After 5 days of trying I have finally registered by phone with Sainsburys as extremely vulnerable to Covid-19 as defined by the NHS. If you are an existing Sainsburys customer, to obtain this number yourself there is a dedicated number hidden behind 3 minutes of recorded information waffle on their main customer service line which you do not need to hear. The registration is automated by key presses - no contact with the call centre.
You will need your Nectar card number and/or your last Sainsburys order number. The telephone number is available to Sainsburys customers in any of the UK devolved nations and is 0800-953-4988. I got straight through. Once you have answered all questions they say they will be in touch within 2 days by phone, email or SMS details which are already linked to your account. You will then be able to get priority home deliveries....
Junior daughter was wondering if shopping for pet food was classed as an essential journey. I told her not to worry about risking a journey to the pet shop, just put her bunnies in a pen in the back garden. Bunnies fed and lawn mowed. Win, win.
Not sure if our dog would eat them or play with them
Anyway, as per shops are permitted to open it follows you can go there.
I run a very efficient logistics operation for pet food with my sister. I leave the office (using the company-home authorisation), pick up pet food on my normal way home, I refile a drive plan(using the code for picking up food) to my sister's home where I deliver the pet food ordered and pick up the groceries bought from the open market in front of my sister's house. New drive plan (using the code for helping people in need) to my parent's place to deliver their vegetables and fruits and then arrive home with my fruits and greens.
My motorbikes are showroom gleaming, our postman is a biker and he told me today that any motorcyclist is stopped, registration taken and if more than ten miles from home without a solid reason is fined. Able to walk through the village to the allotment for solitude everyday, and go for a two or three mile walk with missus om on various trails around the village each afternoon. Plenty of grub in, some bottles of Cornish IPA and so life is pretty good all things considered.
Talk of a more severe clampdown in due course if things do not go to plan, the Frogs appear to be revolting but everyone here is going along with it, the roads are empty.
Will it be business as usual when it's all over? some people will be skint for a year or so, others might have made a few quid on all this. SiL is sitting on his business trying to stem outgoings, no incomings, and trying to get paid for services carried out before this happened, I suspect that he will wrap it up, he has had a very good twenty years trading and can well afford to retire, particularly as he is being stitched up by former clients (hotels).
Planning to weed a rose bed tomorrow, followed by roast beef, yorkshire pudding, Otter Ale and Tesco Rejuvenating Red, sure beats working.
Re: Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 7:51 pm
by Pontius Navigator
I have a regular supply of dog food from Amazon and top up in town. I upped the subscription for next month but decided to add another bag today - out of stock. Had I waited there would have been problems.
Went online, most stockists out of stock.
I think that is going to be a feature for some time.
I also decided to order an oxygen monitor. Lots of choice and stock until I got to delivery - mid-May. Obviously freight airmail from China it not running.
Re: Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 8:18 pm
by larsssnowpharter
I have been trying to do a little to help those working in the NHS:
A lady doctor friend of mine has been working crazy hours. Her hound, a crazy Labradoodle, needs exercise so have been picking it up and taking it for a walk across the fields. Now doing the same for a hospital cleaning supervisor who has the same problem. The latter tells me that, of a shift of 50, around 14 or 15 cannot work for one reason or another.
Re: Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?
Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 10:57 pm
by Hydromet
We are only a few days into self-isolation and it's really upsetting me to witness my wife standing at the living room window gazing aimlessly into space with tears running down her cheeks. It breaks my heart to see her like this. I’ve thought very hard of how I can cheer her up. I've even considered letting her come inside, but rules are rules.
Curious thing is we've heard for years about an impending pandemic...didn't Bill Gates do a Ted Talk (?) a few years ago about it? It's always been there, periodic articles about another 'Thing' coming, and is this it? Always coming and Health Authorities squealing about not enough ICU Beds, yet I bet they have been slowlt decreasing because of 'Cost'....Hmm??
Thanks, Fliegs!
"If we start now, we can be ready for the next epidemic." - well, we didn't?
And there are still people who moan about democracy. As if it would matter for the dead. As Pierce Morgan said - if it were the young who are supposed to die, would we act differently? 'would have' by now.
Chilly and sobering.
Not that I've spent the couple of days off-screen boozing (maybe I should have) - just the side effects of e-educating . Off-screen, that is, for the eyes.
..., had to reduce my order for loose carrots from 5 to 3. FFS, the carrots were for the dog. In 5 weeks she could chomp through a couple of kilos of fresh veg though she doesn't like lettuce.
our dogs started with the raddish (I have a small veg plot) and then went on, eating most of it. Not that I really minded.
Last night, a combination of Coronavirus lockdown induced cabin fever, BBC Radio 4 and my better half's desire to watch a film hosted by the British Film Institute resulted in high blood pressure for me and much cursing as well. She, i.e. the obergruppenführer, had heard a glowing critique of the film
"Oh wouldn't it be nice it we could watch this interesting and improving film tonight", quoth she,
Well we finally did get to watch Vivarium last night and what a wonderful, strange, depressing, deeply dark, imaginative piece of horror come comment on urban life, and life generally, it is. A perfect arrow of time busting horror comedy film to watch during times of Corona deja vu. If that sounds like Pseud's Corner then forgive me, but it is just so...
