Pinged

At half past seven this morning, I was awakened by the familiar telephone voice of a Microsoft scammer from the Indian sub-continent, I guess, from the accent. After breakfast or lunchtime scam calls are quite commonplace, but this early in the morning? Well, at least I was awake in time for 'Thought for the Day', and a lovely bright sunny start.

I walked to town half way and then took the bus for convenience, to optimise the time I had to get a new slimmer Casio watch strap from the Market stall - my existing one is too thick and catches on my sleeve when I am putting on a jacket. Then a quick visit to the camera shop to try out a 9-18mm wide angle zoom lens for my Olympus camera. I concluded that the one I have is far more satisfactory for my needs. Then I walked to St John's for a bread 'n soup Lent lunch. There were just eight of us present. Several regulars were away apparently. 

Clare was pinged by Track and Trace after lunch as a close contact of someone tested positive for covid. The contact tracer wouldn't say who but that it happened chez nous - in compliance with Data Protection regulations. It was infuriatingly difficult to work out who she might have been in contact with. We have so few contacts with people at home it took a while to work out that it was the piano tuner who visited on Wednesday afternoon. When she rang him, his wife confirmed that he'd tested positive. The Track and Trace operative contacted her but refused to confirm to her that it was her husband who was the infected close contact, and not someone else. Now, how surreal and bizarre is that? Like something from a Kafka novel.

Thankfully, Clare's lateral flow test turned out negative. I was at work upstairs throughout his visit, so I wasn't in contact with him. Let's hope nothing develops between now and 4th April when I have a PCR test at St Joseph's and self isolate three days before the cataract op.

I went to the local pharmacy, where we'd obtained supplies of Lateral Flow Test kits before, to ask for another batch, but was told they no long had any to give away, so we had to order on-line. I was about to do this once I reported back to Clare, but she was on the case quicker than I. Fortunately we still have a few from before, so we can test ourselves before going out to the Fountain Choir workshop in Llantwit Major tomorrow.

After supper we watched an hour of the recording of Queen's Budapest concert and ate choc ices, and that I watched series three opening episode of 'The Crimson Rivers' before turning in. Another bizarre plot, which unfolded fairly well to begin with then became convoluted and staggered to a puzzling end, which felt as if the film editor hadn't taken enough care with the narrative thread in the last quarter, losing a couple of scenes that made sense of the story rather than leaving the viewer to join the dots for themselves. Disappointing,