Originally posted by Patrick Thistle
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The Lockdown Diaries
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We have a trampoline in the backyard and it's great. I insisted that we get one with the highest level of safety as I'm not inclined to want to deal with injuries during a pandemic and now it turns out that I'm the one that gives it the most use, I was previously unaware that trampolining is a decent bit of cardio and it's more fun than running.
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Day 3. Not our finest day. The upstairs toilet was blocked. Husband tried to clear it with bicarbonate and vinegar and just created a terrifying poo volcano*. Daughter has a stomach bug and vomited all over the lounge. Me and husband had a row about whether I had cleaned my hands sufficiently after dealing with the vomit to be draining pasta. Day was rescued by abandoning adulthood and all just playing Luigi's Mansion 3 together in the evening.
*It is now finally cleared.
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Day 4. We built a trampoline in the back garden. Well, I helped for the first hour during my lunch break and my husband finished it with the "help" of the children in the afternoon. My son bounced on it solidly for about an hour. I had a work "social" call in the afternoon where the children came and waved at everyone and all their dogs and babies too.
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Day 5. Bounced on the trampoline. Cleaned the kitchen. Helped the kids make cards for mother-in-law and went to the local shop to post them and buy a few essentials (it also helpfully has a post office). Shop was depressingly busy. People wearing face masks but not bothering to distance themselves in the queue. Daughter made us all bracelets out of paper clips.
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Day 6. Today I mostly cooked. Made a spicy rigatoni alla norma for lunch and a roast dinner. I thought I made loads but everything has been eaten by the end of the day. I guess the kids are getting older and eating more. Plus, without junk food in the house, they eat more of their main meals.
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Originally posted by Balderdasha View PostDay 6. Today I mostly cooked. Made a spicy rigatoni alla norma for lunch and a roast dinner. I thought I made loads but everything has been eaten by the end of the day. I guess the kids are getting older and eating more..
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Day 7. Played frisbee in the park at lunchtime. Put frisbee on my head because it made my son giggle that I looked like an angel with a halo. Then we did the conga together. At some point the frisbee halo fell off and despite a rigorous search of the park it was nowhere to be found. Son went out to the trampoline after school / work finished. We didn't realise, but he couldn't open the zip to get back out. He was only there for about ten minutes but by the time we got him out he was howling as if we'd abandoned him in an Arctic wasteland. Had to warm him up by rubbing his feet on the sofa under a big blanket and giving him a hot chocolate. We're watching the first season of the Mandalorian together in the evening at the moment.
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Mild scare over.
No sooner had a I posted on here that we seemed to be set fair over Covid than somebody at my ex-wife's work tested positive. She hadn't been on the same shift as this person but had been in the same space as her with PPE on, but it was still a nervy time. Test came back negative this morning.
Meanwhile, I have literally no idea how I'm supposed to home school my elder boy while I'm working and she's out at work.
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Originally posted by My Name Is Ian View PostMeanwhile, I have literally no idea how I'm supposed to home school my elder boy while I'm working and she's out at work.
It won't teach him Maths, or Science, or anything (although it may teach him how to spell "Surreptitiously"), but it'll be very good experience for his future working life.
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They created a huge mess in the living room this morning, but after a fairly thorough telling off they did spend a good hour tidying it all up again. So in other words, in tidying up a mess created by them, they are fairly accurately recreating much of my "working" day.
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Day 8. Took the kids to the sandpit at lunchtime. Husband made jacket potatoes for lunch and pasta bake for dinner. Played Monopoly after work then son did jigsaws while I taught daughter card games, snap, five card rummy, 21, go fish. Did a zoom call this evening with my breastfeeding support group to maintain my certification.
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We're getting by with a combination of the cub sitting in with one of us doing his school work when we're not on calls, regular breaks and a daily (so far) videocall with one of his aunties or one of his school friends in the afternoon so he can blather. His biggest issue is that he feels lonely when he's on his own, even if we're in the next room.
I've been getting rotten anxiety which has been giving me chest pains again. Well it's that or the hiatus hernia.
