Corona Virus

[Ray]

There are a lot of good people still, it's good to know.

Also well done and thank you Finny, it's an important job much overlooked 👍

[Paul]

 

[finny]

45 minutes ago, Ray said:

There are a lot of good people still, it's good to know.

Also well done and thank you Finny, it's an important job much overlooked 👍

It is Ray the lads have been fantastic,on the other side my brother is with the Ambulance service and two nieces front line nurses my daughter is a environmental health officer and they are all out there - I find it hard to sleep at night and would be very greatfull if we all come out ok on the other side 

please keep my family safe - stay home 

thank you Finny 

[Ray]

 

5 minutes ago, finny said:

my brother is with the Ambulance service and two nieces front line nurses my daughter is a environmental health officer and they are all out there

Wow, your whole family is on the front line!

Stay safe all of you and thank you all 🍺

[Chelsea14Ian]

What is life like now for you now? No beach,no river.No going to the pub.long queues at the supermarket. Long days,often bored.No work.However remember the many that are helping us .Some we dont know who they are,yet they are helping us.We will overcome this madness.It will take time.Remember those that helped us in our hour of need. The NHS,the care workers.Delivery workers bin men and women.Key workers.The good neighbor asking if we want help.Dont forget these people when we most at need in our hour of need.Thank you all.

[TheQ]

I could walk to the beach from home and still be within the " reasonable distance " from home.  But we don't  it's comparatively crowded down there,  as all the second homers bailed out of London  to their houses by the beach just before the travel ban.  Also if it weren't for trees I could see the nearest broad... Through binoculars.

We are near a lost broad, walking the dog, we go to the area that would have been marshes around it, when it still existed.  In all the 20 years of walking that route, excluding farmhands and the pheasant shoot,  we've only seen people half a dozen times. But three different  pairs of those have been in the last 3 weeks. 

We are seeing many strangers walking and cycling past the house.  When they stop and pull out a map or peer at a smart phone,  you know they are not local. 

As for what we are doing,  it's a continuous never ending  weekend.

So today, 

House maintenance,  mow the garden, 1.5 acres of jungle.. 

Work on the sailing boat,   sanding a board which will spread the weight of the new keel onto the hull. 

Work on the model railway,  which normally would have only been worked on a Friday evening at the model railway club.  I retrieved that from the MRC the day before the ban came in. Each day I'm doing as much work as would have been done in an evening.  The  scenic work is being started on board 6, which will also hold the traverser,  for which I'm awaiting parts from the house of strong ladies. 

On a weekday  I'm still doing a limited amount of official work,  writing a spreadsheet to interpret a set of data in a certificate into a format a customer needs to down load into a computer program. 

 

[ChrisB]

I own 150 metres of track with two others leading to our houses, I am the last one so get the views. It is actually part of the Paston Way.

I have to say it is getting more use than at any time in the 13 years that I have been here in Norfolk. 

I would estimate I recognise  only 50% of the peoples as local. With the windows open I have also heard quite a few regional accents.

[Vaughan]

59 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Also if it weren't for trees I could see the nearest broad... Through binoculars.

"Wiv a ladder and some glasses, you could see to 'ackney marshes -

if it wasn't for the 'ouses in between".

An old music hall song, I think it was Flanagan and Allen.

[Vaughan]

It is 11 o'clock in France and the church bells have started pealing in the tower, over an empty church beneath.

And my Missis has already been at too many of the Easter eggs!

[JanetAnne]

16 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

 

And my Missis has already been at too many of the Easter eggs!

Can't be done. 

There is no such thing as too much chocolate. 

[JennyMorgan]

I'm missing my youngest grandchildren big time, we have shared their joyful egg hunt on line but it's not the same as being there. Their mum is a consultant/prescribing pharmacist in a hospital, determined that her doddery old parents are not put at risk, despite the gowns and masks. Damnation on this accursed pandemic.  

[Hylander]

19 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

 Damnation on this accursed pandemic.  

I second your last comment Peter.  

[Wussername]

I quite like a bit of doddering Peter. Not much else to do. But would rather be doddering about on the river. A gentle cruise, a gentle sail. Even a drift would be good.

Andrew

 

 

[Chelsea14Ian]

15 minutes ago, Hylander said:

I second your last comment Peter.  

I third that.I agree about the Chocolate. My Birthday is close to Easter,March 23

I always get Easter eggs.Normally I get Marina Eggs.This year thanks to this horrible virus, I cant get out of the house. I've tried to go on line.No luck.Unable to share because she can only eat Dark chocolate. When I can I will get her some chocs.

 

 

[Chelsea14Ian]

According to BBC Boris has left hospital. Good news indeed.

[ChrisB]

I have to admit that I am struggling to get a grip on this Coronavirus. 

We are mostly obeying the rules and staying at home to slow transmission and give the NHS a fighting chance of not being overwhelmed. But there seems to be a feeling that after "Exit" by some strategy or other, things will be OK. But that can not be so. Until a vaccine is developed to provide protection and a superdrug developed to stop it becoming deadly when contracted, life cannot return to normal, as it will still be out there and killing people.

