The Nice People No. 17

Pyxis

CKhalvashi said:

It's been the ultimate few weeks from hell here.

Disappeared to Georgia due to ceasing all operations until May (for now) as a precaution. Grandfather (UK-based) went into hospital while we were away, before Wizz decided to pack up and move out with no notice, leading to needing to get back with no direct flights and inadmissability to several countries, largely due to a day spent in Poland a week before.

A quick unscheduled trip into Belarus (Belavia are an amazing company and were the only reasonable option) with a 25h stopover and an argument at the gate in Tbilisi over the visa free 30 days still being in force (it is) got us back to the UK a day earlier than originally planned. Grandfather died last Wednesday, about an hour after landing at Gatwick.

Being home with nothing to do has had some benefits (additional plans are being put in place for work), but I regret not being able to say goodbye properly and may not be able to go to the funeral due to virus concerns.

Jobs for next week include cancelling everything for the last week of April, starting to arrange long term care for grandmother and generally watching the world go by for a week.

I hope everyone is well at the moment, and send hugs to everyone.

Condolences for your Grandfather.
Sad that you didn’t get to see him, especially after the nightmare journey.

Pyxis

Interesting development re. my veg box people. This week, you can hardly order anything, but they seem to have allocated me a mixed fruit and veg box, so I suppose they are just making sure people have something, even if it’s not what you usually have.
Fair enough. 

I usually order veg and fruit separately, not in a set box any more, but I don’t care what I get as long as I get something! (Unless it’s beetroot. I hate beetroot! Still I’m sure I can find someone who does, if necessary!)

At the moment, veg-wise, I am down to one courgette, half a cauliflower, a portion each of watercress and chervil, some onions, garlic, cherry tomatoes and some fresh herbs. 
That should see me through to the next delivery on Thursday, if I eke them out with pasta or rice.
I was able to order a loaf of bread, though, so I got a larger one than normal and will freeze it in batches. Oh, and some sloe gin and Prosecco, so it’s not all bad!

I’m having one main meal a day atm, and then nibbly things like olives, cheese and cherry toms if I get peckish. Or toast if there’s any bread in.

CKhalvashi

Pyxis said:

CKhalvashi said:

It's been the ultimate few weeks from hell here.

Disappeared to Georgia due to ceasing all operations until May (for now) as a precaution. Grandfather (UK-based) went into hospital while we were away, before Wizz decided to pack up and move out with no notice, leading to needing to get back with no direct flights and inadmissability to several countries, largely due to a day spent in Poland a week before.

A quick unscheduled trip into Belarus (Belavia are an amazing company and were the only reasonable option) with a 25h stopover and an argument at the gate in Tbilisi over the visa free 30 days still being in force (it is) got us back to the UK a day earlier than originally planned. Grandfather died last Wednesday, about an hour after landing at Gatwick.

Being home with nothing to do has had some benefits (additional plans are being put in place for work), but I regret not being able to say goodbye properly and may not be able to go to the funeral due to virus concerns.

Jobs for next week include cancelling everything for the last week of April, starting to arrange long term care for grandmother and generally watching the world go by for a week.

I hope everyone is well at the moment, and send hugs to everyone.

Condolences for your Grandfather.
Sad that you didn’t get to see him, especially after the nightmare journey.

Thanks. It's actually been good in a way though, as it's enabled someone who is attached but who still hasn't quite processed everything that's happened to deal with a lot of the forward planning stuff. The most difficult part when my grandmother (other side) passed about 8 years ago was having seen her go into hospital, then seen her daily, then having 'the call' suddenly at 3am when it looked like the odds were in her favour in the days before.

I don't want to sound like I don't care when saying that, just that it's enabled some rational thinking in dealing with everything, allowing options to be researched to allow decisions to be made over the coming weeks at a time everyone who did see him is unable to think about this end of things. We work quite well as a family in normal times, but there are certain things that need further discussion with people involved before these decisions can be made, and getting all the options in place done now (I've actually pushed most of this onto someone else for now) will mean far less stress down the line than doing everything at the last minute.

vivatifosi

Libraries across the country are now closed while we assess what services we can continue to offer.  We, as with other library authorities, do still have our digital services running and we are working hard to build new digital offers, for example we are replacing our actual Lego club with an online one in my library.

The last week has been awful. The public just dont get it and have consistently breached our social distancing requests. We heard parents consistently tell us that they were going to bring their children to the library from today because the schools were closed. Thank goodness that wont now happen.

I dont understand people. They watch the same news as the rest of us and then ignore it. Gutted for my vulnerable library users, particularly as we have a lot of homeless people in daily. They have lost their safe, warm, daytime space.

