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MrsLurcherwalker said:Question!
I was watching the news this afternoon and the Scottish report on coronavirus up to today and a gent of around our age (so older generation) was asking if it was fair to keep all older people in the lock down if they had no health issues and lived a healthy lifestyle, weren't obese, and why should he (who was in good health and not obese and lived healthily ) be on lockdown as a blanket recommendation because of his age alone. Do any of you feel it's unfair to be on lock down at home because you're older or do you feel it's the safest thing for both yourselves and the rest of the population and helping the NHS deal with the numbers of covid sufferers without adding to the pressure they're under day to day?
We will be in for the duration, I believe it's not just for our own sake but for the NHS too, we don't feel 'caged' but I have to say we're lucky to live rurally and can walk out safely every day into countryside and see very few other people so that perhaps makes a great difference to how we see this situation.
How do you all feel at the prospect of this lock in lasting for us older folks with underlying health issues until perhaps next year or until we're vaccinated?I'm not an older person (almost touching 50, but not quite!) but I do have TWO of the health conditions that puts me in the same "vulnerable" (but NOT high risk/shielding) group as the over-70s, and to be honest I would rather stay "locked down" so that I can keep potentially-infected people away from me and my home! I actually LIKE being able to tell delivery drivers etc to STAY BACK (lol, not quite as dramatically as that!) and that people (friends & family) can't expect to just rock up to my home and enjoy a warm welcome!I don't wish to put any undue pressure on the NHS, and at the same time I REALLY do not want to catch this."Lockdown" is still pretty relaxed where I live (South London). I don't feel I've been forced to stay in or locked indoors at all. Going about my usual daily business outside my home would be more than easy. The government aren't enforcing over-70s etc to stay indoors - ie: they won't be arrested or escorted back home if seen out and about.10 -
Si_Clist said:...the total absence of aircraft noise and the vastly-reduced level of traffic noise is a fair swop AFAIC.I live under the Heathrow flight path, at the top of a tower block, just off a dual carriageway. Now there's no (or very little!) aircraft, and substantially reduced road traffic. My chest hasn't been so clear in decades!! I am no longer wheezing in the mornings, I can breathe when I move around! I can take in a full breath and empty my lungs completely!This "lockdown" has taught me that I need to move out of London.21
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Jojo_the_Tightfisted said:...snips...
The second batch of people to be infected are apparently about to be released - the chosen ones appear to be those who could be in contact with children in Year 5/6, 10 and 12. Six weeks to infect/spread, six weeks where everybody is off school for the summer, already for the peak to be reached before the start of Flu Season.
In baldly practical terms, it's a controlled cull. Exposing some of the herd to the disease, a smaller number of weaker ones get taken out in the process, fewer to deal with later. Or if you don't like that terminology, they've picked who is in the first advance parties into No Man's Land whilst the majority of the troops are still behind the lines. The people who choose not to have vaccines when they are available are comfortably back at HQ, happily declaring that bulletproof vests are a bad idea as they make you die of head shots.BRILLIANT post. I was about to make one similar, but saw your's just in time. I have believed from the start (of the UK gov involvement) that...well, all your post quoted above! We started out with "herd immunity" and "mass testing" and "tracing", but those were quickly dumped as we /coff/ followed the science /coff/This is why (IMHO) the elderly care homes haven't been shielded, protected, supported, or (previously) included in death statistics. This is why (IMHO) care homes for the disabled have been sent information instructing mandatory DNARs for their residents. I was actually astonished when they announced that people on Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit would be given an extra £20 per week, but I now think this is probably in lieu of a future second austerity wave.12 -
r.a.i.n.b.o.w said:Jojo_the_Tightfisted said:...snips...
The second batch of people to be infected are apparently about to be released - the chosen ones appear to be those who could be in contact with children in Year 5/6, 10 and 12. Six weeks to infect/spread, six weeks where everybody is off school for the summer, already for the peak to be reached before the start of Flu Season.
