Extended lockdown. Rules and regulations. Shopping and shortages. Hairdressing!

So lockdown has been extended by another three weeks.

There seems to have been some relaxation of rules about things like driving somewhere to go for a long walk - now permissible so long as the walk will be longer than the drive. In fact, you can even stop for a picnic lunch on your walk, but not just a picnic in the local park.

And the guidelines now talk about going shopping for essential food items AND luxuries. So there is no need to fear a busybody, official or otherwise, looking in your shopping trolley and criticising your purchase of chocolate, wine, cakes and biscuits. After all, going on lockdown doesn’t have to mean that we all live like abstemious hermits.

Airlines are talking about maybe not using the middle seats on rows, so that social distancing can continue in the planes when, or if, flights resume. Apparently, however, flights are still arriving into the UK at the moment and few if any checks of the disembarking travellers are taking place. How is that happening?!

Goodness knows when ordinary travel will be resumed. Pessimists say that we can all give up the idea of foreign summer holidays this year.

President Trump, by the way, does not seem to be a pessimist. He is talking as if the whole coronavirus crisis is now dealt with and he appears to expect America to be back to normal in a matter of weeks. We shall see!

Meanwhile steps are being taken to adjust to life under lockdown. According to this article Transport for London is looking at ways to make streets more accessible and safer for pedestrians and cyclists - people having to go to work are opting to use cycles to avoid using public transport. Other cities are considering following suit.

On the Radio 4 programme “You and Yours” just now they have been talking about the crisis-driven increase in the number of people buying tinned tomatoes here in the UK. We have been buying more than other countries, causing a bit of a problem for tomato tinners in places like Italy, who are having to go into overdrive. There is a serious shortage in UK supermarkets and the Italian producer interviewed on the radio says prices will have to go up.

Now, our daughter has managed to get a Click and Collect spot at one of the big supermarkets and included my shopping list in hers. Both of us wanted to buy tinned tomatoes, not a massive amount, just a couple of tins apiece. The supermarket has told her that there are none available. You see, we have not been hoarding or panic-buying tomatoes. So who has been buying them all? My daughter and I have decided, perhaps rather condescendingly, that masses of people are surviving on home-made spaghetti bolognese (spag bol) as it’s the only thing they know how to cook. 

Strange times!

Another oddment of information from the same radio programme is an increase in “boredom shopping”. People are buying stuff they don't need because they are spending/killing time surfing the net and being tempted by stuff on sale. The appropriately named Wendy Driver who works as a delivery driver reported on odd things that she had delivered from online shopping orders: from new mini-headphones to gardening equipment. Another commentator told of someone almost impulse-ordering a white grand piano, of another person who actually did order a cello, despite having no knowledge of how to play it.

Once again I say, strange times!

Cutting your own or family members’ hair is another crisis-driven thing. There are YouTube tutorials available, telling you how to cut your fringe, and even more daring stuff. It doesn’t always work. Here is a link to the BBC’s Emily Maitlis unsuccessfully cutting her husband’s hair. Our eldest granddaughter cut her own quite successfully. Or at any rate it looks okay for a video chat. We haven’t been able to see her in the flesh of course. She has also successfully coloured her hair, something that hairdressers interviewed on the radio advise approaching with caution. But she is colouring her hair a bright shade of pink, probably less easy to make a desperate mess of. Many of us will, of course, be watching our roots start to show over the coming weeks. I managed a trip to my hairdressing salon just before lockdown started and so far all is well. My eyebrows are a different story though!

On the menu today is a homemade vegetable soup, leftover garlic and mushroom tart from yesterday and some salad. For dessert we have a rhubarb, apple and pear pie. None of this is dependent on supplies being brought by my daughter from her supermarket Click and Collect visit.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!