Chris's Weblog – City Chickens

My diary from 2006

Monthly Archive: April 2020

Chris's Weblog - City Chickens > 2020 > April

Sowing Seeds During a Pandemic – Madness!!!

April 10, 2020 Covid-19, Garden, News , , ,

980 new deaths from COVID-19 today in the UK

It’s Good Friday 2020. We should be buying hot cross buns and Easter eggs but instead, we are counting the dead. The whole world is in ‘Lockdown’. The new buzz word meaning that we have to stay in to keep ourselves safe from the virus. I fear that we are not being kept in to save our own lives but because there aren’t enough hospital beds or staff available to treat us should we all become ill at the same time.

The weather is wonderful but we are all confined to quarters so those of us who can, spend time in our own garden. On the plus side children and their parents are spending quality time together. The ‘key’ workers still have to venture out and do their bit for humanity.

I have sown quite a few seeds around the garden today, crossed my fingers, and hoped for the best. I’ve also planted out a few young plants started from seed last year.

Icelandic Poppy
GoldenEye Grass

The pond is teeming with new life as the frogspawn is hatching hundreds of little tadpoles. The fruit trees are frothy with blossom again. It seems unbelievable that such a tragedy is unfolding across the globe.

Cherry Blossom
Common Garden Frog

Too Many Sad Stories

April 9, 2020 Covid-19 , ,

Children are losing parents
This is a global tragedy

“All the deaths are tragic, absolutely heartbreaking… but either protect bus drivers, posties, cabbies, shop workers, refuse collectors, etc or don’t send them out at all. ” Eamonn Holmes.

This quote caught my eye because my partner Rob is a postman. Eamonn Holmes was complaining about the lack of protective equipment provided to these workers who, although they are classed as key workers, are expected to go to work and risk their lives with little or no protection. I am in an older age group and advised to ‘Sheild’. I worry every time he goes out to work that he will contract the virus and I worry when he comes home that he will carry the virus to me.

We, as a country, were given a warning way back in January about the coming of this virus. As individuals, we were informed and could see for ourselves from news reports that action was required on a massive scale. Had the correct measures been taken at the end of January, many lives could have been saved.

Our health workers should have been provided with top of the range protective equipment. This country wasn’t prepared for a medical emergency on this scale. The emergency services had been cut to the bone in recent years both in numbers of health care personnel and the amount and quality of essential equipment provided. Everyone should have been told that they had to stay at home. Not told that they could pop out for a stroll or to walk their dog.

History will look back and say we failed. There are so many past examples of Pandemics killing millions of people. So many clever people saying “It’s not so much if it will happen as when” Why then weren’t we prepared?

Every day the number of deaths rises. Every day a family member is lost. The news is full of heartbreaking stories. Our doctors and nurses are dying. I am sorry that this post is so sad but it’s just the way I feel today.

Deaths are still rising. 7,978 people with COVID-19 have died in UK hospitals since the 6th of March.

Aquilegia Crystal Star

April 8, 2020 Garden , , ,

It’s a beautiful spring day today and although I still have a heavy heart, I have sown some seeds directly into the garden. I already have a few established roots of Columbine here and there but as they are such rewarding perennials I feel you can never have enough. The seeds I have scattered are of a startling crystal white variety.

Aquilegia Crystal Star. This is a long spurred aquilegia with pure white flowers. A cottage garden favourite and an excellent and unusual cut flower possessing a clean crisp bright whiteness. Columbines are one of those plants that have a very long history of cultivation. Aquilegia vulgaris is a Native of Europe and is the traditional Grannie’s Bonnets of the cottage garden. In the late 19th century a florist call Douglas began to cross this with Aquilegia caerulea, canadense and chrysantha to begin the long-spurred hybrids that we know today under the name Aquilegia x hybrid.

Aquilegia comes from the Latin Aquila meaning eagle, Columbine is also a reference to the flower shape. Columba is Latin for dove. info from Dorset Perrenials.

(938 UK deaths from COVID-19 today)

Spring – Looking Forward

April 3, 2020 Covid-19, News ,

Hope springs eternal

“It’s barely two months since the first COVID-19 patients were diagnosed in the UK. And yet the number of cases has now exceeded 30,000. In the 16th Century, measles and smallpox were spread by Spanish Conquistadors to entire communities who had no prior immunity. Those viruses took 100 years to conquer the Americas. COVID-19 has taken 100 days to conquer the world.” Senior Sister Emma Barnes, Bradford Royal.

Its Friday 3rd April 2020. It is very difficult to think of anything positive to write about these days. My mind is still overwhelmed following the loss of Adam in February 2016. It is still the first thing I think about on waking and it will probably always be that way. However, in these scary days, I am also frightened for the safety of the rest of my family. Before, I thought I was one of many suffering from grief following a bereavement. Friends and family had been telling me to get out and about and start to enjoy life again. I believe that now the whole of humanity is feeling the same fear and sadness. Certainly, the vast majority are isolating as I was.

Along with the rest of mankind, I am living in hope of better things to come.

“How could we tire of hope

so much is in bud”

Denise Leverton

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-52144390

WHO – should wear a mask

April 2, 2020 Covid-19, News

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, US, used high-speed cameras and other sensors to assess precisely what happens after a cough or sneeze. They found that an exhalation generates a small fast-moving cloud of gas that can contain droplets of liquid of varying sizes – and that the smallest of these can be carried in the cloud over long distances. The study found that coughs can project liquid up to 6m away and that sneezes, which involve much higher speeds, can reach up to 8m away. The scientist who led the study, Prof Lydia Bourouiba of MIT, told me that she is concerned about the current concept of “safe distances”.

“What we exhale, cough or sneeze is a gas cloud that has high momentum that can go far, traps the drops of all sizes in it and carries them through the room,” she said. “So having this false idea of safety at one to two metres, that somehow drops will just fall to the ground at that distance is not based on what we have quantified, measured and visualised directly.” By David Shukman Science editor BBC

The above article was published today on BBC News online. This is frightening. We have been told since the start of this Pandemic that we don’t need to wear a surgical mask unless we are infected or caring for an infected person. Now, a month on, the WHO may be telling us that they have changed their minds and that may be wearing a mask may be as effective as distancing.

“it might be that wearing a mask is equally as effective or more effective than distancing.”

The World Health Health Organisation will let us know their decision tonight.

Should be very interesting