LIFE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS: DAY 380+
It's April in Scotland. So it's been alternately hinting at Spring warmth whilst roaring back with snow and wind and ice. It's been VERY cold the past few days and forecast to remain so through the rest of the month. Yesterday and the day before we had the amazement of seeing it snow heavily - while the sun was shining! I've seen it rain briefly through sunshine but in all my 64 years I've never once seen it snow heavily while the sun shone brightly. Honestly I felt as though I was watching the opener of a disaster movie.
Meanwhile, the vaccination against Covid continues but is slowing here in the UK owing to both supply chain disruptions (DAMN THE EU!!) and vaccination-hesitancy. Well, really, who in their right mind risks blood clots, ffs, and I don't blame the ethnic minorities being distrustful - I've seen too many ethnic minorities suffer owing to things like the Tuskegee syphilis horror (that didn't end until 1975 so please don't tell me that's ancient history 'cause it's not). And heck, I'm not an ethnic minority and I'm feeling some hesitancy. I was not terribly upset at mine being postponed once in screening the nurse discovered I'm in an acute pericarditis flare - 'Sorry Mrs, you'll have to come back when the flare is over', which could be months the way my flares have been the past two years. I do sort of feel I've dodged a bullet with the delay, if I'm honest. I not only have the heart thingies but I also have Essential Tremor - do I really 'feel lucky' having a vaccine that is being linked to a rare blood clotting complication that has proved fatal for several?
And now we're being told we all will need regular inoculation, like for the flu (which I can't have owing to the heart conditions meaning even 'minor' side effects can put me in hospital) AND even having the vaccination(s) doesn't mean things can open back up to where it was before the pandemic so it is really looking as though this restricted life we've all been living since spring 2020 is going to go on indefinitely, as in unending and forever and oh btw, you may in the near future need to 'show your papers' to enter the supermarket.
As a consequence of Brexit, the pandemic, and a cargo vessel jamming the Suez for several days, prices are rising including for things like electricity and supply chains are disrupted all over the globe. I discovered a very long time ago it's best to plan ahead for things like price rises, power outages, supply chain disruptions, and ageing, so this all is just a wee blip on our (Paul and mine) radar - but it all bears watching of course. And taking yet more mitigating steps.
I'm not the only person doing this, my husband is stocking up on things he can't live without if prices go even higher and supplies become more limited than already are. I've just received a bulk order of the only hand cream I've ever found that keeps the atopic dermatitis at bay, and the Avon lip balm they only sell once a year for some insane reason. I could go on for pages about the cost of the sort of things we're seeing rise to astonishing heights or supply chain disruptions meaning reliability of stock varies wildly. We now have a rule - if it is something we need (ok, or love) and we can't make it ourselves, we buy in bulk when we see it.
Food prices and stock availability are a concern, so much so we've begun rationing ourselves. Half the portion sizes which were already small enough to bring a tear of joy to the dietician's eyes - but now what was a monthly supermarket and butcher order lasts two months. The cost of meat has steadily risen over the past year, more so than the first year we lived up here, and it's primarily owing to the pandemic according to our embarrassed butcher who apologises every other month when Paul picks up the order I've phoned in.
But it's not just meat, it's everything from butter and milk to eggs to potatoes and fruit...locally grown or brought over from the EU, costs are rising thanks to the pandemic restrictions and yes, in part to Brexit - the evil Eew cannot keep from limiting supplies, cutting supplies, and imposing eye-watering tariffs where they can't stop supplies from going through. Even getting post - letter or parcel - from Northern Ireland has been affected by the EU restrictions, the EU is stopping post at the waterfront and airports despite NI being UK, not Eew.
My friends here and back in the US are re-thinking as well. Between the issues being caused by Brexit shortages and price rises (DAMN the EU for the problems they're causing that didn't need to be!!), ageing and health considerations, we're all doing re-thinks about how we do things.
I stock in medical supplies and rotate not only the consumable medical supplies but the food and household cleaning supplies as well. OK, I admit it - we're doing everything we can to avoid the supermarket and the medical service. I even brushed up my suturing skills. I did after all grow up between a cattle ranch and boxing gym - I know how to distinguish between a simple and compound fracture and set a simple one safely. And I can neatly suture a small wound if needed. As for other home nursing, yep, I am trained for that and stocked with supplies to make it happen.
We've taken the decision we will not go to the medics unless absolutely in a genuinely life-threatening condition. I don't go in the supermarket at all and Paul disinfects using isopropyl spray at the car boot before loading the purchases in and getting into the passenger compartment with me (I go along for the ride but not inside, at least this way I get out of the house a bit).
We think Paul has had the virus - we know I have antibodies so I have had it and the cardiologist thinks it caused me to have several acute flares of the recurrent pericarditis plus making the microvascular angina worse so he wants me to be very careful. They won't test Paul for antibodies so we don't know for sure but the cardiologist thinks Paul is either naturally immune or had it at the same time I did, and he was asymptomatic. Either way, we're to 'continue being careful' as if we needed to be told, lol!
