Tag Archives: Lockdown

Power Walking the Lockdown With Galloping Gertie

Day Whatever.

They say we need to adopt a lockdown routine. I patrol the neighbourhood.

So. At 7.30 each morning I’m out the door for my 10k power walk around the neighbourhood. Walking out the door is the hardest part of a 10k power walk. Our grandmother Gertrude was a power walker. Walked everywhere. She would stride off to the shops about two miles away at a great rate of knots. She was known affectionately to everyone in her Hawke’s Bay village as “Galloping Gertie” or “Goldrush Gert”. I must have inherited my power walking from her.

Along with a bit of hayfever. The whole Nicholls/Kemsley clan inherited asthma, eczema or hayfever from Gertrude’s father Frederick Kemsley in England. Called in at the Pharmacy on my way home this morning to get some anti-histamine.

So. Out walking, cops on patrol don’t seem concerned that a Septuagenarian is loose on the streets. Streets are mostly deserted. Seems that Dannevirkians are studiously avoiding the Exercise bug as well as the Covid-19 virus.

I caught the Health bug from my grandmother as well. Touch wood. She instilled in me from the tender age of 5 that my most precious asset would always be my health. She grew up in England in the perilous times before disinfectants, antiseptics, antibiotics and vaccines. And hand washing and social distancing.

50 cars in the New World carpark at 8.30 this morning. Long queue waiting outside. Ordered my food and groceries online yesterday. Long lead times though. Delivery about 9 days. Pickup about 6 days. Opted for pickup with mask and gloves between 5 and 6pm on Monday 6th.

Not urgent anyway. Got plenty of vegan kai in my pantry.

Onwards. Old folk in their cars queueing at the hospital for their influenza vaccination. Better get mine soon.

April 1st. Not long before ANZAC Day. Maybe on April 25th I’ll put on the medals and beret and power march the daily 10k. Stop on the way at the Cenotaph to lay a poppy in remembrance of the grandfather who came home from the Great War with a war bride – Galloping Gertie.