We are ‘coping’ . The garden has been a great bonus ,as has the weather which ,until a couple of days ago, has been just amazing. Our proximity to a large park has been beneficial and Ive managed to walk quite a bit locally, sometimes with husband and soMe times alone. Last week saw me walking with a friend in North Yorkshire and we repeated the same walk with a couple from Darlington today. Despite rain this week we are happy because everywhere is desperate for rain. We FaceTime he families, do FaceTime drinks with friends in the evenings, telephone siblings and try to keep in touch with friends on their own. We are eating well,too well probably! Goodness knows what is going to happen now things are being relaxed. There’s a lot of criticism of the government particularly from the media, about acting toO slowly,being unprepared etc etc. No doubt everything will come out in the end but I think it’s more than likely that our strong Public Health Service had been depleted of staff, funding and more ,so we didn’t have much option regarding the traditional track and trace methods. All will be revealed. Meantime I should think it’s highly likely that my daughter and family will remain in Australia . They were supposed to be deciding in June but how can they possibly move now? All holidays have been cancelled. Highly unlikely that we will even be allowed to go to our timeshare accommodation near Inverness in three weeks time to fish. I have a trip booked to St Petersburg in mid September. I’m not rushing to get my visa!
& his wife, a retired GP, on 5/6/2020
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I had a nice long video chat with a cousin in Jo'burg, South Africa : he is continuing to work from home and they are managing alright. He reports that the Covid case numbers there are remarkably low because of stringent lockdown measures. I find this very surprising given the density of the people in the townships, but well done nevertheless. He said that his daughter was now at Pretoria university and he recently went to pick her up. During the journey he was stopped a couple of times by the police in road blocks."
then 4 weeks later
Last Thursday was the final clapping for NHS heroes night so we wait to see what will replace it, somebody is bound to think up a new routine. The month of May was declared to be one of the driest on record after the wettest February, weird times.
- reports from a relative in Surrey 1/5/2020 & 1/6/2020
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We are lucky to live in a lovely village on the edge of the Somerset levels, below Ham Hill, part of a range of hills in our area.
We live in a square, in a house part of three in a row, with amazing neighbours. We know all of them, some better than others and we have been blessed by offers of help re shopping etc. Our community shop delivers each week and stocks all the basic groceres plus newspapers and a few magazines. We have a fruit and veg shop and a butcher in a neighbouring village three miles away, who deliver each week. And if you're lucky you can get a slot in Tesco, one of the supermarkets in the town near us. I have been lucky to get three so far. So, extremely well looked after. It was difficult at first having to work out what food we needed from each shop, as one is used to just going into one large shop to buy everything!
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Online Delivery slots were like gold dust for at least a month into Lockdown
Because our village is very quiet we feel perfectly safe going for walks about three times a week. Everyone says hallo, I even had a greeting from a passing cyclist, many young people cycle through each day for their daily exercise.
Spring has been wonderful here, flowering trees galore, and with dilegent watering the very small garden we have has managed to cope with the drought we have had for about the last six weeks. Odd to pray for rain here but it does happen.
Our churches are all closed but our church in Yeovil does a service online and our son who runs a church in north London does the same. We can actually get any church in the country virtually, as they are all either on You Tube or Facebook. I am on Facebook at the moment so that I can see my son and keep in touch with the grandchildren.
Our daughter lives in Surrey, her husband who is an independent builder has had to stop work temporarily and our son who lives in Sweden, in Stockholm seems to be carrying on as normal, except for some social distancing. They did very well to start with we gather but cases of the virus are building now. Our 25 year grandson there has probably had a mild version of the virus for a day or two, and our daughter-in-law in London the same. Our son and his family have a lovely boat so can go out in the archipelago when they like and cruise round the islands. It is a really beautiful place and we had thirty years of holidays with them staying on an island and going everywhere in a small boat for shopping etc. Sadly as my husband is now 89 this year he can no longer cope with flying and airports so that has stopped. We normally live a very quiet life due to his age: no long distance driving so the children and grandchildren have to come to us when they can; no weekends away, so things are much the same as usual.
We keep in touch with friends by phone or emails and are really looking forward to being able to go back to our church and seeing all our friends there as it is a big part of our life. We are praying for this situation to be overcome very soon.
a friend with whom I used to play social bridge around 1990 - now living near Yeovil 1/6/2020
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Lockdown beside the sea in Sussex
Boris has confused everyone with our way forward. People should go back to work, but most children aren’t at school, so the parents don’t have childcare and so on. I would rather stay as we are at the moment while the number of cases is slowly going down. I do want to go home, but we have settled into a peaceful life here, with the occasional excitement like last week’s VE Day street party. David was right not to be impressed by Prof. Ferguson. Look what a mess he got himself into!
Street party for V E Day in a Sussex Village . . . . . . Our Silverseas friends 'locked' outside their house there |
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Then 7 weeks later
Then 4 weeks later:
Feel free to post any of this on your website if you feel it's appropriate or of interest, including photos
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A Silverseas friend and social bridge player, 15/3/2020, 3/5/2020 and 2/6/2020
Lockdown in Bedfordsbire
Mike & Val Lawson locked down in Maulden, Bedfordshire
We are both well, thanks, and playing some online bridge. I’ve never played online before, but its good to be able to do it while we are spending so much more time at home. Interested to see your blog and where everyone is locked down. I wouldn’t mind being locked down in Peru as I’d like to do some more travelling in South America. But on second thoughts it is better to be locked down where you mainly live and where your family and relatives live. My youngest son regularly comes round with his children and we walk down to the park (keeping social distancing of course). And we have had excellent summer weather since mid-April which makes lockdown a lot more bearable. A common sight these days is to see a group of people standing in front of a house talking to their family or friends through the window or front door as they can’t go inside. And because so many people are working from home they have more time to do odd jobs like car-washing and gardening. So lots of clean cars and tidy gardens around! M L 21/5/2020
His grandchildren with Val - before lockdown! Mike winning the Triples at Maulden Bowls Club . His local church, St Mary's
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News from Essex, my natal county
I was made aware of the work done into the effects of Covid 19 on society by a genealogical contact
Institute for Social and Economic Research
University of Essex
A friendship lasting 60 years
It seems that Spain, Italy, Belgium & the UK all have very high death rates BUT have the figures all been recorded in the same way, is the age and ethnic demographic similar as these are important factors, as is obesity and being male. I rather think we are comparing different things and are all deaths from Covid-19 included- I wonder, and how about underlying health problems? It all gets rather complex.
