On the beginning of Lockdown Mark 2

Overnight the UK’s second Covid-19 “national lockdown” began and – perusing the news websites in the small hours – I came across this report by Isabella Nikolic upon the apparent lemming-like mass exodus of the population of London in advance of its imposition on the website of the – DAILY MAIL

Posting this as someone who had begun his latest of many successive temporary “new fitness regimes” in January 2020 and then simply carried it on throughout the original (March) national lockdown right up to the present day, I am now faced with the issue that – with gyms and swimming pools once again “verboten” and/or closed – at least fifty percent of my weekly training schedule has been snatched away from me.

Still, we hardy souls of the generation which can remember regarding being able to watch black and white television in our youth as a novelty treat will simply find alternative ways of “taking up the slack” and keeping our sixty-something frames in tip-top condition.

Already restricted to taking my afternoon exercise in the form of a six mile walk – it’s not that I cannot raise a jog, it’s just that with my artificial hip now four years old and having suffered a yank to an Achilles tendon (causing chronic inflammation that took eight months to heal), I have been advised by the medics to avoid breaking into a run unless in extremis, e.g. being chased the length of Waterloo Bridge by an Islamic terrorist armed with a machete – I am now going to have to maintain my arm, chest and shoulder strength by new, improvised, means.

One solution I shall be trying out is to buy two packets of granulated sugar (if my local supermarkets have any left this morning) and then do physical jerks holding one of them in each of my hands at arm’s length. The additional strain/resistance should be able to mimic that of a pair of 5 pound gym dumbbells …

In any event, with the lockdown upon the horizon, the first thing I did as the world opened for business yesterday was to ring my local gym and book myself a last session down there for 12.30pm.

Before that, however, I had an assignation in my private car park with a young lady.

Lest any Ruster has just reached for the smelling salts at this news, let me explain that a month ago – responding to an important-looking official envelope the contents of which asked if I’d be prepared to volunteer to take part in a Covid-19 “behavioural” survey being conducted on behalf of the Office for National Statistics – I duly signed up.

Since when, every Wednesday morning for the past five weeks, I have been visited by a survey operative who arrives, checks that I am whom I said I was, hands me a kit enabling me to “swab” myself at the back of the throat and then up the nostrils and then seal the “result” in a plastic pouch and hand to back to them (the operative) so that it can be taken away and tested.

I am pleased to report that yesterday’s was the fifth of five weekly visits for the purpose – from this point on, I shall only be visited once a month for the next eleven months.

I was informed on the first occasion that – if I ever tested positive – I would hear within a few days but, if I heard nothing by the time I was next tested, I would have been negative.

As confirmation, about 7 to 10 days after each test, I now receive a note in an envelope about the result: thus far I have had three of these items, each confirming that I have tested negative.

One of the questions that I am asked every time I am tested for this survey is “Since you were last tested, are you aware of having come into contact with anyone who has tested positive for Covid-19?”

For the fifth week running – well, technically in fact the fourth week running, since before my first test the question asked was whether I had ever come into contact with anyone who had tested positive – yesterday I was able to respond that I had not.

Later, as I set off to go down to my gym, I had a thought.

Although I had read or seen umpteen reports of, or interviews with, both well-known public figures and/or ordinary “people on the upper deck of the proverbial Clapham Omnibus” who have either had Covid-19 (and/or tested positive), I can honesty state that to date I personally I know of literally nobody who has ever had the virus.

In this respect, I wonder how representative I am of the UK population at large …