Social distancing

Rio de Janeiro Botanical Gardens, April 2019

This is certainly the strangest period of time I have lived through. Nothing has come close to this level of disruption to ordinary habits that I previously took for granted.

Apart from the cancellation of all formal social activities and gatherings, the guidance on what we should individually do is making me think hard about my daily routines. I am more happy than most to spend time alone and avoid social contact, but I have been surprised by the extent to which I miss seeing people. Work is now the only place where I get to talk face to face, and so my work colleagues have become quite acceptable people to talk to where previously they were a long way down the list. I'll be writing more about work in a future post; there's a lot going on.

This period of social isolation has coincided with an interesting conversation with an old friend about an online weight loss program with which he has achieved amazing success (he's lost enough weight to reverse his Type 2 Diabetes). I was persuaded to give it a try, and have been restricting myself as it advises, to 1200 calories a day for the last 12 days.

There is an app, and you log your food and your steps and it gives you little pep talks every day based on evidence of what it takes to lose weight and keep it off. There is very little there that I don't already know, but it is the first time I've tried to log everything that I'm eating, and I have to admit that it works quite well to keep me on track. I still feel deprived - 1200 kcal isn't very much - but I have managed to save enough of my calorie budget to include some chocolate on a couple of days. The app is free for two weeks and then they propose to charge me an absolute fortune - my friend is on a much cheaper plan, perhaps because he had much more weight to lose. So I plan to unsubscribe, but if I keep on tracking my calories and steps using free apps I might actually achieve the change that I'm looking for.

Of course the other side of weight loss is calories expended in movement. No badminton! No unnecessary excursions out of doors! What am I to do?

Well, walking, cycling and running are all that's left while we're still allowed out of doors for our one form of exercise per day. I thought I would have another go at running, and a friend recommended an app for listening to while running that ought to make it a bit more interesting - it's called 'Zombies, Run!' It provides a story to accompany the tedium of running which, as you might guess, involves running away from zombies. I've only listened to the introduction and the first 'workout' so far, so we'll see how I get on. It lets you play your own music in the background as well, which is a great help.

Then there are my Buddhist groups which all shut down for a period of active online discussion about what we should do next, resulting in the use of various online methods. I've done my first two using Zoom and Skype and it's certainly better than nothing, but not as good as face to face meetings by a long chalk. All of the retreats I was so looking forward to in the spring and summer have obviously been cancelled, and the Leamington Peace Festival, and the cousin from Seattle's visit, and family weekends, and even a work study day that I'd somehow been allowed to book. I haven't given up on July and August yet, but I think the chances are slim that the restrictions will be lifted by then.

The C-word

Val Thorens, March 2020

My second ski trip was as successful as the first, after a rocky time leading up to the holiday when two people had to drop out - one woman because her husband had a stroke, and another man because he had damaged his knee. Luckily we managed to find two replacements.

We went to the same ski area as for my first holiday this year so I was slightly familiar with the runs and could make my own way round on the last day. The winter had been warm and spring had definitely arrived, so there was some rain and much melting of snow (also some fresh falls), but enough at high level to keep us swishing with satisfaction down the slopes.

We were a large group - 14 lovely people with varying experience and competence. Most of the time we split up into groups of similar speed and skill. One day was pretty cloudy but visibility was variable and I went out; the next day visibility was nil and it snowed a lot so I didn't ski. I had a wander around the town, some people went bowling, others sat in bars or had coffees, some stayed at the chalet and played cards. On other days we skied in bright, hot sunshine, which made conditions a bit slushy at low altitudes and at the end of the day.

With this many people in the group it helps to have a volunteer who makes decisions about the route and navigates as we go along. The main leader was the chap who had the thankless task of booking the whole holiday (and dealing with the consequences of those two people dropping out), but one of the others took over one day for an area that he was familiar with, and I even led for half a day to make sure we went to an area I wanted to ski. My period of leading didn't go as planned because one of the key pistes I was hoping to ski was closed and required a significant wait for a cable car and a major detour.

On the last day we had one of those situations when nobody particularly wanted to be in charge. There was also thick cloud in the valleys, so we started off at high level with all 14 of us together, stopping frequently to make sure everyone had caught up and to have long discussions about where we should go next which mostly went: "I don't really mind," multiplied 14 times. At one crossroads a decision was eventually made to go one way, and I decided to split off from the main group and go the other way because I couldn't bear the slowness and indecision, and also because there were a few runs I really wanted to ski.

I know when I'm skiing on my own that I need to make the time for breaks, so I did have a morning stop for hot chocolate and a lunchtime stop for my cheese roll. But I couldn't overcome my tendency to go for just one more run, and my legs were tired, and the unpisted run was lumpy even though not steep, and I fell over onto my shoulder just as I did a few years ago. Not serious, and it will sort itself out eventually, but last time it took about nine months and in the meantime my left arm is a bit restricted in its upward movement..

While we were out there in France we were all following various aspects of reporting on the Coronavirus pandemic. One chap had a friend who arrived in an Italian ski resort just as they closed the whole country down - his party was flown back to the UK the next day. Our chalet hosts (young men aged 19 and 22) were theorising on what might happen next week - there were 13 people due to arrive on the day we left. There were no particular restrictions in place and restaurants and bars were open as normal. We congratulated ourselves on a successful holiday as we arrived back in the UK on Saturday, and then on Sunday the news came that all French ski resorts would be closed with immediate effect.

The group after us would already have arrived at the chalet, including one guest who had booked only the previous day, to be faced with no skiing at all. We were all OK though. I had already started on my list of jobs - laundry, cooking, arranging the team for badminton matches this week - when news came through that one of our party had woken on Sunday with a high temperature.

