Staying Home: Day 24

Another day when the fatigue caught up with me and doing anything was a struggle. I tried to push through it with 10 minutes of yoga in the morning and a 25 minute walk in the afternoon - really not sure whether this is the right thing to do or not, but I feel that after three months of doing very little some level of exercise is a must. At least the beautiful weather makes going for a walk a pleasure and not a chore.

I'm now - I hope - on leave from work for a week, so will not be working (at home) again until 20th April. I already had the week booked off as we were supposed to be going to Cornwall for a week on Monday, but that is obviously now not happening and has now been rearranged for next April. I dithered over whether to waste holiday days during the lockdown, but decided I needed the break and as I have a generous leave allowance I would take the time off, rest up and see if that helps with the fatigue. I say "I hope" I am on leave as we have now been told that our whole department is being redeployed to help with the community hub through which the Council is providing services for people who are isolating at home (the archives are a local government service, so we are Council employees). This could be arranging for delivery of medications or food parcels, doing shopping, walking dogs or simply being a chat line for anyone feeling lonely. As my asthma puts me into the "vulnerable" stay-at-home category I will presumably be allocated to one of the telephone services, but can't do anything until I have been given a work laptop with phone technology. My manager has asked the Community Hub organisers to honour my week off for health reasons and pointed out that I don't yet have the right tech anyway, so unless I hear otherwise I assume I won't be starting until later in April.

(Aside: I think I forgot to mention that we were also supposed to be away last weekend. TG should have been on a school trip to Germany, and M and I were going to take advantage of her absence with a break at our favourite hotel in Cumbria. In some ways I'm not sorry it didn't happen, as we normally do lots of walking in the Lakes and Yorkshire Dales, which I just would not have managed this time. We have rearranged for a my birthday weekend in October, by which time I will hopefully be back to normal. On the other hand, a lazy spa break might have done me good. Whatever! It wasn't an option.  We don't know yet what will happen about TG's trip.)

Passover started yesterday, so in the evening we had a seder meal by Zoom with M's sister and brother-in-law (M is Jewish, though the girls and I are not). We usually go to them every year for a seder and obviously couldn't do that in the current circumstances, so rather at the last minute they suggest a Zoom seder. We managed to scratch together pretty much everything we needed and it worked out well. I only lasted until after we had eaten though, then took myself off to bed and left them to do grace after meals and the traditional seder songs without me.

Disney movie of the day: Toy Story 4
Afternoon tea: Banana cake baked by H (not really kosher for passover, but as a household we are keeping it easy this year and just giving up bread)
Dinner: Cold fried fish (a Jewish thing, much nicer than it sounds!), baked potatoes, coleslaw and salad.