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The state of lockdown
Today, the entire panoply of central government, the NHS, local government and the major supermarkets have all surged into the business of making sure that I'm all right. I would hope they're being slightly more effective with people who really need their help...
Item the first: I received three emails today from different supermarkets telling (or retelling me) that I have priority for their delivery slots. The fact that none of them can actually offer a slot in the next three weeks is neither here not there -- I do have sufficient food and probably only need an order once a month. If I can get that.
Item the second: a bloke in a white van abandoned an anonymous parcel on my doorstep and retreated as they have all been trained to do, to check I came out to pick it up. I could not pick it up, so he returned (me having retreated in my turn) and hefted it inside the front door. I was the lucky and surprised recipient of a government weekly food parcel! There is, it transpires, a tick box on the form to register as a 'vulnerable person that asks if you have friends and family to do you shopping for you -- which I don't because I don't need anyone to do my shopping, so I ticked it. Cue a large box of: potatoes, white bread, rice, pasta, breakfast cereal ,uht milk, tinned soup, tinned veg, baked beans, pasta sauce, and a solitary tin of chicken meatballs in tomato sauce, and some seriously cheap fig rolls... sufficient supposedly for one person to live for a week (if they don't need much protein to go with their carbs, and don't mind everything tasting of tomatoes). There were some fresh apples and oranges which I shall keep, but fortuitously the Post Office is collecting donations for the local Food Bank tomorrow, so I shall leave it out for them to take away.
Item the third: I just had a welfare check call from the local County Council. He at least sounded as if he knew what he was doing: do I have enough food, and means of getting more regularly; is my prescribed medication getting to me regularly; do I have people to talk to on the phone; do I have access to the Internet and know how to use it... I got the distinct impression that if I had needed any of that sort of help, or just somebody to talk to, he would have been able to sort it all out and would have stayed on the phone as long as I wanted. So that at least was reassuring to me that people who need real help will get it.
Item the first: I received three emails today from different supermarkets telling (or retelling me) that I have priority for their delivery slots. The fact that none of them can actually offer a slot in the next three weeks is neither here not there -- I do have sufficient food and probably only need an order once a month. If I can get that.
Item the second: a bloke in a white van abandoned an anonymous parcel on my doorstep and retreated as they have all been trained to do, to check I came out to pick it up. I could not pick it up, so he returned (me having retreated in my turn) and hefted it inside the front door. I was the lucky and surprised recipient of a government weekly food parcel! There is, it transpires, a tick box on the form to register as a 'vulnerable person that asks if you have friends and family to do you shopping for you -- which I don't because I don't need anyone to do my shopping, so I ticked it. Cue a large box of: potatoes, white bread, rice, pasta, breakfast cereal ,uht milk, tinned soup, tinned veg, baked beans, pasta sauce, and a solitary tin of chicken meatballs in tomato sauce, and some seriously cheap fig rolls... sufficient supposedly for one person to live for a week (if they don't need much protein to go with their carbs, and don't mind everything tasting of tomatoes). There were some fresh apples and oranges which I shall keep, but fortuitously the Post Office is collecting donations for the local Food Bank tomorrow, so I shall leave it out for them to take away.
Item the third: I just had a welfare check call from the local County Council. He at least sounded as if he knew what he was doing: do I have enough food, and means of getting more regularly; is my prescribed medication getting to me regularly; do I have people to talk to on the phone; do I have access to the Internet and know how to use it... I got the distinct impression that if I had needed any of that sort of help, or just somebody to talk to, he would have been able to sort it all out and would have stayed on the phone as long as I wanted. So that at least was reassuring to me that people who need real help will get it.