Is there a positive side to life during this pandemic?

VJsmum

Great news, 3SM.  

Floss

I've benefitted financially from WFH - 1/4 of the fuel costs & no monthly parking charge (NHS hospital), but have missed out on social contact as I too live alone. My team have a daily Teams call, and we are now all each in the office 1 day a week so limited contact with colleagues but this is the new norm until at least the end of the year for my team.

PipneyJane

I've been thinking about this thread a lot over the last few days.  Today is day 107 of Lockdown/WFH for me; for my DH it's day 114.   It's been mainly a positive experience for me.  The biggest negative is that my contract will probably not be renewed when it expires at the end of this month.  However, this morning, I counted my blessings:-  we're both healthy; DH's job is reasonably secure; we've got money in the bank; our discretionary spending has dropped to almost nothing;  the only debt is the mortgage; we have plenty of food; the vegetable patch is finally growing; no travel time to work means that we can spend that time either in the garden or going for a daily walk; we've been able to explore the streets around us;  I have a stash full of yarn so I don't need to buy any.....

It's lovely to hear birds sing all day long.  I'm not much good identifying British birds, being a Colonial Commoner, but I'm certain there are more varieties of birds in our garden than in previous years.  The drop in both air and noise pollution has helped.

The drop in traffic has been a blessing.  We live opposite a school and, normally, the behaviour of parents on the afternoon school run is terrible.  I've lost count of the number of times I've seen parents just pull out into a stream of traffic and then argue with the local bus driver that he should back up so that they can get through, even though they're the one blocking most of the traffic.  None of that now.  (When I've worked from home in the past, I'd always stop and watch.) 

What I'm missing are seeing friends, choir rehearsals, going to concerts and films - the human contact.  Even though we I have lots of work meetings on Teams and we schedule Skype calls with friends, there's nothing like just spending time with people.  It's amazing what you learn about your work colleagues when they need to vent for a minute - you don't get that on a call.

- Pip

Paperback_Writer

balabooberlies said:

Hi Paperback

My brother in law feels the same way.  He was spending 3 hundred pounds a month on travel but worse...........3 hours plus a day commuting.  He now wants to work from home.

Yes, I'm really lucky I think. Hopefully it can start me off on a better path.

balabooberlies

Ditto Boazu

Valli

I've been wfh since March and I've loved it.  I have resurrected my veg plot (I let it go when my sister was ill and I didn't have the time or the willpower) battling couch grass that took over, I've knitted my DD a top from a Pr1ma pattern.  First adult-sized thing I've knitted in years.  Cooking from scratch, garden in general looks better and the fence was painted.  I've done an online development (of me) course for work, baked 🥖, foraged for wild garlic and cooked with it.  There's more  actually.  Oh and I've saved on fuel too. I topped the car up just before lockdown and again a couple of weeks ago.   
By the way job is part time...so I do get free day time time and daughter back home as she's wfh too
I'm lucky in that none of my family have been touched by the virus or I'm sure I would feel differently.

VJsmum

This isn't a positive (though not negative either), Valli, your post about petrol reminded me that we are probably the only people who have spent MORE on petrol through lockdown.  We usually go everywhere by train (OH is a retired railway worker and we get free travel), and now are having to drive everywhere..  Our last car did about 25,000 miles in 4 years (it was a company car we had from new so we clocked the mileage when we returned it), we've probably filled up once or twice a month in lockdown - and that's mainly doing our click and collect shopping, visits to OH's mother (usually done by train) and a little bit of 'out and about' ing..

I've said before that i have really appreciated the family time.  We are lucky that we have our children with us, i realise many do not and must be missing children / grandchildren terribly.  I know my MiL and OH's sister and husband have missed theirs

MrsStepford

The Husband has been working from home since 13th March and has been told that he can continue to do that if he wants. Our relationship has gotten better as he is way less stressed. He was travelling a lot, including to meetings and the travel has reduced so we are better off. 

Having a nightmare time with Ocado, and to a lesser extent, Abel & Cole, forced us to find farms, butchers, foodservice companies and delicatessens to source food and household products eg Lithuanian chocolate, Russian soap, African tinned peas, Latvian sprats, Portuguese sardines. That has been interesting. Lately, having fallen off the low carb wagon, I've been far stricter. 

Haven't felt obliged to visit my mother weekly (haven't seen her in six months) as she doesn't wear a face mask and is swanning around interacting with her gardener and his partner, my brother and sister in law, her neighbour, her best friend up the road and his girlfriend and people in the village. One family member has already gone down with Covid-19 and been ill. 

Haven't felt the need to dress up. Not worn or bought makeup or bought more clothes. Have been buying books and reading more.