What it's like at the moment

 I know many people are not mentioning Covid 19 on blogs, but I have decided that I am, and If you're not interested in reading this post, that's fine, i'm putting it here mainly for me to record what things are like here for us at the moment.   But if you do want to comment on what things are like where you are then I'm happy to read them.

This pandemic is like nothing we have ever seen before, we can't ignore it or what is happening around the world.  The closing of shops, offices, factories and schools will have repercussions for a long time to come, not to mention the effect it will have on our National Health Service, and to be honest what is happening is very very scary.  

I'm not normally one for watching the news but I find myself searching out news items and tuning in to hear what the latest Government Cobra meeting is announcing every afternoon, I don't want to get hung up on doom and gloom but I do want to know what's happening.  I have even been drawn into reading a couple of the conspiracy theory's out there, mainly on FB, until I thought, what a load of 💩, why are you even reading this, and click off it.  If you look hard enough I suppose you will find a conspiracy in anything.

Today Boris announced the closure of schools and nurseries from Friday 20th, until further notice, they will however still have to provide care for children who's parents are key workers, Police, Health Services or delivery drivers or for children who are vulnerable.

I have one daughter who is an Early Years nursery school worker, she does not know yet if she will be required to go into work after Friday, if she doesn't, she won't get paid, her boyfriend works at a car plant, there is talk of shutting that, again he won't get paid if they do.  My eldest daughter is a Police Officer, she will have to continue going into work, as her mother of course i'm worried about that.

I don't want to compare how we are doing things differently to other countries, each country deals with things in a way that is best for them, taking advice (we hope) and steps when necessary, and no one knows enough about this virus to know that one way is right and another way is wrong, we have to trust, to a certain extent, that we are being given the best advice and to take responsibility to keep ourselves as safe as we can.

This weekend I should have been going to the craft show at the NEC in Birmingham but of course that's now been cancelled, they will be honoring the tickets for the show at the end of June, all being well.  So many places are shutting their doors as this 'thing' escalates, I fear for smaller businesses surviving these tough times, and of course there are people who are being told to stay at home but wont get paid.  We are usually paid when off sick, not everyone is, but of course companies would not survive at all if they had to pay workers and at the same time were making no money, it's going to be tough on everybody, no doubt about it.

In the supermarket I have managed to get most of the things we need.   They still have a limit on the number of items people can buy, two packs of nappies or wipes, one pack of toilet roll and four of anything else.  Makes sense to me, if people only buy what they need there will be enough to go round, even so, there were no baked beans, nappies, tinned soup or tinned peas on the shelves on Wednesday and low stocks of other tinned food and biscuits.  I didn't look at the frozen section but fresh food seemed to be ok.  Some supermarkets are opening early just for pensioners to shop but there are queues outside waiting for them to open at 8am.  They are starting to close at 6pm.  From what I saw in Aldi people were still buying trolley loads of food though.

Everyone in our office has been given the option to work from home, except us on reception.  I've been a bit peed off about this if i'm honest, not because I would rather sit at home, but because we don't seem to have been considered at all.  An email was circulated saying people could work from home but they were going to keep the office open so that should anyone need to come in, for paperwork or conference calls they could.  As nothing was mentioned about reception we took it that we would be expected to carry on.  What I was not happy about was the fact that nothing was mentioned to us regarding deliveries coming in or the fact that we are the first point of call for anyone and we are the ones out of everyone that come into contact with the most people.

I had to send an email out myself to say please use the hand sanitiser as you come into reception and on returning at lunch time.  I've also put a notice on the door saying the same thing.  To be honest we haven't had that many deliveries the last few days but I'm going one step further now and asking them to leave them in the little porch we have rather than letting them in the building.  Again, this advice has not come from management.  We always joke we are the last ones to be thought about, but this just proves it.

I've just looked at the statistics for tonight, as of 9pm there were a total of 2,626 cases with 676 confirmed cases.  Our borough is showing at 10 cases.

Wherever you are, I hope you are keeping safe and well

-X-