Lockdown and we have a 5km radius now

Today is I believe day 37 or 38 of the official lock down, from this week on wards we are allowed to exercise in a 5km radius which should help with the boredom

I went to the next town yesterday to do a blood donation, I got my SMS which would show Garda that I'm allowed to travel to the next Town, which feels weird.

The trip felt even weirder I haven't left my home area in the last 5-6 weeks, I haven't used any public Transport, it felt like a little adventure going out , there was just one other person in the Train Carriage and I'm glad that it was not more people, even though our infection rate in Ireland has gone down considerably and I assume the risk is quite low but still it feels weird

But back to the 5km radius ,I'm really looking forward to it since I really need to work on my fitness again , I probably have no cycling fitness left .
I'm doing quite a few indoor mat sessions at the moment and they help to break up the day but it doesn't help with the cardio fitness and most importantly with the mental fitness.
I have adjusted to mostly being inside but looking at the Weight scales I know this can't work forever, sadly I like food and I'm one of those persons who just needs to look at food to gain weight
so I have planned two or three routed within that 5km radius and they should be easy but will be challenging enough with my current fitness
I jsut need to wait now until I have figured out what the cause of my backpain is, I reckon its jsut a tight muscle or a small tear, not the first time this did happen but bad timing since currently I can't decide whether its less painful to sit or to stand

Easter weekend is here , we are in lock down and it looks like it might be a stunner

The title pretty much sums it up, Weather looks like it will be amazing but we are in lock down and even if we wouldn't be in lock down I doubt I would venture out very much, there is no question this Virus scares me and I don't want to catch it.
But I don't want to be negative about it, I have enough in home entertainment to keep me going and if I can walk for 30 minutes outside every day than I'm happy for now.

Anyway bigger picture , I wonder if the world will change after this is over, I wonder if we are a bit less selfish and if we appreciate people who are Essential workers a bit more.
I'm not a essential worker, I'm actually in a role where it doesn't make a bit of difference if I work or not, ok maybe a tiny bit over simplified but in the current scheme of things true enough

I guess it all will depend on how fast / slow this will progress

I was out shopping this morning and have to say it felt really uncomfortable, I feel like supermarkets are jsut major sources of germs these days

so how will this pan out

So far I have only concentrated on the now, I was unable to even think beyond a week in advance and I know it will be a problem in the near future.
However I need to get my head sorted , for the first time since this started I have to consider that my job might be at risk, I work for a large IT Company and so far I was quite save and nothing to worry about but the fact is if  the economy doesn't pick up quite fast in the next few month than my Job could be at risk, so I need to get my head around this and make sure that if that happens my CV looks interesting to Companies out there.
I have a pretty good skill set  but I defo need to brush up and do a bit of refreshing and some IT Certs,which means I need to get my Ass into gear, that will be tricky but I guess I have a motivation now

Anyway in global news , it seems that more and more governments try to return to normality, not quite sure how that is supposed to work if we have no fast Test that can tell you in the morning if you did catch this virus or not and as far as I know we don't have anything close to that.

I hope that at least Nature got a breather from us in the last few weeks and with far less pollution we might have helped this poor planet a tiny bit and I kind of hope more people will pick the bicycle to commute

still in lockdown

I have no Idea which day it is of the official or unofficial lock down and honestly don't want to know, I  don't want to count the days, anyway I think I'm back to some kind of regular training, guess doing two days in a row of structured Workout should proof that,right ;o))

The Weather is really getting better, it gets warmer and the sun is shining, it gets really hard to stay disciplined and not to venture out for long but than I read a report of someone who got the "mild" version of this nasty bug and that's not even close to what I would call "mild" , I do not want to catch this, so after reading one of these reports I happily go back onto my couch and sit it out
I haven't been in a big supermarket for weeks and the thought of going into even a small one from time to time stresses me out,luckily in Ireland shopping home delivery is very common, so as soon as I need a bit more stuff , cat food and basics I will put in a online order.

My biggest fear at the moment is actually getting a toothache, I invested in a fancy electronic toothbrush which at least gives me the illusion that I do more for my Teeth health.

I want to talk about Social Media but will keep that as a separate post.

its day whatever of lockdown

I have somehow lost utterly track of time, this is actually one of the reasons why I restarted this blog, I often don't know which day of the week it is , luckily my cats remind me about the time of days or more exactly they remind me when it is feeding time.

