Hindcast: Dateline Dublin Christmas 1348.
14,000 have died of plague in the last five months. Dalkey and Howth together with the port at Drogheda have been devastated by the Black Death. One third of the urban population have died.
Forecast: Dateline Dublin Easter 2020.
1,500 may have died in the month since the first Irish death of complications arising from Covid-19.
Our capacity for benefit may become the ticket to healthcare and a future. The UK is considering having people 75 and older to sign DNR forms. Spain seems to be doing it unofficially for 65 and older by treating likely survivors first.
Our neighbour died yesterday. Cancer not Covid-19. I can’t think of a better way to illustrate her spirit than to recommend you see it by proxy, in a TED talk by one of her daughters. It’s quite a story about a couple. A couple engaged in a huge struggle tempered with optimistic realism and scientific determination. Somehow, it seems to me, you can see the mother’s strength through her daughter’s attitudes to the challenges. Strength that’ll help them since funerals have become problematic. It’s very tough on all bereaved families not being able to grieve together nor get support from friends.
This is a bleak post. Change of theme.
We should have walked to Buxton today. It should have been the first stage of the trip to Rome. Chris W walked this stage back in early March. A training and scouting walk that included their dog (and he sent me proof in the photo below). We’ll do it same time next year. While it doesn’t seem far to the coast in the attached picture, it’ll be 18 daily hikes before we can catch the Dover ferry to cross to France. And then, well, then it’ll be a mere 96 daily hikes to get to dinner in Rome.
18 hikes to the coast! 
Down to Whaley Bridge en route to Buxton
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