WAGS 01.04.2020: The Quarantine Diaries Week 3

Looking at the date I am hoping for some creative entries, but because of the current crisis there seems to be a mood to ignore the usual pranks.

Google cancels its infamous April Fools’ jokes this year

April Fools’ Day is one of the most annoying internet traditions, but this year Google — infamous for its numerous elaborate pranks that typically touch on nearly every major product the company makes — won’t be participating due to the serious threat of the coronavirus that continues to impact the entire world.

According to an internal email, Google will “take the year off from that tradition out of respect for all those fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. Our highest goal right now is to be helpful to people, so let’s save the jokes for next April, which will undoubtedly be a whole lot brighter than this one.”

“We’ve already stopped any centralized April Fool’s efforts but realize there may be smaller projects within teams that we don’t know about,” the email from Google’s head of marketing Lorraine Twohill continues. “Please suss out those efforts and make sure your teams pause on any jokes they may have planned — internally or externally.”

Well I for one don't intend to suss out any efforts by contributors to contribute to the copious amounts of fake news and disinformation already in circulation by the media.

A joke is meant to lighten your load and  bring a little pleasure to your miserable existence in these times of pandemic. And there are certainly some hilarious and creative pieces going the rounds. I won't include my favourites here because if you are on WhatsApp you will already have seen an abundant selection.

Anyway to get to the serious meat of the matter - what we got up to during our sacrosanct Wednesday Exercise period.

    Myriam and I have decided to go out as little as possible during the plague, out of a sense of public duty and no wish to burden the Portuguese health service with our mistakes.

Inspired by this story which I read, HERE, and which because of the date on which it was written, I determined that it was probably not an April Fool jape.  Fortunately I have more than 23 feet of balcony, so I thought it would be a 'Walk on the Terrace'

   I reccied my intended route in detail and it consistently came in at 135 paces, per lap. I calculated that I would need about 60 laps to complete my target of 8000 steps, which usually gives me about 7 km. and would take about 1 hour and 40 minutes. This was taking into account 2 about turns each lap. In between to gain a bit of elevation cred, I thought that every 10 laps I would go inside, and descend  and climb the 54 steps to the ground floor and back.

At first Myriam was keen to join me, but  ' the best laid plans o' mice and men certainly gang aft agley' as an unusually perspicacious Scot once said.

The prospective route: a raging torrent and NSFW  (Not suitable for WAGS)

Morning in Lagos was a miserable drizzle which soaked the terrace and 'er Indoors put an embargo on my traipsing through the flat to climb stairs. As I had another task, I decided to use the wet morning to accomplish that, so we drove off to Porches, dodging Police road blocks' to pick up a package from Direct Transport, whom I highly recommend.

The long straight - virtually impassable!

Having returned in triumph with a parcel (soon disinfected) that had got through from UK in 5 days, the rain had eased off and the terrace was drying. However it was almost 1230, the traditional Post-WAGS walk repast time.  I decided to explore another variation on the TM theme - The Diablo.

This is made with a gadget, procured from the Classic car Show at NEC several years ago, which looks rather like an old bedpan. Since right now you have plenty of time on your hands, a little informative video for you will have you drooling!!

Voila

We enjoyed these at our leisure while the terrace was drying.

Myriam fell on her Cheese and Tomato Diablo garnished with coentro, before I could take the picture. It was complemented by an Alfarroba concoction.

I added some of Aldi's finest Duck Presunto to the Mature Cheddar cheese and tomato, to give me the strength to attempt the walk later,

Mid-afternoon I checked the conditions - track dry, wind not too blustery, about time for a record attempt.. I set up a manual Track recording system at the beginning of the course.

NB. Track recorder at end of attempt. Crinkly paper was the result of large droplets from the grey sky.

Myriam had decided to let me have the glory of being the first Senior Terrace Walker to complete a significant distance, and spent an hour doing Pilates in the sitting room.

Of course I had to get to the start alone, so decided to ride there to prove my fitness.

Halfway there - it was a good 3 km.

And so I set off.

Through the bushes......

..........Cruising along long straight

Sadly a full record was not achievable as the gathering storm from the West hit Lagos as I was towards the 30th lap.  Large drops, which threatened to make the track impassable started to fall.
I carried on a little further.....

.
....but was eventually forced to retire early.

I paused the stats, in case the weather relented, but it was not to be. Just half of my target completed.

To make up, I turned my trusty Tunturi  F300 round and set off back.

And now the bit you have all been waiting for - the stats and just to prove it was not a virtual walk for blog purposes. However be alerted, our normal methods of recording blog stats get sadly misled by short laps and frequent turns because of the sampling rate. This is Garmin's view of my track:-

Walking on the roof slowed me up a bit, but had to do some ascent!!

and the stats, bearing in mind I left the recorder running and stationary for an extra half hour after I had to stop walking, just in case I could continue.

Viewranger recorded this:-

and ViewRanger Stats

An impressive altitude gain as the barometric pressure changed as the rain came through!

Who would have thought this was a flat terrace? Must have had more slope than I realised!

And finally, my Withings HR Sport recorded this Activity map. The different colours indicate heart rate bands.


Rod also produced a short account of his activities with Antony:-

As a brief respite from WAGS WhatsApp Masterchef menus and AWW/WAGS sturm und drang we decided on a  local walk from home...just as well since rain was constantly threatening.

Our friends from last week opted to stay put so this time there were just the two of us!

Rather than aim for the dizzy ascents of last week we chose to touch the upper  WAGS distance limits along a fairly flat trajectory. This was well worn territory as far as I was concerned but there is always something different, something new. 

