Supsliskans in lockdown: Week 2, 23-29 March 2020

Val  24 March 2020

Hello from another wonderful place to self-isolate as some of you can visualise!

Glad you are all making the most of the time, though hopefully Margaret, Anne, Lesley & Peter will be back to full strength soon.

Beautiful weather & a garden neglected through family commitments the last couple of years, plus mundane housework call.

Chris’s work obviously at a standstill with Prague, Berlin, Tbilisi & Hamburg off, but Chicago completed a couple of weeks ago……..although at 75, he should perhaps slow down a bit!!

He will be behind his computer working much of the time with a long walk a day……we are very lucky to be surrounded by fields, moorlands & the River Tees.

The huge downside, of course is the grandchildren, Victoria’s two who are 9 & 7 & Charlotte’s who is 9 months. It is Hermione whose development is going to change the most rapidly & it’s going to be especially hard for Charlotte as I have been staying there most weeks since her birth as Kieron is in the Navy.  All of them are in York.

More worrying is Roger who lives in Central London & has an IT company who need to keep all clients up & running.

Thank goodness for social media!!  Zoom has been set up today & WhatsApp is always red hot!!

We are all very fortunate to have pensions/income so are hopefully not going to suffer in that respect & also our own resources to fall back on.

Keep safe all of you! Love, Val x

PS  Islay malt excellent, Tony, but trumped by Campbeltown malt!!

Sylvia 25 March 2020

This is actually something which has happened to me over the last few days.

A Tale of Two Fridges

Last Friday my fridge started making strange noises and then decided to go into overdrive. There was obviously something wrong with the thermostat as I couldn’t reduce the temperature and some items were nearly frozen. On Saturday, I decided that I had no option but to order a new fridge. Argos seemed my best bet, but they couldn’t deliver until Tuesday.

Fortunately, I had a spare (as you do!) in that when I moved into this house nearly 13 years ago, I had been offered a washing machine and a fridge by the vendor. The washing machine went to family when theirs died, but the fridge has sat in my garage, being used only a couple of times when my other fridge was full to bursting. On Monday, I transferred everything and cleaned the broken fridge thoroughly as instructed, since I was paying to have it taken away.

THEN, everything changed because of Boris’s edict that we had to stay in and that movements would be restricted. Although I was telling myself that the new fridge would still be delivered, I spent a sleepless night worrying that it wouldn’t. I worked out how I could allow the delivery men (note men and plural, but see below) into the house and maintain the 2 metre distancing while they removed the old fridge and installed the new one. So, when the phone rang to tell me what time to expect delivery, I was mightily relieved until I was told that no one would be coming over the threshold and that if I wanted the old fridge to be taken away, I would have to get it outside.

I had about 20 minutes between that call and the delivery, but by some super-human effort, I managed it. The next thing I knew, someone was knocking on the front door. For those of you who don’t know, I have two doors at the front – one the official front door, and the other a door leading to a passageway between the house and the garage, outside which I had left the fridge. On opening that door, I realised that the fridge had gone and a young girl of about 20 in Argos uniform was approaching. She took one look at me (75 years old and now only 5ft. tall) and said “My God! How did you manage to get the fridge outside?” We laughed and I said that my main worry now was how to get the new fridge in, but she told me that it would be less of a problem since it was boxed and had straps and she would put it inside the door for me. When I said that would be fine, since the kitchen door was only a couple of feet away, she said she would enter, if I kept my distance, and put it inside the kitchen door. She reappeared with the fridge balanced on her shoulder like a sack of potatoes!! and did as she had promised. By this time, I was near to tears, I was so grateful. As she said, she was stronger than she looked, although she might have had help to remove the old fridge from the bloke, also in Argos uniform, standing with her at the back of the delivery vehicle before they left… or maybe not!

So, the new fridge is in situ and doing its thing, which is just as well, because the garage fridge is now playing up.

These little acts of kindness, while maintaining distancing as instructed, are what will see us through this stressful time.I'm well and managing to keep busy - for now!  The garden looks better than it has in a long time and the grandchildren are asking for various bits of information from my and my parents' past, which is giving me great pleasure to provide.  What'sApp is coming into its own.

Ian - by all means pass on everything to Peter, by whatever means you deem appropriate.

Stay well, everyone, Sylvia