And we continue planning and implementing 'ageing-gracefully-in-place' considerations. Paul and I downsized two years ago (ok yes, we should have held out for a two bed-two bath but heigh-ho). An en-suite WC is going in the bedroom walk-in closet in part for convenience and in part in case once of us needs to quarantine (hey, two facilities are a must even if it's 'just a couple'!).
Of course the en-suite is dependent on when the builders can come in the house to do the work - one of the worst things about the pandemic (of course aside from the horror of losing friends to the virus) has been having to put things like needed home improvements to the very very back burner. But eventually the bedroom en-suite will go in, I will have a shower room instead of a shower over an impossibly high-walled bathtub so my ageing knees and back are able to simply walk into a shower cabinet rather than risk a fall clambering in and out of that wretched high bathtub, and the new kitchen WILL be done so I no longer have to bother Paul to take something out of the oven - the oven will be raised and I can do all my cooking and baking without worrying my back is going to play up taking a casserole out. Or putting it in.
Someday. When the pandemic is really over and we're able to have builders and plumbers and electricians back in. Someday...
The only reason our neighbour is scheduled to have his garden fence replaced next Monday is owing to storm damage - until that gale force wind at the past weekend took out a small section of his back fence, he, like us, was at the very bottom of the queue. But the damage to his fence means he's been bumped up to priority. Paul and I are still at the back of the queue as we've not had an emergency grant us a bump.
We're switching to lightweight but robustly built tools when something needs replacing - we love the 'reel' lawn mower and edger (great but not strenuous exercise, I even have a go when I can pry Paul's fingers off the mower and the edger), and we're 'decluttering' things we rarely use or are simply too big to store for easy retrieval on the rare occasion. Sniffle, I 'rehomed' my big Pyrex casserole pan - that thing was huge, the only way it fit into the oven was diagonally and even then it came perilously close to touching back wall and door during baking. I miss it of course but I have space in the cupboards for smaller things now.
Paul and I don't bend well any longer - problem solved by raising the power sockets to hip level - and eventually the oven will be raised as well for the same reason. My heart conditions mean inclines-stairs-lifting-toting-exerting is a non-goer - we live a one-level cottage on a flat level property and street and walking to all the things we need from convenience store to supermarket to library. It's only the GP and dentist up a steep hill and my angina is well controlled to the point I can just about manage that hill now spring has sprung.
Er, now all that is wanted is for the GP and dentist to re-open for full service. Someday. Maybe. But I'm beginning to doubt medical-dental normal anything is going to happen again during my lifetime.
I bought and use daily a bread maker - who knew gluten-free bread could taste so much better when made with a bread maker?! I didn't but I do now! And the savings making our own bread (including dough for rolls and pizza - Paul is in heaven with his homemade gluten-free pizza bases I make ahead in bulk and freeze for him), WOW!
The deep fat fryer is used for gluten-free battered fish, chips, and doughnuts. Change the oil for each type food and it's cheaper than take-away chips to make plus it doesn't seem to be causing a bump in the power bill. The pasta machine comes out for all sorts of gluten-free pastas, so fast and easy to make a small amount of fresh pasta.
OK, the little cupcake maker doesn't make as nice a cupcake or muffin as the traditional oven so that went to the charity shop the second they began accepting donations again (we're still in restrictions but the full-on stay-at-home lockdowns have ended - for now). But for the most part every kitchen gadget I've bought over the past few months has been genius for making my life easier and avoiding supply chain disruptions and price rises.
The latest home gadget is a manual carpet sweeper. Aside from not wearing wrinkled stockings and the constant curlers in hair, I'm beginning to feel my inner Nora Batty rising - my house is CLEAN, dammit! A few years back my Hoover (no, really, it was a genuine Hoover upright) died (well, I knew better than to vacuum over wet, I really did but went ahead telling myself it was only damp...) and I smartened up and bought a lightweight cylinder (canister for the American readers) vacuum.
It's a Zanussi because who can afford the Miele these days, certainly not me - those Miele cylinder vacs cost £££, the Zanussi was ££, weighs much less and does just as good a job cleaning the carpets in this cottage. It has to have a bag and a filter - and that's how I want it. Unbagged vacuums are dust spreaders and a major pain to empty.
It's so tiny I'm always amazed at the superior clean from it - slide on the pet hair turbo head attachments and I have ultra clean carpeting once a week sufficient to making using the carpet sweeper daily an effective way to manage the carpet cleaning without having an angina attack.
The carpet sweeper does a decent job - every morning I run it over the carpets and emptying it into the rubbish bin is relatively easy, easier than the bagless stick vac I was using. Once a week I haul out the little Zanussi for a deep clean but daily the carpet sweeper keeps the carpets presentable and BONUS, I get to feel I'm doing my part to stick it to Scottish Power:) Twice a year I attach the 'carpet glide accessory' to the steam mop and
go over the carpet 'to freshen', lol - damn sight cheaper than having
the carpet cleaner in and does every bit the same as the £££ carpet
cleaning service.
Re-thinks. Between ageing with health issues, Brexit (which I voted for and would again - I am only complaining about the way the EU is determined to punish Britain for regaining sovereignty), and the bloody pandemic lockdowns and restrictions, we're all having to do re-thinks.
