(Caption: “Be like our hard-working staff! Wash your hands.”)
So last night I looked at the state of the world and thought to myself, “It may be that some people will need something to take their minds off their troubles over the next couple of weeks.” I Tweeted about it at the time, and then set the Ebooks Direct store into Half Off Everything mode until March 30th.
…And wouldn’t you know, today it was announced that Ireland is being put into more-or-less-lockdown (not as severe as Italy’s, as yet, but still…) until — guess when? — March 29th, as the country moves officially into the “delay” stage of handling the COVID-19 pandemic. So this choice seems to have been well timed. (ETA: Lockdown aside, we’ve all got a Continuing Situation here, and the sale will remain in place until Things Get Better. Whenever THAT is.)
Anyway, I just thought I’d leave a note about it here. Most of you know the drill by now. If you’re interested in grabbing an ebook, go over here, have a look at the inventory… see if anything moves you toward a purchase. As always, all our files are DRM-free; and if you lose your ebooks somehow due to a disk crash or whatever, just let us know, quoting your order number, and (unlike some large online booksellers) we’ll replace them for free. (It helps not having a private space program to fund.) If you don’t need ebooks and just feel inclined to buy the writers a coffee, you can do that too. (Or 20% of a package of ibuprofen. I still have to keep taking these things for the Bum Knee until it finishes getting better.)
…One other thing before I close this. Those of you who have been following (on Tumblr or Twitter) the Saga of the Bum Knee will know that I was in to see the doctor a week ago now, and the knee was pronounced Unlikely to Explode (which was a relief) and not in need of a scan. So far, so good. That said: over the last day or so it’s starting to look as if I might possibly have brought more away from my visit to my GP’s surgery, and elsewhere in our “shopping town” afterwards, than just relief about the state of my knee ligaments. Yesterday my nose started running sort of without warning, and I developed some congestion and a bit of a cough. NOT the dry kind that’s symptomatic of COVID-19: a bit of a wet one, nothing severe.
I am treating this aggressively with the usual kind of things I use on an incipient cold/flu to minimize the effects — including the extremely effective Swiss anti-cold drugs we keep on hand — and I am keeping a very close eye on the situation. IT IS VERY LIKELY NOTHING. Certainly not the regular flu — I had my shot in early January. Yet I find the timing a little suspect: usually if I catch a cold when away from home, it sets in faster. Under the circumstances it seems prudent for me to take myself out of public (meaning non-virtual) circulation until the end of the month… especially bearing in mind the context of this article in the Guardian.
So I will be — let’s not call it self-isolating, lest everybody start panicking! Let’s just say I’ll be Sniffling in Place. 🙂 I feel just fine except for the sniffling and congestion. I have no fever. But I am unwilling to risk messing anybody else up because I got too cavalier about this; and since I’m in the over-65 at-risk category, caution seems best. I just thought I’d mention this here so that people won’t see something about it from me on Twitter and freak out unduly. If matters get more serious, believe me, I’ll let everybody know immediately.
Thanks, all. 🙂