22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

Oooh I am so flippin' LIVID right now!.   Just back  from volunteering,  there is a rota, there is social distancing, but they keep on inviting new volunteers in - and you cannot keep 2m away with 3 people in one area, it is impossible, so I went upstairs, where another 2 people joined in, and it was pretty impossible but we tried our best, then, after an hour and a half, the silly cow turns round and says she will stand back for the last 10 minutes as she is aware we are not 2m apart, and she thinks she might be coming down with .........a..... cold..... or ..... something......honestly!!  Then they have the nerve to call God Bless as they head out the door.  

I mean really??? What is the matter with some people?  If I should die, I am coming back and haunting the daft wazzock forever - she will spend a fortune getting replacement car keys,  and I will keep leaving her downstairs windows open when she goes to bed.  I am soooooo cross.  So now I am thinking, ooh, is that a headache?  Did I just cough? Is this hayfever? Arrrgh!    Lions get a bad press.    

The house is still 90% tidy, I will have a quick whizz around in the morning whilst turfing people out of bed. DH had to poke DS1 and DS4 awake at 11am today.  I am going to have to get militant about all devices being downstairs at bedtime. I am being taken for a sucker here.

crazy_cat_lady

Hope you're ok f0xh0les and haven't succumbed to anything nasty over the past few days. Honestly the stupidity of some people never ceases to amaze me - I some days feel utterly desperate at how long it is since I spent quality time with my friends and family. And then some family up the street has a massive BBQ and invite everyone around.

redofromstart

I just have to mention that there is a singular Lowry in the Leicester New Walk Museum.  Allegedly.  We have never managed to see it despite several attempts.     

f0xh0les

I am a spanner monkey!!!  I have just lain down in the road under dh's car (with my dress skirt up around my nethers) trying to hold on to some nut or other while he cursed furiously, then he decided wd40 and  I decided a cuppa, and finally, the thing is off the wotsit, enabling the clippy thing to come off the dooberry, and his battery is currently plugged into the kitchen wall socket and nothing is broken.  His car looks like a jigsaw puzzle, but there you go. The battery is charging, the air pump bit that was above it and had to come out anyway as it was broken,  has come out and been replaced and dh is sitting here with a very rakish smudge on the end of his nose and he looks like he has just cleaned someone's chimney (he has not got a 'nice' mug - his hands are washed but still filthy). My crystal ball tells me I am going to be scrubbing the bath and the sink before bedtime.  Lots of money saved - as long as the bit works.

Tried to go to Mr T's this morning with my list, but the queue was horrific so I went to Herr Ald1, no queue, and Herr L1dl (3 people in the queue) and we can make do with what we have for another couple of days, but I did go £5.70 over budget, so I got onto pr0lific Academ1c, and did £5.90 worth of surveys, cashed out, and then this morning I have done £15 worth - they are nearly all C-19 related, and are filling nearly as fast as they are coming up, but hey! If they want to pay me and I stay in budget then yay!  £15 will pay for 3 kids phone contracts for a month.  ijust keep logging on to check what is there.

Cannot believe I have funneled £900 to savings this month. I am a bit in awe of myself moneysaving-wise, but my kids have become rude, mouthy and obstreperous ratbags who really do not believe me that their teachers will want to see their homework, and there is the real possibility that 2 may have to retake the year. I was reading some articles by  teachers' organisations and unions and allsorts yesterday and apparently yr 10 and yr 12 will be some of the first to get their butts back on  school seats as they are the ones with the most to lose - well that is fluffy bunnies DS1 and DS2.   They looked horrified at the idea of retaking the year in  a younger year group. 

Step-Gran requested a treat-package of Crunchies, frys chocolate bars and choc covered dried fruit, and the tv guide for this coming week.  So that all went off - she has forgotten where the remote control 'programme guide' button is, and can only find now/next so she can't plan what she is going to watch.  She did ask if we would ever see each other again. I said of course we will, although the likelihood is that only one of us is going to know about it.  So I  sent her a photo that was taken of dh and the boys at the last birthday meal in February. So she has something to look at, something to read, something to eat and her hearing aids should come back from the hearing aid menders sometime soon.  I have been in touch with her sister in Canada to let her know all is well.  So really I have been thoroughly helpful all in all.

I have put on a pound and I need to find out who to write and complain to.  It is not on. 3lbs to go and I am no longer in the obese category I am merely overweight (fat) or a foot shorter than I need to be. Either or.  I have had quite enough of the 13s and I would like to swiftly move through the 12s now please.  I am quite pleased with my motivation holding this long.  Yay me!

Sent away my postal survey, so that is another £4,50 to spend in Icyland on burgers and vegetable fingers (yeah, the kids love them).

Tonight's supper is beans on toast.  Me and dh have achieved quite a lot today, so we are not cooking tonight. There is neither the time  nor inclination to do anything fancy, and as they will not even help with the washing up, they can flippin' well lump it. Pampered princes that they are.

Might make more  aquafaba meringues  much much later tonight.  They go down very well, there is nothing on tv, and dh is threatening a Vincent Price Theatre of Blood night or some such.

