Deliveries. Phones. Haircuts. Children in lockdown. Shortages.

The weather has changed. It rained in the night and this morning was noticeably cooler than it has been of late. More rain is forecast for later today. But tomorrow is another day and the sun is supposed to come back. We shall see.

Phil’s mobile phone died on him. It just went blank, still receiving calls but giving no means of actually answering them. So he spent a good part of yesterday trying to fix things. Our daughter brought an old phone from her house - this is how we always get our iPhones as she and her offspring update at fairly regular intervals as younger people than us all seem to do - with the idea that Phil could transfer his sim card and stuff from one phone to another. We shall see!

She brought the phone round when she brought some groceries from the Click and Collect supermarket slot she had managed to obtain. Everything was handed over at a safe distance: parcel of groceries on the doorstep, phone on the garden wall, while she stood well back as we collected. The shopping, by the way, was missing tinned tomatoes, as I expected from what I heard yesterday, but also eggs, tins of chick peas, mixed nuts, grapefruit juice and loo roll - a curious mix of shortages!

She also brought some of the offspring (the 14 year old was too busy with his computer games, as ever) to stand in the garden and wave to us, a poor substitute for actually all going to the park together or coming in for a cup of tea and a chat but better than nothing.

Our second granddaughter (age 17) had cut her own hair, following the YouTube instructions sent to her by her older sister. It seemed to have worked very well. Maybe it’s easier if you have reasonably straight hair. I would imagine cropping curls might be more of a problem.

On the subject of haircuts, I found this:-

“Denmark moved into lockdown a couple of weeks before the UK and is now enjoying the benefits of its swift reaction to the coronavirus crisis. The country has announced that it will reopen hairdressing salons on Monday – a full week before its courts – giving Danes a chance to have a proper haircut. As soon as the news broke, the country’s biggest online haircut booking system crashed.”

We wondered about the possibility of the little kids coming and playing, at a safe distance, in our back garden but in the end decided it might be bending the distancing rules a little too much. At least in the UK parents can still take their children for walk and a bit of a run around. According to this article parents in Spain are growing increasingly anxious about the fact that their children have not been allowed out for over a month.

“In France and Belgium children are allowed out of their homes for one hour each day within a limited distance. After weeks of total confinement, Italian authorities now allow minors out for a walk close to home, accompanied by one parent. Last week, Denmark reopened its primary schools and kindergartens, while Norway plans to follow suit later this month.
 Campaigners argue that the situation is particularly acute in Spain, where the dense layers of apartment buildings that sprawl across cities have left many of the country’s nearly seven million children without direct access to fresh air or sunlight. “Approximately 70% of Spanish families with children live in apartments, many of them 50- to 70-metres square and without balconies,” said one expert.”

For those of us lucky enough to have a garden or at least easy access to the countryside, here is a link to an article about birds you can spot while you are out and about.

The NHS is reported to be hitting another crisis point, this time on the provision of PPE. It is being suggested that may need to use plastic aprons instead of fully protective gowns. What I don’t understand is why, in this age of recycling and conservation, nobody has invented a form of PPE that can be disinfected and reused. Is suppose that under normal circumstances there has been no urgency to produce such a thing but now we really could do with it. There must be a mountain of used PPE just being disposed of at the end of every shift.

The writer Margaret Atwood in her Lockdown Diary  writes about her mother knitting wash cloths for the troops in World War II, albeit rather inefficiently. Margaret Atwood ends her article like this:-

“Meanwhile, my sister and her sewing machine are hurtling down the highway towards me at the speed of light; well, not exactly, but faster than usual due to the scarcity of cars on the road. I have dug out my own ancient sewing machine, and after I’ve oiled it and figured out how to work it again, we are going to sew face masks for health workers. I’ve even found some elastic, in short supply on the ground these days: there must be a lot of face mask sewing going on. The result may be like my grandmother’s washcloths – not perfect, lopsided, but well meant. And, with hope, they will also be functional. Fingers crossed.”

On the menu here today is pasta with salmon in a creamy sauce. So I didn’t need the missing items from my shopping list today at any rate.

 Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!