Dreading the winter without garden visits.

I will live my life as normally as possible, my family live a long way away and have very busy lives so don't see them much anyway. DH is in the extremely vulnerable category so we will just be very careful until there is a vaccine. It us just the way it is.

Yes, I'm 75 and am trying to 'relax' a little over self-isolation. I do my own shopping now, have been to the hairdressers, dentist, chiropodist, etc, but am always very glad to get back home. There are days when I feel more 'twitchy' but generally speaking I think I am getting there. However, come the long winter nights, I don't know how I will cope.

I honestly feel some people are being overly worried about this. Of course you must take reasonable precautions & not be silly but it is highly unlikely you are going to catch Covid if you follow the guidelines . I am not doing anything much different to normal but wear a mask in shops etc. The classes I go to - Yoga, Dance etc are all allowing a much bigger gap between us than normal.
I think you just have to be sensible & aware but please do not worry over much. It is a VERY small percentage of population that have had it.
Keep to the guidelines & stop worrying.

But many people who did not need ventilators are still suffering chronic fatigue, breathlessness and other nasty effects following having Covid in March so I disagree with this comment ....
That surely shows how the virus is far less of a threat, provided we're all sensible of course.

After a horrible virus in 1989, I went on to develop M.E. and am still suffering 31 years later, so I don't under-estimate Covid-19 and its possible after-effects.

The problem with this virus is that it seems to be highly infectious. You can go very speedily from a few cases to many - as we saw earlier this year.

Some of our taking care is for others, not just for ourselves.

I find it very hard to make these decisions. For example, I could bubble with one of my DDs and her family - but they are mixing with so many other people that it makes a complete nonsense of it all. They go on holiday, have other children round to play (and vice versa). have their employees in and out, have had folk from hundreds of miles away to stay etc. etc. So bubbling with that family would in effect mean bubbling with a vast swathe of others.

2 deaths yesterday please get a grip

I am living my life as normally as possible. Gc to stay. Meeting friends and family in accordance with rules. Socially distancing and hand washing, masks etc. The one certainty is I will die and life is too short to live in fear. Just get on with it it’s going to be her for a while, like flu. 20,000 people die in a bad flu year and we don’t all stay at home.

I agree that we will need to be creative. Indoors with ventilation is fine I think, so maybe sit in an appropriate room at a distance. If that feels too much at first, perhaps a cafe where they have doors open to the outside but you sit in. It’s important to circulate a bit to build up your immune system generally. My hunch is, that although there will be local lockdowns, from October, some things may change.....and look at the new cases statistics. When you work out the very small risk of your being a positive case, I think it will put things in perspective.

I can understand the concern and worry that some people feel. I was shielding and have just started venturing out. I am quite shocked that some people seem to disregard all advice and I went into a local supermarket yesterday and was surprised at how busy it was and to be honest I felt uncomfortable. I am not going to moan about masks as it is a subject that has been covered plenty. I have friends who visit and we sit in the garden. I visited one last week and as we sat in the garden a storm brewed so we went inside. It felt strange sitting away from each other with masks on but she is a carer and comes into contact with many people. Winter visits from friends and general outside activity for me, will be assessed and if I am not comfortable I wont do it. The virus is not going away anywhere soon as we must learn to live with it. If we all be careful, adhere to guidelines and keep ourselves safe I am sure we will learn to accept and find ways to have visits safely.

Added to my previous post, this only applies to some of the wards in Blackburn, and mine happens to be one of them!

I dread (!) strong word, the winter months from the dark evenings, short daylight.

I think the media has made us all scared, well those of us who feel scared... I try to rise above it.. I am 84, as far as I am aware only high blood pressure, otherwise reasonable good health
though I currently have an infection, requiring antibiotics from a bad insect bite on both ankles! LOL

so I am trying to be sensible,, meeting family,, quite frankly one part of me looks forward to moving on, ie to a better place! though in reality I will be scared.

sensible... meet in my bubbles... wear a mask where I have to, wash hands, (that bit of advice intrigues me)

take care, but yes, live... I can`t be locked up again

In Blackburn we can't even meet anybody not in our household in the house, the garden or in the open because of the rising cases of Covid.

