275 sleeps

I like to make Christmas presents but I am not the best organised person in the world.  My aim this year is to do one Christmas project (presents, cards etc.) a month and blog about it on the 25th of the month.  Please keep me on the straight and narrow!

So here is my first project.  A covered notebook which will be a gift for someone.  That poppy fabric has been doing sterling  service for quite a few years!   I bought it to make a skirt in 2019 and it has been used for several projects since.  

It has made a very cheap notebook look like a worthy Christmas present.  

Looking back 4

 

Actually, that title isn't true.  I'm not looking back, I'm thinking of the things which the pandemic changed, possibly for ever, although of course most things are the same as ever.  

One thing that has changed for me is colds.  Instead of one or two a year I get one every couple of years.  I think we have become more aware of protecting each other.

So many things never restarted.  A women's group to which I belonged folded, and sadly a lot of small businesses didn't survive.

We do more on line.  I think that would probably have happened anyway but isolation made it happen more.

I got to know my neighbours more which is odd as we were all at home alone.  My wonderful neighbours all contacted me to make sure I was OK and the weekly "Clap for Carers" has morphed into "Neighbourhood Nattering".  

And we all have a new way of dating things - "pre-pandemic" and "since the pandemic".

Looking back 3

 

So, what did you do during The Pandemic?

Not leaving the house and garden became a routine thing.  I didn't have to go shopping: Sainsbury's emailed me very early on saying that shopping slots would be available to me (as a disabled person) before they were released generally so I had a fortnightly delivery and a cousin fetched fresh food for me between times.

I quickly learnt how to made zoom calls and updated my iPhone so I could use Facetime with various family members.  I had a regular list of people to call on behalf of the church as well as personal friends.  I wrote letters.  Each week I went outside to "Clap for Carers" and indeed, the neighbours still go outside weekly to catch up on street news together.  

I was never able to "bubble" as everyone I knew had family members with whom they were bubbling.  At first I felt like a Billy-no-mates but I soon got over that.  

Eventually Jack could come and sort my garden but we stayed at some distance from each other and he didn't come into the house.  When the school summer holidays arrived Annie-The-Home-Enhancer was able to come and sort me out before restrictions were again imposed in the autumn.  

And so the long year of 2020 stretched out.  Wasn't it fortunate that it was a good summer!  I was able to get outside but I also decluttered in the house, sewed, knitted, and did a thousand and one little projects which I'd never got around to.

I'd hate to have to go through anything like that again but, on reflection, I didn't do too badly.

Looking back 2

When I read my "Personal thoughts during a pandemic" I can see those dreadful daily reports of the progress of the disease, the numbers of people who had caught it and the number who had died.  I read both the national and the local statistics  Looking back I can see the speed at which the NHS had to react by reorganising hospitals and rapidly creating Nightingale hospitals.  

No-one very close to me had covid mentioned on their death certificate but there were people I knew who died of it. However, four people close to me died from other causes during that first lockdown and I found it difficult to deal with grief without the usual rituals of visiting and going to funerals.  Neither of those things is easy at the best of times, but I have learned a new appreciation of how important they are.  I went to just one funeral: my aunt (who died of old age) was buried in the local cemetery and her son, daughter and I joined the minister at the graveside for a short open-air service.  

However, there were new rituals.  People stood in the streets to pay their respects.  Flowers were left on front door steps.  

Sorry that this is a sad post but the whole covid story is a tragedy.