In baldly practical terms, it's a controlled cull. Exposing some of the herd to the disease, a smaller number of weaker ones get taken out in the process, fewer to deal with later. Or if you don't like that terminology, they've picked who is in the first advance parties into No Man's Land whilst the majority of the troops are still behind the lines. The people who choose not to have vaccines when they are available are comfortably back at HQ, happily declaring that bulletproof vests are a bad idea as they make you die of head shots.BRILLIANT post. I was about to make one similar, but saw your's just in time. I have believed from the start (of the UK gov involvement) that...well, all your post quoted above! We started out with "herd immunity" and "mass testing" and "tracing", but those were quickly dumped as we /coff/ followed the science /coff/This is why (IMHO) the elderly care homes haven't been shielded, protected, supported, or (previously) included in death statistics. This is why (IMHO) care homes for the disabled have been sent information instructing mandatory DNARs for their residents. I was actually astonished when they announced that people on Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit would be given an extra £20 per week, but I now think this is probably in lieu of a future second austerity wave.9 -
HWK has gone to the allotment to 'put in futures' in the form of maincrop potatoes in fair quantity. We managed to get hold of some seed potatoes through the post, Desiree, a red all round use potato and thanks to the new half allotment we have the space to plant them already dug and waiting. Hopefully the amount we plant will give us a couple of sacks of storable spuds to see us through the winter months. My worry is that we get a glitch in the growing cycle like a very wet summer or a drought that will mean less commercial crops available next year or possibly the crops being OK but not enough labour to harvest, process and distribute them for one of a number of reasons I can imagine. This is our insurance action if you like, if needs be I can process the whole crop and either dehydrate it for store or cook, mash and freeze for store but potatoes ought to stand for most of the colder weather if I can find somewhere that is cool, dry and dark enough to keep them in. Working on that one and will see what we can find. We may try to aquire a 'dead fridge' to keep them in, I've heard they or dead freezers make very good root veg storage vehicles.
I don't know precisely what will happen if the lock down is lifted, what I do have fair certainty about though is that more people WILL die from covid when they do lift it. Which group of people who are first allowed to work and mix again is irrelevant as is the possible reasoning behind it, if folks haven't had the virus they will be at risk and some of them will die, some of them will have it mildly and some won't catch it at all and science can't yet tell us why. I don't see there is any other way to deal with the pandemic, we can't all stay locked down forever and sooner or later even us older over 70s will have to come out of our bubbles of safety, hopefully by then there will be either effective drugs and known to work treatments along with experienced medics to help us if we need help and hopefully but not certainly an effective vaccine to give us some protection BUT we'll still have to take our turn and take our chances along with all other strata of society when we do emerge and pray we live through it!
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I hope that there will be a vaccine MrsLW but I'm sceptical - we haven't managed yet to develop vaccines against any coronaviruses in humans so I'm not convinced that this one will be any different 😔 All we can do is take whatever steps we can to maintain our safety and hope that if we are unfortunate enough to catch it, it will be mild enough to recover from. It worries me as my grandbaby is in the 'extremely vulnerable' group and the thought of having this hanging over us for months/years to come is difficult to take.
Anyway, onto less depressing stuff - the 'dead' fridge storage sounds like a great idea! 😁 I'll try to remember that when we replace our fridge freezer in the next 12 months 😉 I've been talking to my gardener and he seems to think that the work won't take too long so I am sowing seeds indoors ready to transplant when it's all finished 🙌 I discovered a bag of carrots in the fridge yesterday that had somehow been missed so am currently dehydrating them along with some swede, celeriac, potatoes and onions which will all be stored together for a casserole at some point in the winter 😉 I'm going to have to rethink my storage options in general - with growing my own this year, I'll have much more to accommodate and was expecting the kids to move out at the end of the summer freeing up a cupboard or two - now that the house buying is on hold that won't happen so I need to get creative!! 😂12 -
There was a TV gardener years ago called Bob Flowerdew and I remembered him saying in one of the programmes that because the fridge/freezer doors seal properly that a 'dead one' was an ideal potato/rootveg store because you can keep them in a shed and the insulation built in will keep the contents frost free but also the metal casing will keep mice/rats etc out. seems like a good idea at a time when tips are closed and people with 'dead appliances' either have to keep them at home of perish the thought 'fly tip'. I think that being able to rehome them for a purpose and a useful one at that would be very much preferable.
