Staying Home for Coronavirus 4 - Feed your mind for free - download someone else's words into your brain and take a break from this reality

I think we're all well aware by now that panic buying has stripped the shelves of food globally, and the supply chains are struggling to catch up. In the immortal words of the CEO of the retail food association at today's press conference at No 10 Downing Street - and here I paraphrase - it's time to start eating your hoard. She was talking about food, I'm talking about books! And not just your own hoard of books you've read so often they're falling apart, you've always intended to read or were seduced into buying or borrowing because someone else said how brilliant they were. Trollope's Barchester Chronicles anyone? (I keep starting it but never finish).

A hoard of books - loved to tatters? always intended to read?

Staying Home For Coronavirus 3 - Part One - The Great Toilet Paper Shortage and How to Make Do

Ok so, first, an apology. I had errands to do yesterday before I and my parents 'shield' ourselves in our respective houses, and as I have the underlying health condition that eats my energy, blogging had to fall by the wayside.  So it may be that I won't be very regular with posts, my best will have to be good enough, but still I apologise for being flaky. I can't do anything about it, so we all have to live with it.

Now onto today's post - the Great Loo Paper Shortage and what to do about it. Sigh. Frankly we shouldn't even be having one. If everyone just bought the NORMAL amount of goods they usually buy, the supply chain can cope. Now people have panic bought and continue to do so, the shops are going to have to squeeze on the rationing of what can be bought so the supply chain can catch up, but that's a whole other blog post!

So onto personal hygiene. Today I managed to find a picture to erm, brighten up the post. It's a sex worker using a bidet after a client. It's also a print so it's in black and white. It is however a picture. So, no complaining!...

Edgar Degas - Le Bidet - from Mimes de Courtesanes de Lucien book in the National Gallery of Australia

Staying Home for Coronavirus Day 2 - The World Outside by Webcam

I've been having a think, I don't really want to have the heading as Coronavirus, cos I'm hoping it'll pass me by - so now this series will be called Staying Home. for Coronavirus.

Also news moves so fast that there's all sorts of things I want to find out and talk about. But I have limited energy - after all, I'm merely carrying on the life I have had for the last 6 years, housebound is my normal - so I need to have a plan... And my plan is, on Odd Days (ie Day 1, 3, 5 etc) the post will be practical about things to do to make life safer and more bearable, and Even Days (ie Day 2, 4, 6 etc) the post will be about finding the good things in life, relaxing, taking time to live in the present and be content with the 'right now' moment in time.

And today - it's Day 2 - so it's an even day. It's something that's a bit fun, relaxing and takes your mind off one's worries.

Day 2 - The World Outside by Webcam

Coronavirus - Daily Posts Planned - Day 1 Sunshine and Fresh Air

Hi, I know it's been a very long time since I last posted. I've been wombling around in life doing other things, like having a tooth abcess and extraction and cat bite induced blood poisoning and recovering; builders in taking walls down and putting in a ramp courtesty of the welfare state (thankyou the local council and all who pay their council tax, this has made an enormous difference to me being able to stabilise my energy levels and obtaining some quality of life); getting a bit stronger through taking betablockers (originally for anxiety for the dentist, who knew they'd help my symptoms!); just living my life...

Anyway, the point is, it was all going swimmingly, then Coronavirus Covid-19 loomed and Boris Johnson said ok now is the time for Oldies, the Pregnant, and People with Underlying Conditions to STAY HOME all the time, and for everyone else to stay home unless they absolutely have to leave it, for work or food shopping etc and for ALL of us to stay a reasonable distance from each other.

Which, for people like me, for whom staying home has been an unwelcome but eventually sustainable way of life for years, is an ideal opportunity for us to help everyone else, for whom it will be a far less sustainable shock, to volunteer to help them a bit. Cos let's face it, we can't actually help people in a physical way by doing shopping or whatever.

So. Every day, I'm going to come up with something to do or think about or change in one's life to help make it all a bit more bearable for those unused to such tedium and restriction.

Development History - 1930s Semis by Roses

I was talking (through the fence) to my attached neighbour Alan last week whilst he was tidying up his garden ready for selling his house and he reminded me of a few things I'd forgotten he'd told me before and also told me some new things about the houses we live in.  I find the history of housing fascinating, so assuming you do too...

The first thing is, there's LOADS of these 1930s semi detached houses in the area surrounding the college - vaguely indicated in red on this Google Map. I say vaguely because I've no real idea of the west side of the college and playing field, I've not ventured that far very often on my mobility scooter. The Z icon indicates a particular house that's not been changed in it's lifetime structurally (nor redecorated since the 1980s by the look of it) in Alfred Street that shows how these houses originally looked.  My house is down by the (UK) bit of the Gainsborough College label.

1930s semis - little boxes all the same

Adding functionality to the Utility Area

As I mentioned in the first post in this series about making my new house disabled friendly, after I bought the house but before I moved in, the family organised builders to do some work before I moved in. Here's a list of what I remember them doing (there may have been more)

• take away the 'step' level in the living room, replacing the laminate at the same level (ish) as the rest of the floor
• organise plumbing for a dishwasher (taking out a kitchen cupboard to do so) under the draining board, which also meant reorganising the external waste plumbing out to the back of the house near the
• redo the external plumbing from the upstairs bathroom as the piping/collection was rather old and cracked
• create a Utility sink area and cat flap down near the WC in the utility area.

And it's the Utility Area that this post is about.

What the Utility area looked like BEFORE

Utility Before - the photographer closed the WC door

 And what it looked like AFTER

Utility After - I left the WC door open

My New House - When I bought it

Ok so time for a confession, I've been thinking about writing this post since summer 2017 when we found the house for me to live in on moving from Northumberland to Lincolnshire. And now it's nearly summer 2019 Yikes!!!

In my defence, it's taken this long to work out how the new house needs to be adapted for my needs, but as I've nearly got my act together on the downstairs, it seems a good time to pull my finger out and get started!

So. This new house? What's it like?

Front elevation of the house from estate agent particulars 2017