Category: Coronavirus

Huwspace blog 3 years old today

Well I am still here and really enjoying being a part of a blogging community. I have done a few screen shots to show some stats about what has been viewed on the site over the last 12 months and which locations around the world were viewing the posts from.

I am pleased that my top posts are an eclectic mix of politics, perspective on society my own life and family.

Map showing which counties view blog

I love that I can view blogs from people from all over the world and see there posts as well as they have a chance to see mine.

I still think what we have all been through over the last few years is crazy and speaking as a person that has personal experience of mental health difficulties I think if this decade was a person it would have been sectioned and heavily medicated by now so much so that it would be a dribbling wreck unable to identify the day of the week let alone the year that it was causing chaos within. 

Good old blighty or err cough, cough, splutter, splutter, Great Britain really is a little broken at the moment. I remember when the last labour government got in the 1990s they had huge plans and a vision for good old blighty or err cough, cough, splutter, splutter, Great Britain! Though it all went to hell in a hand cart eventually due to a global markets crash and with London’s stock exchange being at the heart of global business markets when the markets coughed the whole of the British economy caught a cold, and by the time that that financial recovery was underway Corona Virus reared its ugly head and battered blighty further.  

Well in 2010 the Conservatives gained a form of power and they had the not so genius ideas of austerity cutting services and support to the bone and calling for a referendum on our membership of the European Union which led to us leaving the EU and the Conservative are still in the middle of attempting (with ease) to dismantle any and all useful social, economic and environmental protection for citizens of the UK in order to cut so called red tape or as I prefer to describe it shaft people and planet for a few lousy pounds more in profit to themselves and their former school chums who are now in business.

Conservative Party Manifesto Commitment

 The Conservative seem to have an obsession with a race to the bottom of the quality and functionality of society and will do whatever they can to cut corners in order to save a penny and make a further quid (£) in profit.

In the new year here in good old blighty, errr cough, cough, splutter, splutter Great Britain we are presently living though a very serious health crisis in the NHS hospital system. Many news papers in the UK were reporting today that there were 500 deaths each week presently due to the failures of  our government to resource, plan and manage our health system during a major crisis not just down just to flue & covid, but also a lack of beds for patients and lack of staff resources and and an inability to recruit enough health staff and those poor souls working in the NHS are overworked and underpaid and their are simply not enough of them to nurse and treat patients or beds in hospital for patients or social service to support and discharge patients to once fit to leave hospital.

Hopefully this is all fixable but will take years and a serious resolve and financial input to fix and will not be done overnight or through gimmicks or political sound bites. Sadly the lack of fixing and investment shall also continue to cost many lives, Conservative blood money you might say.

Emeli Sande – Read All about it, Part III

Had the Covid Flues

Well I was not expecting my next post to be after a visit to the pub on a night out, I normally steer clear of social media or at least Facebook after having a drink of Guinness but what the heck its Monday night and I am now home now and have Tuesday off work too woo who.

I also did not know it at the time but my last heart opening post about relationships was written while I had Covid-19, well it just goes to show what I open up about when illnesses is at my door, hell it was almost like a confession. I knew I was feeling unwell, cold and hot sweats and completely lost the ability to sleep.

Yep caught it

But it was not until my test came back as positive that I knew I had covid-19 I was unable to speak and concentrate so stayed at home and could not work but when I finally though that I had better test myself to see what was going on and whether I should leave the house is when it came back with a positive result of the covid kind.

I must admit I am lucky I had it mildly it still beat the crap out of me for a few days but I never worried that I was not going to be ok. I have been immunity jabbed up when asked to by my doctor and have my next booster and flue jab next month so doing everything I am supposed too.

It is kind of strange to know I have now had it but very grateful for the scientific advancements many deny or take for granted that have potentially saved my life. It’s been a couple of weeks after having had it and I still get tired which my boss has noticed too, hence the couple of days off this week.

I am feeling ok in myself but a little tired at times which is not particularly unusual so all in all I very grateful for having come out the other side.

