The Lemon Fool

I wonder how people are coping after 2/3 days confined to our houses, particularly those living alone (like me)? Some day there will surely be a study of this on people and how they are reacting to it. I live alone in a decent sized house with about 1/3 of an acre garden I guess. In addition to being on my own I obviously cannot see my family so it is potentially not that easy. I am not much of a joiner. I am retired but am not one of those who wonder how they were ever able to work, being busier now than when they were working. I have always thought that that was a bit artificial, joining probus, lunch and walking groups and for women, sewing groups and so on. I attend one or two evening lectures but otherwise enjoy walking on my own and my garden as well as reading books. I watch hardly any TV, only the news once a day. Until now, I have always seen myself as not very good on my own. I would much prefer to have a partner but I seem so far to be coping well enough. I know it is early days and if this goes on for weeks on end it might be quite different.

I find in the limited experience so far that those who have been so busy are now the ones who are lost and watch daytime TV and then get depressed. They do not know what to do with themselves when in this situation, whether or not they have a partner. They seem to be the ones needing help, my sister being a case in point. I find myself advising her how to cope even although she has a live in husband and they are probably not short of money.

How is everyone managing?

Dod

I've never felt busier! We have had an influx of people running for the sanctuary of Winchester (I think they got confused by Shaun of the dead).*
Daughter lost hospitality job and flat in London. Son felt it best to move out of London where he shared a house with four other people who are still going out to work while he is working from home. He has brought back his Danish girlfriend who has lost both of her zero hours jobs and is getting no relief! She has spent the whole of the last three days trying unsuccessfully to claim UB.

So my days are spent cooking shopping and looking after various people in our house of six. walking the dog and trying to keep up to date with the covid situation with regard to our own business.

Good luck out there.

I think we may end up being relatively lucky this time but should use this as awake up call.

John
*https://www.shmoop.com/quotes/have-a-nice-cold-pint-wait-for-this-to-blow-over.html

not enough hours in the day .

gardening - lucky to have an acre to keep wife and i full time .

shares - struggling to make sense and avoid mistakes.

shopping - struggling to juggle our weekly asda home delivery on line .

keeping in touch with few friends and relatives by whatsapp .

facebook - sharing posts that spread the vital personal distancing message.

walk about a mile - very rural - never see anyone - otherwise not going anywhere .

we are 80 ish , quite fit and well , so very lucky indeed.

Rather than try to put my current situation into words, I thought this accurate depiction might resonate much more appropriately...

https://i.redd.it/0cams9e3jto41.gif

Good luck everyone....



Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Itsallaguess wrote:Rather than try to put my current situation into words, I thought this accurate depiction might resonate much more appropriately...

https://i.redd.it/0cams9e3jto41.gif

Good luck everyone....



Cheers,

Itsallaguess

========================

Itsallaguess wrote:Rather than try to put my current situation into words, I thought this accurate depiction might resonate much more appropriately...

I'm not sure he's quite getting the massage.

I don't know about anybody else, but I'm wandering around in what you might call a state of shock.

I'm mostly retired, and I'm only freelancing for a couple of days a month (a secure gig). So you'd have thought I'd have got the hang of having all this time on my hands by now? But somehow it all feels very weird. Not seeing friends, not knowing when (or indeed whether) the food deliveries will arrive, not hearing the traffic in the distance, not even seeing so many dog-walkers as usual on the track outside our house. And the last time we had so few Heathrow-bound planes going overhead was when the Icelandic volcano shut it all down.

My wife and I are fortunate to have a big enough house, so we have enough space not to be bumping into each other, except in the garden where we're getting on with a lot of digging/building/redesigning projects that we've both been planning for years. I also have a stack of things on my to-do list, such as getting my paints and easel out, or picking up my cello. But as long as I'm listening out for the news seven times a day, it's quite hard to attain the necessary degree of quiet concentration to do those things.

Dammit, it's so quiet out there.

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:
I don't know about anybody else, but I'm wandering around in what you might call....

Given the thread title, I did wonder where that was going for a minute there....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Is it my imagination, or does the air look clearer and smell fresher than even last week?

Or is it just a climatic phenomenon and hence wishful thinking on my part?

Watis

Dod101 wrote:
How is everyone managing?

