Taking it's toll

[Rhyd6]

For the first time ever I feel really cheesed off and fed up with lockdown. Over the last few months all jobs, including those 'I'll eventually get around to it' have been done, garden planted, weeded etc. to within an inch of it's life, not a single item remains to be ironed, all cupboards in the house cleared of rubbish and tidied OH with help from friends and relatives has even built the balcony leading off the bedroom he's been promising for ages so now what do we do? It's pouring down with rain and more forecast on the way so a good long tramp is out of the question, it's not worth going for a drive because we can't visit anyone or go fo a meal or even a cup of coffee. I'm not a great telly fan and I've read so many books I feel my eyes might pop out. Our Pub in the Barn is on hold because of the restrictions so no gatherings to look forward to, friends are phoning up and they're as bored witless as us so what do we do? Are you feeling the same or are you still in an optemistic mood?

R6

[UncleEbenezer]

Do you have an addictive personality?

You're at a point where social media could become a serious risk. Lemonfool is bad enough - and it's pretty small - but don't let yourself get sucked into facebook!

MeToo to your sentiments. My life has largely shut down: most of my social life as-was was music, now that's mostly gone, and some big concerts and newly-commissioned works for the Mayflower 400 celebrations in Plymouth fell casualty to lockdown. Can't even visit my dad 'cos of the travel ban. Life feels like something from the imagination of Iain Banks.

[swill453]

Do you have an addictive personality?

You're at a point where social media could become a serious risk. Lemonfool is bad enough - and it's pretty small - but don't let yourself get sucked into facebook!

Or do, because there's nothing better to do?

Scott.

[Rhyd6]

I don't bother with social media but we used to meet up with friends on a regular basis several times a week and we always had lots of visitors because we live in such a lovely area. I guess I'm just feeling down because of the weather, I hate the rain especially when it's so cold and grey. A bit of sunshine that's what I need. Never mind we've got the quiz tonight so that'll cheer me up, along with a nice glass of cider.
R6

[kiloran]

I guess I'm just feeling down because of the weather, I hate the rain especially when it's so cold and grey.
R6

My philosophy.... you've got to hit the bad times in order to appreciate the good.

I spent 4 years living in south-west france, and for most of the year, it was wall-to-wall sunshine and blue skies. Boring as hell!!

Now, in west-central scotland, we can have 4 seasons in one day. Don't like the weather? Just wait 5 minutes.

--kiloran

[UncleEbenezer]

Never mind we've got the quiz tonight so that'll cheer me up, along with a nice glass of cider.
R6

Heh. So you _do_ have a social life, and still you grumble?

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Good on ya!

[AleisterCrowley]

I'm hating it now
I'm stuck on my own so rely on trips home, music and beer festivals, nights out down the pub etc to keep me semi-sane
At least I managed to get home in July and September briefly but everything else has been ruined.
I've tried the pub under 10pm closing but it's a miserable experience - it's like the whole thing is being run by Americans (or Welsh puritans)
Wear a mask!
Sign in!
Sit down!
Get out! Schnell!
Surprised we haven't been issued with beer ration cards. I miss the wandering around Reading, bar to bar, sitting in beer gardens/yards on a summer's evening
As far as I'm concerned 2020 has effectively been cancelled - it has been total sh1te.
(I know I'm (a) alive and (b)employed so better off than some... but it is always thus)

[UncleEbenezer]

along with a nice glass of cider.
R6

Thanks for that. I've just opened my first cider in a long time, and thoroughly enjoyed it. You're an inspiration!
(and at something over 7%, I'm just that tiny bit more relaxed than after my more usual beer or glass of wine).

[77ss]

I'm lucky. I'm a keen bridge player, and now play online (not something I had ever done before) for several hours most days. A godsend. Reading is great, but there is a limit.

Still got plenty to do in the house and garden as well.

The only thing that is bugging me is my inability to indulge in my love of travel. I had such plans for this year. Very glad now that I did so much last year.

[Dod101]

I guess we all live in different parts of the country and yet we all have the same problems. I live on my own these days (wife having died 4 years ago) and much like everyone else I have done most of the jobs around the house. Nothing is ever finished in the garden and I would be out there but for this very wet weather we are having. So I walk, read, go to bed mostly quite early (but then waken at 6.30 am) Very occasionally meet a friend outside to walk again, but no nice lunches where we can sit for a couple of hours over a glass and sort out the world. And it is only late October!

I almost look forward to a shopping trip!

Dod

[bungeejumper]

I think we're all suffering a bit from the clocks-going-back syndrome. It's the final confirmation that summer's over, and where did it go? Nowhere. All those holidays cancelled, all those days out that didn't happen, all those months that we didn't see our grandchildren (and for some of us, we still haven't). And when we see them next they'll have grown, and changed, and the continuity will have been broken.