So throughout Sunday messages were flying round - about his condition, about our different employers and their policies, about the guidance from Public Health England and the NHS 111 phone line. Those who could were going to stay at home rather than go into work, but my work can't be done from home and all the guidance said that you only self-isolate if you or those you live with have symptoms, not if people you happen to have been on holiday with have symptoms.

Since then things have moved fast, to the point that the situation is quite different while I type the end of this post compared with when I started. On the plus side, his temperature returned to normal after 24 hours. On the minus side, the panic buying, social distancing, daily updates from the hospital management, local, regional and national policies that change from day to day, the closure of my regular groups (badminton, Buddhism and music) and the cancellation of all of my spring and summer holiday plans. My diary has gone from a joyful mess of evening engagements, weekend breaks and longer holidays to a blank page with 13½ hours a week at work and the rest at home, save for the occasional shop for fresh and perishable foods.

I'm sure I will find more to write about the C-word soon. But I'm fine and so are my friends and family as far as I am aware, and we are all doing the best we can in the circumstances.

Fairyvocals

Rio de Janeiro Botanical Gardens, April 2019

I realise I haven't mentioned my new spectacles. It has become increasingly difficult using the computer screen at work with my varifocals - or 'fairyvocals' as they were amusingly called recently.

The particular distance of the screen corresponds to a fairly narrow band within the specs so I was having to hold my head at a particular angle to see the screen which then made it difficult to refocus on paperwork on the desk. A classic case for supporting an application to my employer for special specs for VDU use, and I mentioned this at last year's routine optician appointment. They agreed, and measured me up for a pair of old fashioned bifocals with the cheapest possible lenses and frames given that I wasn't sure how much my employer might stump up. It came to £125 which is a real bargain compared with my usual specs which cost about £200 per lens plus the cost of the frame.

It took a long time to go through the process of self-assessment at work, then an Occupational Health interview to verify my assessment, then identifying how much might be contributed and who by and how the payment would be achieved. Meanwhile, despite my instructions to the optician not to get the glasses made until I'd found out more about how they could be paid for, I got a message to say that my spectacles were ready for collection. So they stayed that way for quite a while.

Eventually the Powers That Be at work agreed to stump up £60 and I collected the specs. You get what you pay for - they are the old-fashioned bifocals, which I was aware of; what I hadn't remembered was that they are also the old-fashioned low refractive index glass, which makes the left lens 12mm thick at its widest point, and they weigh a ton. Good thing I'm only wearing them for the computer. At least they do work brilliantly for that purpose.

What I've been reading

Illywhacker
by Peter Carey

narrated by Peter Hosking

"Herbert Badgery is vagabond and charlatan, aviator and car salesman, seducer and patriarch. He might very well be the embodiment of Australia's national character, especially in its fondness for tall stories and questionable history."

A long book and mostly good, but suffered from my frequent complaint - there was no meaning to it. The story was interesting enough, and I liked the way that something was described up front but the events leading up to it came later on. Ultimately, however, I learned little from it.

The Truth About Fat: Why Obesity is Not That Simple
by Anthony Warner

"Most people try out diets just to see if they work. One friend cuts out sugar, a second cuts out fat. Another mumbles something about gut microbes. Even scientists still seem to be arguing about what causes obesity, so what hope is there for the rest of us?"

After I'd got about two thirds of the way through this I wondered whether I ought to give up being a Dietitian. He does such a good job of laying out just how complex obesity is, the myriad of interdependent factors that cannot be prised apart, and the impossibility of using most research to provide answers that there seems little point offering people advice about their weight. The conclusion with the most weight behind it (no pun intended) seems to be that to improve health we need to reduce financial inequality. If that happens, along with a whole lot of other societal changes (including outlawing the stigma and institutional abuse that fat people face on a daily basis) then obesity may not continue to increase. But the system is so complex that actually there is no real way of knowing what will happen. I've lent the book to Sister D and I'm looking forward to hearing what she thinks of it.

Man and Boy
by Tony Parsons

"Harry Silver had it all: a beautiful wife, a wonderful son, a great job in the media. But in one night he throws it all away. Then Harry must start to learn what life and love are really all about."

A light souffle, a palate cleanser between all the long, difficult books. Nothing much to object to, but an easy read with a fairly predictable plot.

The Vicar of Wakefield
by Oliver Goldsmith

narrated by Nicholas Farrell

"Dr Primrose and his family live in rural bliss until disaster threatens to destroy their happiness: abduction, impoverishment, and betrayal combine to lay them low, but a surprising figure brings hope when all seems lost."

Time for another 'classic' work of fiction from 1766 (and apparently never out of print since then), all I can say is that it is of its time. Men and women had their roles and their place. One of the threads within the book was that a serial adulterer conned a young woman into thinking he had married her only to reveal that it was a sham, but in order to retain her honour she was redeemed by proving that the marriage to this despicable bastard was legitimate. I seem to be reflecting on how times have changed almost every day.

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
by Eckhart Tolle

"The phenomenal bestselling self-help book of its generation. Surrender to the present moment, where problems do not exist. It is here we find our joy, are able to embrace our true selves and discover that we are already complete and perfect."

Even I find it hard to believe that I've been reading this book. It's been hanging round the house since The Boy gave it to Mr A as the most misguided Christmas present I can imagine. If it hadn't been for its fame combined with my newfound interest in Buddhism it would have been out to a charity shop with all the rest, but I wanted to see what the fuss was about so I had a go. Reader, I confess, I couldn't finish it. I probably got more than half way, and I suppose I found a small grain of usable truth in it but it just seemed to restate the same principles over and over and it got boring.