The Doors – Break on Through (To the other side)

I could also talk about the UK government but then again unless you already know what is going on you probably would not believe me about what the feck is going on. Good old British constitutional democracy at its finest where the party in government gets to do to what the hell it likes so long as the people in parliament keep on voting to allow it to happen. We had a Prime Minster she fecked up by damaging the economy and promising loads of money to the rich and scrapping taxes after the debt fest that is covid-19 and then resigned within about a month of her leadership (shortest term ever as PM in UK) .

Her party with the most MP’s decided then that they were going to invent a new system of electing a new Prime Minister and so they voted for a new leader of the conservative party who, hay presto becomes leader of Britain or Prime Minister tomorrow with out a citizens vote or right to vote cast. So longs as the majority party in the house of commons agree then they can do what the feck they like.

Oh well roll on the next election when they let us have one!

A Climate of fear & changing times for us all

Who would have thought just a few weeks ago that after having nearly tamed corona virus and with countries starting to try to implement a road map to mitigate climate catastrophe World War 3 was on the horizon and not just that but that we are only minutes away from a potential nuclear catastrophe like we had not been threatened with for over 50 years.   

Growing up when reading about potential problems for the future one threat that was talked about was the concept of climate change wars. This being a situation where nations and people would be increasingly fighting for ever decreasing resourses and when I look to Putin and how his actions in the Ukraine are unfolding that is exactly what this is a violent and deadly grab for resources on his own boarder in the name of reunification of Ukraine to Russia. People are calling him mad which he might well be. But he is also cold and calculated and has so much to lose if his war goes wrong for him that I fear what is still yet to come for Ukraine and the those next in Putins sights.

He will surely see the West’s sanctions and his now global status diminished to that of leader of a pariah state as an act of war and further evidence in his own mind that the west has always hated Russia and it does not matter what he does he just can’t win . His political judgements are increasingly looking like the actions of a gambler on a heavy losing streak risking it all and yet having still not hit rock bottom. There are very little factors in place to stop him from creating more devastation for Ukraine and the planet and continue to role his dice and inflict his decisions on others again and again and again.  

A leading academic called Harald Welzer , author of Climate Wars: Why People Will Be Killed in the 21st Century, stated back in November 2017 that “My belief is that we will see a renaissance of violent conflict in the 21st century, and that many of these conflicts will spring from climate change.”

A professor at the University of Flensburg in Germany, Welzer studies the cultural and political implications of climate change. His book, first published in 2012.

Twentieth-century wars were fought over land, religion, and economics. But Welzer argues that the wars of the 21st century will be fought over something quite different: climate change, and the shortages of water and food that will come from it.

“Ideology will always be a surface-level justification for conflict, But if you look deeply at the source of future conflicts, I think you’ll see a basic resource conflict at the bottom of it all.”

So with that in mind I don’t see Putin as just mad but I do see him as an incredibly dangerous individual with a large arsenal at his disposal and a lot to lose and nearly nothing left to gain. This is all very dark stuff that has been rattling around in my head for the last week. There are very few positive outcomes from this scenario should it have a hint of truth within it at all.

One of the biggest game changers for this conflict that has yet to state how it will act under the circumstances is that of China. China could embolden Russia to continue along a potentially catastrophic path or could be the peacemaker. Though Russia is on the brink of having lost global power and influence due to its invasion of Ukraine, China on the other hand is a powerful nation with more to gain from a thriving and more stable and peaceful world than it has to gain from one at nuclear war with itself. Putin might get to a point where he feels that he has nothing to lose by escalating a war to a nuclear crisis put China and President Xi Jinping will not be in such a hurry or have the belief and conviction concerning the necessity to set the world on fire.

China though having tried and failed to set out a coherent diplomatic position in the days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is now attempting to position itself as a potential peacemaker to end the war.

That position has not entailed acknowledging that Russia has invaded Ukraine, let alone condemning it. But as China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, told his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in a call on 1 March, Beijing stood ready to support negotiations to reach a political settlement. According to the Chinese foreign ministry, Kuleba said he was willing to move forward with talks and “looked forward to China’s mediation efforts for the ceasefire”. 

This horific real life story is in no way over and continues to unfold before our very eyes.

Expert on green living I am not!

