I'd just heard that a friend I'd had Sunday lunch with a few days back had unwittingly spent a week at work in the vicinity of a colleague who has now gone down with flu, and the symptoms suggest that it's not just any old flu, but the coronavirus flu variety.
Apparently the colleague told the manager a week ago that she wasn't feeling too good, but was asked to come into work regardless. The friend I had Sunday lunch with had no idea she was working with an infectious person, nor that the manager had sanctioned that person's continued attendance in the office.
Now the friend is very likely to be infected herself. And of course her partner. Both are now in fourteen days' self-isolation. I saw at once that I'd have to do the same, except that I could shorten the self-isolation to seven days, as I live alone. So I'm free again to go out from midday on Wednesday 25th March, assuming that no general lockdown has by then been imposed in my area.
Here I am in my study, not too happy about this confinement. I'm in quarantine yellow, naturally!
A notice (or warning) on my front door had seemed appropriate, so I stuck this on the outside.
Gosh, it felt like telling the world not to come near, or they would catch the Plague! Would I face total social exclusion? Even after I removed my yellow notice on 25th March? (Assuming that I'd been infection-free, and could properly do so)
The day had started well. In fact I took these shots, to record how healthy I felt.
I'm rather glad I did. These pictures are proof that I didn't look ill.
I hadn't been able to get all I wanted in my usual shopping trip yesterday. So I went off to Sainsbury's in Worthing. Oh, my goodness. Lots of empty shelves!
Actually, it wasn't all like this. Foodwise, there was plenty of fresh milk and dairy stuff; plenty of fresh things generally. Only the items regarded as good for a prolonged siege had disappeared. Such as tins, packets, toileteries, and stuff that would freeze well. I still got most of what I'd been looking for. Then I headed off to the even bigger Sainsbury's at Rustington, further along the coast, to see if I could obtain the rest. It was midday by now. The Rustington Sainsbury's was a forlorn sight. Much emptier. I came away with nothing at all.
Then I got the text that told me that I might be infected.
I drove home and immediately got into self-isolation mode. It wasn't hard. I had been expecting at least an officially-imposed 'stay at home and don't go out' order at some point, so it actually seemed better to be doing it voluntarily. I will treat it as a kind of holiday. Indeed, it won't in practice be much different from a week away on a farm in some rural spot, except that I can't go anywhere. But I can enjoy the sunshine. I have plenty to do, and can prowl about inside my house, and around my garden. Exercise-wise, I exceeded 10,000 steps yesterday without difficulty, just by mowing the lawns and cleaning the car. Today I've done 8,000 steps so far, much of that inside the house.
I don't of course have to stay strictly within four walls: I can lounge about in the caravan too. And - so long as I warn people to keep their distance - I can tidy up my front garden as well as the back one.
Let's have another temperature-check. It was 35.1 degrees C early this afternoon. Now it's 36.0 degrees C. Allowing for a natural increase in body temperature in the evening, I'm as cool as earlier, and I definitely haven't got a fever. Yet.
I'm hoping this spell of self-isolation will prove needless. It's a chance to chill out. But it won't be nice to watch the world shutting down while I sit around.
