Learning from a year of Lockdowns. What did you learn or what would you have done differently?

Primrose

We certainly learned how reassuring it felt to have anticipated problems and stocked up on essential food supplies.  The initial queues and chaos at supermarkets for older people with health and mobility issues would have made life extremely stressful.

And my large stash of library books proved invaluable.

Learned:  how generous some members of our local community were in terms of the time and effort they put in to helping others, and how some of the most well heeled individual imply shut up shop and never contributed anything to the communities in which they lived.

[Deleted User]

A decent store cupboard and our allotment and garden crops gave us security of food which was great comfort when it was difficult to get supermarket slots in the beginning.  The plots and garden gave us something to do to help ourselves that was and is positive and a mood lifter. I've used my kindle like never before and learned that buying kindle books from Amazon is very easy and I try for the 99p offers they have in the genres I like to read so it keeps the price down too. We've walked out nearly every day because we live in a rural area where there are many lanes and footpaths off the beaten track so we rarely pass anyone else and have got to know the people whose homes we pass (and their dogs who now don't do more than a perfunctory bark at us as we pass). We've watched the seasons roll and the crops sown and grown and harvested in the fields and then the fields ploughed and harrowed which has been a real pleasure. We've put out boxes of books, equipment we no longer need, toys, surplus to needs produce from the things we grow with a notice saying 'free please take' and people have and we've found other notices from other homes saying 'free please take' so we have and been grateful for the generosity of others. We've become part of our little local community and the younger members have been checking on and helping the older residents in any way they need including shopping for them which is such a nice thing. I've watched the grandchildren grow up because the family have kept in touch with us regularly and we've had so many lovely pictures on our phones every day that we feel the newest littlies know us as well as the older two even if we haven't physically seen them as often as we'd like to have because of the lock downs.

I've learned that most people bide by the safety rules concerning covid but that some just don't and won't wear masks or step aside on narrow pavements so it's easier to cross roads than raise issues.

Things we've been grateful for- the internet for ordering things we need without having to go to a shop, the delivery firms and the post office who deliver things we've ordered to the house.  Supermarket deliveries which have kept us going in lockdowns, the NHS and the delivery volunteers who have delivered our medications from the pharmacy through the year, our neighbours at the back who have constantly offered help should we need it, our local arboretum and the walks roundabout which have given us safe exercise all year which we've enjoyed and sport on the TV which we've recorded and watched rather than what else was on offer that aren't our type of viewing. The fact that the two of us rub along comfortably together and have found something to make us laugh every day of this pandemic, usually something one of us has done that's been daft but it helps when you can grin together.

I don't know what we'd have done differently, we've been careful but not afraid, we've been to see family in their gardens and they've been to us to visit in our garden and we've got this far for which we're grateful.

balabooberlies

Primrose said:

We certainly learned how reassuring it felt to have anticipated problems and stocked up on essential food supplies.  The initial queues and chaos at supermarkets for older people with health and mobility issues would have made life extremely stressful.

And my large stash of library books proved invaluable.

Learned:  how generous some members of our local community were in terms of the time and effort they put in to helping others, and how some of the most well heeled individual imply shut up shop and never contributed anything to the communities in which they lived.

Not every well heeled person is like that and am really sorry you found this to be your experience in your area.  Perhaps they were contributing in other less visible ways......

bala

balabooberlies

boazu

what a beautiful post full of......I can't find the words.  Gives me hope and inspiration.

bala

x

C_J

I discovered Libby, the library app linked (I think) to my county library membership, which enables me to borrow books for free on my iPad or laptop.  Whilst not a full selection, there is quite a comprehensive list of classic and new novels to choose from. I've done a lot of reading over lockdown, and my has that been a pleasure!

I also did a creative writing course (from the free Future Learn series with the Open University) which was fabulous, and I now have renewed enthusiasm for the four (four!!) different novels I am part-way through writing.

