Social Distancing

This is what social distancing looks like here, and this has been cleared up somewhat!

Mick is working from home and has taken over my dining table. There are other rooms he could work from but it's always quiet here during the day so he sets himself up in the dining room and works from there. Archie's pleased, he loves having Mick at home. Our one form of exercise a day, which we're allowed, is taking Archie for a walk. We rarely see anyone else on our walks but if we do, we make sure we're a good distance away from them.

There have been financial measures put in place by the government for employees who are unable to work due to the coronavirus pandemic. It will pay 80% of salary for staff who are kept on by their employer, covering wages up to £2,500 a month. Although Mick is still working at the moment, all his company's factories have closed. We don't know if he will continue working for the duration or not. His company have said they're going to continue to pay their employees 100% of their salary for now, which is reassuring if the time comes when he has nothing to do, though we don't know if they'll continue to do this or not. Obviously, they're not obliged to.

Eleanor works in a hospital laboratory so she will continue to work throughout. I'm not happy about her having to use public transport at this time so Mick is taking her to work and picking her up. A round journey from home to her place of work and back again usually takes just under an hour and a half  but because there's so much less traffic on the roads, it's currently taking about forty five minutes.

Eleanor's boyfriend also works in a hospital laboratory, a different one to Eleanor. He lives in York, so they're unable to see each other for the foreseeable future. He comes from the Midlands but moved to Yorkshire in January so that he was nearer to Eleanor and consequently, has no family at all living close by.

Daniel and Jasmine live a long way from us, in Essex. They've both been asked to work from home, which is good as Jasmine is in the high risk group. At present, they're having to self-isolate as they live in a shared house and one of the other tenants, a nurse, is showing signs of having the coronavirus. It's worrying.

My dad is 87 and in bad health. We have no option but to help him out with shopping and housework but we're trying to limit who visits him and how many times they visit him. Mick's doing the majority of the shopping at the moment, simply because he's the driver of the family now that I don't have a car. It makes sense for just one person to visit the supermarket so that job has fallen to him. Consequently, he's the person doing my dad's shopping too and doing the lion's share of looking after him.

None of this is ideal but what can you do? We, like the rest of the population, are doing the best we can in the situation we now find ourselves in. I'm mindful that we're the lucky ones, our lives may look very different to how they usually do but at least we're all healthy and showing no signs of illness. My thoughts go out to all those whose lives will never be the same after this pandemic, those who have lost loved ones or who are fighting this illness themselves.

Stay safe.