The lockdown continues and people are starting to
be more questioning about the tardy response of their governments to the COVID 19 (CV) pandemic. Approaching
four months into the disease and nearly a month of lockdown here, the figures
being produced daily look ever more suspect and lots of attention is being
given to getting behind them. Complaints about how the ctrisis is being handled are increasing,
though more in the UK than here in
France, unusually, but public support for health service people must be at an all-time high, quite rightly.
Without getting into the arguments, the best any of us can do is to follow the advice and look after ourselves. And help and support others where we can do so while trying to keep safe in the process. We need to keep ourselves safe not just selfishly but for the others we are in contact with so that we do not infect anyone else and maybe kill them.
Without getting into the arguments, the best any of us can do is to follow the advice and look after ourselves. And help and support others where we can do so while trying to keep safe in the process. We need to keep ourselves safe not just selfishly but for the others we are in contact with so that we do not infect anyone else and maybe kill them.
On top of that, of course, we have no defence
against it other than each individual’s own natural immune system, and it will
be more than a year before there is a vaccine that is proven both safe and adequately
effective.
So the solution for each of us is: keep your immune system as strong as possible, stay young, don’t get any other diseases or conditions which either weaken or over-stimulate your immune system, and don’t go into an old people's home. For the next 18 months. Impossible, obviously, for many of us but it's worth doing as much of this as we can.
But as I am tempted to get into a rant about the way it’s all been and is being managed politically and the appalling treatment of dedicated health service personnel in the UK and elsewhere, for the last several years, through lack of numbers, shortage of facilities and protective gear and the current blatant disregard of Health and Safety requirements for them, then I’ll just focus on what it’s doing for us, for now.
Mostly, three weeks into lockdown, in this part of France, life goes on in a bizarrely unreal way. We are at home with very few excursions out. Just one of us goes to the local supermarket once a week. We are allowed out together or separately for exercise once a day on foot – ie not on bicycles, despite France’s obsession with cycling – for up to an hour a day so long as we stay within 1 km of home. Otherwise we can only go out if we have a legal or medical requirement to do so. We each have to carry a signed, dated and timed official form certifying that we are only doing what we’re allowed to do. The government has just enabled this to be done on a phone app, so they obviously think the cost and effort is justified as the requirement will continue for a long enough period to have been worth it. It’s potentially a 300 € fine if we don’t carry it or if we are doing anything that’s not permissible.
But the worst part is No Socialising, not face to face and certainly not physical contact with anyone not living in the same household. Telephone, Skype, FaceTime, Facebook etc. and seeing neighbours across the boundary hedges, fences or, in our case, the stream, are helping us a lot, but it’s certainly going to have a long term psychological effect on a lot of people. There’s virtually no effort going into the mental health outcomes of all this anywhere, so far as I can see. We’re lucky, with plenty of space in a nice part of the country, but lots of people are confined to tiny houses or flats with little or no outside space and no contact with anyone at all. As well as seeing neighbours across the respective boundaries, there are dog walkers and other exercisers passing along our lane, and we exchange and experience a good deal of mutual concern for each other.
So we’ve been getting on with things at home. Jeanne has got the potager into fine shape and we have a little polytunnel in which she has been getting new seeds going, ready for planting out soon. The potager looks a bit bare in the picture but is actually full of seeds, including potatoes and onions, and lots more starting to sprout.
So the solution for each of us is: keep your immune system as strong as possible, stay young, don’t get any other diseases or conditions which either weaken or over-stimulate your immune system, and don’t go into an old people's home. For the next 18 months. Impossible, obviously, for many of us but it's worth doing as much of this as we can.
But as I am tempted to get into a rant about the way it’s all been and is being managed politically and the appalling treatment of dedicated health service personnel in the UK and elsewhere, for the last several years, through lack of numbers, shortage of facilities and protective gear and the current blatant disregard of Health and Safety requirements for them, then I’ll just focus on what it’s doing for us, for now.
Mostly, three weeks into lockdown, in this part of France, life goes on in a bizarrely unreal way. We are at home with very few excursions out. Just one of us goes to the local supermarket once a week. We are allowed out together or separately for exercise once a day on foot – ie not on bicycles, despite France’s obsession with cycling – for up to an hour a day so long as we stay within 1 km of home. Otherwise we can only go out if we have a legal or medical requirement to do so. We each have to carry a signed, dated and timed official form certifying that we are only doing what we’re allowed to do. The government has just enabled this to be done on a phone app, so they obviously think the cost and effort is justified as the requirement will continue for a long enough period to have been worth it. It’s potentially a 300 € fine if we don’t carry it or if we are doing anything that’s not permissible.