I think I was already quite confident with being able to "make do" over lockdown, to cook tasty meals from whatever I had to hand, and to keep entertained without the need to go out - but lockdown just reinforced that.  I am extremely fortunate to have a job where I can work from home (and that may well continue long after lockdown has finally lifted) and that I have maintained my income - I am acutely aware that not everybody has come through this time unscathed - so I have become more generous in my charity donations especially to food banks. Because it could so easily have been any one of us in that situation.

thriftwizard

I've learnt that a greenhouse, even a tiny one, is money well spent, if you like to grow your own! Last year DD2 & I struggled through with half a dilapidated polytunnel in a corner of the garden that was way too shady; I'd ordered (and paid for) a 6' x 4' greenhouse in April but nothing turned up until late August. We've managed to keep our pelargoniums & fuchsias going all through the winter in there, so will have a pretty garden for no expense this summer, and now it's full of seedlings waiting to go in at the allotment, when the weather warms up a bit. But it was lucky we still had the polytunnel frame; I bought a new cover and the bantams spent the winter in there as they were also locked down for fear of avian flu.

What would I have done differently? I'd have tried to sort out more of the house before it became difficult, if not impossible, to rehome stuff. There's still far too much stuff needing to be moved on; it would have been nicer all round not to have clutter round every corner when you have to spend more time in the house than normal. So I need to get on with it now!

But overall, I have to say, I've learnt that I'm one of the lucky ones, despite not having been able to earn anything much. We've stayed well, been able to get out to the allotment and into the countryside for walks, and buy what we needed at little local shops with no queues. OH has been able to work from home so we haven't been in need, though with 3 twenty-somethings at home, only one of those earning (& she's saving hard) we haven't exactly been able to save either! But we have been able to spend a fair few evenings playing games, watching films and laughing together; I think I've actually been very privileged throughout this.

newlywed

What would I have done differently?  

I would not have baked biscuits in my work from home lunch break.
I would have go out more often for walks.
I would have carried on visiting supermarkets occasionally so I didn’t feel so anxious now.


just to add:
I stopped baking biscuits in September.
I now go for a 6 or 7 mile walk each week, sometimes 3 times a week.
I am visiting shops occasionally.

balabooberlies

My brother (with Severe Learning Disability) came to stay..............for 8 months !  It wasn't intended but he was not in a good place, staying in his room the whole time only emerging for food etc.  I had to break the cycle and it took me some time to convince him to come and stay.  The virus was /is a huge threat in his mind.  My one rule (I use that term loosely) was that he had to stay downstairs with us.  I created a space that was just his, gave him an old wooden cigar box (beautiful inlay) to put his bits and pieces in and built a tower of small cardboard boxes that worked like drawers.  One for his tech bits, one for his snacks etc......

We have always been close, I am more than old enough to be his Mum.  During that period I got to know him better and he me.  I have always known that his disability was profound but to a lay person seems invisible.  The time we spent enabled me to learn more.  Through him I have improved my listening skills.  You have to be very patient as it can take a long time for him to express himself.  Due to my new skills in listening I have become closer to my eleven year old nephew with ADHD.  A few weeks ago, out of the blue and for the first time, he told me he loved me.  You have no idea how quietly thrilled it made me.

So I suppose what I learnt is that I would like to stockpile skills.  That the things you need and want are either there or quietly waiting for you.  That there is an abundance of kindness in people and it just needs a soft whistle to coax it to the fore.

My brother went home to my parents and I helped him chose a desk, hunt down a chair and Mum gave him a box.  All this is set up downstairs in the sitting room.  Cigar box has pride of place.

bala

goldfinches

@balabooberlies - that was a lovely thing you did for your brother, thankyou for telling us about it.

balabooberlies

Thank you Goldfinches, he did much for me.

Every single evening he would thank me for the meal I cooked, give me a bow, say it was his favourite and could he have it again the next day.  Except for the fish pie I cooked ! 

x

VJsmum

Bala - how lovely.

What have i learned?  Erm, literally (rather than philosophically) I have learned some German via Duo lingo.  i'm currently on a 385 day streak! 

I have also learned to really appreciate where i live - we've discovered many a new walking and cycling route.  But i've also learned that i really miss going places - or at least the potential to go places.
I've learned that, perhaps, gardening isn't for me - or at least that i'm not really prepared to put in the time and effort that serious veg growing needs.

What would i do differently?  Hmm, not sure that there's anything as this was wholly unlike anything that has happened before and it was all a learning curve.