22 Foxhole East

XSpender

f0xh0les said:

But not being able to go out, and get the food for my family is starting to get to me.  That is my job. Making sure everyone has everything they want and need.   

This is how I feel too   Along with feeling anxious about how to educate/provide childcare for a 9 year old without him being completely isolated and work full time from home too! 

Your DH sounds really poorly and I hope you can get him some extra help today.

f0xh0les

Apparently he is fine.  He is feeling a lot better today.  I am the whiney mess. Stop going on about it.

I am annoyed my kids are just accepting this, not asking any questions, and embracing the idea of being online and chatting to their mates and sleeping.  That and I found DS4 drinking a full half pint of milk after his breakfast cereal this morning, after me telling them yesterday when it is gone that is it until Tuesday at the earliest. We have 4 litres left.

DH has plans for Monday - he is going in, clearing the books he needs from his office and rescuing his plants.  The building is open for 2 hours for peoples to grab their stuff and leave.  So he is taking his wheelie suitcase, driving up and doing an office ramraid and leaving. He has not left the house since getting his his meeting on Friday week, I think.  Still, he has to go in and get his stuff or he will end up buying more copies of books he already has, that he can't get to. 

And suddenly my disaster default has been taken away -  you know the one, if everything totally goes t1ts up, at least I could go and get drunk (not had to be used for 25 years) but still it was nice to know it was possible.

greenbee

One of my friends is running homeschool 7 days a week instead of the 5 days for normal school (given that it will be fewer hours a day). Her kids are going to be thrilled to go back to work.
As I can't go out (still have a temperature), I'm relying on deliveries (which are currently unreliable) and so am having to ration my fresh food carefully. Can you put a note on the fridge door with the meal plan and what is available for snacks/drinks each day outside meals? Or maybe ban snacks until things are back to normal? It isn't as if you don't feed them properly... You may need to put a lock on the fridge and larder. Or a webcam... 

f0xh0les

Oddly, all snacking has stopped.  They are just eating twice as much at mealtime

Cornish_mum

Hope DH is really on the mend.  I have had a couple of chest infections and they can be nasty. 

Sorry to hi jack your thread but I wanted to update and say thank you for your very nice response yesterday. Garden centre cafe is hoping to get fresh food to us on Monday. They have turned their restaurant and garden supplies delivery business into home food supply business in a couple of days; incredibly impressed by this. 

DH and I are eating from the store cupboard/freezer and leaving all fresh food for the kids.  We just had store cupboard veggie (canned tomato, spinach and chickpea) curry it was very tasty. kids had fresh veg (from lovely neighbour), rice and last of frozen fish from freezer. 

greenbee

I've just tried to sort out my online delivery, and the delivery slot has vanished. None available. Or click and collect. As I'm self-isolating, with both a cough and a fever, this could be a problem. Thankfully I have enough food, deliveries from the milkman (who has no veg available) and a veg box (which is now very limited with no extras available), one full freezer and one half-full freezer. But I stock everything based on being here less than 50% of the time. While it just means that I'm going to need to be a little more creative (I've located my sprouting jars and ordered some seeds) and maybe lower my veg intake (I LOVE veg, eat very little fruit and prefer to eat low-carb so I need to be careful I don't end up dropping my calorie intake too much), some people are going to be really stuck. 
I have a freezer full of lovely sourdough bread which I have the odd slice of but usually keep for visitor. Plenty of meat and fish and cheese. Not enough frozen veg (don't usually use it). Lots of alcohol if it all gets too much... 

f0xh0les

Glad you are sorted for next week CM

We are all just making it up and going along with it the best we can.  It really does not seem real.  The schools shutting down have rammed it home.  I think the law states that kids are expected to have 14 hours of education a week - so  2 hours a day - school really is a babysitting service in this country.

XSpender - For my 10 year old (yr 5) the school has sent them home with an home learning pack of an exercise book, a pack of Maths questions and an English  comprehension book for KS2.  The teacher is going to ask them to do certain tasks each day, via the class page of the school website.  He wants to hear back from the kids at least weekly via email, with photos of their work. 

Have your school done anything similar CM?  Ours have been pretty rubbish about telling people about it, but I have found it out via the 'letters sent home' link - which he did not get as he was isolating -  and his class page.   Dectective f0xh0les and the case of the missing education.   Just think of the amount of flack you would have got if you had taken your child out of school for 5 months! 

Anyway, English, Maths and Science is pretty much it for year 4/5/6.   How about letter writing if they have grandparents, telling them about their new homeschool and what they are up to?  DS4 is delighted to not have to sing at school.  He loves to sing and dance, but hates the love songs the school makes them sing. He prefers Rock (not in German - too angry). So we have been rocking out to Kerrang!! radio on the telly ( Channel 717) all day.  We may be imprisoned, but we can still have fun!

I have baking supplies, paints, glue, pens and pencils - my kind of science and art.

How and why bread rises - how yeast works, why cakes rise, making a fruited soda bread is much more tempting than a bicarb volcano for the 8th time.  Plus it is life skills - like clearing up the mess when you bake.  Then you get to eat it.  The language of recipes is the imperative - do this! fold that! rub the other!   Jelly is fab - solid/liquid status change science ( like cake mix).  Jam is science, solid, liquid, solid - how heat changes chemical bonds.  You can make their learning so much more fun as a 1:1 tutorial than in the classroom. Sorry, but it is true.  Maybe they would like to keep a plague diary about what they are doing.   Sneaky way to get them to write stuff down.  Like using fountain pens - keeping it neat and tidy.

For outside I have their bikes, they cant possibly chat to anyone or get too close to people  if I take them out at 7am or earlier - the clocks go forward next Sunday - and  it is to be dry all week here.

The thing that is worrying me, is that I have not gone out and panic bought, but in the next 10 days I am going to need to go out and get our normal, regular monthly shop.  So I am going to have to do a weekly shop instead. Which means I am going to have to do top up shops. Which is really flippin' annoying.

kerri_gt

For those struggling with fresh fruit / veg are you on 'Next Door'? Perhaps you could put an ask or even a swap out 'will swap tin of X for a couple of courgettes ' etc. Or see if anyone has excess frozen from allotments. 
Lots of local places such as restaurants or local farms are offering delivery services now too, have a look on local FB groups. I guess they're trying to make some income any way they can, plus offload foods that would otherwise perish.

F0xh0les, glad DH is feeling better.
I popped out to get milk today (hasten to add there really was no shortage) and was amazed to see how many people were out and about on bikes, walking, running (all at safe social distances natch) It was lovely to see and i do hope it will continue after all this is over.

Grogged

Just delurking (sounds so star trek) to say our local shops have fresh stock. Anything prepared is virtually sold out, but if you cook, it's there. Sadly it seems worse if you just reheat/defrost stuff 😞
Keep safe.

greenbee

Apparently our shops have no F&V, but then as I can't go out, I can't actually substantiate it. I do however, know I'm struggling to buy 'ingredients' online.