So last night, the UK was finally put in lockdown, after quite a bit of uncertainty and confusion over the spread of the Covid-19 virus these last few weeks. I’ve not actually been out of my house since Friday – I did a supermarket trip then to make sure I have enough stuff in to get through the next few weeks.

I’ve found it a bit confusing as to what I’m supposed to do with regard to my health issues. I’ve seen in quite a lot of places that I’m in the high risk group, because the virus causes lots of issues with your lungs, and generally your cardio system, which isn’t ideal when you’re living with heart failure. What has been strange is that heart failure was showing up on the official government list last week when they were suggesting that those people would need to shield for 12 weeks, but now they seem to have slimmed that list down, focussing on what they class as ‘particularly high risk’.

I follow a couple of heart failure social media groups, and they’re recommending shielding for the 3 months if you’re able, because the risk is still high, and it comes down to how your body then fights it you get it. And whenever they talk about people who are dying from this, it’s often the case that they have ‘underlying health issues’ which when you examine what that means, heart problems seem to be part of that.

So I’ve decided to self-shield for as long as I can, even though I’ve not had any official instruction from the NHS (but I’m hearing that other people who expected to be part of the official group also haven’t been contacted, so I get the impression they’re trying to keep it to a minimum).

The thought of staying in my house for such a long time is pretty overwhelming – I mean, we’re looking at the middle of June at the earliest, and it’s only March now… that’s quite crazy. It’s really annoying too because the last few months, I’d finally got into gear to make my house more liveable (after the world’s longest ever DIY project), and had electricians and decorators in doing stuff the last few weeks, and I was about to get my wooden flooring and carpets fitted, which meant I could then sort out proper furniture like a sofa and a decent bed, but now everything’s shut down, I don’t know when I can get that sorted!