Hope everyone is well!

hi linda!
as i'm still a student, my classes are online now. i have a lot of things to do, like homeworks, trying to learn new content without my teachers, etc. this doesn't take so much time though.
i had 4 or 5 clear nights, but i have only imaged in 2 of them. in the other 3, the moon was bright and i didn't knew how to polar align my mount. i want to photograph the rosette nebula and i want to use my 70/700 achromatic telescope to see if i can get something nice.
in brazil, we don't have so much coronavirus cases yet, but as we are a under developed country we may face trouble with our health system. people will suffer a lot. quarantine must last until july, september. i miss my  friends, i miss my family… but it's not so bad as missing someone who passed away. i hope so much to things get better as soon as possible for everyone. 

Olga, I hope the virus never gets well established in Brazil…it definitely puts a strain on the health care system when 20% of those infected need hospital care.

Carole, yes, we saw the news about the PM last night. It's not quite so bad here (yet). Normal services are continuing, at least here in Virginia. Our governor issued a stay-at-home order but that's handled on a state-by-state basis here and not all governors were as proactive (see Louisiana and Florida). My fear is most people don't understand that successfully flattening the curve means extending the time people need to stay home in exchange for fewer infections and deaths.

We are getting our daily walks in the neighborhood but limiting excursions to once every week or two for groceries. My company actually told us to work from home a week before the statewide order came out so I've been home for a while. The first week was hard but I've mostly got used to it.

The Milne’s are also all well although our middle son has ended up stuck in his university accommodation as travel home for students is no longer considered necessary travel. Fortunately he still has 6 other students living with him so he at least has other people to interact with. I wasn’t very happy that he didn’t come home before all but essential travel was stopped and have been tempted more than once to drive to collect him - he is only 34 miles away by the shortest route - but he contacts us everyday and we have got used to the idea that we won’t be seeing him for a while.

Our dog is enjoying the additional walks that she is getting particularly with our youngest son who manages to cover between 4 and 5 miles in an hour. Fortunately we live in a relatively rural area - there are less than 500 people in our village so the chances of coming across other people when we are out walking are pretty slim.

As we are both retired not a lot has changed for us other than shopping less frequently and missing the occasional visit to our favourite restaurant.  We obviously can’t meet up with friends either although we did have a get together for a lot of old work colleagues at our home four weeks ago (before things like that were banned). We are half expecting to be contacted and asked if we will go back on the medical register and return to work but so far that hasn’t happened - there probably isn’t a pressing need for forensic psychiatrists at the moment!

The biggest impact has been on holidays that we had already planned and mostly paid for. We had to cancel a landscape photography tour that we had planned in Southern Utah and are still trying to get our money back from a couple of hotel bookings - the irony is that the bookings that were supposed to not be refundable processed full refunds immediately whereas we are still waiting for a refund for two reservations that were supposed to be fully refundable - we won’t be using that particular internet booking site again! The opera festival that we go to every August has also been cancelled and we are waiting to see if the same applies for the Salzburg festival.

Fortunately the weather here hasn’t been too bad and we have managed to do some imaging from home.  We are also still getting data coming in from the remote telescopes in Spain.

I have spent even more time than usual cooking (trying out new recipes and techniques) and baking. The panic buying in the local supermarkets has resulted in a complete absence of flour (and yeast) so I am now buying freshly milled flour from a windmill about half a mile from our house. The man who runs it is now only selling to local people - just before the “lockdown order” he had people driving more than 50 miles each way to buy flour - they bought all that he had available at the time. Now if I want flour I have to contact him with my order then wait for a phone call to say that the flour is ready and be given a strict time and location to collect it - all very odd.

Sigga:
Doing ok here now, seem plateau here perhaps. I cycle to hospital in maskthen when leave shower and put on fresh scrubs and mask before ride home.

Hope all well and listening to advice, this very serious illness. Be safe and be well!

Well done Sigga, one of the Heros on the front line.

Relieved to say the UK Prime Minister was discharged from hospital today, and is now going to rest for a bit to fully recover.

Also our recycling collection turned up unexpectedly yesterday (Easter Saturday!!!) and no-one knew they were coming, so it was quite amusing seeing every-one charging around trying to get their recycling out for collection before they arrived at our individual properties.

I didn't have any holiday booked as yet, but did have some excursions booked in London which I was going to take with a visitor from abroad who has now cancelled her flight, but trying to get hold of the excursion people is proving difficult.

We lost a distant family member (related by marriage) to Coronavirus yesterday, he was in his 80s with other health problems,  and I know of two others who have had it and recovered.

All very scary really and I can't see any proper way out until they develop a vaccine.

Carole