LIFE IN LOCK DOWN - 10 WEEKS IN LOCK DOWN

By tomorrow we will have spent 10 weeks in lock down and even though the lock down restrictions are gradually being lifted, life is no where near getting back to normal. At least for me it isn't. Because I'm 61 years old, self employed in the hospitality industry as a 'meeter & greeter' for visitors to my city who are staying in short term lets, and my main source of income comes from a property that I let out in a so called 'tourist hotspot', I have had no income coming in for the last 10 weeks. I haven't been able to claim any of these so called Government handouts. The property I own in a holiday hotspot is listed as a 'second home' so throughout this whole lock down thing I haven't been able to claim anything. However, if I'd registered it as a 'business' I wouldn't have had to pay council tax and I also would have been able to claim government grants of up to £10,000. But I didn't. So I can't. I'm paying more than £180 every month in council tax and water rates. And for what? I'm not putting any rubbish out in the bins, I'm not using any water, nobody should be going out at night so we shouldn't need to be paying for street lighting, the public toilets aren't open, etc. etc. etc. Are any of us going to get a refund on our council tax? I very much doubt it.

Anyway I must stop ranting. The only thing that has kept me sane during this whole lock down thing is........................... the fact that I am very grateful for the life that I have. Ie, I'm not a single unemployed mother, living on the breadline, with six kids in a high rise flat.

However, when I set out on the 1^st May 2020, to record my thoughts on this blog (every day for 31 days) about random things during the coronavirus lock down, I never actually realised how easy it would be. I like to have little challenges to work towards every month but I actually thought that posting something everyday about my thoughts and feelings, as a 61 year old single female, in lock down for one month might not actually happen because I didn't think that I would have enough to write about. Writing every day has actually made me realise that I have loads to write about. It doesn't matter to me if one person reads what I write or a million people read what I write. I write for ME. I write because that's what I like doing. And if it's online then I'm guessing it's out there forever. A little bit of history in the making.

I'd really love to be 'techy' enough to add photos and links etc etc etc into my writing but at the moment I can't. Perhaps I should use this lock down phase to learn how to do it. But actually, I'm pretty lazy and the weather has been fab recently so I'm quite happy to sit in the sun with trashy magazines.

Anyway I've just found this bit of blurb that I wrote on the 9^th March 2020. (See below). It's not even 3 months later. Who would have thought our lives would have changed so much in such a short space of time? And who would have thought that only two weeks before we went into lock down that I would have thought that Coronavirus wasn't a threat?

Written on the 9^th March 2020

Coronavirus

I seriously have to have a RANT!

This Coronavirus thing is driving me nuts. What is it about everyone that is making them 'panic buy'? What's the toilet roll thing all about? The Coronavirus doesn't affect the bowels. Or the pasta thing? If people are stock piling pasta are they also stockpiling jars of pasta sauce or are they thinking they'll still be able to go out to the shops to buy fresh stuff to go with their pasta. ….........After all who on earth wants to eat plain pasta??!!

I can understand the anti-bacterial hand-wash thing. ….............Actually I don't really understand that either. What's wrong with good old fashioned soap and water?

The media has hyped up this so much it's driving me crazy. Would everyone have gone so mad if we didn't have Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all the other social media outlets that are encouraging people to go into 'scared mode'?

The world has gone mad!

We live in a very mobile society. Fact! I live in a big city where people from all over the world visit. I work as a 'Meet & Greeter'. Ie, I meet people at short term lets, shake hands with them, give them the keys to the property, show them how stuff works and then off I go. I'm very rarely with them for more than about 5 mins.

However, 0n the 13^th January 2020 I met a very nice Chinese girl. I don't think I'd actually heard about the Coronavirus then. But if I had, I certainly wasn't too bothered about it. Anyway, I helped 'very nice young Chinese girl' up 86 stairs to a top floor flat, because she had the biggest, heaviest, suitcase in the world and I am a very nice meet & greeter there was no way she would have been able to take it up that many stairs by herself. So we huffed and puffed our way up all the stairs. Obviously my hands were all over her suitcase and I also shook hands with her and I was probably in contact with her for more than 15 mins. And did I use the anti-bacterial hand-wash that had been rolling around in the bottom of my handbag for more than a year, after I left? I did not!

Fast forward almost 2 months...................... She could have had Coronavirus and I could now have it. Because 2 months ago no special measures were in place.

To be honest, I don't read a lot of stuff. And I absolutely HATE politics. And for a 60 year old, I'm very fit & healthy so am not in a 'high risk' group. Well I am because apparently anyone 60+ is high risk?? BUT, what I have read and what I have heard is........................ FLU has killed more people than the Coronavirus.

I personally think its the fact that everyone these days has access to 'media scaremongering' and that is what is responsible for blowing this whole thing out of proportion. Yes the Coronavirus is scary, but that's because it's an unknown virus which as yet doesn't have a cure. And yes, it probably will kill a lot of people before a cure is found. But there again so did measles and chicken pox and mumps and scarlet fever and numerous other diseases. And did all this panic buying and stock piling of stuff go on in the first half of the 20^th century, when people were dying of the above diseases? It did not! Because it was just accepted as a way of life and actually there was no way of knowing how much of an epidemic the country was facing. Until one read a newspaper. We might be in the 21^st century but 'natural' disasters will still win every time.

All this 'lock down' stuff and 'self isolating' stuff is not going to work. Coronavirus has spread too much for any of this to be effective. The whole world is in the grip of a contagious disease which, as yet, we don't seem to have a cure for. FACT!

Soooooo........................ in my opinion we should just STOP all this stock piling of toilet rolls and pasta and paracetamol and hand sanitizer and whatever else people seem to think they should be stocking up on.

In my opinion, the people who are doing this are being really selfish. The people who are 'stock piling' aren't the ones who are at risk. The one's who are at risk are the elderly and ill and they don't have the privilege to go out and buy 72 toilet rolls at one time. Only quoting 72 toilet rolls because it popped up on my FB feed that a woman had been spotted coming out of Pound-stretcher with 4 x 18 packs of toilet rolls. WHY?????

I personally, will carry on with my daily life. I will continue working as a 'Meet & Greeter' and I will continue to shake hands with people. Though I have to say I used my hand sanitzer after I shook hands with an Italian the other day. Media hype is driving everyone crazy.

Coronavirus is worrying. Of course it is. But seriously.................. Let's just all get on with our lives.........................

#Lifeisnotadressrehearsal

And now we've almost completed 10 weeks of lock down and the death rate in the UK is the highest in Europe. More than 40,000 DEATHS. That is seriously scary. When this whole thing started we were told that the UK could be facing up to 20,000 deaths??!!  BUT that was more than 3 months ago and  I obviously didn't have a clue how serious this deadly virus was. That's why I love writing things down and looking back to see how I actually felt at the time of writing.

My challenge for the month of May was to write something about my life during the Coronavirus pandemic. I've done that but I actually still have quite a lot to say so I may continue to post my views and opinions whenever I feel I've got something worth saying. Who knows. Watch this space!