Coronavirus

In a similar circumstances when my mother died I didn't bother to tell them, I just said I was her. After all I knew her date of birth and her mother's maiden name ... Sometimes it's the only way to deal with these people.
 
You could tell them that they can speak to him- just that they shouldn't expect an answer...
 
Great reply IceMaiden. I’m sure BYM will appreciate it.
One of those situations when you don’t know whether to laugh, or yell with frustration and rage at being treated like that by a total moron.
 
I did suggest to them they could write to him care of God, Heaven, Cloud 9, don't know post code. I was tempted to say you could phone via celestial services.
I think everyone has to deal with an idiot, with OH it was dealing with EON after her mum died, who couldn't quite grasp the fact no one was living in the property, as someone must be, therefore why are you closing the account. Then you get the polar opposite, Essex and Suffolk water telling her they have a free dedicated bereavement service and did she want help with dealing with anyone. She should have phoned them before EON.
We know several people who have had a horrendous time trying to cancel gym subscriptions after a death.
Hopefully that was my dealing with an idiot, well there is my sister as well, but I wont go there
 
Hope everyone is keeping safe! Here, our lockdown begins to ease tomorrow. Very very slowly and cautiously. It's going in phases of three weeks, lasting until the Autumn. First to be allowed open again are business that are mostly outdoors or where social distancing can be maintained. So, son in law is able to open for business again on Monday, as he runs a gardening business. Also from Monday, Garden Centres, Hardware and DIY stores can open, but not stores dealing mostly in Homewares. As our Health Minister bluntly put it "Now is not the time to dickie up the house." :lol: We're also allowed to meet up, outside, with up to 4 people, as long as we can do that within our 5km travel restriction. That's all that's allowed until the next phase on June 8, when up to 4 can visit another household (i.e. go in the house) as long as they can maintain social distancing. Also, we will be able to travel within 20km of our home. And so on, until gradually, hopefully, other things will get going. But social distancing in shops etc. is with us for the foreseeable future.
 
LadyA,I forget,where are you located? Isn't it interesting how the lockdown is so variable? Im sure your SIL will be pleased to get his business going again. Cannot imagine how difficult these times are for people with mortgages and families.

For us, in England (East Midlands), it's meet up with 1 person, stay 2 metres apart. Can't see the point in this - it's like pushing a chocolate cake in front of you and then telling you, you can't eat it!

Since the lockdown ease last week, coronavirus has risen in Notts!

I have not been out to any shop etc since 26th March. I have only been out on my walks in the woods, where I have only seen a handful of dog walkers. There were a couple of occasions on a more popular "trail walk" where there were family members and bikers etc. I've avoided that walk now.

Work has furloughed us until mid-June...I honestly cannot imagine ever going back to work, or public places. It is so odd. My husband has done the food shop once a week, with his "highwayman" regalia. :-)

There are good things that will come out of this I am sure. Even if it is that some of the younger ones have learned how to cook, how to entertain their children without technology and also growing their own flowers and veg.
 
As Gove said on the Andrew Marr show this morning, nothing is risk free, it’s about managing that risk to keep it at an acceptably low level. Clearly the safest option would be to maintain social isolation and closed schools for ever. But the economy would collapse and children’s futures would be irreparably damaged.
More worrying to me is the recent news that even if you survive an infection it can result in lasting damage. I would be prepared to run the risk of infection and hope for survival. But the risk of lasting damage is more worrying. Hopefully as more is discovered the frequency of such damage will be more clearly ascertained.
I think the virus will be around for a long time. This means that at some stage most of us will be infected. We do tend to forget that in such a high tech world human epidemics have been around for ever, some having horrendous death tolls. It is only the huge global population and the mass transport of people and goods that now has the potential to turn an epidemic into a pandemic.
And if one looks at it in a dispassionate way one that preferentially takes the old and the sick is better than one which shows no such selectivity.
I am old though generally in good health. I love life and feel I have much left to accomplish and experience. But I also try to be philosophical about undesirable outcomes.
 
I like this article by Sarah Maitland, about the difference between solitude and loneliness. I certainly agree that it’s good to teach children that being alone and reliant on ones own self for company is satisfying and rewarding. Being an only child, I liked playing by myself and inventing my own games.
We have two adult daughters - the elder one was like me as a child, the younger one was never happy unless she had other children to play with. Both are lovely, friendly people, but these tendencies seem inbuilt and have continued into their adult lives.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/17/sara-maitland-savour-solitude-it-is-not-the-same-as-loneliness
 
Tweetypie said:
LadyA,I forget,where are you located? Isn't it interesting how the lockdown is so variable? Im sure your SIL will be pleased to get his business going again.
Click to expand...
I'm in Rep of Ireland, Tweetypie. Fingers crossed all will go well. Our Health Service was on its knees before this, with outrageous waiting lists and overcrowding in hospitals. Thankfully, so far, our hospitals have been very well able to cope with covid admissions and ICU admissions. They didn't get anywhere near the numbers that were expected. Sadly, a great proportion (around 50%) of the 1,500 or so deaths here were people in Nursing Homes and residential care centres.
Thankfully, the Govt. brought in an emergency "covid 19" payment for anyone who was out of work because of the virus, of €350 per week, so financially, son in law and all his employees were able to get that. Dau says she spent yesterday form filling, to get their payments withdrawn as they go back to work.
 
