David Gillon

I considered going shopping today, given my attempt on Thursday bombed when my card was declined - the bank said there 'might' be an issue with my card a couple of weeks ago, so they'd send me a new one, but I could keep using the old one, so I did, until Thursday (I've now switched to the new one and confirmed it works). But having seen a pic in the Guardian of a supermarket that looked like it had been hit by a swarm of Kafka-sized locusts, decided discretion was the better part of valour. It's difficult enough using the wheelchair shopping trolley in normal crowds, given they steer like you're reversing a juggernaught, but trying to do that in a panic-buying crowd - no thanks!

I then spoke to my sister late afternoon, who mentioned she'd just bought a new digital thermometer and asked if I'd found one on Thursday, to which the answer was fairly obviously no. "Do you want me to get you one?" she asked. So I said yes, assuming she'd get one from the same place the next time she was shopping, probably Monday evening.

I got a slightly irritated call several hours later to announce she'd found one, in the third supermarket, and only because it was mis-shelved with the baby feeding supplies.

Whoops. Also wow!

The Coronavirus stats for Sunday showed that there are now two coronavirus cases in Medway*.  So I poked around on the web and quickly found that St John Fisher Comprehensive School is closed for deep cleaning as both cases are associated with it in some way. And checking again, I see one of them is now confirmed as a pupil, so I'd guess the other is a parent. They're linked to the initial case in Kent (which now has four cases), so we know this strain came in via Italy.

I can't quite see St John Fisher from here, there's a couple of streets of houses in the way, but as the crow flies it's a quarter of a mile away. That's rather closer than I'd like.

And apparently this morning someone turned up at the GPs surgery in Boots the Chemist in the local shopping centre (half a mile away) with symptoms - despite repeated messages not to go to your doctor, but to phone 111 - so that's now closed as well. 

* For the non-Brits, the UK stats are being broken down at local authority level, that's mostly counties, but unitary authorities are independent of counties, and Medway is one, so we're one of the few places to know exactly which town they're talking about.