What helps you to stay positive?

Looking at the lovely spring flowers and blossom gives my spirits a lift and also being able to laugh at the silly things!

Life is much the same for me as before the virus as I am already retired (early retired as back problems) so I have already learnt to stay positive take each day as it comes and go about life and give myself time to smell the roses.
I like the phone-calls to immediate family and also extended family as everyone is at home so much more and people phone me and I phone them it's great talking to family so much more than ever. GN is fun as well.

Learning to live for the moment.

So encouraging to read all these posts, which mirror my own. All this housework, , chatting to friends on the phone, there aren't enough hours in the day. When we emerge from hibernation I think we will all be rethinking our lives.

I know I live in a bubble but I am thoroughly enjoying this, and hoping it Will carry on for a few more weeks.

We live in an isolated rural valley in deepest rural France, we do have two neighbours within sight. I haven't been out for three weeks and Love having no distrations. DH is much younger so he is doing the shopping and still able to do some garden and tree work for clients. I'm the meantime we have got so far ahead with garden and veggie garden, thanx a lot to some wonderful weather. The new little polytunnel is full of flourishing seedlings. We both love working outside so that's OK. Quite a lot of things getting done in the house, down to the last four boxes of book s from our move 15 years ago. There's quite abig pile to go to charity when we can, and that decluttering feel is wonderful. I have enough craft and se wing stuff, books and films to.last for months. OH is very practical and innovative. He has just made a potato planting attachment for the tractor out of 2 old hospital beds and drainpipes. It works! So he is a happy bunny. We are so busy, but not feeling under pressure timewise and go to bed exhausted!

We can walk the dogs for 1 hour 1km from the house quite easily on fields and tracks without getting near a road. The spring wild flowers by the little river are a joy to behold. I'm loving the increase of birdsong in the silence and I have twice seen a nuthatch for the first time since moving here. Heard about two planes in two weeks. Nature is healing itself. I hope we can all learn something about our former lifestyles.

Of course I am horrified by this dreadful, tragic pandemic and worry so much for my family in crowded southeast England, and they all seem to be coping amazingly. We are so incredibly blessed in this little corner of paradise. There is little or no cases of the virus locally and for the most part little or no shortages in the supermarkets. Can't be said for other parts. Only cloud is the worry about summer bookings in our gite, could be difficult financially. However, carpe diem is what I say.I

Stay safe, look after yourselves and dig deep into your imaginative resources.

Nobody has mentioned volunteering with their local Corona Virus support group. Or food bank/community fridge. Even if people can't go out they can usually help by taking messages and other admin.
I am a district councillor -councils will be relying heavily on community groups to support vulnerable and self isolated people. My local group has street contacts on every street - and volunteers fetching shopping and collecting prescriptions.

Apart from this -I look after myself by only checking news websites on my phone first thing every morning, never watching TV news, talking to my chickens and going for a walk every day.
If I get any free time I try to do a bit of sewing!

Faith, Trust & Prayer

I've got upstairs spring cleaned and am thinking about starting downstairs.

Sunny, dry weather, but the wind goes right through you, so no gardening yet awhile.

It is spring: the cat came in yesterday evening and asked me to deal with a tick that had attacked him. It had hidden itself cleverly in the dark fur below the cat's ear, but I got it.
Poured a dose of Advantage flea, tick and lice prevention onto said cat.

I am a positive person and live a simple life on my boat. Just seeing the wildlife every day helps. Today I will pot on my pepper plants that I have grown from seeds from a supermarket pepper. Remember...we will get through this. Just had a thought..I wonder how many babies will be called Corona....hahaha

Thank you Maw for that. You have really made me laugh and made my day.??

Our young and enterprising local vicar has set up weekly interactive and informal church services via Zoom for all of us who have a computer, tablet or phone - with a half hour general chat period beforehand. Just to reconnect with friends and neighbours we can no longer visit has been great. And people further away can join in too.

One question though - a friend who is a more tech-y than me says Zoom may not be sufficiently secure. Is she right?