Totally agree also Hen-Gen. Definitely speak the same language as me.
On solitude and loneliness. We are both happy with our own company, yet my daughter just has to have people around her all the time. I have a work colleague who's wife has to have people around her and they have 11 yes (eleven) not a typo of her grandchildren living with them. She has 30 grandkids altogether. Now that idea just fills me with horror, having them living with me. If you go around to their house it is a bit like having a revolving door, one goes out a different person comes in.

It is like people wanting to go to shopping malls when all this ends. OH is quite happy to give them a miss all year round

A work colleague queued for 2 hours when the drive through KFC reopened at Pitsea, about half hour drive away from where he lives. My reply to him was " you sad b*****d" Especially as he has lost about 2 stone in weight because everything has been closed
 
The distinction between solitude and loneliness is a good one. However much as I value solitude I also, at times, feel acutely lonely. Fortunately in a place like this it is easily rectified by going visiting because most folk feel the same.
Loneliness is often portrayed in a derogatory way. Almost as though feeling lonely is a psychological inadequacy. I would say the opposite. Like our cousins gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, gibbons and orangutans we are a sociable species having evolved over millions of years to thrive best in extended family groups or tribes. So I would say that those who crave extended solitude are those with the problem.
Equally though we are not locusts or wildebeests. Living in vast agglomerations is very stressful. We have bred ourselves into such numbers that crime, social unrest and mental illness are now the norm.
Shopping centres, concerts, football matches and so on are, in my opinion, the spawn of Satan ?.

On a separate note those who read the Sunday Times will have seen an article relating to this island and also quoting me. I’d rather it was not so but even tribes sometimes have issues! ☹️.
 
Hen-Gen said:
On a separate note those who read the Sunday Times will have seen an article relating to this island and also quoting me. I’d rather it was not so but even tribes sometimes have issues! ☹️.
Click to expand...

This sounds interesting. Could you possibly post a link, or copy and paste if there’s a paywall?
 
I eventually got my Endangered Species letter from our doctors surgery this week, on account of my underlying COPD. It says I am not supposed to leave my home for any reason; keep 2 metres away from any others in my household and sleep in a separate bed; use a separate bathroom if possible and clean it after every use; (I agree it’s a good idea to clean the bath, must try to remember to do that sometime) avoid using the kitchen when others are present, take my meals back to a separate room if possible, and ensure the kitchen utensils are cleaned thoroughly. A bit late, 8 weeks into lockdown, to tell me all this, but I learned that each medical practice had to go through all their patients to identify those who needed shielding and that must have taken a while on top of everything else.
Also on Friday, when we got back from the forbidden dog walk, we found a big box on the doorstep containing ‘Emergency Food Supplies for one week.’ A large sliced pre-frozen white cotton wool loaf, tin tomatoes, tin baked beans, cornflakes, 2 boxes long life milk, powdered coffee, teabags, a toilet roll ... not really my sort of Emergency Food, no fresh fruit or veg at all, though I suppose after 8 weeks of lockdown I might have been getting a bit hungry. I didn’t investigate fully to the lower levels of the box but rang the community service number and someone picked it up and took it to the food bank. I already had a phone call from a nice young man from the NHS enquiring about my needs and I said I was able to get online food orders and prescriptions, and also had some wonderful neighbours to help if needed, so I wouldn’t need food parcels. I’ve tried to turn off the parcels on my application form on the website but there is nowhere where it asks whether you want food parcels, yes or no, and apparently others have said they just keep coming! And every day now I get a long text each morning from the NHS with helpful hints about how to manage ‘for the next few weeks.” It says ‘this text is from an automated mailbox so do not reply. You can turn off these texts by texting STOP. Only problem is that the STOP text won’t send!
And I only registered in the first place to get preferential slots for online delivery!

Fir months I’ve been on a very long waiting list for a CAT scan and lung function tests at our local hospital, and actually had a date in March, which of course was cancelled. Then last week they rang me up, said they had a cancellation and would I like to come in next day for my scan and tests? As Covid levels are said to be high in Basingstoke, and a friend who had to attend for something else said none of the nursing staff at his clinic were wearing ppe of any kind, I said I was feeling much better than I had been last winter when I was first referred, and I was sure lots of other people needed their help more than I do at present. So she said she’d ring again ‘perhaps in August’ to see how I felt then. The real reason, apart from nervousness about breaking lockdown and attending a centre where Covid was certainly present, for a non- emergency reason, was that I was in the middle of re-laying some slabs in the garden and wanted to get the job finished. Still not sure if this was the right decision, though, as these tests are very hard to come by and I should probably have them, even though I’m feeling very well ATM. What do you think?
 
Well, if I have read this right, at the moment you don't have the luxury of choice, as it is up to the hospital when they contact you? If they rang in August then things might be a lot better then and you might feel more reassured. If it is the case, however, that you could call to be put back on a waiting list for cancellations, then personally that is what I would do because I would prefer to know the state of my health, and if there is anything I/they could do to preserve it, rather than not. And it may still be a long time before you are contacted again so you won't have to make any hard choices. Although I do understand the school of thought which says its not worth the risk, and if the scan news is not good, then you might not be any better off anyway.

I would also ask/try to find out about ppe and whichever clinic/ward you would be going to, so that you had first hand info rather than relying on what might be out of date info from a friend. I know Basingstoke was a hotspot, is it still? My understanding is that in general Covid-19 patients are kept away from non-covid patients. I also know that in some areas private hospitals/clinics are carrying out non-Covid work, so there is physical distancing in that way as well.
 
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