But the futre of the planet is still in our hands

I have just had the good fortune or should that be misfortune of trying to calculate my carbon footprint online! After completing my fifth or so survey this evening I am none the wiser as to whether the results are good or bad. I’ve done one by the World Wildlife Fund, United Nations and one called CoolClimate Calculator to name but a few. There are things I know I do that are good like getting my electricity on what is called an “Octopus super green tariff” which uses green energy measures for my electricity and carbon offsets my gas usage. Also not owning a car or a pet even and using public transport, but there are things I do that don’t help such as eating meat, purchasing goods (or should that be bads) from Amazon and flying to Dublin last year. So on the eco tour of my life choice journey it’s kind of a swings and roundabouts ride or snakes and ladders game you might say but hopefully and mostly going in the rightly sourced direction!

I do think that it’s important to try to be ethical and think about the environment consequences of what we do, thoughtful with what we consume both purchases for our homes, body and charitable donations to others too!

But it’s not that easy to work out what you need, want or don’t need or don’t want. Or know how to buy something ethically or unethically. I can shop locally for food my favourite baker on the Quayside near me is selling great fresh bread and locally sourced milk, but when I go in there one of my main problem is also not buying there delicious cakes, ummm cakes!!

Here is one someone made earlier

One of my biggest purchases last year (in size and cost) was no not a cake! But to invest in a new bed my last one was knackered with rusty springs, rusty springs I tell you. Well in need of replacement even before the pandemic started but the bed firms stopped doing disposal and recycling of old beds during the covid-19 lockdowns so it was very difficult trying to sort out getting a new bed while sorting out the departure of the old one. But how do I know what is an ethically sourced bed or not.

Out with the old and sleeping on the new

I bought the bed from a local store of a national chain of stores that had a shop in Exeter, because I do like to support stores with a local base when I can and when I know what I am purchasing, but I have no idea if it was an environmentally friendly or unfriendly purchase.

I think we just need to be mindful of what we are doing and purchasing and why at all times as the little consumers that we are, I have just remembered a phrase my Grandpa used to say about having or buying something which was ‘it’s only a bargain if you actually need it’.

So maybe I can’t be the most ethically sourced consumer on the planet but what I can do is not be frivolous with the time, money and resources that I do have at my disposal.

Villagers – Set the Tigers Free

I hope you are healthy and safe in 2022

I also hope this NYE message finds you in good heart and spirit. I have just finished doing a little home working trying to clear the work email inbox a little so there is less to do on our first day back in the office in the new year.

Things are quite on my street in my city at the moment. I am trying to psych myself up to go out tonight or decide whether I want to a NYE evening sat at home or in a local bar.

The last two years I don’t think I even had a choice as was ill 2 years ago and under a lockdown last year. So I think I will go out for a change.

I think if there is going to be a lockdown of sorts in England or changes to the present restrictions or lack of them, they will probably get announced next week. So tonight could be the last chance in a while to be out on the streets of Exeter of an evening to rish catching Covid-19!

A few pubs in Exeter have closed due to Covid-19 being caught by staff and then not having enough staff to open up their premises and so just like everywhere else covid-19 is doing the rounds here too.

Best wishes and love to you and yours and I hope 2022 is prosperous and happily eventful for you and those that you love

Huw

This suits me well!
The Parting Glass – Cara Dillon

A Covid-19 Christmas & the Winter Flues

Well since I have returned from Ireland the new Covid-19 variant seems to be travelling through to new countries and lighting up warning lights of all those across the globe that it seems to comes into contact with. There seems to be an attempt in the UK to resist the locking down of society until we have spent enough festive season money in order to give our retailers and leisure industries enough time to make enough cash to still hopefully be in a position to remain viable business even if the economy needs to lockdown again in the new year.

You hear on the news, health professionals advising us to get another jab of the antivirus, work from home and wear masks and reduce mixing in public and they also advocate the introduction of further lockdowns in order to reduce the spread of covid-19 and reduce the pressure on our health services and reduce the risk of death for citizens.

But it seems a little mad to type, let alone contemplate an opposite to a health professionals view but you have others on the opposite side of the health advocacy spectrum saying continue to go to work, party and buy presents. Because if we don’t we might risk the collapse of our economies which would result in even greater suffering and potential lose of livelihoods and lives.