But the worst part is No Socialising, not face to face and certainly not physical contact with anyone not living in the same household. Telephone, Skype, FaceTime, Facebook etc. and seeing neighbours across the boundary hedges, fences or, in our case, the stream, are helping us a lot, but it’s certainly going to have a long term psychological effect on a lot of people. There’s virtually no effort going into the mental health outcomes of all this anywhere, so far as I can see. We’re lucky, with plenty of space in a nice part of the country, but lots of people are confined to tiny houses or flats with little or no outside space and no contact with anyone at all. As well as seeing neighbours across the respective boundaries, there are dog walkers and other exercisers passing along our lane, and we exchange and experience a good deal of mutual concern for each other.
So we’ve been getting on with things at home. Jeanne has got the potager into fine shape and we have a little polytunnel in which she has been getting new seeds going, ready for planting out soon. The potager looks a bit bare in the picture but is actually full of seeds, including potatoes and onions, and lots more starting to sprout.
 | ||
| The uncommonly tidy potager. |
 |
| Inside the polytunnel. |
The polytunnel has just a few flower seedlings left now as most of the vegetables are in the ground. We did manage a trip to the agri-shop for food
for the hens and supplements for the sheep, and picked up some tomato plants
and veggie seeds. Grow-your-own veggies are ‘essentials’.
I have been making progress on the wall. It’s been going on for so long
it feels like The Trump’s wall, but it’s actually nearing completion at
last, and it will do what we need it to do, unlike the other one! However I have
now run out of sand for the mortar and getting supplies of non-‘essentials’ is
nearly impossible at the moment. The wall has another two courses to go on this side, then the top has to be tiled in the local way. It's been in progress so long that the lower courses already have the blackening from the local cognac distilleries' 'angels share', so it will need a jetwash or sandblast.
But there’s plenty of other stuff to do. We’ve been improving the land along the stream to make it into an attractive area for relaxation and aperos. We planted dozens of tree saplings there which need a bit more attention that they’re now able to have. Between the stream and the house our five sheep are not keeping the grass down in their paddock so we definitely need more, so we’re having to mow, albeit not as often or as much. But to keep more than five legally we’ll have to register as a farm and breeder and do all the EU identification and record keeping for each animal. I was booked on a lambing course last week but travel to it was cancelled due to the CV, but I have a potential arrangement already to rent a ram next autumn to serve our four ewes. (Our own ram is missing his vital bits!) In the meantime we are improving their fences and gates.
Jeanne had a YouTube success this week! The dishwasher has been making a noise and not cleaning too well. In the past we would have called someone out, paid them a lot of money to fix it or to tell us it was on its last legs and try to sell us a replacement. But she looked it up on YouTube and found a video in which some minor dismantling was done, which she followed, and found two olive stones in the works. Easily removed, no cost except 15 minutes work. The machine is now working better and without noise. But how did they get there?
We cannot go to the dechetterie at present so are having to do our own green waste disposal, though we have always used compost bins, but now we have a mountain of tree cuttings to shred or burn. We don’t want to put smoke into the cleanest air we have seen for many many years! Every cloud has a silver lining, but we have no clouds currently, and no aircraft vapour trails. And brilliant clear night skies, with more stars visible than I've seen for years and Venus looking amazing in the western sky at night.
But there’s plenty of other stuff to do. We’ve been improving the land along the stream to make it into an attractive area for relaxation and aperos. We planted dozens of tree saplings there which need a bit more attention that they’re now able to have. Between the stream and the house our five sheep are not keeping the grass down in their paddock so we definitely need more, so we’re having to mow, albeit not as often or as much. But to keep more than five legally we’ll have to register as a farm and breeder and do all the EU identification and record keeping for each animal. I was booked on a lambing course last week but travel to it was cancelled due to the CV, but I have a potential arrangement already to rent a ram next autumn to serve our four ewes. (Our own ram is missing his vital bits!) In the meantime we are improving their fences and gates.
Jeanne had a YouTube success this week! The dishwasher has been making a noise and not cleaning too well. In the past we would have called someone out, paid them a lot of money to fix it or to tell us it was on its last legs and try to sell us a replacement. But she looked it up on YouTube and found a video in which some minor dismantling was done, which she followed, and found two olive stones in the works. Easily removed, no cost except 15 minutes work. The machine is now working better and without noise. But how did they get there?
We cannot go to the dechetterie at present so are having to do our own green waste disposal, though we have always used compost bins, but now we have a mountain of tree cuttings to shred or burn. We don’t want to put smoke into the cleanest air we have seen for many many years! Every cloud has a silver lining, but we have no clouds currently, and no aircraft vapour trails. And brilliant clear night skies, with more stars visible than I've seen for years and Venus looking amazing in the western sky at night.
Keep safe, everyone.
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