Stricter rules

I had heard on the radio that the Welsh government was going to announce changes to the lockdown conditions. And it seemed to involve relaxations of the rules! There was mention of people with certain mental conditions being allowed out more than once per day. But there also was mention of tightening on other fronts. Hm! I was hoping that wouldn't be necessary. But well, apparently it is. Even though Wales has lower death rates than England. Wales only has about 1/20th of the population of England, and deaths are about 700 vs 20.000 when I write this, so England has about 1.5 times the death rate. No sounds about tightening measures in England! But maybe that's because they have a Tory government, while we have a Labour one. Tories will be extra keen to lift the lockdown so businesses can reopen. Labour is more likely to look at the cost to health. So they deemed more measures were needed!

The new measures meant a change for me; I had been going for a weekly walk with Chris, and that would now not be allowed anymore. Not even at 2m distance! And bike rides that take you 'more than a reasonable walking distance' away from home were outlawed too. I'm not sure what the rationale is; it seems to me that biking would be a particularly harmless activity. A pity! I was enjoying bike rides for exercise. But what is a reasonable walk? You are not even supposed to go for long walks anymore. So no Lwytmor bach until lockdown is over, or at least relaxed! So say you can go for a two hour walk (they specified 4 hrs is too much); how far can you get in that time? 12 km? I first thought you couldn't cover a distance longer than that on your bike, but some discussion with other people pondering this made me realise they probably mean you can cover a lot of distance, as long as it doesn't take you far from home. So lots of loops around the block are fine! So if we stick with the 12 km rule of thumb; that takes you 6 km away from home, max. That sounds very small but it's actually not bad. I'm sure I can think of a nice route within these constraints. But mostly: back to my runs! And shorter walks. On my own. And let's hope it works, and this won't have to last too long...