Week 3 and things are deteriorating at Phil’s work as the Corvid cases increase in the North East. On Sunday (while social media was posting pictures of people gathering in parks and not social distancing), Phil was seconded to the Intensive Care Unit for the first time, where they have a couple of CV19 cases. First he had to be sent to have a mask fitted, there are 2 types of fitted mask, and once it has been fitted to your face they then test it’s efficacy. Neither mask worked for Phil, and leaked when tested on him, so he had to do without. Back in ICU they had him being a ‘runner’, which means he stands in the corridor outside a cubicle in which there’s a patient being nursed by a nurse in full astronaut gear. She holds up the patients readings and he copies it onto a sheet outside the door, and passes through anything the nurse asks for. The corridor is narrow, no social distancing possible and lots of people in it. By the time he did his next shift, yesterday, it was decided he couldn’t go to ICU without a fitted mask, nor could he do his normal job, as intubating patients in theatre carries a risk of airborne infection and all patients, in the absence of testing, are deemed CV19 positive until otherwise informed. So he is now a runner outside the anaesthetic room, passing through equipment etc to the anaesthetist and Operating Dept Assistants inside. We are, selfishly, quite glad it worked out that way, as he won’t deal directly with patients, but he’s not holding out much hope of the virus bypassing him, 3 of his colleagues are off sick or self isolating, and one of his colleagues’ Mum was diagnosed with it on Wednesday and was dead by Sunday. He came home last night after a 13hr shift completely drained, and is thankful he went part-time a year ago, though he may be required to do more if the staff are depleted too much.

I am cooking nice things to cheer him up! I have been amusing myself with my camera, and yesterday afternoon spent 2 hours doing splash photograpahy. I don’t have the right lighting for it but had a go anyway in a sunny patch in the kitchen, 284 photo’s taken and all got deleted! 🤣 but it was fun trying and making a mess. I tried again today in the garden hoping sunlight would do the trick, and had better results, but still pretty rubbish.

Because I’d not been happy with the afternoon’s results yesterday I thought I’d have a bash at shooting the moon, but first I tried a shot of Venus, which is really bigger and brighter than other stars and planets at the moment. I don’t have a superduper lens to get any detail of it, but if you click on the picture to embiggen it you can also see the constellation Pleiades (known as the seven sisters) just below it.

the moon was easier 🙂

Also to amuse meself I’ve been creating arty farty abstracts from old flower shots,

that one is my favourite so far.

I haven’t been out much, walked up to the shops and back but it’s a pain dodging dog walkers and kids on bikes along the way. I started a Yin Yoga course to keep me fit which I’m actually liking doing so might stick with it!

The hedgehogs are back and we are getting 2 or 3 visiting in the wee hours, here’s last nights visitors, click on through to the big version on Youtube, you can see the hedgies better, there are a few more there from this week too.

I’m keeping up with my 52 frames weekly challenge over on the universe blog, thanks to those of you who’ve visited and commented, I really appreciate it. This is the link https://fragglerocking.org/project-type/52-frames/

also I’ve done another section for the Photographic anthology here https://fragglerocking.org/project-type/anthology/

(Kim the links might work for you now 🙂 )

and so a little smile to end this one with….