murdered.

I do not know if the dead doggers and suicide man were yuppies. I doubt it.

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13 FEBRUARY 2021

I stayed in all day today. The snow has started to melt and the weather well be warmer this time next week. Pitty. At least I will get some cycling in. I watched Field of Dreams on the TV. It is a very good film. I did a brief search of Netflix. I could find nothing else to watch. I binge ate food and had too much pop.

14 FEBRUARY 2021

Today I assisted the cat with his programme of relaxation and sleep. I joined in later in the day. This year I did not send myself any valentine Cards. The shopkeepers are homophobic. It is hard to go in and get cards dedicated, “to my Boyfriend”.

15 FEBRUARY 2021

I watched Gregory’s Girl on youtube. It is about a loser who fails at everything. I was surprised I cannot remember anyone making it about me. It is unusual for a film of its time. It shows;

1). Females as having the upper hand over boys.

2). Females being sensible and boys being stupid.

The film could not be made now. It depicts boys watching a woman get undressed. They are hiding in the bushes and the girl is in a flat. This is uncannily like my wife. Wife V1.0 and I were watched in such a way. This was by a perverted scout leader and his friends when he hacked my computer. I once went to Cumbernauld to visit one of the locations (the shopping centre, not the pervert site). I got lost and could not find any.

The weather has warmed up and the snow is gone. It is 10 degrees warmer than it was two days ago. wow. It is also sunny. This calls for a cycle out along the coast.

Wife V1.0 went to the doctor. today. She was informed that we would be getting our vaccination soon. The health people have started with the oldest and are working their way backwards towards the young. A return to work is imminent. Oh dear. That means a return to the sacking process. I could always get a retirement job as a cat relaxation assistant. Pancake day tomorrow… YEYYYYYY !!!

16 FEBRUARY 2021

Pancakes today. I got a complement from wife V1.0 She said my batter was good. I learned this technique from bikers at a motorcycle rally in The Netherlands. They were from Denmark, where pancakes are a national dish. I had some sneak jam. My fav. was missing. The shops had no squeezy lemon. Pancake day was a great day with my grandmother. She showed me how to cook them and I made and flipped several of my own.

18 FEBRUARY 2021

I went to see the big ship in the river.

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19 FEBRUARY 2021

Today the government told me that I was extremely clinically vulnerable. I am not now allowed to leave the house except for exercise and medical appointments. Luckily I cannot go to work. The nice thing is I get wife V1.0 as a carer. She has to go shopping for me and look after my day-to-day needs. I am going to have to start being nice to her. Damn. I am also going to get injected sooner with the antidote. Here comes my soul Bill Gates. MUST BUY MICROSOFT MUST BUY MICROSOFT MUST BUY MICROSOFT OBEY THE 5G MASTS OBEY THE 5G MASTS OBEY THE 5G MASTS.

20 FEBRUARY 2021

The big ship departed with a loud parp. I was unable to sleep last night. Perhaps this was with the excitement caused by being more likely to die than anyone else. I should get my injection soon. After this I will have to wait 12 weeks to get the second part. Wife V1.0 threatened me with a screwdriver this morning. She had been unable to sleep because of my fidgeting. Not what I would expect from a carer. perhaps this is the 5G radiation.

Good news, as I have been able to get my folding bike repaired. I received the frame clamp from the maker and fitted it. A local independent shop trued my rear wheel. There was no long wait for repairs to be done, so things must have returned to normal after the first covid rush. Riding it no longer feels like a bucking bronco, they did a good job. I fitted a speedometer from Halford’s. It is now all ready for my second injection and a return to work.

What should I do today? hmmmm. I have a choice. An angry woman and a screwdriver, a medical appointment, or some exercise in a quiet place. I think the exercise will win out.

21 FEBRUARY 2021

Cycled to the ferry terminal today. I watched several big ships coming and going. One a container ship, the other a small general cargo type. I cycled on the road and was able to go much quicker than I went when I started riding. I was worn out when I returned.

22 FEBRUARY 2021

A one-to-one was done with line manager V2.0 She was no longer accusing me of refusing to go to occupational health. On another note, she thinks I am going back to work on March 8th with a phased return of every single school in the country going back all at once. This is another jump back to work too soon. This time we will have the vulnerable people half immunized, but no one else will be. It remains to be seen what this will do. Even if the vulnerable are fully immunized, everyone else will continue to get it. Some of those will have unknown vulnerabilities. They may well die, or need hospitalisation. The dear leader is taking a great risk with our health. His special friends must like him very much.

Today was spent working from home. I could not go to the shop to get a pie to eat. Mid day food was therefore a fried egg.