Added to my inability to exercise due to back pain and I was getting quite stressed and my BP was spiking.
So for want of a better idea (Dr only recommended group talking therapy - ah,no...) I got some cbd oil pills,and some 5-htp jellies. Now it could be placebo, it could a psychological reaction to doing something seemingly medical etc. But I feel a lot better and my BP is down from 145/95 ish to 128/84 ish. So you know, interesting...
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Day 13.
A slightly different day. Various churches near us have started advertising "rescued food" days i.e. days when they distribute food close to or just past its sell by date which would otherwise be thrown away. I haven't gone to them before because a) we are fortunate enough to have enough money to buy food and b) the closest church is two miles away and UK weather is crap. But, today was a sunny day and in the absence of any other available organised activities, I decided to walk to the food rescue hub with my daughter. I was curious to see what it was like, and thought I could check it out to see if it would be suitable to recommend to my parents-in-law. A 4-mile round trip is about the limit of what my daughter can handle. My son could also walk 4 miles, but couldn't queue without whinging so he stayed at home with my husband. Me and my daughter litter picked on the way and chatted. There was a massive queue when we got there, with marshals in neon yellow jackets making sure that everyone kept two metres distance and wore masks. Everyone was being quite stoic. Lots of old people, families with children, range of people who appeared to be both working and middle class.
I taught my daughter to play charades in the queue and we played that for a while plus twenty questions and eye spy. It took just over an hour to get to the front of the queue. The doors open at 2pm and close at 4pm. One of the marshals told me that people start queuing at midday so there's no real way to avoid standing around in the cold for an hour or more, which makes it unsuitable to recommend to my in-laws.
The queue was so long that I felt sure they'd have run out by the time we got to the front, but there was still loads of everything. We dropped some coins in a donation box which goes towards free meals for needy families, but for the cost of less than ?2 our food haul included:
6 pears
10 carrots
10 potatoes
2 bags of bananas
2 bags of satsumas
10 small onions
2 large parsnips
3 heads of broccoli
1 pack of wholemeal rolls
1 pack of white finger rolls
1 pack of lemon slices
1 pack of chocolate millionaire whirls
24 free range eggs
2 500ml bottles of diet pepsi
1 cheese twist
1 almond croissant
2 tubs sour cream dip
2 tubs of nacho cheese dip
We would have been allowed to take much more of everything (except the eggs, it's 24 maximum), but I couldn't fit any more in the large rucksack I'd brought with me to carry it all home.
This was just the fresh "rescued food". There was a separate section handing out non-perishables like tins of tomatoes and packets of dried pasta, which is the "community larder" for families in need. We didn't take any of that as there is no point in us taking food from families in need.
As a one off "adventure" with my daughter, it was definitely worth it and promoted lots of conversations about food poverty, avoiding food waste, the erosion of social structures in this country, etc. I don't think it's something we'll repeat often, but there will be many, many families who are not doing this to reduce waste and help the environment, they're doing it out of pure necessity. Because this isn't an official food bank (anyone can turn up, you don't need a referral from a social worker for example) I doubt these types of initiatives are included in government figures on food poverty, but I know at least 4 churches in my nearby area that are doing the same week in and week out.Last edited by Balderdasha; 17-01-2021, 17:53.
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Originally posted by Sporting View PostThe food would otherwise have gone to waste.
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Originally posted by Sporting View PostThe food would otherwise have gone to waste.
I'm not going to ask at what time this was.
Diet Pepsi wouldn't have landed in a landfill, I reckon, not that day. But I wasn't there. So, yes, it would have gone to waste.
Last edited by treibeis; 17-01-2021, 18:22.
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There are also multiple actual food banks in town, which I would never go to, as those are purely for families in need. I have visited one with a friend before, a single mother who was in need of help, and they kept trying to give me food (I don't think they believed me that I didn't need it, I think they thought I was embarrassed).
But why wouldn't you want to stop food from going to landfill? If it was closer than a two mile walk I'd consider going more regularly.
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