Cats, let me talk about my cats, about 4 years ago I cycled on a busy enough side road and stopped at a traffic light , I did put my foot on the side path and waited for the traffic light to change to green, suddenly I realized that a small black fluff ball was beside my foot, the trick was now grabbing that fluff ball without scaring it onto the busy road, I managed it and realized I had a rather small kitten in my hand, there was a house just beside the Road and I had hoped that the kitten had run out of there, the person in the house said no.
So that was me standing in the middle of nowhere, in cycling Gear ( Lycra ) in the winter with a Black kitten, luckily the kitten was not scared and was happy to explore the world on my shoulder.
I phoned a Friend asked that he rescued me , the kitten and my bike, luckily he is also a Animal lover and jumped into the car,problem he was not living around the corner so it took him easily 30-45 minuted to get to me, try to keep a kitten entertained and warm ( I had no pockets - Lycra ) but I managed and we got rescued, the Kitten was a hero , calm relaxed and friendly , he was sitting on my lap while we drove to my place.

So I had now a tiny Kitten in my home, no cat cat food , not sure if the kitten was healthy and no real Cat experience also it was Saturday afternoon.
I tried to drive to a Vet but since I had no box to put the kitten in and he just wanted to stay with me, so called the next friend who by chance also worked as a volunteer in a Animal shelter, luckily the Vet in that shelter was still working and confirmed I had a healthy kitten with very dirty ears, the Shelter was kind enough to give me some basic supplies so that I would manage over the weekend

I didn't even try to hand over the kitten to the Shelter,told myself at that stage I need to be sure he ( turned out to be a boy ) needs to survive a week and I will find him a good home, the home was my place and my heart, he is a black cat it is still hard to find homes for black cats, stupid superstition, I pretend I have a black panther at home, a small one

6 Month later I adopted a second cat, with the Idea that they would be best friends and cuddle with each other, they don't cuddle and they don't like each other but that's something I have learned to accept and I love both cats for their unique ways

So why I'm writing all this, firstly I think the story needed to be told, secondly these cats help me to get through this, I'm on my own but I'm not lonely

Neo after his Vet visit with his first grub at home 

Crazy times demand crazy actions

Yesterday on Friday the 27th of March 2020 Ireland basically went into lock down mode, the Job of us normal's is now really to sit at home , we are allowed to go for shopping ,preferably as little as possible, Exercise at max of a radius of 2km from our homes, people over 70 or with pre existing condition's are supposed to cocoon themselves, meaning don't leave the house.
For active Pensioners this must be extremely hard and I wish them all the best.
The Reason for this Lock down is that we have already a serious problem with the amount of people who had to be brought to intensive care, we are a very small country and don't have that many facilities. Loads of people are angry that we don't have enough Hospital beds,

Yes thats true we didn't had enough before  the Pandemic but this is not something we can fix now, we can hopefully learn from this and be happy to spend more of our Money on Hospitals and Wages for Nurses and Doctors.
This just doesn't help now, now we need to do our best not to catch this Virus and more importantly not infect other People.

So now its indoor gym , just did a 30 minutes session and very proud of it and hopefully Turbo session and the occasional walk

Yes I went for a ride

I wrote yesterday that if I cycle I might not go outside, later in the afternoon I realized I needed to go a spin to keep my anger level at bay, it way a 1hr /20km spin and I felt mentally so much better afterwards and I had even a great sleep last night.
I find my state of emotions interesting, if that's the word for it, I;m far easier outraged , easily cry watching a cute pet video etc.
I'm not sure if that is because I spend a unhealthy time on social media or if its because I'm extremely nervous catching this thing, could very well be a combination of it.

What is clearly shows is that I need to keep my daily exercise up and I need a combinations , the Strength training is great but I also need a strong Cardio workout

Currently I'm once again watching US news ( Rachel Maddow show ) and I just don't get the greed of many people in Power over there? I know that country is proud of its culture that encourages everyone to do better for them self and the word Socialism is spit on but looking at the current behavior I just find it sad, over here in Ireland . I don't need to worry if I'm getting sick, I will not fund a huge bill at most I have to pay a small A&E Fee and that's it and it doesn't matter if someone has a Health insurance or not,  I happily pay taxes for that

Also I read yesterday that Aer Lingus is flying over to China every day to get medical Supplies, Pilots are apparently doing on a Volunteer basis, a lot of people do a lot of good things and I will be forever grateful to the local shop assistant who keeps the grocery store running, to the guys who pick up the bins, for the Nurses and Doctors , for the cleaning personal , for the factories who stopped their normal production and started to produce medical supply's

I need to remember this to keep sane and there is of course  the Scum which is also around its part of the human parcel and I just hope they get caught and get their asses kicked

Lockdown we just don't call it a lockdown

Yesterday the Irish government handed out stricter restrictions and all non essential shops have to close , no groups allowed , think it 4 people max except for families but more importantly all private Hospitals have been made public for the time of this crisis.
I'm seriously impressed how the Irish Government has so far dealt with this crisis, yes ok they should all have started planning in January for this disaster but EVERYONE ignored it and we all assumed it would not hit is, I think what we saw was just human behavior of denial, we haven't seen such a Pandemic in 100 Years so we really have no real experience what could happen with such a Virus.

