Cooler weather. Feelings about lockdown restrictions coming back. Schools. And fashion recycling.

Today is cooler than yesterday, which is quite a relief. My daughter and I took the small people out for a shady walk in the heat, ending up sitting in a park under the trees.

Quite how anyone sat out in the sun is hard to understand. In fact, our going out for a longish walk in that sapping heat is also rather hard to understand, but there it is.

We would have been happy just to sit on the picnic blanket in our garden but new lockdown restrictions in our area put a stop to that. 

Here’s a little something I read yesterday, or perhaps the day before:-

“Scientists are anxious that the lockdown measures in the UK are neither tough enough nor being well enough observed to avoid either localised rises in infections and deaths, or a second wave. The increase being seen in infections needs to be nipped in the bud, they say. “What I fear is that if we fail to check this flare up, we will head into the winter months with a high level of circulating virus,” said Prof James Naismith, the director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute.”

Judging by the chatter coming from the pub garden next door to our house until very late yesterday evening, neither the heat nor increased lockdown measures around here made any difference to people’s desire to be out having a drink.

Experts and politicians appear undecided about whether we are still in the first wave of the pandemic or in danger of a second wave but rumblings keep coming out about the possible need to reintroduce severe lockdown measures.

It’s not just here either. This is from an article about resurgence of the virus across Europe:-

“The advice from Spain’s health ministry this week was simple.

Using the hashtag #Don’tChuckitallAway, the ministry told people not to kiss or hug friends and family, not to share plates, to keep a careful eye on who’s been drinking from which glass, to slip the mask back on straight after eating and to keep washing hands frequently.

Behind the entreaties lies a blunt and unwelcome message that has since echoed across Europe: the small, quotidian pleasures of communal life – pleasures willingly and gainfully sacrificed during the springtime lockdowns – may soon have to be foregone once again.

Whether described as a second wave, a continuation of the first or merely a rash of local outbreaks, the number of people found to be infected with Covid-19 in recent days across the continent has climbed to the highest levels in months.”

“Adarra Solas, a 21-year-old dancer also from Barcelona, agreed the post-lockdown scenes witnessed so far were nothing if not predictable.

“I think they’re putting the blame on us to dodge responsibility,” she said. “It was obvious that young people would go out, drink and have fun after the months we’ve been through. But when I look around, I see both young and older people walking about without masks, not wearing them on public transport, or not following the safety guidelines.

“The summer’s come and we’ve all started to relax,” Solas added. But if the governments of Europe are warning of anything, it is the danger of that.”

Exactly! There is a feeling of relaxation and I can’t help feeling that many people would object to the closing of pubs and restaurants for a second time. Reading María’s blog yesterday  I realised that she was echoing almost exactly my thoughts about schools opening up again. Here is what she had to say:-

“I fear when school starts, the second wave will come and sweep everyone out to sea. No real provisions have been made. Kids will return to the same classrooms, with the same number of classmates. The only difference is that primary school kids will wear masks until they're in their room, where they can take them off. Each class will be like a bubble, and I assume they won't mix with kids from other classrooms. But it won't be so easy. Either the school hours will be prolonged, to stagger enterings and leavings and recesses, or more time will be spent trying to keep them apart than in teaching and learning. Secondary school students are supposed to keep a mask on all day, except in class while they're sitting, if they can be kept at least 1.5 meters from anyone else. Another impossibility. If young kids can't be bothered to put on masks in the summer when they're out with their friends, they will not keep them on all day in school, either.

The ideal would have been to build more schools, and keep class numbers low. But there wasn't much time for that. Instead, fast barracks could have been cobbled together next to existing school buildings, and, in that way, increase the number of classrooms. That, however, would also entail hiring more teachers. After years of cutting back on education budgets, the money available for such expenditures is nil. So, back to school we go. And possibly back to the hospital when contagions start rising.”

She could have been writing about the UK situation.

Enough doom and gloom!

Here is a feel-good story. Apparently people often forget to collect clothes from laundries and dry-cleaners more often than we might think possible. Chang Wan-ji, 83 years old, and his wife Hsu Sho-er, 84, have had so many items left in their Taiwanese laundry over the decades that they given some to charity organisations or directly to the poor and needy.

But recently their son decided to get them involved in modelling some of the items and posting them on Instagram. They now have about 600,000 followers and have featured in the Taiwanese edition of Vogue and Marie Claire magazine.

Despite their bit of instant fame prompting some customers to go and claim their laundry, they still have about 400 items hanging around. The couple hope to use their new social media clout to promote the concept of “environmental fashion”.

“Instead of following fast fashion and keep buying new clothes, we hope people can see that old and second-hand clothes can be fashionable if you arrange and combine them in new ways,” said their son. “This would cause less damage to the earth and the environment.”

There you go! Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!