I am planning on starting and finishing a book after supper.

I have realised I have worn matching underwear every day since we have been Grounded (that is exactly what it feels like to me).  That will carry on after all this is over.  I will have to remeasure myself and see what bargains I can find in my size. If Debernums is going to go down, I need to raid their stock as it was my go-to place for red sticker reduced underwear.  DH might as well get the benefit.  

The rate of traffic heading down the road toward town is equivalent to a normal Saturday evening here.  I cannot get over the amount of people out and about.  They were filling up with compost and bark chippings in Herr Lidle this morning.   813 people have died in the last 24 hours.  Surely people cannot be bored of it already, and thinking  'But We Just Want to go Shopping!'

I have just hit my 'normal' weekly fuel usage, after not filling up for 5 weeks. I am using £4 a week on petrol.  Which is a good saving, as I am beginning to suspect dh has secretly taken up Turkish wrestling, the amount of olive oil that man has got through in a fortnight, there simply doesn't seem to be another possible explanation.  

Keep well, and don't do 'owt daft.

greenbee

I am in awe of your ability to save @f0xh0les. I've found lockdown quite expensive, as normally I'm not at home more than 4 days a week. I haven't use the car (it needs exercising at some point), but have been using oil and electricity, having to pay for my own meals, and doing more pilates and yoga classes than usual. I've also (sorry) lost a lot of weight (if you want ideas, I did the Fast 800, which is a version of the blood sugar diet and go back to it every so often when I need to shift the excess caused by the appalling diet and lack of exercise that result from work travel) which has meant buying some new stuff - mostly yoga kit, although I am getting dressed properly for work most days and changing out of yoga kit! I desperately need new bras, but am hoping I can go and be fitted. 

I haven't left the house (well, I've been for a couple of walks, but that's it) for 7 weeks now - I had symptoms when I got back from my last work trip, so was grounded, and have since had treatment for a secondary infection (worse than the infection) and am now recovering. TBH I'm not sure I want to go out there and encounter all the people who seem to think this is some kind of extended holiday... 

crazy_cat_lady

I am starting to get a bit upset at how many cars are out and about. It really seems to have ramped up over the past week or so.

f0xh0les

I really did see a woman at Herr Lidle buy nothing except 10 sacks of bark chips.  The guy on security was an absolute love and carried most of them to her car for her and packed them neatly. I half hoped he would tell her to Fiddle 0ff as it was totally not essential in any way shape or form, ok if she was buying a pint of milk at the same time, but it was just the sacks of bark. The same thing at Aldee, a trolley full of compost and 2 trays of busy lizzies.  nothing else.

Nipped across the road to the petrol station for bread for the beans on toast, the 2 people in the queue in front of me were buying booze.  Lots of booze.   Everyone is in their gardens potting up plants and/ or getting hammered. 

Last time I was in Mr T's there were loads of people having a peruse of the clothing aisles.  I just want to get in, out, disinfect and drive home.  Hardly anyone was wearing any kind of face cover today, and Aldee now has a plastic see-through shower curtain  leading up to every till to funnel you in and protect you from the queue at the next till.   All you heard was people complaining about having to queue, and that Mr M's had done away with the queueing system apart from at peak hours.  People no longer want to queue.    They are bored of this now and don't want to keep to the rules.

They terrify me, mostly as nobody I personally know has keeled over yet.  Which means someone else is getting my share of the misery. Apart from the one mum at the school gates  it has not yet touched me or mine. Same at the f/b. None of us have been touched by this, and we all have vulnerable elderly people we are in caring roles for.   It just seems so crazy that 20,000 people can just no longer be here.. Today they estimated there will be 30,000 by the end of May. 

In an  equally gloomy vein, the govt has refused to help out the university sector, and there will be job losses.  There is a freeze on hiring senior positions, and some universities have now put a freeze on promotions.  Dh's has not done this yet, but  it is pretty much accepted in the sector that some universities are going to have to close. 

One  of his departments   has been told to prepare for no face to face lectures until next year.  And on that cheery note, I am off to put the shiny descaled kettle on to boil. You know you have too much time on your hands when you have a shiny descaled kettle as soon as you notice it needs doing. 

crazy_cat_lady

Someone who I work with was fairly blasé about the whole thing at the beginning (as I think we all were a little), insisting it was a conspiracy and did anyone actually know anybody that had been sick? And he wanted to get it to see what it was like, but it didn't exist probably and was government control. His mother has four siblings, all of whom now have tested positive, with one of them in hospital on a ventilator. This is less than 2 years after his dad, and grandad died - so a bit of a case of be careful what you wish for in my opinion. Needless to say, he is now taking it quite seriously.

in_need_of_direction

I go on site to a client five or six days a week since this started. I have noticed a massive increase in traffic over the past week.  It frightens me

f0xh0les

Evening  all!

I stripped all the beds and washed all the laundry.  Kids hoovered their bedrooms. I remade all the beds.

Erm, that's about it really. Fed everyone twice. Washing up, spot of Morse and Columbo. Candles lit, waiting  for bedtime.

The end. No wisdom to offer today.