Day 6 of quarantine - 15 November 2020 - No10

It’s day six of my quarantine - hopefully only eight more to go.*  I’m still in the midst of the transition to GMT-3hours.  That process has proved more difficult than I envisaged. I think there are several factors that are contributing to this including: 

• the bedroom curtains are too thin and allow in daylight; 
• I’ve jumped from autumn where the days were closing in to early summer with long days;** 
• the Falkland Islands really should be at least GMT-4hours if you reckon by the sun so dawn comes early by the clock;*** 
• if I awake in the middle of the night, when the internet is free and uncapped there is the inevitable desire to browse, update and upload; and 
• being in quarantine and confined to my house and its curtilage (largely a peat field without any grass) I’m struggling to do any meaningful exercise. 

I’m anxious to get out and explore. I want to see more of the islands than the stunning views I have from my house. I have an urge to climb to the masts on top of Sapper Hill which I see from my kitchen window and to walk along Wireless Ridge - and this is before I’ve even been into Stanley. 

Incidentally if you are trying to find Rick Jolly Way on the maps - you’ll struggle. 

I’m at the blue dot 

I’m 7,919 miles from Frodsham

Five days in

Go to the far western side of Stanley and you’ll see three roads that loop off Diamond Jubilee Road. Not surprisingly this little estate is known as ‘the loops.’ The final loop is mislabelled as Diamond Jubilee Road - this is Rick Jolly Way. My house as at the apex of this third loop. 

I’ve given myself the task of building my Saturn V Lego rocket one bag per day.  There are 12 bags so it will take me through most of quarantine.

Foot notes:

 *as I was potentially exposed to the Corona virus on my 5 November flight (the 22 hours round trip to Brazil) my quarantine will continue until I’m released by the hospital - and that will only happen after at least two successive negative tests 

**the Falklands are at the equivalent latitude south as Oxford is north 

***if you look at a map of world time zones you’ll see that the Falklands is due south of Venezuela and the eastern Caribbean (all of which are GMT-4hrs) and lies in the middle of the GMT-4 time zone. However for reasons I don’t understand (yet) we are GMT-3hrs and the working day starts at 8am (effectively closing the time difference with the UK to 2 hours during the working day)