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23 FEBRUARY 2021

Windy today, so permitted exercise was only to the beach and back. 6km. The dog walkers all seemed grumpy. The wind however brought the surfers out. Some had attached themselves to giant kites and were being dragged along over the water. I spent the day doing lists of ted x talks. I have listed some about linux. I like this operating system and so I just made a long list of talks about it. I have ordered a memory stick from Argos. I am going to try to download penlinux onto it. I will be able to use it on this machine.

Work emails today. The entire Technician team has been asked about their vulnerability classification. I told them I was extremely vulnerable. Changing this classification is just being done to minimise deaths when a third premature reopening occurs. A report on an online news feed claimed that tens of thousands of additional deaths will occur because of the early lifting of restrictions.

VERY EARLY 24 FEBRUARY 2021

I seem to be having a little trouble getting linux to work. I found a nice site with good instructions for Ubuntu. I did something to a memory stick and put it on there. It starts, but I am not sure it will recognise the keyboard and mouse. These are wireless ones. Perhaps they need special software for them to work. Oh dear.

Computers are created so that the people who own them need to keep spending money. There is something called software. This is not actually soft, it is a set of instructions. To update this software we need to update hardware. This is hard (dense and solid not difficult). The instructions are written in such a way that they only work with particular dense and solid things. To update dense and solid things we need to update instructions. There are books, but these are written by autistic people. These people suffer from egocentricity. This is a belief that all other people have the same knowledge as themselves. They do not make good Teachers.

25 FEBRUARY 2021

Today I diligently attended an online class. I could not understand it. I went out for my hour’s exercise, ran a dog over and did not return on time. The dog was unharmed. It continued to lolop around in the long grass, long after I walloped it with my front wheel. It must have been a hard hit. The handle bars were pointing in a different direction to the wheel and the reflector had fallen off. Poor doggie. It will be very sore in the morning. The owners did not seem to care. They asked if I was well. I personally would have been more worried about my dog. Wife V1.0 tested negative with her weekly lergie test.

27 FEBRUARY 2021

I cycled to X today. I wanted to go further, but the mountainous section of the cycle path wore me out.

I had a conversation with a retired man on my way there. He had a haunted look about him. He had watched my cycle up a hill. He watched in amazement. Amazed, that I made it to the top without dying. He had an electric bike and he told me about all of the places he rode it. I imagine it was much better at going up than I was. He referred to it as she. It looked lovely. He had spent a pretty penny on it.

The friendliness ended in X. This is where all of the miserable people live. I made it to the dogging car park. Today the only unlawful activity was lockdown breaking. For once, the car park was being used for the

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purpose the development corporation intended it for. Even my Scout leader friend was not present. The Police presence continued. They had a van doing the rounds keeping a wry eye on the drug like chavs that were wandering round. Four of them emerged from the bushes when I was eating. They got into cars and drove off. They were to young to be dirty old men.

The old railway tracks had many young people out walking. There were courting couples amongst them. I used to go for walks like that when I was young. Quite a large proportion of them smoked joints as they walked. None of that went on in my day. 28km. The third lockdown total is now 328.

28 FEBRUARY 2021

Today was a bad day to be a dog trapped in a hot car. I spent it trying to get command lines to work on this computer. I failed to do this. I need an old-fashioned book. I have some of the old Teach Yourself books. These work well for me. They are “British” books. That is, made of well written prose and easy to understand. Most computer books are American. These are dumbed down. They are written in summary English. They have been summarised so much, that it is hard to find an explanation of what they are trying to say. Over time, the number of Teach Yourself titles has been cut. When there were local bookshops, there was a whole shelf of this series. There was not much in the world that could not be learned from these books. There are no computer books left in this series. All they sell now are lifestyle books. Great if you need something about organic grow your own superfood herbal coffee grinders. Not much good at all if you need to learn how to programme a computer.

Reports from the local amateur radio muppets are that the beach is very crowded. It is very sunny and by now it must be looking like a 50’s postcard. A pity I have to avoid crowded places. No one is paying attention to the lockdown rules and the government is going to open up again. The dear leader seems to be relying on the immunization program. The non immunised (young) people will still get it, but not all will get severe symptoms.

The muppets had an extensive conversation about the lockdown. One of them is sitting in his house with all of the windows smashed in. They were vandalised last night. This lockdown has brought out more radio activity. The radio muppets start talking sooner in the day. Normally they come out to play early evening. Now they are on from midday. The current muppet is predicting that in 2025 it will return. He has had a vision apparently. I have not got a working antenna for the muppet box (CB) so I do not know what this is like.

Five days to the first immunisation.