Dod

I'm very happy that the weather has picked up here. I've been spending a lot of time in the garden, I'm going to have a very tidy garden this year.
Apart from that and the usual chores I have the Internet. if I can't find something of interest there then things have come to a pretty pass.

RC

I work from home 3 days a week normally -so now 5 !
I never thought I'd say this but I'm missing the office. Not as much as I'm missing the pub though..
Being an introvert who lives alone you may think I'm used to it, but I really appreciate the social stuff from time to time - a few beers, or even catching up with my team in the office.
I'm in touch with my mum- mainly phone and email, and my sister on WhatsApp. She's a teacher in the Middle East, and where she lives they are totally locked down so she's stuck in her villa near the coast with her large family of cats (all rescued from the streets)

Lovely weather though so I've been sat in my front garden > 6ft from the hedge, getting some Vitamin D when I should be spreadsheet mangling. Nice to have less traffic and fewer aircraft, and the air does seem better - but that may be down to Spring and the weather. A butterfly came and sat on my boot yesterday outside and happily sat there whilst I stared at it , appreciating its delicate beauty and wondering how many calories it contained ...

I am very glad I don't live in a flat in London (or Slough) these days

The nice weather has allowed my wife and I to get out in the garden. It was very wet here over winter and the soil was waterlogged so we've barely ventured out since last December. Things are a mess with lots of weeds that need removing to tidy the borders. We are ignoring that and preparing to create areas where we can plant veg and salad crops to reduce the need to go shopping..

I think delivery slots will be very difficult to obtain from now on and I want to reduce shopping trips to a very brief visit as rarely as we can manage.

It's all going to be about crop production until this crisis passes. Any ordinary gardening will have to wait. Larger structural projects in the garden will slip further down the list.

The lock down isn't a problem really but I miss the visit to the pub on Saturday night and seeing the neighbours for a chat over the fence.

I'd normally be out in the woods doing conservation work, so now I'm blitzing the garden, it will look amazing. I'm finding it hard to concentrate indoors, all too tempting to read the rolling news feeds, but I'm making good progress editing my wikis.

I'm resident in a different UK country to my partner, and we're quite some distance (hours) apart. Normally, we each spend a decent chunk of the time at the other's house; our dog lives roughly half his life at one gaff, half at the other.

Our lifestyle means we're both well accustomed to regularly not seeing each other for a chunk of time, but this is usually measured in a handful of days up to, and unusually, a couple of weeks maximum. A few months apart would very much be a new one. The upside is I've not got the dog; the downside is also that I've not got the dog!

There was a R4 piece a few days ago (think it was Woman's Hour Tuesday) where a guest discussed using electronic communication to replace normal face-to-face talking, quoting research illustrating the ascending hierarchy of Text < Voice Calls < Video Calls in terms of the benefits to be had, with Video Calls showing the same effects (psychological benefits) as fact-to-face talking.

So we've started using Google Duo once or twice a day, which we'd never really done previously, and early evidence is that it's a lot more engaging, feels "in the moment" and a lot more beneficial than regular phone chats. Surprisingly so really. But maybe that's because often on the phone chats I'm doing something else at the same time, such as typing on a keyboard, or watching a film etc, and don't really have much notion of what she's been telling me

Plus, with video, I get to see our sun-worshipping dog lounging around in said sunshine, which always brings a smile, while confusing the hell out of him by barking out some commands that leave him bewildered as to what the hell's going on.

07:30 set out on my morning walk, calling at the paper shop to collect my papers. Back home by 08:30 and have the second half of breakfast (Tea, toast and marmalade). Then a swift bit of computing on my mobile phone, before doing some gardening and probably look at the paper. Lunch, watch a bit of TV, and once Countdown has finished back outside for any small jobs. Orchid patrol at the moment, as the wild orchids can pop up anywhere and I put canes in the lawn to mark their position. Chat with neighbours over the fence at a safe distance.

Saturday morning go to Tesco and do the weekly shop. It was quiet last week, and Mrs TJH dropped in on Wednesday afternoon to find it almost deserted.

When all else fails, read some magazines, watch recorded TV, call distant relations for a chat, have a snooze, have another snooze, then re-watch the TV that you slept through. Back to the computer about 5pm to get the closing prices and sort things out. Feed the birds. Sweep the drive - it's amazing how much falls on it.

Have another snooze.

TJH