We're planning on meeting up in the winter months with the 2 meters distance kept in our local large coffee shop ..
It's going to be a long miserable winter isn't it .

I heard an interesting fact the other day, I think it was Hugh Pym on BBC News - at the height of the pandemic there were around 3,500 people on ventilators in the UK. Now that number is 72. That surely shows how the virus is far less of a threat, provided we're all sensible of course.

Covid is still around and remains a force to be reckoned with, however it seems we've found ways of treating it without resorting to ventilators except in extreme conditions. Additionally, social distancing, masks and handwashing are all playing a part.

We should take care, but things are looking up.

We are being more careful than most but have started occasional shopping and yesterday I decided we would pick our 8 yr old HD up from school once a week. If I can’t go on holiday, to the theatre, travel to see friends, visit an art gallery OR spend time with my GC what is the point?

My way of thinking is that we stayed in on government advice and now the advice has been changed so I am going along with that. It's going to be a long winter if we don't make the most of the next few weeks.

Surely though, trying to avoid becoming infected is not just for our own sakes but because at our ages we are more likely to need hospital treatment and therefore be more of strain for the NHS.
O don't think we are "uptight" so much as trying to be considerate.

* oppsminty
it matters not what anyone on the forum thinks what a daft thing to say as the opening posts asks ‘are we being too careful’ so then we answer !!!*

So many exclamation marks negates your rather rude comment.

And it's Oops. If you insist on abbreviating my name, do get it right.

As you will see people on this forum think it's a good idea/bad idea. People are being too careful/not careful enough

You will rarely get 100% agreement.

So I will carry on saying it matters not, because it's true

Just like your comment matters not

And neither does this one of mine

I have to confess it was a Twitter feed pointing to this article www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1278346/uk-coronavirus-news-cambridge-university-survey-covid-19-death-infection-rates but I do believe it. Friends coming back from other countries (and I have a DS and his family living on the continent) all say we are far more uptight than anywhere else. Other countries take all the precautions, but they are just getting on with life.

Just to clarify, those of us in lockdown who are not breaking the rules which state that no one can socialise with another household, either indoors or in a private garden are getting cheesed off with reports of the police having to deal with raves, parties and so on. I feel sorry for them - only last week they were bombarded with missiles when they tried to disperse a crowd. The lockdown can theoretically last for six months.

Please remember mbmb, that huge numbers of people do not have the luxury of deciding to ‘sit on the sofa and watch Netflix.’ As retired people, many of us on Gransnet can pretty much isolate ourselves if we wish to, but many people have been told to go back to work and others have worked all the way through.
We are lucky, we can choose to totally isolate, semi isolate, or go out and about but take all precautions. As a generation we are blessed in that way.

oppsminty
it matters not what anyone on the forum thinks what a daft thing to say as the opening posts asks ‘are we being too careful’ so then we answer !!!

mbmb I m sorry you re fed up with people like me ..... I ve done NOTHING against advice I go out every day I go to work I eat out with friends and I visit my family and unless you are in a lockdown area (You obviously are now) these are all totally valid things to be doing I haven’t broken any rules or guidelines I wear a mask when I go in a shop
Why do you think pubs cafes Gyms even cinemas have been opened I m sorry but I m not going to spend my later years sitting on the sofa watching a Netflix (which I haven’t got anyway?) That’s your choice but not mine

We’ve just bought a patio heater for this reason Ellianne we have had GC stay over one night, all SD in place to give my daughter a break. No one else has been in the house, apart from gas service, in a separate room. Daughter, key worker, and children back in school next week, so will be more wary.
Each to their own comfort zone; I personally believe guidelines are to be followed, trusting people to do so.

Well done Ellianne - defeat the problem with a "Cunning Plan". Most of us could manage to create a new social space if we put our minds to it - if we've not done so already. Even a hallway, summerhouse, garage: somewhere which is easy to air and sanitise and which would enable us to see a couple of friends or family whatever the weather.

Thank you all for your comments.