I hope that there is some kind of middle ground rather than a crash and learn approach which seems very popular by UK government politicians. I think we should already have some kind of covid-19 passports and proof of covid-19 status in place as they have in Ireland for when entering hospitality venues. Ireland is very much more restrictive than the UK. I believe they have now implemented bars being closed and people out of them by midnight. Table service for no more than six people.

We do need to learn to live with covid-19 but at what cost to our economy and/or health is still to be measured. I have yet to have a booster jab and I know as I am in a vulnerable group I need to book one in at some time in the next month or two. But I feel very guilty for the luxury afforded to me living in a modern rich county on how I am pampered with covid-19 jabs and it feels slightly sickening to be being offered my third when many people in poorer countries have yet to even be offered their first chance of having a jab.

Also many on those counties have no access to healthcare services to find out if they have covid-19 let alone getting treatmetn for covid-19 and even if they could find out if they have it might have to continue working with it for risk of losing a job or having a job that if they don’t work they don’t eat. It also feels like these are all fixable situations buy wealthier nations make a calculated choice to not to help others with as much help as they could or should.

The wealthy nations or the world that I happen to live in one of are in no way free nations, when it comes to poorer nations, they are not free to trade with us as equals or to travel to us as tourists, or live amongst us as equals. They are not able to have free access to the medical benefits and advancements that we have, and they certainly don’t have as much stability in their lives as we are blessed to have due to the place we were born into not due to the people we are made up from.  

I fear if covid-19 sticks around in the long term, it will just be used as another economic statistic to prove how great wealthy countries are compared to poorer nations that will be made to suffer greater under its rain of infectious terror.

COVID-19 Outbreak World Map Total Deaths per Capita

Gabrielle Aplin – Happy Xmas (War is Over)

Trip to Dublin in Ireland

Just come back from a wonderful visit to Dublin in Ireland. This visit has been booked and planned for since July. We stayed on the other side of the river from the Temple Bar pictured above.

Memorial to Lead singer of Thin Lizzy – Philip P Lynott

Managed to do some sightseeing, and visited the Guinness Brewery. Listened to lots of live music in a few bars or from buskers on the street, tasted some of the local cuisine and drank some world-famous Guinness as well as some local beers too.

My pint from the Gravity Bar at the top of the Guinness brewery building

I travelled over with a friend called Matt and the last time we were both able to go to Ireland at the same time was about 20 years ago so it was a great opportunity for us both to go there again.

View from the Gravity Bar at Guinness Factory

Due to Covid-19 restrictions in bars and restaurants I think it was also just as well that there were not to many of us going at once. Table service was taking places in most bars and restaurants and it was easier for them to find a table for the two of us instead of a big group.

Guinness mascot the Toucan

The above photo is of some of the collection of Guinness marketing memorabilia taken from inside the Guinness factrory tour that we went on.

I really was hoping that the world was getting used to managing the Covid-19 pandemic by now, but with the new variant now blowing up and daily announcements getting worse and worse while we were in Ireland it was a little unsettling at times to be away from home.

It really is a treat to travel and I am so glad we were able to go and make memories and take a few photos, but being back home safe and well is also something to be savoured.

One of Dublins own bands – Thin Lizzy with Whiskey In The Jar

Moving They Keep On Moving!

Well a lot has happened since I last wrote in this space. Parents are both packing up all there belongings into boxes in their separate homes. Mum is moving back to Devon and Dad decided that he would move out of his bungalow into a new flat too. Who knew the stress of moving could be so much fun, no really who does know about the stress of moving as it is no fun and it’s not even me doing the move.

I thought the whole point of moving was to go to a place that you actually want to live, not just a pit stop along the race track of life. I’m very lucky in that I have a lovely flat and although it’s not my own the rental property is secure and the amount I pay is low, so I will stay here for as long as I can.  

I started trying to help my Dad move into his new place and pack a few boxes last Friday I travelled out from Exeter to Crediton. My only problem was I had picked up a cold probably from work and my voice box had packed up on me so had to screech my destination to the driver on each bus I was travelling on. I did not feel too unwell but my voice box was knackered. I took a Covid-19 rapid flow test to just to be sure I had not picked up Covid-19 and that came back as me being in the clear.