Squirrelgirl make jam, jelly, chutney, ketchup, sauces, pickled veg, pickled fruit, relishes and anything of that kind. I never throw away a jar with a plastic sealed lid as I make loads. Like the dehydrated food they don't need power to keep them viable and recently we used jam made in 2008 (I KNOW! EEEEEKKKK!) but it was fine and we're still here! Fruit cordials are lovely, store them in plastic bottles in the freezer with an air gap left at the top for liquid expansion when it freezes, elderflower, any summer fruit, elderberries, plums, damsons all make a lovely cordial which is nice hot in cold weather and best, best, best of all is elderflower champagne made in screw top glass wine bottles (not pvc, please not pvc, ask me how I know!!!!!) and it is quintessentially summer in a glass. Home made ginger beer is good and goes on and on and on etc. as you can keep the plant going for years. Ginger cordial from fresh ginger is also delicious but expensive to make. So much fun to be had and so much to do.....but if we're shut in on lockdown we'll have the time we need to do it and it will stop us feeling cross, being productive is a good panacea to crossness caused by lock downs!
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MrsLurcherwalker said:best, best, best of all is elderflower champagne made in screw top glass wine bottles (not pvc, please not pvc, ask me how I know!!!!!) and it is quintessentially summer in a glass.
Made some jam with last year's plums and some damsons from the freezer, more space in there now and something else which doesn't need power to store. Got some greengages as well in there so will get those at maybe at the weekend.
Been very lucky getting online delivery slots and veg box and relying on stores so not ventured into a supermarket since this began. Even if they start lifting lockdown, I'm in no rush to get back to "normal" and hopefully I can from carry on working from home for the foreseeable.
Each delivery I'm trying to build up stocks a little, tins I'm okay for so concentrating on toiletries and medicines. Got enough cold and flu medicines but running low on ibuprofen.10 -
Very sensible way to build stocks, just what we've always done and even if it's only a couple of items with each delivery it soon mounts up and makes you just a tiny bit more secure for whatever is to come. I miss being able to go to the £1 shops with my bits of left over housekeeping, particularly for cuppasoups and oxo cubes which are much more expensive when you get them from the supermarkets, also pickle, mayonnaise, relishes and biscuits etc. it will be a long time I suspect before I can amble through the city centre popping into whichever shop I want and stopping for a coffee in Waterstones and a browse of a nice book.
Not a complaint though as they've served us well and we're lucky to be retired and live in a rural village where we can at least get out and walk every day and we have the allotments, we're now, this minute, removing all the plants from the back garden borders, digging up the bulbs that have now gone over and we're going to use every scrap of available soil to grow food for the summer. We've taken out two old very overgrown climbing roses that have never been pruned properly and scrambled over an arch by the back gate and that will now support runner beans! going to be 'the good life' here if we can make it so!
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Interestingly, I've been buying a very similar line of knicks from M&S, the ones with the lace trim. The ones I bought 3 years ago are still mostly fine, which is why I bought more 2 years ago. Curiously those ones haven't fared quite so well in the wash/hurly burly of family life. And the ones I bought last year are coming apart already... I haven't gained a significant amount of weight, I'm still wearing the 3 y.o. ones; I suspect Something in the manufacturing process Has Changed...Angie - GC May 24 £232.52/£450: 2024 Fashion on the Ration Challenge: 10/68: (Money's just a substitute for time & talent...)11
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