So here comes winter, and Christmas might not happen in the conventional sense, and it's just that bit harder to see the light at the end of the tunnel. (I'm quietly confident that it isn't an approaching train. )

And this time next week we might have four more years of Trump. Gimme a drink, quick.

BJ

[bungeejumper]

On a brighter note, we've had an amazing summer from the garden, and doing all the jobs we'd been intending to get round to around the house, and we're currently clearing out a quarter of a century's worth of old paint cans and other clutter from the garage. (How do you get rid of forty cans of paint and 100 kilos of metal scrap when you don't feel welcome or even particularly safe at the council tip? I guess we'll just have to store it all behind the log pile for the time being?)

I've completely failed in my commitment to learn the piano during this lockdown - I opened the book once and shuddered at all those little black notes - and I'm a classical guitarist, dammit. ) But I'm soldiering on with my painting - I've been getting into oil paints this year, and there's a helluva lot to know. It's amazing how the hours just disappear once I get into it.

I'm running six months late for a hospital appointment that the doctors were insistent that I needed, but everything seems to be fine as far as I can see, so I'm keeping it all in perspective. Most of all, I'm reflecting on how lucky I am to live in a pleasant house with my amazing wife, and how many people out there must be suffering much more than us in their cramped little two roomed apartments, often with poor relationships and abusive partners, and now with breadline finances too. As my mum used to remind me, there's always somebody worse off than yourself. Doesn't make it very much easier to feel positive about the current situation, but every bit of perspective helps.

Hang in there, R6. When's it time for the sloe gin?

BJ

[AleisterCrowley]

Clocks changing hasn't helped for sure - I'm stuck inside 'working from home' and now the sun has set before 5pm, which means my walks are shorter and limited to a loop around the village. I must try and get out for a while at lunchtime, but meeting organisers don't seem to take this into account...
Yesterday I didn't leave the house until 6pm!
I'm taking a vitamin D supplement (and a multivitamin) but feeling very run down, and my sleep pattern is v poor

[Adamski]

I try and get as much exercise as possible to keep spirits up, walking into town, bike rides with my wife, trips to national trust, visit gardens, garden centres, golf with friends. Yes it's a bit miserable when the weather's not good, but force yourself as still good for your wellbeing and happiness.

[AleisterCrowley]

Impressed that everyone else has managed to do the odd jobs. I still have an IKEA bed frame I need to build, bought several months before lockdown started.. It just never seem to be the right time to start..

[absolutezero]

And this time next week we might have four more years of Trump.

Well at least there's a positive.

[Rhyd6]

Thanks everyone you've all cheered me up. I was really down because on top of everything else my favourite cousin had died and because of the stupidity of the Welsh Assembly who decreed that we couldn't leave our own county I was unable to visit her in the last weeks of her life. She was 98, a very good inning and she'd had a very hard life but was always the most inspirational person you could meet. When my first husband died she literally saved my life and made me realise that there was so much to carry on for.
Lemon fool has been great during these awful times, looking at the pics on Beerpigs snug makes you realise what a wonderful country we live in and I know that it won't be long before we're back to normal. AC you'll soon be back in Shropshire, I think it's around Bishop's Castle isn't it? Very good pubs there I seem to remember.
One bright spot, a couple of weeks ago we were walking the dog in a spot we don't normally go when we came across some blackthorn bushes literally drooping with the weight of sloes on them. Luckily I had a pocket full of poo bags so we filled several and now have six litres of sloe gin on the go.
Thanks once again and I'll raise the odd glass or two to you all.
R6

[UncleEbenezer]

Impressed that everyone else has managed to do the odd jobs. I still have an IKEA bed frame I need to build, bought several months before lockdown started.. It just never seem to be the right time to start..

You're not the only one. I've still got boxes in the hall - the antiqued/foxed mirror tiles that are supposed to make a feature of the recess and generous splashback, and play off the chromotherapy light of the whirlpool bath.

(some interesting optical illusions in the snap!)

[AleisterCrowley]

AC you'll soon be back in Shropshire, I think it's around Bishop's Castle isn't it? Very good pubs there I seem to remember.

R6

I'm from some 20 miles to the east, near the Severn. Bishop's Castle is a nice place, and has the Three Tuns brewery (one of the oldest in the UK, est 1642)
Two of my relatives have died since March; my uncle, and another 'uncle' (my mum's cousin's spouse, who lived near us so a regular at family events) - two very limited funerals I couldn't attend

[AleisterCrowley]

And now there's a hailstorm raging Think it's doing a west to east, so my prediction is bungeejumper experienced similar at about 1320 today.. (based on met office radar)