Supsliskans in lock-down. Week 11. 25-31 May

Sue 28 May 2020

Loved the tee-shirt, Val; your retired chemistry teacher was mntioned n our local paper - The Christchurch Press!

And loved the paintings, especially the flowers, around the poem, Angela. Belated Happy Birthday, Jane! Very best wishes with your move home, Margaret, not long now.

So what's happening out in the Colonies?

We are at Alert Level 2 still, and perhaps for another month. But the specifics of level two are being loosened, so, for eg "gatherings" can be more extensive. Bars have reopened but with waitress service; hard to see how the distancing will be enforced as the evenings wear on. Schools have gone back, but, with "distancing" on both school and ordinary buses meaning fewer passengers per bus, kids are getting left behind at bus-stops, at both ends of the day, so there's a fair amount of anxiety amongst parents, especially those with younger children, and there are a lot of grannies having to regard themselves as being "on call".   A great excuse for truancy, I would have thought!

As for us, we've been able to get to the local public libraries  - which are being cautious as to numbers in the space at any one time, and have the hand sanitiser at the ready!

I can't say I enjoyed our first trip to a local shopping mall, even though it was infinitely less busy than it used to be.   And I would doubt if the shops would have covered wages with the small number of shoppers.   (Shopping malls survived the Christchurch earthquake better than the more open central city shopping areas, so have become dominant.)    It hadn't occurred to me that the long closures of non-essential shops meant that they are in catch up mode with respect to ordering new stock, so the choice of, say, replacement toasters isn't great.   But that's a minor inconvenience, and a small price to pay for our low number of cases. I definitely felt like the country mouse in the fable as we drove home! I can see it taking me a long time to feel at ease when surrounded by those I don't know.

Like the UK, we have had a swap of leader of the opposition; the National Party had been falling in the polls, and I think they see the new - comparatively unknown - leader as being better at challenging the coalition government on the economic front as the weeks go by. Meanwhile your Keir Starmer  seems to talk a lot of sense - but I guess that's easier to do when you are in opposition.

Leaf-raking is still the theme as far as gardening is concerned; at least the colours are pretty...

I now have my very first Smartphone, so I'm on a steep learning curve...  It can't be that hard, I keep telling myself, but it does seem to be...   Even managed a "pensioners special" as far as ongoing costs are concerned...

Take care. Love, Sue

Margaret 28 May

I wonder if the T shirts have caught on.!

I watched Boris yesterday and thought it a total defense of his aide against all the odds. A friend of mine who passes on gossip from high places says Boris can't afford to fall out with Dominic because the latter knows something about him. I wonder what that might be !  Politics. Not really my scene but the do enliven my daily reading of the Times. When I have had enough of them I tackle Sudoku. Usually that means the Difficult one and I can manage that most days. Today there  isn't a difficult one so it's a choice between Mild or Fiendish - depends whether or not I want a challenge!

Well, I told you I  was planning to go home on Monday. It's been postponed to June 8 but I don't know why. Matron told me she had bad news for me but didn,t explain the reason. It's something to do with Belinda, the Occupational therapist who has suddenly gone on leave this week.

Penny came on Sunday and went to my home where she did a really good job of tidying, moving things etc in preparation for my going home. She then came here and was allowed to sit outside my room with the door open and wear a face mask so we could talk. She produced a photo of my rooms so I could see what a good job she had done!

The good news is that I have tested negative for the virus. The care agency who are providing a carer when I go home had requested it. Not pleasant - 2 nurses arrived with swabs one putting it down my throat and twisting it around and the other up my nose.

The physios are providing me with exercises but are not allowed in my room to demonstrate them. The latest has been a pair of weights which I have hold as I stretch up to strengthen my arms and upper body. Some form of self-defence?

I think that's about it. Love from Margaret

Sylvia 28 May 2020

So sorry to hear that your "release" has been postponed.  I was looking forward to ringing you at home!  You must be feeling particularly frustrated given the lovely weather, when at home you could get into your garden.  Good news that you've tested negative for Covid, though.  At least, unlike most of the rest of us, you know you haven't got it/aren't carrying it.

It's been too hot for me to go for a walk over the last couple of days, and although I have an awning on my patio, it's electrically operated and there are sparrows nesting under it, so I can't use it without the noise of the mechanism scaring them off.  The patio is south facing and is a sun trap, so I'm sitting in the French doorway looking out and trying to keep still enough for the sparrows to be able to ignore me.  It's lovely to watch them though.

Lucky you, Jane and Lesley, to be able to meet other groups, as announced today.  I'm longing to meet up with the family, although talking to another friend on the phone yesterday, she said it wasn't the meeting (with just one other) but the parting again which was very emotional.  I guess that being prepared for that might help.

Your comment about Boris is something which hadn't occurred to me, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were true.  Something less sinister, but equally plausible is simply that Boris can't manage without DC.  (John Crace in the Guardian refers to DC as the true PM and Boris as his sidekick!) 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, Margaret that "D-Day" (discharge day) has only been postponed for a week and that June 8th will be THE DAY!

Sue, I remember being in Christchurch in 2014 and being in awe of the makeshift shopping malls in the city centre created out of beautifully decorated shipping containers.  Are they still there?