Pyxis

CKhalvashi said:

Pyxis said:

CKhalvashi said:

It's been the ultimate few weeks from hell here.

Disappeared to Georgia due to ceasing all operations until May (for now) as a precaution. Grandfather (UK-based) went into hospital while we were away, before Wizz decided to pack up and move out with no notice, leading to needing to get back with no direct flights and inadmissability to several countries, largely due to a day spent in Poland a week before.

A quick unscheduled trip into Belarus (Belavia are an amazing company and were the only reasonable option) with a 25h stopover and an argument at the gate in Tbilisi over the visa free 30 days still being in force (it is) got us back to the UK a day earlier than originally planned. Grandfather died last Wednesday, about an hour after landing at Gatwick.

Being home with nothing to do has had some benefits (additional plans are being put in place for work), but I regret not being able to say goodbye properly and may not be able to go to the funeral due to virus concerns.

Jobs for next week include cancelling everything for the last week of April, starting to arrange long term care for grandmother and generally watching the world go by for a week.

I hope everyone is well at the moment, and send hugs to everyone.

Condolences for your Grandfather.
Sad that you didn’t get to see him, especially after the nightmare journey.

Thanks. It's actually been good in a way though, as it's enabled someone who is attached but who still hasn't quite processed everything that's happened to deal with a lot of the forward planning stuff. The most difficult part when my grandmother (other side) passed about 8 years ago was having seen her go into hospital, then seen her daily, then having 'the call' suddenly at 3am when it looked like the odds were in her favour in the days before.

I don't want to sound like I don't care when saying that, just that it's enabled some rational thinking in dealing with everything, allowing options to be researched to allow decisions to be made over the coming weeks at a time everyone who did see him is unable to think about this end of things. We work quite well as a family in normal times, but there are certain things that need further discussion with people involved before these decisions can be made, and getting all the options in place done now (I've actually pushed most of this onto someone else for now) will mean far less stress down the line than doing everything at the last minute.

There’ll be time to grieve when the practicalities are dealt with.

Pyxis

I’ve been able to take the 6-day ecg monitor off this morning, thank goodness, as the pads had gone from very itchy to very sore.

Now that they are off, where they were is itchy again, but some of the skin is a bit red and raw, so I still can’t have a good scratch! 

I’ve rubbed some calendula cream in, so hopefully that will help.

Also, I’ll be able to have a good old shower when my friend has been to collect the monitor for me. Although they said I could have one, the procedure would have been such a faff, that I decided just not to have a shower for 6days, just a lick and polish.
Besides, it would have been just my luck for a major symptom to occur when the monitor was off while I showered!
One advantage of social isolating when living in your own! Who’s going to know? 😂

Well, apart from you lot and any hummingbirds, I suppose!😂

silvercar

We walked yesterday past the library and wondered how it would be effected. I can see that borrowing potentially germy books wouldn't be a good idea, but the rest of the services would be really helpful. 

SingleSue

vivatifosi said:

Libraries across the country are now closed while we assess what services we can continue to offer.  We, as with other library authorities, do still have our digital services running and we are working hard to build new digital offers, for example we are replacing our actual Lego club with an online one in my library.

The last week has been awful. The public just dont get it and have consistently breached our social distancing requests. We heard parents consistently tell us that they were going to bring their children to the library from today because the schools were closed. Thank goodness that wont now happen.

I dont understand people. They watch the same news as the rest of us and then ignore it. Gutted for my vulnerable library users, particularly as we have a lot of homeless people in daily. They have lost their safe, warm, daytime space.

The public was one of the main reasons I was getting so eek about going to work, it didn't matter what was on the news, our signs, our provision for their (and our) safety....they wanted to carry on as before, actually even more so because they could predict a tightening of controls so wanted to do it while they could. Our last three days open were manic, many more people coming in and staying longer than they usually would and all moaning/arguing when asked to adhere to our safety measures.

It had got to the point that I was on the verge of speaking to the doctor to get a fit/sick note to cover the 12 week advice for the vulnerable at risk people and going on ESA or even UC....yep, I was that scared that even the things that had scared me witless and that I have been working so hard for the last two, nearly 3 years to avoid didn't seem that scary any more.

SingleSue

In other news, I have a large back garden...a very large back garden (we're talking over 150ft long). I'm planning on getting Josh to get my wheelchair out there (far more comfy than a garden chair), taking a cuppa, a book and some music and just chilling out there for a while. For entertainment, I might get Josh to run up and down the garden...or maybe persuade him to take his guitar out and play for a while.

vivatifosi

That sounds lovely Sue.