Coming out of lockdown (not really)

I’m sure I’m not alone in taking what might appear to be a somewhat laidback approach to where we have reached in the UK’s version of the ongoing coronavirus crisis – partly fuelled by the impression gained from all we read, see and hear that it’s all very complicated, there are innumerable interest groups constantly lobbying hard for either progress or assistance and, right from the outset, the Government hasn’t helped itself by simultaneously making decisions on the hoof, fire-fighting on a daily basis and – on top of everything else – making a pig’s ear of its public relations and information dissemination.

My assumption is that our lords and masters – taking their cue from their medical/scientific advisers – have decided that the downward path of the virus infection rate has reached the point where it can begin to respond to the battalions of business and commerce screaming from the rooftops that they must “start again” as soon as possible otherwise we could be in economic trouble for a decade or more.

Hence the move to the ‘gradual exit from lockdown’.

Putting aside the general chaos on all sides for a moment, two of the biggest problems are the narrative and the course of the ‘exit’ (file this under “PR campaign’).

It was relatively simple when the ‘science’ ruled – at the time when the lockdown was imposed we urgently needed to do something and at least it was simple to sell: if we didn’t accept and obey it, we could easily be swamped with a death toll in the hundreds of thousands.

Coming out of it, inevitably, is a very different thing, not least both in practice and in the observance of the new rules (if anyone could understand what they were).

A significant proportion of the public have seemingly taken “The lockdown is ending” as “The lockdown has ended” and have gone straight from ‘crisis’ back to ‘normal as it was’.

Others – perhaps most obviously those in groups who have been designated or have self-identified as being ‘at risk’ and their families – are far more wary, mindful of the way the virus spreads and can spiral out of control if everyone isn’t very careful indeed.

Right now it seems to me that most people have taken control of our own destinies by making our own decisions on what rules we’ll follow and, separately, what health and other risks we’ll be prepared to take from time to time if and as we become aware of them.

Which – it now occurs to me – is a very long way around indeed of me registering today that, to all intents and purposes, my household remains under its lockdown conditions.

In which regard, my fitness regime has intensified.

As we went into lockdown it was complicated by a raft of injuries and medical conditions, in particular a chronic inflammation of the Achilles tendon in my right leg.

When my long-booked February visit to a specialist physiotherapy unit was switched to a six-weeks-later phone consultation, I was then told that my daily ‘exercise outing’ consisting of a six-mile walk was counter-productive.

At my age (68) I was at a stage in life where ‘management’ of any injuries or conditions I had was or should be a constant accompaniment to my existence – and by exceeding 12,000 steps per day (I was then averaging 15,000) I was not helping myself.

Limbs, sinews and muscles would naturally protest if they weren’t happy – and that is what my Achilles was doing.

I was given a list of daily exercises to do, most of them based around stretching, told to reduce my steps to no more than 10,000 per day and not expect to see any general improvement for at least six to eight weeks. And then report in.

I’ve long since lost count of the number of weeks that have passed since then, but in the meantime I have ignored the advice and instead taken, every second or third day, to putting myself through a HIIT (‘High Intensity Interval Training’) session of physical jerks in addition to my near daily walks.

I’ve also upped my ‘walking’ expeditions in terms of both the frequency and the speed at which I do them – I’m now averaging 18,300 steps per day and taking closer to 90 minutes than the 120 it originally took me to compete my circuit.

On Wednesday this week – for sheer devilment – on a whim I decided to do a second walking expedition and ended the day having notched over 30,000 steps.

As things stand this morning, I’m feeling fitter than I have been in a fair old time.

My Achilles hardly hampers me at all, though it sometimes aches and/or stiffens up towards the end of the day when I relax over my evening gin and tonic and a spot of something to eat before retiring to bed.

With all the above going on – the fact is – I haven’t really got the time to come out of lockdown anyway.