Tales from the Lock-Down

[hatler]

"Scratter" ?  I looked that up and it says apple mulching device.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Presumably a scrumpy drinker, then.

[ian]

Things are getting awful, now without the gardeners, I was just forced to mow the lawn (one slow worm had a lucky escape, and no dear wife, I'm not mowing around each primrose).

And on Sunday, as the cleaner is also on hiatus, I had to vacuum. I quite enjoyed this, the new vacuum cleaner has little headlights so you can pretend you're driving a little car around the house.

[Feanor]

Our gardener showed up unexpectedly today!
He says he is permitted to work, so long as he's on his own.

He's been beavering away all on his lonesome for hours.

That's just as well, because the lawnmower was glowering at me from under a pile-o-crap in the garage.
I really wasn't looking forward to the full upper-body workout that getting the damn thing to start would entail.

[ian]

It took me a small age to find the battery for the lawnmower and the strimmer, then another small age to find the chargers for those batteries.

Electric lawnmowers is the bees-knees, no wires. Given it's quite old and ununsed for a while, I was a bit surprised the battery lasted for the epic session (it needed mowing about, erm, three weeks ago). I only did it because it was starting to look like my wife's hair.

I kind of wish my mouth hadn't said that though, she's getting tetchy about it. It's not like we're going out anywhere.

Our gardeners turn up mob-handed. Or at the moment, it seems, don't turn up. Not that they've told us.

[ibrahim]

Spent three weeks eating pies and getting fatter instead of cycling, gotta get back out there and cycling instead of moping and procrastinating... know the feeling?

[pdm]

Woohoo! Tesco delivery this afternoon!
A friend of ours got a serendipitous delivery slot which she shared with us to allowed a top up on low running essentials...
Quite a rigmarole involving leaving bags on the driveway and sundry other measures, but it all worked out OK.
Still no bread flour or any flour at all for that matter but I still have a couple of week's supply (just).
Here's hoping..

[Regulator]

Our new exercise bike arrives today...

[robgul]

Woohoo! Tesco delivery this afternoon!
A friend of ours got a serendipitous delivery slot which she shared with us to allowed a top up on low running essentials...
Quite a rigmarole involving leaving bags on the driveway and sundry other measures, but it all worked out OK.
Still no bread flour or any flour at all for that matter but I still have a couple of week's supply (just).
Here's hoping..

The whole flour thing is amazing with so many people presumably trying their hand at baking.   We've only bought the odd "speciality" loaf since about 2005, being now on our second Panasonic bread machine.   We managed to get a couple of the usual 1.5kg bags delivered the other day and my wife has now ordered a larger than normal bag sack direct from a mill.

Rob

[phantasmagoriana]

Spent three weeks eating pies and getting fatter instead of cycling, gotta get back out there and cycling instead of moping and procrastinating... know the feeling?

Oh yes.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

A near miss from a tennis ball on my shopping trip.

Couple had propped their bikes together as an impromptu net (in the middle of the road) and were playing tennis when I passed.  The ball just missed my head altho' I would have been fine otherwise as I was wearing a helmet. 

 

[citoyen]

The whole flour thing is amazing with so many people presumably trying their hand at baking.

I think I already mentioned this elsewhere, but apparently the problem with bread flour is that all the main producers are mainly geared up to supplying wholesale (that being by far the majority of their custom in normal times) so they don't have the machinery to produce enough bags in retail-friendly sizes to keep up with the increased demand. It's this rather than panic buying/stockpiling that are causing the empty shelves.

If you're happy to have a 25kg sack, you'll be fine. (Although my usual online supplier is completely out of stock of 16kg sacks.)

[citoyen]

Just had a notification that Infinite Jest is today's kindle deal of the day, on offer for 99p. Great - that should keep me going all the way through to the other side of lockdown, no matter how long it ends up lasting...

[hatler]

A stat I heard on the radio somewhere over the last couple of days was that only 4% of flour production in this country gets to the end user through a shop's shelving.  Clearly then we had enough flour ...

[T42]

Just had a notification that Infinite Jest is today's kindle deal of the day, on offer for 99p. Great - that should keep me going all the way through to the other side of lockdown, no matter how long it ends up lasting...

Better lay in a can of Lemon Pledge for reading in the garden.

[SteveC]

MrsC had one of those 'you are at high risk, self-isolate for 12 weeks' letters this morning, which was a bit of a shock.
More careful reading and checking other correspondence shows that this was because she used to suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, so had a compromised immune system. She has been off those drugs for years and has another letter from the local hospital to say that's she's OK, but still not what you want to read.

