Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Day 182
6.45 As luck would have it, I have a supermarket delivery due this morning between eight and nine so I was able to replace some of the things lost to my erratic electrical system.
Today is officially the first day of Autumn but for me it is going to be the last day of summer because it is going to be the last hot sunny day before rain tomorrow.
Today is also going to be the first day I have ventured into a big store since lock down in March. I am meeting friend Jackie for whom it will also be her first trip. Odd timing I suppose, since Boris is becoming more heavy handed due to the sharp rise in Corona virus cases over the country.
8.20 There is a loud knock on the door and my groceries have arrived. A man is standing there in a rather fetching homemade material mask and I ask him ‘if he has come to deliver my groceries or to rob me’? ‘I can be whatever you want madam’ is his reply and I feel silly having made the pathetic joke. Note: why do I never learn to find out who my audience is before making daft jokes?
8.50 Shopping wiped and where possible put in the quarantine corner, I take Audrey for a quick trip around the meadows for half an hour, she is clearly grateful to be on home territory again.
9.30 I set off for Tunbridge Wells to meet Jackie, I have left in plenty of time but was not prepared to get into the middle of a convoy lead by a thirty mph max driver who only seems to speed up a little when we get to any thirty mph speed areas.
10.20 Five minutes late at the retail park, I see Jackie standing outside M & S furniture store where we are going to have a cup of coffee. The shop has only a smattering of customers and lots of big spaces, presumably to make dodging other masked customers easy. There is only a short queue for the café and a notice requesting our details for track and trace which we should scan with our phones. I can’t find the scanner app on my phone and download it again while another customer takes pity on us and shows us another way to do it, we then fill in the form with the tracker no. given and our names. Now we can have our well-earned cup of coffee.
We have a wander around the store and then over to Homesense where we discover that we are practically the only customers and this at mid-morning. It is hard to know how the Government is going to weigh up the acute needs of the economy against our health but seeing this makes me wonder just how much longer shops like this can carry on in the face of such adversity, especially as more stringent measures are on the way, although for the life of me I cannot see how closing pubs at ten at night is going to make any difference, or can you only catch the virus by mixing socially after ten pm? Won’t people just go to the pub earlier?
13.30 I arrive home and get ready for an afternoon swim in a warm pool which is very welcome, although by the time we get out, it is getting decidedly chilly, perhaps it is the first day of Autumn after all.