Love to all and stay well, Sylvia

Roger 28 May 2020

I am something of a gatecrasher here: Liz is our librarian. A couple of days ago our son Trevor sent this, "It turns out that Stay Alert was mainly because they knew there was a partially-sighted mad man driving up and down the A1."

Cheers,    Roger Gawley

Sylvia 28 May 2020

That’s brilliant, Roger, and well worth passing on.
Forgot to add in my previous email that I’m reduced to cleaning windows to help fill my day and have discovered that they weren’t boarded up after all! (Old “Take it from here” joke.)

Sylvia

Val 28 May 2020

Yes, indeed, Roger!

Well, DC has certainly succeeded in putting Barnard Castle on the map!  Our three say they will never again have to explain where they come from & Roger has been breaking the ice on conference calls with “Guess who my Chemistry teacher was” this week!!

We have a fake blue plaque up the town apparently & lots of “Have you seen (!!) this man” pictures posted up. Not, of course that we have seen any of the apparent press scrum or the posters! The jokes, cartoons, & YouTube spoofs are legion particularly to do with eyesight! Just hoping it will give a boost to tourism here, but not so we are overrun.

So sorry your release has been put back further, Margaret, & fingers crossed for good news from you after the 8^th. You will be so frustrated, but good news you have tested negative.

We too remember the containers in the centre of Christchurch in 2012, Sue,  we were there for the 1^st anniversary of the earthquake & the whole extremely large areas of the CBD cordoned off as dangerous or in the process of demolition seemed so sad.   I think it was the scale of the damage & also how seemingly sturdy buildings had been condemned with unseen damage. What was particularly unnerving was when the pavement had a little wobble under us. I do hope regeneration has proceeded apace since then.

We are desperately hoping for some easing of the rules so we can go down to Linton upon Ouse for Hermione’s first birthday & with the others all able to come too as we are one family group essentially. We would number 12, but a baby & two little girls would make us count as a bubble of 10 surely???!

Glad you are all keeping well. Love, Val

Angela 31 May 2020

Hello Everyone

It has been very interesting  to hear from  Val and Jane being 'in the know' about Barnard Castle and the early life of DC! I loved the Tee shirt Val. The only  Covid related Tee Shirt I can offer is one of the now famous goats who invaded the streets  of Llandudno early on in Lock-down - see photo. A local hospice, based in Abbey Road, Llandudno has referenced the Beatles Abbey Road Album cover with their  'goat' version to raise much needed funds! The news pictures of Llandudno at the time showed the house next door to where I was brought up which made me quite nostalgic!

  

It was lovely to have a chat this morning Margaret. Everyone is keeping fingers crossed for your 'release' on June 8th. You sounded remarkably cheerful considering the sudden, disappointing change of plans. Hopefully you will get a few more trips to the garden this week too.    

I was fascinated to hear of your 'virtual baby sit' Val - what a brilliant idea. I hope you and Sylvia do get to see your families soon. We find that one of the hardest things about lock-down, and don't know when we will next see ours as they are in London. Still we are fortunate not to have family overseas.  Internet continues to help a lot though and we played 'Zoom Bingo' with Heather, Nick and Freya recently which worked very well. They have been very undecided about sending Freya back to school, she is in Year one. As Freya's school isn't opening for another couple of weeks and she seems quite keen, they have finally decided to give it a go. It is just 4 days a week and they feel that leaving it until September is a very big gap both educationally and socially. They do realise though that they will have to prepare her for school being very different from how things were before 

As with many other SUPSLISKANS, we continue to spend lots of time in the garden and have finally completed clearing out  our garden sheds which hadn't been touched for 10 years! We now need the local dump to open to get rid of the rubbish!  We spend ages watering as there has been no rain here for weeks. Hopefully it will be a while before a hosepipe ban comes in.  Anne's online choir online sounded really excellent. It does cheer you up to see a group effort and I am  getting quite hooked on my online fitness sessions as the teacher sees who is logged in and has little chats with us. I wish all the activity was reflected in diminishing inches, but I keep going in hopes!

We have been on quite a few 'socially distanced' walks with friends and recently have had a few pop into the garden for distanced cups of tea. I do agree with Sue that after all this time in lock-down, being in contact with numbers of people takes some getting used to. I felt quite tired after our short bursts of entertaining! We also have found that now we seem to be able to get a supermarket slot more easily, we are going to the shops a lot less than at  the beginning of lock-down, apart from a few excursions to some of the little local shops for odds and bits. So many established patterns of living are already being permanently changed.   It will be interesting to see how the latest relaxation of the lock-down goes. The beach scenes in  Dorset recently  were quite frightening. We have definitely noticed considerably increased traffic and numbers of people in Cley in the last week or so, along the coast road, especially motor bikes,  and on the beach  

  

The garden wildlife is always interesting. The Muntjac deer are very pretty, but always go for flowers about to bloom. My temporary set up of bamboo poles and charity bags have kept the deer off my gladioli from the Scillies but the recent strong winds wrecked lots of the irises. They are now all standing to attention wired up to poles! Our resident Red Legged Partridges always seem very busy and look immaculate, even after a vigorous dust bath.

Well, it is so good to hear how everyone is coping in different parts of the country and of the world. Keep the news coming. Keep safe and well. Love, Angela