This time it was particularly soul warming to see the spring flowers really bursting out through rain refreshed new green undergrowth (how poetic!).

We also passed by our  various equine neighbours and were agreeably able to distantly converse over the fence about how they were all coping with their steeds in these trying times....all well pleasingly.

We contemplated extending the conversation to the horses themselves  but they were somewhat reserved about that and maintained their distance. They, doubtless, remembered how devastating was the African Equine Flu...cross mutating that with CV obviously too much to contemplate.

We also learned that the good widow, Domingas, who owns the little bar opposite our entrance had a burglary attempt the other night. She showed us the jemmy  hole in the door. 

Her barking dog fortunately discouraged them from completing the job. The GNR were called but were obviously preoccupied with other matters and did little. Sad that there are people around taking advantage of such senior single  citizens. 

Knowing she was but little older than us made us think about our own defences!  Electric fencing, noisy dogs, multiple lighting and assorted weaponry we hope will be sufficient....now together with two stalwart fellows of course; one armed with a serious array of  advanced Chinese military ordinance.

So that completed this week's venture.  The route and stats are herewith and it will of course not escape your notice that the 10k was achieved at the quite astounding average speed of 4.2kph. How I dreamed of a tosta after that.

And now, just before Paul´s finale, JohnH interrupts with his contribution:

The WAGS Irregulars 2020 04 01

This week, the WAGS Irregulars tackled the Herdade do Bom Homem, with a little bit of new territorial exploration thrown in as a special bonus. We were of course very careful to practise social distancing.

According to one local publication, in the present climate, citizens are not allowed to gather in groups of more than two. To the logically inclined, this presents a dilemma, because two do not constitute a group. A grouping is three or more. My authority for this assertion is a site called changingminds.org

This is what Changing Minds have to say.

Minimum Group Size How many people does it take to make a group? Five? Ten? Actually it is three. One person is alone. Two people are a relationship pair. When it gets to three, there is a big leap in perception. Within the three, there is a greater sense of cohesion and collective power. If another person joins them, there is a further improvement, but this is not as great a step as between two and three. The same effect is mirrored in perceptions of others. Two may be seen as a person and a supporter. Three are taken distinctly more seriously. Again, four increases credibility, but this is not as much a step up as between two and three. The impact of the group is highly dependent on how cohesively they act. If they appear as one voice, then even two can have much greater power than one. In social psychology, two people are often called a 'dyad' and act differently to a triad. In a dyad, each person can focus solely on the other. This is a big step from 'me only' but the relational pairing is more of a one-other partnership than a multiple-others group. In a triad, an individual's attention shifts back and forth between the two others. This process of sharing attention and concern is a critical element of groups and helps explain the step between two and three people. When the group size reaches four, it can fall into acting more as two dyads than a cohesive and single-minded group, which can result in loss of group identity and consequent power. In smaller groups, an odd number reduces the chance of breaking up into even and possibly opposing sub-groups. Hmmm. All very interesting but I wouldn´t want to debate the niceties of the issue with the GNR when push comes to shove. So to be prudent , we took two Starter Photos. Dyad One Dyad Two Even our cars distanced themselves. Probably a Triad As for the weather, according to the forecast, it should have been raining, but happily it wasn´t, yet. We set off up a familiar path and soon came to the Rest and Be Thankful bench, you know, the one where a few months ago, we were able to do this without censure! Now we can´t, any more. So we did this. Another Dyad A little further on, we came upon a solitary individual of indeterminate gender who seemed to be surviving remarkably well on its own. One, alone Two Dyads, or a Triad plus one? About an hour into the walk, Yves just happened to mention the contents of the morning´s 7 a.m. news bulletin which he had caught, to the effect that the GNR, if they came across cars casually parked and not on essential business, instead of issuing a parking fine, they would simply deflating the tyres. Hey ho! Why hadn´t he told us this at the start? Bit too late, so we decided to press on, fingers crossed. Now came the bit of exploration; we moved left off the main track and began a fair amount of high ridge climbing along tracks none of us had been on before.  We were rewarded with stunning views over the western stretches of Silves....Continent Modelo, the prison.....what more could one ask for. We spied a lofty trig point but, unlike the previous week, we resisted the temptation to attack it. Maybe another time. But just as the previous week, Hazel took photos of flowers and Maria did her flower arrangements. We reached level ground after as bit of a scramble. The clouds were now beginning to gather, enabling Yves to take this super shot just before we were forced to put on our rain gear.

We circled round towards the main Bom Homem track, passing below a house perched high on a hill where in previous years only dogs were to be seen. On this occasion, an old couple came out to look down at us as we walked past. From a long distance conversation via Maria we found out that they had come out from town to get away from people, that they were fine, and had got plenty to do. Some waves and shouts of “Boa saúde” and we moved on.

Others were out walking, among them the owner of Chicken George in Silves Market, who at that time of day would normally have been dishing out masses of grilled frango piri-piri to tourists and locals.

Then back to Rest and Be Thankful where the Leader sat down and galloped alone.

Yves wittily captioned his photo as "The Loan Arranger.”

                                                  (No, I have no idea where he gets them from either. Ed.)

The cars were seen in the distance and it was with some trepidation that we approached them. Would the tyres be OK?

That one is alright. Not too sure about the nearside one though.

The 7 a.m. news bulletin was, of course, an April Fool.

With 372 metres of climbing, not a walk to be considered for APAPS or normal WAGS purposes.

And now we hand you back to Paul for his grand finale.



Of course we can't close without a song and a bit of humour, though those of a more sensitive disposition best not watch! (Some coarse language involved)

Now who's next.......?