The Isolation Survival Pack

I knew Thursday wasn't going to be a great day when I managed to trip up in the car park and fall full length, as I was rushing to get the train to work. For a moment or two I was like a beached whale, but I managed to bounce back up. Why is it even at 6:30 in a morning there is always someone there watching, "are you all right?", "yes, yes I'm fine thank you", although I'm not quite sure where the follow on line came from, "I must still be pissed from last night" I said as I picked up my car keys, and brushed myself down, they gave me an odd look and disappeared.

On inspection I had minor gravel rash injuries, cuts with blood running down my hands, a sore wrist and a rip in my jean's where I'd fallen. I did debate about going home but thought sod it, it looks worse than it is and with the rip, I'll look like I'm down with the kids, they pay a fortune for jeans like this. A friend at the train station managed to sort me out with tissues and hand sanitizer to clean me up.

About lunch time I had a call from Mrs Riley and it turns out that my silk tie might not have been the only gift the girls had brought back from their travels. Meg had woken up with a temperature and feeling generally unwell. It was day 15 following her return from Vietnam, so in theory she was out of the incubation period, but the subsequent call to 111 resulted in the unsurprising outcome of "self isolate".

This was all being relayed to me as I sat in a large open plan office, at one point I asked if she had a cough and I could sense the person sat at the side of me starting to edge further away, so it ended up being one of those bizarre telephone conversations where the answers I was giving to my wife bore no resemblance to the questions I was being asked. When I put the phone down there was a moment where I thought about running up and down the office waving my arms about screaming, I've got it, I've got it, don't panic don't panic, but in the end I just quietly slipped away. I felt a bit of an outcast as I sat away from everyone on the tube and the train home, all I needed was a bell around my neck to encourage social distancing.

You are going to have to do a Waitrose shop on your way home, was the next message, we haven't got any food in. What do you buy when you are self isolating for 14 days - non perishable stuff! I plumped for safety, crisps, popcorn, chocolate, biscuits, 8 tins of beans and for the freezer, sausage, bacon, chicken Kiev and chips. The rest of the trolley was full of wine and beer. If covid-19 doesn't finish me off a heart attack probably will! It's safe to say Mrs Riley wasn't overly impressed, but the atmosphere improved when I produced 4 toilet rolls. Oh yes, the last 4 on the shelf, we didn't need them but, I felt compelled to buy them, as the print from the cut up squares of the Daily Telegraph can be a bugger to wash off.

That evening and the following day, I started to feel quite unwell myself, headaches, sore throat, temperature and just a general malaise, or as they say in Yorkshire, moping around! In fact, as Ellie who is now living in Maidstone, hasn't shown any symptoms, I was beginning to realise that I was probably the host. I don't know if I've got the virus or not, but based on the symptoms, I think it's likely. I don't need to be tested, I'm fit and healthy and I've got a mild viral infection. Am I going to die? Well yes eventually, but not from Covid-19 (although I do keep reminding my wife that men have a higher mortality rate than women, so she needs to look after me just in case)!

The media love it, Coronacrisis fills the air time vacated by Brexit and Megsit and sometimes it's really difficult with conflicting opinions to pick out the key information. I can't see any correlation between the reported numbers of infected people (1,206 confirmed UK cases as of today) and the reality that as we have moved to delay phase no one is being tested anyway. It's out there, most people are going to get it, but in my experience the effects for most of us will be negligible, and we should be focusing on the most vulnerable people not panicking the majority. It won't be the virus that causes the problem, but the devastating impact all this will have on the economy and people's livelihoods, especially in the service industry.

Well as I write this I'm on day 3 since the first symptoms and I'm starting to feel a lot better (don't tell my wife, I'm enjoying the attended care service) and my trusty companion Oscar the Dog hasn't left my side throughout. We've just had the message through from work that we should work from home which appears a sensible approach, I'm lucky I can do that.

My advice is keep washing your hands and drinking alcohol, or even washing your hands in alcohol. I'm not sure if it does anything or not but, it makes you feel as though you are doing your bit for the war effort. But most importantly keep your wits about you. I've just noticed that Mrs Riley has put the 4 toilet rolls on the downstairs loo window cill, that's like leaving your new iPhone on display in an unlocked car. I've moved them onto the floor just in case, better safe than sorry.

If you have enjoyed reading this blog you can find more at my Coronacrisis home page or go to my blog home page. If you have any comments please leave them in the comments box below.