[citoyen]

Better lay in a can of Lemon Pledge for reading in the garden.

Will I get this reference when I've read the book?

[Wowbagger]

MrsC had one of those 'you are at high risk, self-isolate for 12 weeks' letters this morning, which was a bit of a shock.
More careful reading and checking other correspondence shows that this was because she used to suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, so had a compromised immune system. She has been off those drugs for years and has another letter from the local hospital to say that's she's OK, but still not what you want to read.

I had my letter this morning.

I found myself in a "Catch-22" in that my letter told me to stay at home for 12 weeks and only to open a window if I was feeling lucky, punk, but also that, because I'm being prescribed methotrexate, I need a blood test. My last test was on 27th December and I am supposed to have one every 3 months. So it's overdue.

I phoned the rheumatology department and, unusually, had my call answered without the need to leave a message. The woman I spoke to looked me up on the computer and said "You're relatively low risk because you are only on one immunosuppressant." I then told her that I had unilaterally decided 5 weeks ago that I would stop taking methotrexate as it seemed to me that having a fully functioning immune system might come in handy in the face of this nasty virus, and I hadn't had any arthritic pain to speak of for several years. I did mention that we are shielding my son, who is definitely high-risk, being a kidney transplant patient, and as an obese old git with hight blood pressure, I've been taking a nice quiet 10-mile rural bike ride every couple of days. She said carry on with the bike rides, so I've been out for one. Lovely out there!

[ian]

Better lay in a can of Lemon Pledge for reading in the garden.

Will I get this reference when I've read the book?

Yes. It doesn't work though.

Or so I'm told. I only read the books with the small words to avoid inadvertent learnin'

[SoreTween]

Spent three weeks eating pies and getting fatter instead of cycling, gotta get back out there and cycling instead of moping and procrastinating... know the feeling?

Very much so.
Garden is looking fantastic, which is going to be of zero help when I'm on my knees 50 into the 200 I very much want to do this year. No particular 200, it's just the distance I want to be back up to before winter.  So why the hell am I unable to motivate myself to take advantage of all the time off I have and the quiet roads?

[Redlight]

This is, in the literal sense, a tale from the lockdown...

A flash fiction* web site that I enjoy reading ran a little challenge last weekend for people to produce 500-word stream of consciousness pieces in response to Corona. I was delighted when mine was chosen for publication. If you fancy a 2 minute read, here it is (along with 9 other stories).

https://cabinetofheed.com/2020/04/08/stream-of-consciousness-drawer-two/

_{*stories of 1,000 or fewer words}

[pdm]

Phone call from Crapita this morning. Had a nice conversation with the lady at the other end about what a <insert appropriate expletive here> time it was and what it was like to work for Crapita and under the HSE and GMC - a meeting of minds.
Then did some questions and answers and tried to decide how to fit proper answers into tickboxes and still produce a meaningful result!
Asked to see passport (British passport) and then asked to prove right to work in the UK. Eeeerm, just shown you a valid UK passport with no restrictions....?
Asked to sign and email a letter to state that I was honest - discussed how on earth a self declaration of honesty could possibly hold water.
I wonder if I will be dragged off as cannon fodder...
At least they won't dock my pension if  do go back to work.]
There is, however, a thinly veiled threat in the letter from the GMC that despite any extenuating circumstances, they will prosecute if they think you aren't perfect.

[barakta]

This is, in the literal sense, a tale from the lockdown...

A flash fiction* web site that I enjoy reading ran a little challenge last weekend for people to produce 500-word stream of consciousness pieces in response to Corona. I was delighted when mine was chosen for publication. If you fancy a 2 minute read, here it is (along with 9 other stories).

https://cabinetofheed.com/2020/04/08/stream-of-consciousness-drawer-two/

_{*stories of 1,000 or fewer words}

Very good! My stepdad has been growing a beard, I commented on this on his FB last night. He won't see the funny side if I send this to him, but I may send it to my mum *grin*.

[Efrogwr]

E Minor is a member of a circus group that, among other things, gives organised lessons for kids. As they are unable to work live, they made a video for Bangor University's arts centre.

[phantasmagoriana]

So why the hell am I unable to motivate myself to take advantage of all the time off I have and the quiet roads?

This. On the plus side, I'm finally getting round to doing some bits of painting that have needed doing for ages...