Walking my 2 Westies in the park, baking, cooking, knitting without feeling I should be cleaning, The house is generally tidy but I hate dusting and hoovering. I see that as a waste of time and my mother taught me well. Never sit and do nothing, was always her mantra when I lived at home.. I really don't get bored.

Thanks for your post MawB. I'm still chuckling.

Music, meditation and the love of great friends with whom I have daily contact.

I go from being very concerned to very positive about this situation, depending on what I've read/seen on TV. I do try to only watch the Government daily briefings on TV but I like to keep abreast with current guidelines and statistics.
My DH is working from home and in uncorona times works Mon to Thurs, so effectively part time. With him home we are sort of doing a dummy run for when he takes full time retirement. We are both looking forward to that. I'm retired.
I have been watching TED talks which are influential videos from expert speakers on a variety of topics. They are brilliant. I read a fair bit also. We've redesigned our small garden (in our heads). We visit our allotment and spend time there enjoying the peace and tranquility. Usually it is directly underneath the flight paths servicing both Heathrow and City airports. Not a plane in the sky - bliss.

MawB thanks for making me laugh. I'm not on my own, so haven't been reduced to that, though I'm well known for chatting to inanimate objects. I'm convinced that anything that is "smart" responds to the human voice and so far all my electronic companions are proving helpful and resilient in this time of crisis. Keep laughing everyone. It's so good for the immune system.

To respond to Henny, I had considered signing up for the voluntary service to deliver prescriptions and equipment, on the basis that those items would be from a more sterile environment and less human contact. However my DH is absolutely terrified of either of us catching it so I was dissuaded. I ventured out yesterda to brave queueing for the supermarket for the first time since it was introduced and was not impressed at the lack of social distancing being practiced by other shoppers once inside, so would not want to increase risk to our household by additional shopping trips for neighbours. I know that sounds selfish but that's how worrying yesterday's shopping trip was. There was also what appeared to be a 'discussion ' between another shopper and staff - the shopper had 2 small trolleys presumably because of shopping for 2 households and had presumably gone over the 3 items of a type limit per shopper, so that is another barrier to people being able to help out without increasing their visits to the shops. Sorry to have gone off topic here but it is an anomaly which isn't helping neighbourly helpfulness!

I never watch live TV and absolutely no news programmes.
I have not seen anyone but my husband for more than a month.
Only wobble was when I wrote the birthday greeting for DD who lives in Belgium, not knowing when I would see her again.

It's wonderful for me that that my active/able friends have so much more time for chats and WhatsApping ;-) We seem to do a good job of keeping each others' spirits up.
I've had lots of experience, being poorly/immuno-compromised, of staying in, avoiding germy humans, and finding lots of things to do/amuse myself with. So SI is just more of the same. What's scary is how quickly the world went skewiff! Hopefully things are calming down a bit out there now.

Waking up every morning thinking were a day closer to all this being a bad memory.

@MawB - priceless, just priceless!
TYVM

Growing0ldDisgracefully
Community groups are trying to work with supermarkets where they can to solve the issues of limits on certain items. This is also an issue for large families.
Having a bit more success talking to pharmacies about picking up prescriptions in bulk.

As I am retired, gardening especially weeding, reading, quiz books, daily walks, old B & W films, comedies, old sit coms, my faith, church buddies, family and friends emails, WhatsApp, texts etc. "Lorraine" or "Victoria Derbyshire", clearing out cupboards, cleaning windows, sitting in the sunshine and seeing which flowers are out, online exercise videos, Duolingo which is free and you can learn any language. I did a collage course so the plan is to do more of that, jigsaw puzzles, keeping busy helps me stay positive but also slowing down, not doing too much every day.
Don't watch too much news as so much of it is about not enough PEE, ventilators, testing, how we are behind Germany, too depressing and nothing I can do about it.

The prospect of hugging my Grandkids when this is all over!

I do so agree with you NannyC2. My faith in God is what is carrying me through these dark days. All is in his plan for mankind