please empty your brain below
I’m duly impressed with your organisation as well as your counts. Do you use a notebook or notebooks to record all these or do you use an electronic device?

Fascinating, as ever.

val | 28.02.21 - 7:14 a.m. | #

Count 4 always interests me. Each night I know what time I wake up but the time taken to go to sleep varies. How do you log that?

J. | 28.02.21 - 7:18 a.m. | #

Egrets : you've seen a few but then again, too few to mention

Ian | 28.02.21 - 7:28 a.m. | #

Count 1: Number of buildings I have been in apart from my own - 9
Count 2: Transactions- cash 0, card 9, internet 2

scrumpy | 28.02.21 - 7:33 a.m. | #

Once again the mystery count is nil. Every year this makes me feel sad for you,DG,even though we don't know what you are counting. (But we can make a guess.) 😥

Jo W | 28.02.21 - 7:42 a.m. | #

170km run, which includes a week break due to icy conditions.

8 tomato and basil cuppa soups.

1 vaccination.

Running_Correspondent | 28.02.21 - 8:05 a.m. | #

Slices of toasted bread consumed as breakfast (including this morning) = 91. Way too many! In partial defence I often eat healthier cereal for lunch.

Frank F | 28.02.21 - 8:06 a.m. | #

My count was "number of online events I've been to", which was 54. A lot of these were work meetings. I also counted the number of them where I said anything: 34, and the number where I typed something but didn't speak: 9. Which leaves 11 where I made no contribution whatsoever. I'm expecting the main count to increase by 1 this evening as I'm attending an online tour of a battlefield - not all online events are dull!

I'm also interested in how you carry out your counting - I found it very hard to remember to record things, and that was with a notebook on my desk.

Sally | 28.02.21 - 8:08 a.m. | #

Count 8. I've gone from being a daily commuter eighteen months ago to having been on no buses, and only one train (on a narrow gauge steam railway), for over a year.

timbo | 28.02.21 - 8:09 a.m. | #

I counted online meetings: 58 (that's an impressive increase of 58 on last February) and cups of tea - at 262 (an average of nine and a third a day) just over double DG's intake. I've been counting the previous day's used teabags every morning for six months. Highest daily total was 13 and the lowest 5.

Sarah | Homepage | 28.02.21 - 8:15 a.m. | #

Only 122 handwashes? Is that a typo?

That's less than 4 1/2 a day!

I've already washed mine more times than that today...

✉ dg writes: that’s the comment in today’s sealed envelope :)

Blue Witch | Homepage | 28.02.21 - 8:38 a.m. | #

Oh no, competitive handwashing!

Sarah | Homepage | 28.02.21 - 8:40 a.m. | #

Count 2: I'd be interested to see how Feburary's comments relate to the rest of the year - ie, do more people comment in February because we know you're counting? Or does it stay relatively stable?

RG | 28.02.21 - 8:48 a.m. | #

20.000 steps every day! Now, that's really excellent! Keep up the good work!

Leuconoe | 28.02.21 - 9:14 a.m. | #

I counted Zoom meetings, 16 in all. All are social & although I expect Feb. 2022 to be less I don't think it will be 0. Zoom calls with local friends will probably reduce?stop but I think calls with more distant friends will continue. Pre covid/lockdown we would see distant friends maybe once or twice a year we are now 'meeting' monthly with some & I think that may well continue along with physical visits

Andy S | 28.02.21 - 9:41 a.m. | #

"dg writes: that’s the comment in today’s sealed envelope :)"

And I almost put that at the end ;)

Seriously though, we need to talk about that...

Blue Witch | Homepage | 28.02.21 - 9:58 a.m. | #

If you live on your own, and go out once a day, where's the necessity for excess Covid-related handwashing over and above normal everyday hygiene?

Sarah | Homepage | 28.02.21 - 10:09 a.m. | #

"twice as popular as the Dangleway"

a nice tagline for you blog !

ADS | Homepage | 28.02.21 - 10:17 a.m. | #

Good count - some surprises there - not least the uptake of steps despite the downturn in opportunity for travel!
When I have gone out I've barely managed a quarter of that each time!