Take my own example, I have cancelled nearly everthing that I had planned this year. One of those was a road trip through France and Northern Spain something I have done many times. However even when travel is resumed, I will not be happy unless I have been vaccinated. In fact I shall not go. I am a widower, I travel alone, off the Autoroute ( Tolls on you own in a RHD a pain ) in very wild and rural France. How would I possibly manage if I fell ill in say Rocamadour 700 miles from home driving alone. My French is pretty good, having worked in Lille and Paris but it is nowhere near the standard I would wish if I were to be Hospitalised in rural France.

I just cannot for the life of me see how things can return to what we consider normal until a vaccine is available. It all smacks of a bit of Russian Roulette.

[ExSurveyor]

I suspect things will be eased, gradually.

Social distancing will still be the norm and i don't see foreign travel being encouraged until after vaccines have become widespread.

Pubs, clubs and food venues will probably be last to open.

We do have the advantage of seeing how things progress in other countries first.

 

[Ray]

I agree that a vaccine is the the only means by which anything like "normal" life can restart. There are very encouraging results reported from Oxford but the 2nd problem after discovering a vaccine is to make and distribute enough of it!

It's all going to be a while yet sadly

[Timbo]

21 hours ago, Wussername said:

 Even a drift would be good.

Andrew

 

 

Have you thought of having casters fitted? Once fitted, simply mooch around in areas of the house often traversed by the Mrs and she will propel you out of her way with various degrees of force. A good approximation of the sailing experience could be achieved in this manner. 

I'm having great success of recreating our voyage to Beccles last year by sitting on my desk chair, putting the beagles on their leads and attaching them to the chair. By throwing dog biscuits in the direction I wish to travel I get to career around the house bumping randomly into furniture, the wooden floors give the feeling of gliding through water with no engine to break you. Inflated latex gloves make excellent fenders and the occasional rug serves as mud for running aground on. I can also testify that when I indulge in this activity, Ellie has the exact same expression on her face as she had when RT's engine went bang!

[Vaughan]

I am glad you sound as though you're OK, Tim!   

[Treehugger]

After the Lockdown comes the Let Out, but I suspect things will not be the same, either in the country as a whole or in the Watery Ransomesque micro-world of Broadland. Certainly our economy is never going to be same,and I don't just mean the plunge into recession as we try to pay  the  price for the long-term freezing  of around eighty per cent  of all industrial/commercial operations. Seeking a short term boom? Get into the Insolvency business.

But it may not all be bad news. The way we conduct politics will also hopefully change, and whatsoever side of the current political boundaries you sit, real change can only be better than recent experience. Forcibly deprived of the great outdoors, we  may even value the natural world all the more for being denied it .It's going to be (hopefully) a fresh perspective.

High in his 5 storey lair overlooking  the Waveney, a small bear sits; increasingly anxious for a return to the great outdoors. Meantime there are still tasks in hand, and for this bear it means tomorrow starting the first of two weekly eight hour shifts as duty co-ordinator of the local emergency support initiative.Together with our call-takers, and drivers we'll be trying to make sure that those who can't shop, get their shopping, and those in need of self medication, get their prescriptions.It's a fairly humble role compared to the heroic battle being played out by the clinicians, but its a job worth doing, and heck - it keeps you out of mischief, dunnit!. 

[Ray]

51 minutes ago, Treehugger said:

 its a job worth doing, and heck - it keeps you out of mischief, dunnit!. 

It's very much a job worth doing and thank you for doing it! 🍺🍺

[Vaughan]

In France, Macron has just given a speech and the total lockdown will continue until 11 May.  After that they plan to re-open schools and colleges gradually, followed by as much manufacturing industry as possible.  There is no immediate plan to open bars and restaurants and any kind of public event with crowds will have to wait until at least the end of July. He seemed very confident that the virus is being controlled and I thought he gave a very good speech.

He did say that frontiers will remain closed to non-European countries. I take it that means the UK!

[HEM]

1 minute ago, Vaughan said:

In France, Macron has just given a speech and the total lockdown will continue until 11 May.  After that they plan to re-open schools and colleges gradually,....

That will be decided by the virus...

 

Quote

I take it that means the UK!

Of course!  BoJo would not want it any other way!

[Vaughan]

9 minutes ago, HEM said:

That will be decided by the virus...

Of course, but his date of 11 May seemed decisive. During the next 4 weeks they plan to ensure that anyone with symptoms gets tested and that hospitals will be able to admit those with the actual illness. The virus is still worst in the Paris area and in north east France but it seems it is very much under control in other areas.

We have already been in lockdown for a week longer than UK and I have to say that the response from the French public has been very much better than that of the British, that I have seen on TV. They have obeyed the regulations and this may have made a big difference.

I never thought I'd say that about the French!