Did, I feel "improved" for watching it? Nope, I felt extremely depressed, but knew I had watched a good film anyway.
Re: Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?
Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2020 9:04 am
by Pontius Navigator
Probes, our dogs all had different tastes. One would pull one radish at a time, shake the soil off, go across the path to the lawn, bite the green off, eat and repeat. Another the heart of the lettuce, another raw potato
Re: Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?
Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2020 10:01 am
by probes
- ours, too, actually - the dachs put her paw on the green parts and daintily had the 'root', bite-by-bite, followed by the rest, but always starting from the root (sometimes sheltered from my view), one by one; the lab scooped with her paw and ate it all - green, red and soil. Then, raspberries, the sweet cherries the crows had pecked and that had fallen on the ground (cherries, not crows), green peas (absolute treat! but I like them, too!), carrots, turnips and so on. Strawberries were firmly protected, otherwise... although there was one 'bush' outside the regular plot that the lab checked each morning and ate the red ones.
Well, the little joys of life.
I read the article by dr. John Lee and have been puzzled by the opposite approaches of people who actually know (as opposed to politicians and what-not).
Is it that epidemiologists take a more philosophical view and doctors face the reality of switching off life supports when there are too many who need them?
Is the main difficulty the long period of intensive care for an individual patient? Do doctors die because they are just exhausted and more vulnerable?
Last night, a combination of Coronavirus lockdown induced cabin fever, BBC Radio 4 and my better half's desire to watch a film hosted by the British Film Institute resulted in high blood pressure for me and much cursing as well. She, i.e. the obergruppenführer, had heard a glowing critique of the film
"Oh wouldn't it be nice it we could watch this interesting and improving film tonight", quoth she,
Well we finally did get to watch Vivarium last night and what a wonderful, strange, depressing, deeply dark, imaginative piece of horror come comment on urban life, and life generally, it is. A perfect arrow of time busting horror comedy film to watch during times of Corona deja vu. If that sounds like Pseud's Corner then forgive me, but it is just so...
Did, I feel "improved" for watching it? Nope, I felt extremely depressed, but knew I had watched a good film anyway.
Looking at that trailer. It put me in mind of Patrick McGoohan's Prisoner from 1967. In this case the couple are living in Number 9 rather than Number 6. I suspect that is no coincidence.
Looking at that trailer. It put me in mind of Patrick McGoohan's Prisoner from 1967. In this case the couple are living in Number 9 rather than Number 6. I suspect that is no coincidence.
A very good point Jetex and undoubtedly you are right. The film shares the same "you can check out but you can never leave" theme as well...
Re: Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?
Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2020 4:28 pm
by unifoxos
More likely Number 9 after the TV series of weird tales titled "Inside Number 9" ?
the Frogs appear to be revolting
Aren't they always?
Re: Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?
Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2020 9:47 am
by Magnus
TGG, that reminds me . . . . .
Re: Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?
Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2020 12:21 pm
by Ex-Ascot
This is the end of civilization. No pop sales in the country for at least 30 days. Why? The local safari camp has put 12 cans of beer aside for us. We have a few bottles and a bit of wine. Total lock down. All companies and shops apart from essential closed down. Have to have a permit to travel but they do not say from whom. Nearest shop 40 Kms. The President apparently said this on TV this morning. Excuse me but we do not have a TV. He didn't e-mail us or phone.
They are going to slash fuel costs. Why? Increase it, stop the bastards driving around.
Went to the big hotel in town for a soft drink with a friend this morning, made to sit 6' apart. All the bloody booze in the place was on the bar to be put away. Tried to snitch a beer but was caught. Place was deserted. All tables in the restaurant turned upside down.
Now to make it worse some bloody jungle bunny is making a jungle bunny noise from the other side of the river.
Re: Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?
Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2020 1:24 pm
by Pontius Navigator
Ex-A, you think that Draconian. Some of our wonderful police are refusing Easter eggs and hot cross bun purchases as they are not essential items.
The religious affiliation of said police was not reported.
If you are an Anglican you may be incinerated but if you are a true believer or a Jew you may be incarcerated. If you are a left footer I don't know.
Re: Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?
Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2020 1:50 pm
by fareastdriver
You might find this useful if you have to go out shopping.
I got a batch of surgical masks but I could not get a good seal at the top because the wire strip wasn't stiff enough. Should you have the same problem try this:-
Get about six inches of 2.5 mm TC/E cable and strip the copper earth wire out of it.
Use the wire to pierce the end of the pocket that holds the wire strip on the mask and feed the copper wire in. Snip off to length and feed in the end.
Bend in inwards in the middle, mount the mask and pinch the wire around you nose.
I found it gave a far better seal than the standard mask and when you bin it you can pull the wire out and use it again.
No sarcastic comment like on the other side , please.
Re: Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?
Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2020 2:05 pm
by barkingmad
Useful mod, fareastdrive, but I hope you don't go out in the open during a thunderstorm? There's nothing lightning loves more than a bit of meandering 2.5mm copper wire.
Of course if it was properly earthed IAW 17th Edition IEE or whatever you might get away with it!
. Off-screen, that is, for the eyes.
