For the first time in 27 days, I’ve had to walk ‘Pip the Dog’ in the rain, which is incredible really, especially here in the U.K. We might get 3 days of dry weather and then it rains. We really have to ask the question, has all this reduction in pollution reduced the amount rubbish in the air, which would normally contribute to bad weather? Not just here in the U.K. but also right across the world.

So we just had a very short walk as neither of us like walking in the rain and we did get soaked! We will make up for it tomorrow no doubt!

The rest of my day was very quiet as it’s Saturday it means Clair goes to her Mum’s to do some cleaning and she ended up doing some cooking for her as well.

So I spent some time practicing Taiko Drumming, which felt great and then afterwards I caught up with some Netflix series I have been watching. I watched the end of Pandemic and was really pleased that Jake Granville and Sarah Ives got the Gates Foundation funding for continuing with their vaccine development. I also watched a couple of episodes of Ozark, which has a great storyline, it’s taking a really strange turn at the moment. I also watched the COVID19 Horizon episode part 1, which was super informative to know how the virus started and how it works, plus how we can fight it. I highly recommend if you’re in the U.K. that you watch it. There’s so many opinions out there and it’s good to know the scientific truth.

Just to remind anyone who might be reading this in the future, this is not supposed to be a news report about what’s going on in the world, it is just a record of my days and a few notes for myself, so when I look back in the future, I get a sense of what might have gone on that day.

I do think it might be useful to record for myself some of the major news items that have made an impact on me during this time. Of course on of the biggest ones is Captain Tom who has been raising funds for NHS charities by walking laps around his house. In case you haven’t heard of him, he’s 99 years old! He has raised over 20 million pounds as of today and says he will continue to walk as long as people are still donating, which of course they will. I’m sure it will continue to rise even further.

The other news story that has made an impact is the shortages of PPE equipment in hospitals and care homes, which is very saddening and also very dangerous for front line staff who might catch the virus as a result. The only thing I would say is that some of the gowns, are able to be cleaned so instead of throwing them away, which is a total waste, cleaning them would be a much better idea as has already been recommended. It does mean though that you need a cleaning process as well, so maybe that’s an issue potentially? Anyway I’m no expert and you can’t always believe everything that’s being reported.

In the evening there was a Corona Live Aid concert raising money for the front line staff. It was mainly about the US and streamed in different places, I watched a small bit on YouTube. Very well produced and all the artists basically recorded their songs at home and they then mashed it together.

The last news item of the day, was about people in the USA out on the streets protesting about lock down and wanting to go back to work etc. No social distancing even with those protests and of course Donald trump promising that some US states will be opened very soon. Unbelievable! But in some respect it will be a good experiment to see what might happen as a result.

That’s about all for today folks.

Stay unshakeable out there!

Michael de Groot