Legs and Borders

“Some people carefree, some anxious. The sword of Damocles for all”  Pierre Brossolette. Day 13 of the lockdown. Various conspiracy theories and theorists keep on popping up in conversations and social feeds, and there's no lack of ears listening to them at the moment. American's did it on purpose, no! it was Chinese with their bio-dis-information warfare, they are planning to take the world's lead! All is being shared, copied and pasted, looked at without any degree of skepticism. Who said that? What are the sources, evidence, proof? What are the reasons behind it? Why would those countries started such actions at the cost of their own people? At this point you can bring any fantastical theory to life without much of critique because people seem to be preoccupied with fear and confusion, easy pray for scaremongers. Watching BBC news for 2 minutes the other day gave me anxiety so strong I decided to avoid it altogether and only digest the news through reading it ...

Day 5 of the lockdown. People seem to adjust and accept the current situation and the atmosphere has slightly calmed down in anticipation for the next big update. Boris Johnson has been announced as infected with the virus yesterday, which is another confirmation of a common truth, in words of sociologist William Davies: " Save for whichever bunkers and islands the super-rich are hiding in, this epidemic does not discriminate on the basis of economic geography. " No matter how much money you have you can't escape being human, there's something eerily comforting in this statement. At 8pm on Thursday people opened their doorsteps, windows, gardens and balconies to thank NHS staff battling the spread of the virus with clapping and saluting. There are also many windows decorated with the pictures of rainbows as people trying to unite and stay positive during the isolation. I'm sure there will be other such signs and actions appearing in the future. The socia...

Day 3 of the Britain's lockdown and things are changing pretty rapidly especially in the social sphere, it's really interesting to watch. We are only allowed to go out twice a day (if not commuting to work) once to get our essential shopping done and second to exercise (ride the bike, jog on, or a have a walk).  While walking on the pavement and passing someone else, people (if not completely going to the other side of the road) are walking as far on the other side of the pavement as possible. Many people are wearing the masks, some goggles and gloves, and I even seen one guy wearing a police riot style helmet. There's plenty of people doing their daily  exercise  on the little paths around Canterbury (previously fairly empty) which is great. Weather seems to be kind to us since the lockdown, it has been absolutely beautiful for the last week. Interestingly there's a lot of older people going out for walks and I haven't spotted many families with kids or young adu...

Today is the day when my passport came back through the post with the american B2 visa stamped and approved to use. It is a crucial part of the plan I made to hike Pacific Crest Trail in May. Here is what happened so far. First part of the plan was to get a PCT permit, which turned out to be organised in a matter of waiting room system on the PCTA website. I had to queue up at certain time with thousands of others, and being assigned random number, wait my turn to be able to register and grab a remaining starting date slot for PCT. Unfortunately I missed the first application date in late October when first 50 applications per day were issued, and applied on 14th of January, when additional 15 slots per day were being issued. I didn't get particularly lucky at rng game and got pretty far away in the queue (number 6783, picture below), after waiting for about an hour I eventually managed to log in and book a date for a mid/late May, all things considered the outcome wasn't ...

On my way out of Marks and Spencer where I went to buy some fish for today's lunch, I stumbled across tulips and suddenly realizing it's Valentines Day. I decided to buy a bunch and went for the cheaper £3 option of the red and yellow flowers, after all, at least in my own opinion it's the intention that matters, or perhaps I'm just a miser. When I was waiting in a queue a very old lady wearing a granny outfit, a scarf and a Coke bottle glasses stood behind me, when I looked into her basket all I found was two items: four scones and a simple bunch of daffodils, that's all she was buying. It immediately made me wonder, of why (other than financial reasons), she's only buying those two things. It was more likely than not that her husband was dead (she looked like she was approaching her 90s). Perhaps he used to buy her those same daffodils, or even cut them straight from the garden if the year was warm and gave it to her on Valentines Day. With him gone,...