Observations on Lockdown living

# 1

The morning after last week's post, when I asked for wine to be sent to mitigate the 'Husband wfh* situation', I asked my beloved what his plans were for the day.

'I'm going to the wine shop.  I will be buying all the wine.'

Reader, I wasn't sure whether to be relieved or offended - especially since he doesn't read this blog and so must have decided without prompting from me that this would be a wise course of action...


#2

I walked the dog this morning and when I got back home went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea, only to find Husband had commandeered it to make a Very Important Phone Call.

He ssshhh'd me as I entered the room.

I raised my eyebrows as I thought; if only there were other places he could make that call.  Somewhere low-traffic, out of the way.  Somewhere without the fridge, and the kettle, and the mugs and teabags.  Somewhere like, oh I don't know - a home office.  Or a sitting room.  Or a bedroom.

Oh - wait...


* wfh - working from home

WFH - WTF? (When Lockdown gets real)

As a result of Covid 19 my husband, the inveterate traveller, is being forced to work from home (wfh) for at least the next three weeks.

Send wine.

We've been here before, for longer than that. One of the best things about writing a blog is that you can search up a word on your old posts and be transported back in time - my own personal Tardis.  (Boy #2 and I are currently working our way through the back catalogue of 'Dr Who'.  Matt Smith is the current doctor - a personal high point for me).  Anyway, I managed to find a post I wrote back in 2008 when my husband was made redundant from the bank he worked for.  He was wfh home for around 4 months - on and off - and it prompted this observation:  

We've already had the arguments over my incorrect stacking of the dishwasher. I am ineffecient, apparantly. Are the plates clean? I ask. That's not the point, I'm told. I bite my tongue. (I am doing a lot of that recently). We reach a compromise: I won't mention the un-emptied gym bag or the coffee cups left around the place, he mustn't criticise the way I stack the blasted dishwasher.

That was two weeks into his 2008 wfh experience.  Only two weeks.

Like I said; send wine.  Send ALL the wine.

A Different Kind of Bank

The fact that 14,000,000 people across the UK are living in poverty, and that of that number 4,500,000 are children, is an uncomfortable truth that many of us choose not to dwell on for long.  It's hard to imagine; a fifth of the UK's population fall into that bracket.  One in five.

Juggling the responsibilities of every day life and it's resultant costs - utilities, rent, phone bills, clothing - mean that many of these families are unable to get by without the help of food banks.  Put food in the fridge and on the table, or put something towards the long overdue bills?  It's a balancing act, and without the food banks' support, many people would not have enough to feed their families.  In some case, even with their support, there is not enough.  The prospect of the forthcoming school holidays is not a welcome one; without breakfast clubs and school lunches children often go hungry.

In the current environment food banks need our support more than ever - and yet donations have decreased substantially since Covid 19 started to make an impact.

If you can afford it, however - and it's doesn't have to cost a lot - it's not hard to help out.  The next time you go to the supermarket stick a few extra items in your basket and drop them off at the trolley on the other side of the checkouts.  Ideally, check in with your local foodbank before you go to see what they need (click here to find the one nearest to you).  Interestingly, the list doesn't seem to change that much from one week to the next, so if you forget to check before you can just go with what you've bought before.  For example, here's a shopping list from my local food bank.  It's remained more or less the same for the last few weeks.

COFFEE

• SPONGE PUDDINGS
• UHT MILK (LONGLIFE)
• INSTANT MASHED POTATO
• TINNED VEGETABLES
• HOUSEHOLD ITEMS E.G. TOILET ROLLS, LAUNDRY DETERGENT, WASHING UP LIQUID ETC
• UHT FRUIT JUICE (LONGLIFE)

You don't have to spend a fortune; even a few items will make a difference, especially now when food banks are running perilously low on stocks (click for a link to a Guardian article giving more details).  Unsurprisingly perhaps, many people are so distracted by world events that buying a couple of extra tins of sweetcorn or tomatoes is the last thing on their minds, but if you can find the time and the impetus to do so, you could make all the difference.

Here are couple of useful links if you would like to know more about how to help:

https://www.trusselltrust.org/
http://www.foodaidnetwork.org.uk/
https://feedingbritain.org/