Feeling a bit rough today as we had a fairly boozy night last night. We ate Colombian arepas and then played some drinking games. I ended up staying up until 5am!
According to the landlord our boiler won’t be fixed until after Easter at the earliest now which means I’ve got another week of cold showers ahead of me. Yesterday I was starting to get quite pongy after 4 days without a shower so I forced myself to have one, that should hold me over for a few days…
Looks like the Spanish government is going to extend the lockdown another 2 weeks until the 26th April at least. Hopefully at that point they might start to relax the current restrictions a bit.
Beautiful today today. Sitting outside in the sunshine having a pre-walk cup of tea and listening to music and banter on BBC6 is a great antidote to the news and worrying about Mum and Dad.
Yesterday Dad and I talked through the Mum coming home situation and decided it would be best if she went to her own home, with her own things but try and quarantine her as far as possible and decontaminate her on arrival from the hospital. This is based on our common sense assumption (in the absence of testing) that Dad’s cough is the lingering remains of his cold (probably caught from Mum in the first place) and nothing more sinister.
With no guidance from the GP, the hospital, or NHS 111, we can’t do much more than make our own risk assessment. It was great to get support for this view from family. I’m in a high risk category as I take immunosuppressants for inflammatory arthritis and I’m 64. I’m one of the people who is supposed to be self-isolating for 12 weeks and won’t be much good as back-up for Mum and Dad if I get ill too.
Other family members with my interests at heart have also persuaded me not to go supermarket shopping any more as well. We’ll just have to survive on what we can get in the village and the occasional home delivery.
Dad might have been laid low by his cough, but there’s nothing wrong with the little grey cells. He can still do the Times Crossword and finds it a great distraction.
At least we won’t go short of free range eggs. They’re left outside houses with honesty boxes for payments. Definitely one of the advantages of being in the countryside.
Dad much the same but functioning ok. The big news today is that Mum is off oxygen, off the heart monitor and ready to come home!
Now we’re faced with the dilemma that Mum can’t stay with Dad until 7 days after he’s stopped coughing, which might be weeks. The hospital are aware of the problem, but the risk to Mum of staying in the hospital with confirmed covid cases is greater and they need to get her off the ward ASAP.
The best option seems for Mum to stay with me at Netherlea Cottage, though she won’t be able to manage the stairs or bathroom very well. At least she will have hospital transport to come home. Watch this space!
So looks like the boiler is kaput, so we are going to be without hot water until at least Monday. In other bad news it looks like the quarantine is due to be extended until the end of April. To make things even worse, today is a beautiful day and I’m couped up inside.
That said, last night we had pizza and a few drinks together which was nice.
Today was my last day of work before Semana Santa (easter holidays) next week, no idea what I’m going to do to entertain myself without any work!
2022 and all that 