Think Most people now take it serious, yes there are still the Idiots and ignorant people but that's human behavior as well and we can just try to limit the damage these people cause, problem is one of them is currently the President of the United States.

But back to me, so first week I was just sitting on the couch and ate,  my head just couldn't grasp the fact that I might be stuck indoors for months and I still have problems with it but it slowly improves.
I'm now at least doing a daily weights workout given by my Gym , they want to see a comment on Social Media when I have done it, that keeps me accountable.

Today's plan beside actually doing some work which I'm so grateful that I can do remotely is to change around my living room , so that I have a bit more space for my workouts
I'm still undecided if I go out for cycling , at the moment I don't think so, my head is not in the right place for that, again I'm lucky I got myself a fancy Turbo Trainer end of last year so can go on that one just need to find the head for it ( working on it ) .

One day at the time has gotten a whole new meaning

Social distancing

Not even sure if that sentence even existed before the beginning of this year and its about breaking habits, I try to do my best and keep away from people but I see a lot others have real problems breaking habits, example I wanted to get some bread and milk from my local veggie shop, its a very open place so should be save enough but I saw people queuing  at the till and wanted to wait until that Q disappeared and guess what everyone else walked past me into that place and queued up closely as much as I love to support my local shop I just couldn't bring myself walking into that place.

 Im king of glad that I finally managed to go for a long walk yesterday evening, I actually felt how the stress was slowly ebbing away, mind you took well over an hour to get to that stage, will try to keep this up just for sanity sake. Since I can't run with my knee injury this will be my go to exercise since I fully expect that leisure cycling will be forbidden in a not too far distance, the weather looks kind of nice for the weekend and I suspect we will see the hoards out and reckon the Government will need to step in to flatten the curve, another one of the words that was not known before this started, so I plan to get used again to the Turbo, doing Turbo session inside while the sun is shining is torture but still better than catching this Virus , this Virus is no joke and I wish people would finally understand that.

I looked rather longingly at the sea today, I love open water swimming but did not even remotely enough of that last year, mainly because of early arrival of jelly fish, I reckon if it continues like this I will be very early in the Irish sea with a Wet suit, I'm not that brave

Pandemic times

I think the most puzzling thing for me during this Pandemic is the time frame, I knew it was coming , I saw what had happened in China. I saw the slow progression from there and fully expected it to hit here in Ireland but that is as far as my foresight was working, somehow I thought we will bunker down for two weeks and after that all is back to normal, even know knowing better, I can't think beyond the end of the Month.

It is actually impossible for me to think more than 2 weeks ahead and that is very strange for me,I'm someone who plans a year ahead, who considers events to work towards a year ahead and in this one I can't think at the moment beyond two weeks, I need to learn to accept it

I'm a introvert and I utterly assumed that not meeting people not going out will not impact me whatsoever and I know in comparison to others I really don't mind much but again I'm surprised that it affects me, this thing teaches me a lot about me very quickly and I have to adjust to the Way I see myself

So looking back at the last week I realized I need to address some things otherwise this will not go well and writing about it is the first start, I barely have done any sport in the last 10 days and mostly have been sitting on my couch, firstly this is not good for my mental health and not good for my waistline

I have plans in my head and they are simple , walking ( I'm injured and running is out for now ) and cycling and there is the problem, In other countries they have banned leisure cycling and the reason makes sense , the Government is worried that these people crash and add load to the health system, the Irish government has not gone that far, they even encourage exercise  since they realized that sport is important to Mental health.
I can't quite figure out why I find every excuse not to go cycling, it probably is saver at the moment than it has been in years, there are barely any cars out there,main point whatever is stopping me I need to get over it , this is not a 2 week thing and I can go back to normal live and I need to keep reminding me about it

stay save everyone

Keep a Diary they said

Today is the 19th of March 2020 and if you haven't been living in the Big Brother house for the last few weeks than you know what happens on this planet right now, think even the Big Brother guys have been informed by now ( by the way didn't even know that show still ran )

Anyway we have a Pandemic and its nothing like we have been told in the movies , its not a 90 minute action packed show and I think that is in these fast running times the biggest surprise to me

Some smart people said keep a Journal about this hopefully one time event and that's what I'm planning to do, its a Journal just for me, I will post it but more to be able to go back on this , it will be about my thoughts and what I see and experience,so super boring for anyone else but I realized I need a outlet and so I will write this blog again until I 'm bored of it and over the Stress of the current situation

Take care everyone