I then spent much of my weekend back in my lovely warm flat sleeping off my cold non covid-19 lurgy until this morning when I needed to join my Dad again for the actual moving out of property day to help direct the removal men to which box was going in which room in the new flat. This went well, and I feel a lot better in myself now and less worried for my Dad so I hope he settles into his new home.

Mother on the other hand although has sold her old home and bought a new one to move into will be moving into rented accommodation in December or January as the property that she is moving into will not be finished until June.

So that moving thing will be going on twice for her and no doubt I will have something to do with some parts of her move too. On the plus side the property she has bought to move into in June is a lovely house in a lovely village.

One thing over the weekend that kept on making me think my illness can’t be Covid-19 was that I did not lose my sense of taste although with everything happening all at the same time I do have to report I did lose my sense of humour, though I am pleased to report is coming back again now.

Supergrass – Moving

Invasion of the page snatcher!

Fuel activist is furious after ‘woke trolls’ list his home as a petrol station

At the beginning of Covid-19 pandemic there was for some very strange reason a run on buying toilet paper and just the mention of the run on toilet paper and potential shortages due to panic buying made people buy even more causing even more shortages. Well to add fuel to the fire this time its petrol stations on the shortage list for a number of economic and headline grabbing reasons.

While not owning a car and being fortunate enough not to have a relative or friend needing life saving medication or nursing treatment at this particular moment in time this so called crisis has not affected me yet. I did a food shop with Sainsbury’s and for a change even managed to get everything that I wanted and needed too.

I thought to myself on the way home today that those that can profit from such times as these will thrive and those that can’t will suffer, such is the way of things. Although to suffer through no fault of your own in such times hardly feels fair or just.

Work, health and happiness

Lots happening and finally picked up a bit of my own advice coming back to me today after I had said it to someone else when looking to support them, I think I find it easier to give advice than I do take it even when it’s my own!

Two weeks ago today I woke up in the middle of the night with a fever and feeling hot in my bed but cold as soon as I took my sheets off and all-round not feeling great. I feared I might have the first signs of covid-19 and so called to get some advice whether I needed to take a test and if so how I got about getting one. With not driving I could not just simply drive to a test centre and you don’t exactly want to jump in a car and get a lift while potentially infected or hop on a bus. By the morning I was already feeling better but still concerned not to take any potential illness into my workplace. So I took a rapid covid-19 test that I picked up at a pharmacy which brought back a negative covid=19 test. My local doctor also advised me then to take a Covid PCR test which meant they posted it to me on Thursday, it arrived with me on Friday and I posted back to the test centre on Friday and got my negative test back Saturday. It really was a superfast free service.

So no need to self isolate and covid-19 scare passed. That weekend I also submitted a job application for a job at my local council in the same team that I work in. I am looking for a chance to develop and grow and also being run down by a lot of negativity and complaints that we are dealing with over the phones. People often phone the council assuming that as they pay taxes the council is responsible for solving any or all problems that they might have.

The new job would have involved working with improving people’s homes and doing disability and environmental adaption’s to help people live in their own homes. It felt more project focused rewarding and plannable rather than the reactive work that I am doing now. I worry that I am still after 20 years of working still trapped as an admin assistant answering phones and spelling things that I type wrong and not able to escape that type of work.

So I found out this morning that after my interview yesterday that I am still an admin ass rather that a project pro. I worked from home today so just dealt with my own demons in my mind and members of the public over the phone. But for those staff that I did speak to in the office where very kind and hugely supportive, which reminds me why I like working there in the first place. Working in an environmental health setting during a pandemic really has been an unforgettable experience. The people I work with are great; we all have days that go well as well as those that don’t do so well. There is a certain type of dark humour that goes with the territory of the work but it’s more for me about finding humour in the moment and in no way laughing at people but laughing with them. If you did not laugh you would cry sometimes.  

My advice is or was, don’t take things to personally when someone is venting at you about something that is not your fault. Don’t build up your own problems all into one big bundle of pain, but take them on in bite sized chunks that you are more likely to be able to digest rather than them instead eating you up and spitting you out. Fianlly be greatful and thankful for what you have for many have nothing at all.   

Moby – Natural Blues