We are mostly at home but we have lots of super walks from the door and the garden is big and lovely ( and looking very smart!) Andrew and co come round and sit miles away on the patio for the odd 15m chat about once a week, I Face time Laura every week and this Zoom thing is starting to take off and our book group are trying it next week.
I have "been" to a few NHS meetings on Microsoft Teams. They are all fairly rubbish in my view with far more interest generated by the background the person/ people is in ( eg the artfully arranged pictures, the box room look, the library look, the total mess look) and you have to concentrate FAR more than normal and try to look half decent, not to mention people's faces suddenly freezing so they look like Frankenstein. If this is the way the world is going to operate then heaven help us all!
Laura and Dave are coping well in London with big bike rides, a lot of work they can do from home and runs/walks round the local park.
a report from a schoolfriend - 2/5/2020
Still relying on the odd takeaway meal to make a change - saving a fortune!
Has it been tough, not really. We have a great garden which is looking better than it ever has, many clearance jobs that have been put off for years have been completed. The river Avon is at the bottom of the garden - the most noticeable change has been the proliferation of paddle boards and inflatable canoes, where have they all come from? No motor boats for hire in town, so peace reigns. A family of swans and four cygnets turn up every day for some food and so far have escaped the attention of foxes and the Pikes in the river. We both play golf and that is now fully available, but we have been disciplined about daily walks during its unavailability. Have been meeting friends in respective gardens for drinks (sorry Boris) with no hugging etc. Main concern is lack of seeing grandchildren, will they forget us? FaceTime ok but they, 4 & 6, say hello, pull a few funny faces and get on with whatever they were doing!! Just waiting now for the UK inbound quarantine period to be abolished, hopefully by July as there is so much pressure on the Govt
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from friends dating back to 1967 - 6/6/2020
Dominic Cummings, chief advisor to Boris, drives 260 miles to Durham at the end of March, when he and his wife are sickening with the virus- to provide childcare if needed for their 4 yr old son. Before returning drives 30 miles to Barnard Castle- to test his eyesight for the drive back to London
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No online voting for MPS- thay all queue up for > 30 minutes to vote, socially distanced, and then....//?
And once Spain, Italy and France have virtually no new cases, whereas the UK still has many, government introduce a 14 day Quarantine period for incoming passengers to last until July 1st at least? - CRAZY, goodbye tourist industry
Meanwhile the EU designate 'clean' airports in the UK
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f87311aa-a744-11ea-a585-dcb14d2bcd47 - Matthew Parris on Boris 6/6/2020
British Airways is grounding its entire fleet of Boeing 747s as the iconic double-decker aircraft rapidly disappears from skies around the world.
The airline confirmed that the jumbo jet, which first entered service 50 years ago, would be retired immediately to save money after an unprecedented collapse in passenger demand - 18/7/2020: a sad day for me, having programmed the 'Blind Landing' of the aircraft in 1970
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE 3/3/2021 - The Times
If we have learnt anything from last year, it’s that accurately predicting the future in a pandemic is impossible. As we start the new year with yet more lockdown restrictions, a new highly transmissible “mutant” strain and the closure of many schools (again), we look back on the government’s reliably inaccurate “crystal ball” predictions of the UK’s future.
March 19, 2020
Johnson uses a press conference to raise the prospect of mass testing for the coronavirus, allowing the UK to return to some form of normality by the summer. He says the next 12 weeks could “turn the tide of this disease”, and adds that it was possible to “send the coronavirus packing in this country”.
May 15
Johnson tells more than 100 backbench MPs from the 1922 committee that he wants the UK to return to “near normality” by the end of July as he seeks to relax lockdown restrictions.
July 17
The coronavirus restrictions will ease further in England under plans for a “significant return to normality” by Christmas, the prime minister announces.
September 9
A “Moonshot” testing programme, aimed at allowing everyone to test themselves for Covid-19 every morning, is going to transform our lives, the prime minister promises. He is hopeful that “we could be able to get some aspects of our lives back to normal by Christmas”.
October 31
We must “come together now to fight this second wave”, says the PM who is feeling “optimistic that this will feel very different and better by the spring”. He added that better medicines and therapies were available along with “rapid turnaround tests” that could be used to tell whether you are infectious. Concerns have since been raised that many such tests are recording a low level of reliability.
November 2
Britain is going to “defeat” the coronavirus and it will be all over “by the spring”, promises Johnson.
He says Covid-19 will be vanquished as a result of developments including drugs, testing and a vaccine. Shortly afterwards, the capital is overrun by a new, more easily transmitted strain of the virus.
December 8
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, tells MPs in the House of Commons he has “high confidence that the summer of 2021 will be a bright one” without the restrictions of last summer.
He also reveals that he has already booked a holiday for this summer for his family, in Cornwall.
December 30
Hancock declares the UK is “going to be out of this by the spring” after the approval of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
“We now know with a very high degree of confidence that we are going to be out of this by the spring,” he boldly tells LBC.