Well, this has been the strangest April I've ever lived through.

Some sun a.m.
->1400 large Cu seen
1500 RAIN
1615 SQUALLY SHOWER

Tescos had loads of delivery slots next week, so put in a big order. Felt a bit like I'd spotted the hot air balloon.

RAIN overnight
Some sun
1500 RAIN

Weather changed; lot of rain in the morning. While out for my exercise walk in the afternoon I had the odd feeling that, as it wasn't sunny any more, the plague must be over. Some hope.

8 dark S
RAIN a.m.
HEAVY at times

Tesco Express had Spanish omelettes again, confirming my impression last week that at least the first wave of the Difficulties was over.

Some sun

Mowed lawns in the afternoon, weeded potato patch.

In the evening fine sight of the New Moon and Venus about 6° apart.

One of the things that's made Survivors such an attraction for me is that, amid the desolation and fear and struggle for survival, there's a sense of freedom. Watching ep 2.11 just now, the trees blowing in the late spring sun, wouldn't that be a fine sight to see and know that it was just you and Nature? Nature never did betray / The heart that loved her.

~2 Sun
WARM

Into town in the morning. No queue at all in Boots (and the makeup aisles were open) or in M&S. I'd noticed yesterday in the Tesco Express that the atmosphere was calmer and the shelves better stocked. The first time the pasta shelves were empty was Thu Mar 12, so the difficulties (part 1?) lasted 6 weeks.

That suggests my guess of 10 weeks' no deal disruption à la three-day week wasn't a bad one. The thing to do, I think, is to amalgamate the no-deal and Survival caches into one, to last at least 13 weeks and preferably 26 weeks.

Interesting that the two caches don't quite overlap: I didn't anticipate needing to cache makeup, because I thought no-one would care what people looked like during no deal. But of course when you're trying to access resources under pressure, it's easier if you look good.

Really I should be doubly grateful that my no deal preparations were useful for the plague, and that the plague was - is - a useful practice run for no deal.

0900 8 Cool
--->
1400 Sun
Warm

Sun
Warm

Lovely weather again. While I was watering the potatoes in the afternoon a blackbird flew down from the fence and began pecking the ground, like that robin did once. I kept very still and it ran over the bed and onto the lawn, pausing 3 times less than a yard from me. It could see I was there, but it braved my presence.

Sun
Warm with Ci later

Sun
Breezy
Warm

Another bright warm day with a cool East wind.

Sun
Windy cool E
Warm

Sun
Cool E breeze

Fine day - sun warm, but cool breeze from the East, like one of our childhood summer holidays on the east coast.

≤1 Sun
Warm
Cool E breeze

Into town. On impulse went into M&S for groceries. They had stuff I'd forgotten about, like Edam in wedges. And I didn't have to queue to pay. NB to try there again.

8 'wet' S
1100 SHOWER
Brighter later
Colder all day

My mental sharpness seems to be returning.

Sun Much cloud
Breezy
Warmer

Went out round the block in the afternoon. 'Subject exercises daily with a walk round the Village.'

Much sun
More high cloud later
Warm

The worst thing about this is that I keep thinking 'I could be dead in 3 weeks'. That's not something I'm used to dealing with, nor is it something I ever expected to have to deal with. Still, that book on the Black Death (Gottfried) has been very comforting.

While lying awake in the quiet last night I was pretending to be in Survivors again, but it was too stressful, I began worrying about the farm animals and the soap-making.

Much sun
Warmer

Reading that book about the Black Death again.

Much sun
Cool

To the Co-op in the morning. Plenty of toilet paper there now.

0800 8 dark
--->
1300 Sun
Colder.
Breezy

EASTER SUNDAY. Even quieter today, quieter than a normal Christmas Day.

Sun
More cloud
1400 Ac cast seen
1600 Large Cu seen
1800 8
2200 WINDY

It is so quiet at the moment, by day and by night. There are two ways this will turn out: either I'll spend a long time wishing I could have this quiet back again, or a rather shorter time wishing the noise could come back.

This morning btw I genuinely couldn't work out what day of the week it was. I had to look at my watch.

Sun Warm

Sun with haze/Cs & Ci
Warm

~2 Sun
Warm

At Tesco the two self-checkout women were wearing vizors and smiled wryly at me.

Sun 2-4 Ci
Warm

0800 8 As, Ac
1000 SPOTS OF RAIN
->
1300 6 Cu Sun Cooler

Beautiful weather. Got out in the garden in the morning and planted potatoes. As usual, raked up enough potatoes from last year that I'd missed at harvest time to make a meal.

≤2 Ci Sun
Warm
Breezy

Wore proper makeup today for the first time in a while - somehow it didn't suit the mood during the period when I thought society might collapse.

In the afternoon cut up and shredded the latest branches to have been blown off the buddleia.

People are ordering me about more than they usually do at the moment. The older woman at the Co-op was all 'Could you stand on that square - no, that one so you aren't in the walkway.' I'm glad I watched Orange is the New Black now, I might not've been able to deal with it otherwise.

≤2 Ci Sun
Warm

Last night Venus was near the Pleiades, so I went out to enjoy the sight with binoculars.

Stock at the Co-op returning to normal, they had paracetamol! And 9-roll packs of toilet rolls.

Noticed that the nitpicking scan of sky shots one does when watching pre-CGI stuff set post-apocalypse or historically, for stray planes, has been feeding back into real life. I see a plane in the sky now and think 'they missed that one...'

Spoke to N on the phone for the first time. While we were talking, there was a splendid crepuscular ray through a hole in the Sc, and then a larger hole with three rays. Sort of 'Sunshine on Paisley'.

<=8 Sc with bright cracks
Sun
Cold

<=8 Sc with cracks, sun
Warmer

Last night was awake for hours. Lay in the deep dark and deep silence. Had a sort of sense of being alive which I rarely feel - after I came round from surgery was the last time. When you've had to face the idea of dying you realise that being alive is a bonus.

Was engaged in conversation by woman next in queue outside Tesco Express; she very taken with my remark that everything is like a strange dream at the moment.

When the Co-op bloke asked me if there was anything else, I said ruefully that I'd wished there'd been some eggs, whereupon he produced a box of 10 from behind the counter. Free-range too. Result.

In the evening, very sad tweet from a doctor about signing more death certificates in one night than ever before, and the 'little things'; a book with a bookmark still in, an unread text from family, a watch still ticking.
Then SB's Facebook account had a message from his sister, saying he'd died. Very sad.

0800 FROST Sun
<= 8 Sc