Catch Up and Stock Up

My week off passed without incident. I felt a little lost if I'm honest and probably didn't make the most of it, but to just do nothing in particular was very relaxing and when I went back to work on Tuesday, I felt considerably detached from the place, which hasn't really happened in a long while, so I must have benefitted from being away.

Our few nights away in Rye were a lovely break.  The weather was pretty awful, rain when we got there and pretty ferocious wind most of the time, but we managed visits to Hastings (picture above), Dungeness and Rye town itself (we were staying a few miles out of Rye), which I loved.

There were some lovely donkeys (one of them above) and ponies in the field outside our cottage, which the dog made friends with and we enjoyed feeding apples to. The cottage was lovely and very well equipped too.

LB and I did some obligatory thrift shopping whilst away and I bought a few good value bits, including a new handbag for £5;

which I'd been looking for on eBay for a while. I also managed to win an eBay auction whilst away, for some new ankle boots, tan this time, which I paid £16 for. I am very happy with these two items. I wore the boots last night for the first time to go to my Solo dance class and they were very comfortable and ok for dancing, although not as slippy as my black boots, which were in the shoe repairers for new heels again, after just 6 weeks.  I'm hoping for better quality heels this time, as I've gone somewhere else for them.

When I returned to work on Tuesday, there was a lot to do.  I did my best, but it didn't look like I'd done a lot by the time I left. I'm back in again all this weekend as the Manager is away and the other Deputy is on leave now.  From Monday, I'm off again for two more weeks, to use up the last of my annual leave. I've decided that I'm going to use the time to blitz the house as it needs desperately needs it.

This afternoon, I'm going grocery shopping. With all the talk of coronavirus becoming a pandemic and self imposed quarantines, I'm making sure we have enough food should the need arise.  We have virtually used up the Brexit stash I accumulated, as nothing seemed to change post Brexit.  I now realise that it will take a year before existing trade agreements end, so there's plenty of time to prepare for that and I'm now concentrating on replenishing for more pressing reasons. 

I know it probably sounds crazy to most people, but after the outbreak in Italy, who knows where it will strike next. The news is changing on a daily basis, with more cases coming to light. I just don't want to be caught out and unprepared. We've even bought some face masks this week and looking at recent sales on eBay, I know I'm not the only one doing so.

Needing to travel on public transport in London, where you do come in close contact with lots of people on a daily basis means the need to wear them may be a distinct possibility sooner than we all think. The price of some of them on eBay is quite ridiculous, so I haven't gone mad. If necessary, I may decide to make some from all the fabric in my stash and then just wash them as required and maybe insert disposable filters in them.  I'm going to look for a YouTube video on the subject when I'm next on leave.

At work, I've started wearing vinyl gloves to sort donations, to get myself into the habit more than anything.  It's quite shocking how dirty the gloves are after just a few hours of  handling donations.  I might even make it a regular practice.

I'm not trying to scare monger in writing this post and I apologise if anyone finds what I've written disturbing, but I do feel it's better to be prepared for any eventuality than not be. We have a responsibility to ourselves and others to take appropriate precautions, exercise regular hand washing and demonstrate appropriate etiquette should any symptoms become apparent.

Are you trying to or intending to take any precautions in the current climate of concern about the virus?