COVID-19......Your Situation

[SteveW]

It would be interesting to know how different board members are/will be effected personally by Covid-19.
Me......I retired early a couple of years ago. I've got two years work for myself ahead of me.
Mostly this consists of stone flagging, hard and soft landscaping, fitting drainage and fencing. I'm also working toward setting up a tree nursery on my land.
I've been panic buying......Stone flags, pallets of cement bags, bulk bags of sand, drainage gravel, Red Diesel, drainage pipe, 60 tons of Type1 MOT, fencing materials and a pallet of postcrete.
So no problems with work/keeping busy for me.
My wife doesn't work, but she loves going to the gym.....which closes tomorrow.
Our youngest daughter, who lives at home is a newly qualified primary school teacher, she's confused.....schools will close, but will stay open for certain children. As she doesn't have kids of her own, she assumes she'll be one of the "lucky" teachers who will still have to go to work.
We've got four other "kids" only one could be classed as in an essential occupation.....she's an NHS nurse in mental health.
So the others (3 lads) have an open invitation to isolate themselves with us.....provided they engage in hard manual labour.
I suppose I've got it easy.

[qcnr]

Working in the oil and gas industry in Norway.
Havn't really noticed much that has had been upsetting daily life for us. 2 girls at home,
one an apprentice at the airport, the other studying healthcare. Schools are closed so she
does a lot of work online, I go to work as normal. Shops have food and toilet roll.
BUT, I am travelling offshore next friday. So I have to quarantine myself in a hotel for 1
week from tomorrow and instead of 2 weeks offshore I will be offshore for 3 weeks.
At least I will be getting paid accordingly as well BUt sucks for not being able to take my bike out...

[daveuprite]

Re: Isolation

We couldn't be much more isolated anyway, so in that respect life is much the same as before. It's just us two, the dogs, cats, chickens, horses and donkeys - as usual. They are better company than most humans anyway.

Re: Money/Economics

Already stuffed by brexit anyway, so again not much change. £ / Euro exchange has dived another 10% on top of the 20% lost on the 24th June 2016, so any money we bring over from the UK is worth even less now. We live on fresh air, literally, with a huge forest behind us.

Environment

We are underneath the high altitude flight path between northern European countries and Spain / Africa - so we are used to a constant criss-cross of vapour trails up at 38,000 feet (no sound thank goodness). But it has noticeably reduced, and I only noticed a handful of planes so far today. So that's excellent news. The distant lorry traffic we hear from the RN147 has almost disappeared, and on the 2 occasions we've ventured out since the lockdown we've been almost the only vehicle.

Law

Now having to carry a signed a dated pass / declaration for every journey, but personally I think the system is working well, with people having to justify any trips away from home into categories, like shopping, pharmacy/doctor visit, looking after livestock etc.

Overall

Feeling very sorry for those who are losing their livelihood over this. Ringing my 86-year old mum in Dorset every day to check on her in isolation, but my sister is a near neighbour so she's getting food parcels to the front door. Just glad that we don't have screaming kids around, and the peace and quiet of our local countryside is even quieter than usual. We've decided that Tracie won't ride (horse) and I won't ride (bikes) for now because we can really do without a broken leg and the hassle that would cause the health service. Best of luck with your UK self-isolations when the brit government finally gets round to it.

[fatowl]

I was given early retirement a couple of years ago, so am on a pension.My wife had 3 part-time jobs, in the entertainment industry. Last week, she was told they were all closing, so no work, and no pay. We are both "high risk", so are meant to isolate ourselves. Day 2 - going potty.
My children both work in customer-facing roles, which cannot be done from home. They are both expecting to be laid off imminently. My pension is going to have to go a long way !

[almar]

I am a self employed electrician living in France. We now have total lockdown so no income, To make matters worse my wife went to her mother's funeral and to visit our daughters in the UK where she is at present, she has a flight booked for Sunday from Manchester to Nantes so fingers crossed. Fortunately my neighbour has a daughter who serves in gendarmes in Paris, has written me a letter to be produced at road check points, so all being well at least I will have my wife home Sunday.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

No different here in our little Cornish hamlet, except everyone has offered to help everyone else if anyone has to lock themselves away. Oil and diesel still being delivered. Farmer still milking his cows.

Shops in town half empty...no bread flour, pasta etc. I won't let myself go shopping, because I'd rip into anyone I saw bulk buying.

Step-daughter with small child in Brum getting nervous, and will move in with us this weekend.

Mother in nursing home in West Devon, not allowed visitors.

[Spike941]

Feeling lucky myself, despite being currently in bed with a broken shoulder, 4 fractures to my pelvis and 3 cracked ribs, having fallen off my push bike 12 days ago. My wife and I are retired and both receive adequate pensions. Being a ex nurse my wife is taking great care of me and having foreseen all this took to panic buying long before it became fashionable. My daughter’s BA cabin crew and expecting to be laid off/ enforced unpaid leave any day, and my son became a father early this morning. (My first Grandchild) He and his girlfriend have both just had to give up work in the Australian outback and move to the city for comprehensive medical facilities due to health issues with the baby. Even if I could fly out to Oz in my current condition, all flights down under have now been suspended. So basically I’m in a situation having to force convalesce during a period of forced isolation. Talk about timing.

[Magnon]

I’m self employed in France as well. We have an ongoing project but the client is being very understanding (he’s in the UK). I went to collect materials on Tuesday before the midday lockdown and it was a struggle. I went to deliver the materials yesterday and was stopped by a helpful Gendarme. At site, which is a terraced house in a small village, there was an unwelcome atmosphere, even the normally friendly dog walkers just glared at us. So I’ve got a few days stuff I can do here in the workshop and some sorting out to do, most suppliers are shut (except online). We’ll try again middle of next week and see how the land lies then.

[PHILinFRANCE]

As Dave, Almar and Magnon have said , but the suns shining so built a wigwam out of an old trampoline base and opened the pool

Down side is our daughter and husband live in South Africa and its also on a lockdown they do markets and guided tours so both out of work and the medical system over there is shite

20200319_132625 by Philip Parkinson, on Flickr

20200319_132706 by Philip Parkinson, on Flickr

But unlike Dave ..........................fuck it i'm going out on the 300.....................if i do see someone it'll be my reflection in a puddle

[Brenhden]

Wow, intersting demographics on this thread.

For me I'm now permanently working from home, these days it's mostly meetings and documents. I live alone up a hill and about 60 miles away from my little girl and her mother and I are coming up with a plan to split looking after her going forward. I live about 10 miles from my lovely lady and we are not seeing each other for a week to make sure neither of us are infected.

I am getting a bit bored of being alone already as I can't go to the pub or the cinema and the weather is rubbish, personally that's the worst bit, I have a stupidly big and very unruly garden that I would love to be working on. That said I'm a big homebrewer and the house had enough booze in it to float a battleship so I could probably get everyone in the neighborhood drunk everyday for a year.

As for the future, seeing my folks is out and we have mothers day and my dad's 70th in the next few weeks, that's sad. Also a very good friend of mine is getting married miles away in three weeks. I've no idea whats going to happen with that.

Still chin up. put the kettle on and all will be alright