I forgot to count anything but your results are reassuringly normal.

Cornish Cockney | 28.02.21 - 11:03 a.m. | #

"If you live on your own, and go out once a day, where's the necessity for excess Covid-related handwashing over and above normal everyday hygiene?"

I can now see exactly why covid has spread how it has...

As a minimum, wash hands when get up in morning, after each loo visit, before cooking, or touching appliances in kitchen (eg kettle), before eating anything, after doing anything 'grubby' (including coughing or sneezing into your hand), and after each trip outside the house (especially before putting shopping away).

That should be more than 3.5 a day in normal times, and 4.5 in these times...

Please note, I am not deliberately having a go at anyone here, just using the examples given to share the wisdom of 25 years of having to renew my food hygiene handling certificate umpteen times, and watching too many scary videos of bacteria and virus spread.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 28.02.21 - 11:08 a.m. | #

There is as far as I know no evidence that touching contaminated surfaces is a significant vector of covid (this was an early and apparently incorrect assumption), and even if it was, there's no way someone living alone could be less likely to catch it by washing their hands more often while alone at home.

BWB | 28.02.21 - 11:58 a.m. | #

In the case of people who live alone and wash their hands when returning from an outing, I don't see where has it spread *from*.

Handwashing may have some value in preventing the spread of Covid, in certain circumstances (but this has been greatly overplayed by the government at the expense of the attention paid to airborne transmission) but its overall significance in that regard is far surpassed by its value as a kind of voodoo ritual we perform to reassure ourselves and others that we're doing all we can.

Sarah again | 28.02.21 - 12:12 p.m. | #

My February Count is prompted by DG's Report and an event which has just happened;

Number of Sunday postal deliveries by Royal Mail in February 2021: 2 (last February it was 0)

strawbrick | 28.02.21 - 12:51 p.m. | #

Thanks to a slow queue in my local Co-op I had a good few moments to ponder the Creme Eggs display. So much for the principle of a multi-buys being cheaper: with a box of 10 at £6 and a pack of 5 at £3, there was no saving at all. However, to buy them individually, they were 75p each or two for £1.
Hang on a second! I didn't actually get any but I can see how someone good at maths might settle for only buying four.

RogerW | 28.02.21 - 1:05 p.m. | #

Someone good at maths would go to a cheaper supermarket.

At Tesco
• box of 10 £3.95 (not £6)
• pack of 5 £2 (not £3)
• 50p each (not 75p)

diamond geezer | Homepage | 28.02.21 - 1:31 p.m. | #

I'm pretty sure I'm commenting more than I used to. I think it's due to a combination of this blog being one of the few bits of normality in my life at the moment (I've been reading almost daily for about 15 years) and at a time when I am hardly seeing any of my friends and can't visit London commenting on here feels like the nearest I can get to that.

Anders | 28.02.21 - 1:50 p.m. | #

I counted my hours of sleep: 185.5 hours (Minimum 5, Median 6.75, Maximum 10)
Cups of Tea: 73 (Min 1, Med 3, Max 4)
Hours outside my residential compound: 10 (Min 0, Med 0, Max 3)

There was something strangely cathartic about doing the count, thanks for suggesting your readers participate this year.

Friar Sven | 28.02.21 - 2:01 p.m. | #

Tesco were doing a Clubcard deal on their 5-packs of creme eggs recently - £1 instead of £2. Hope you stocked up.

Surprised by the crisps - I never think of them as a morning snack. Not sure if I have ever eaten a crisp before noon.

James Matcham | 28.02.21 - 2:05 p.m. | #

Any reason you didn’t update Daytum this year? Sorry if I’ve missed anything!

Richard | 28.02.21 - 5:48 p.m. | #

Number of February hours of online virtual schooling with 6 year old GS - 78.

School went to hybrid classes this month for first time since August; in school every other week and with me on alternate weeks. Love him dearly, but hoping not to repeat this count next February.

Mary | 28.02.21 - 6:13 p.m. | #

Number of miles walked this month - 250.2. Now I have sore feet.

THC | 28.02.21 - 8:21 p.m. | #











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