Viral Spain Blog 31^st March 2022.

Riding on a bus in a third world country my companion Peter seems to have disappeared . I asked another passenger who I knew and she could only make the vaguest of suggestions. It seemed he must have got off at the last village, but why? Would we manage to reconnect. This was a dream I had last night, and in fact Peter disappeared some thirty years ago after being college, holiday, and drinking friends for more than ten years. Last I heard he was moving to Bristol, maybe even promised to send me his new address, but I never heard another word from or of him.

Peter was not a man one could get close to, not a man of feelings or connection, but we seemed to knock along pretty well together. We both liked cycling, and talking about ideas. He could be a bit negligent about all sorts of things. His mother once said to me 'Peter will not push himself ´. So I guess I was not the only one never informed of his new address.

Why though has he surfaced in my dreams now? And why did the dream have a strangely disturbing feel to it? I guess I never mourned the end of the friendship. It had no clear ending. For a long time I expected he would be in touch. Feelings are still lurking. It is something of an insecure time for us too. We keep getting ill, and now I have a tooth to be extracted. And we leave for the UK in nine days. I find it boring when people go on about their health concerns so I won't. One's own are somehow fascinating and we long to talk about them but other's are so dull. Why is that? Maybe you see it differently?

I will just tell you though that I have it on good authority from no less than the Harvard School of Medicine that you cannot do anything to boost your immune system. Or at least there is no evidence of anything working. In vitrio testing of animal tissue suggests the absence of some micro nutrients might make a difference but as in every other case they say more research is needed. So there is little point in going overboard with vitamin C or having cold baths. The best they can offer is to keep your overall health up to scratch. And maybe (yes you guessed it, more research is needed ) keep your stress levels under control.

So for me it is more meditation, even less alcohol and coffee and avoiding those places where close contact with many people occurs. No difficulty in avoiding metro trains but Biodance maybe a bio hazard! Then we have that flight to catch. Then again, after three jabs, and no contact with anyone much Sarah and I both got ill in January and tested positive for Covid! But I am in danger of doing what I said I would not do...

Trains, so many people seem to really like them. I do too, sometimes. I do not like them crowded, and sometimes the cost is prohibitive. But my clever wife sought tickets between Bristol and Rugby for us to drop our hire car and head to the canal boat and they were going to cost 142 pounds for two. But some scouting around found us tickets for 65 pounds. And not just two but six tickets, you may have heard of the rail web site which divides the journey up into separate tickets for shorter stretches to reduce the overall cost. I had no idea it would save this much. It is called raileasy.co.uk. I can only assume that tickets are far cheaper per mile for shorter stretches because there is more competition. Anyway it is great to save so much and without having to book on the only two days that very cheap deals are widely available.

Okay that is all from me. I won't be taking my lap top for our two weeks in England but hopefully I will manage to keep you posted next week. Stay healthy.