You can find previous Isolation diaries here.
The very first time I placed an online food order I wanted a pack of mushrooms. But I clearly misunderstood how these things work, because what I received was one large paper bag containing one very small mushroom.
I’m the cook in my family, and I don’t usually do the food shopping online because I always enjoy walking around the supermarket, spotting new products and picking up ideas.
But a week ago I set up a new online account. Placing the order was a doddle because they already knew all my shopping habits via my loyalty card. But when I got to the checkout I discovered that the earliest delivery slot was over a week away.
Fortunately we had a few days to prepare for going into self-isolation, so I was able to get in essentials from the convenience store to tide me over – enough loo rolls for two or three weeks seems a reasonable amount.
I was a bit worried about those delivery waits so went back on the site on Monday. This time the earliest slot was 6th April. So I can quite understand why people might be buying more than usual.
By yesterday evening I had thought of a few extra items that I needed for tomorrow’s delivery, so I logged in again and started to amend my order. The site, which has been a bit wobbly throughout, crashed. 9pm is probably peak demand, so I left it and tried again this morning at 7am – still down. At the moment I really don’t know whether we will get any more shower gel this time round.
Yes I know – shortage of shower gel is a first world problem, and I can manage perfectly well without it. We seem to have a stack of unloved soap in the bathroom, anyway. But it has set off another trail of worries about whether the supermarkets will be able to cope with the increased demand for online shopping.
Some years ago my much loved aunt lived in a second floor flat with wonderful views over the sea, but 150 miles away from me. She didn’t use a laptop or tablet and had only the most basic mobile phone, so every week or so she would phone me and dictate her shopping list. I then went onto the Tesco site and ordered for her. They cheerfully carried the shopping up to her flat.
Sadly my aunt is no longer with us, but I expect there are quite a few elderly people in her situation, and maybe it is something we can all consider doing, even when we can’t go out ourselves. Do advise elderly people to be cautious though, because there have been reports of fraudsters abusing the #viralkindness initiative. They should only entrust their card details to someone they know and trust.
Please note
We are in self-isolation to protect my husband whose immune system is compromised. We are not quarantined, so we can do one or two things (like going out for a walk) that you can’t do if you have symptoms or have been in contact with someone who has.
There is full advice on quarantining here, and advice on social distancing for vulnerable people here.
If you are in self-isolation then join the Lib Dems in self-isolation Facebook group.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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30 Comments
Of course we cannot minimise how serious the situation is, however the number of wonderful people and schemes that have popped up is truly heart warming. A number of neighbours have checked that I and my wife are ok. However I continue to go to the shops, taking care to maintain the 2m separation as far as possible. Mind you it has been necessary to remind people in queues about keeping distance sometimes. Shop assistants have been lovely.
Of course there has been the annoying panic buying. Our TESCO delivery man told my wife today of a woman at the checkout who got abusive with the till assistant when told she could only have 4 tins of baked beans, when she had 15 in the trolley!. My wife was unable to order a single can online!
In a previous post Caron has mentioned her dog and dog walker. For me walking my 4 legged friend is a joy and means of keeping fit and sociable, whilst meeting up with other dog walkers (at a distance!) thus hopefully successfully self isolating.
Fine examples from Mary and Rodney, good to read.
As I mentioned on previous thread, all online shopping slots for the next 3 weeks is booked out.
Even if you do manage to get a slot in advance when you think of something else you might need and want to add it to your list, to your horror you find out your shopping basket has been reduced as more and more products become out of stock.
We did have an online shopping order turn up today and even the poor delivery driver was embarrassed because the only thing that turned up out of the entire order was a couple of packets of Jelly Beans for the other half, 4 packs of sugar-free Halls sweets for myself ( I am determined to stick to my low carb diet through all this and 1 pot of single cream Oh and 2 pouches of tobacco (which I am annoyed about as my partner was not supposed to order that as we were supposed to be quitting and using this health scare as motivation) . Now I am a trained chef and have been inventive in the past but even I am stumped with what I am going to conjure up with that.
Never got any fresh produce or Cupboard products.
When is this madness going to stop and people start pulling together instead of this me me me culture we seem to have created
@matt – Oh dear, I am now wondering how much I am going to get in my first delivery tomorrow.
‘er indoors wants me to stay indoors but as for shopping she isn’t going to give up on that delight. She is off out tomorrow to get my hummus.
Just got in from the Sainsbury’s “elderly hour”: definitely worth it as I got everything I needed except toilet rolls: bit annoyed that people going for the 24 pack were still allowed two of them. But what struck me was the grim ernestness with which we all got round the store – no stopping for a chat, few smiles, all very serious: perhaps it was the early hour- I accept shopping at 7.0 in the morning is definitely well out of my comfort zone. Then (as we had all started at about the same time) the long queues at the tills – but at the space of a trolley which is probably just about enough. But I can hunker down a bit longer now. Thank you Sainsbury’s for the thought.
My daughter shopped for us today. Went to Tesco at 7am and says “it was like Christmas”. Got 90% of what we wanted. She has an email from the Chief Ex. They are now only issuing a max of 3 items per person. Elderly hour 9 – 10 am every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, only opening 06.00 – 22:00 because their staff need rest., (some of the treatment they have been getting from some members of the public is appears just appalling).
Went out last night to post a letter, about 21.00 as it would be devoid of people, or so I thought. Astounded to see them standing in twos and threes, right alongside each other or face to face. What do you do?
So I stayed in the car and drove till I found a post box with nobody around.
7.05 am
Well, it’s happened. As Alice Cooper sang;”School’s out” and it might indeed be Summer before they are back. Now, what does my daughter in law, who works three days a week in the NHS, do? If she is classed as a key worker her daughter might get some kind of schooling; but her son is only three. Will grandpa and granny step in, or rather stay in with childcare? Quite a dilemma?
I’m pleased to say that political parties are still working together. After all, in many ways this is like a war. I remember Kaiser Wilhelm’s recorded address to his countrymen (‘An das Deutsche Volk’) in August 1914, where he concluded with the words, roughly translated as “I do not recognise parties any more, only Germans”.
We might agree with Sir Edward Grey, the Liberal Foreign Secretary, who, at the time that the German Kaiser was addressing his people on the Edison phonograph, talked about the lights going out across Europe, or we might want to look on it as a challenge to our community resilience and to Johnson’s mettle. After all, he’s wanted to be ‘World King’ for most of his life; but has settled for PM. Let’s see if he can emulate his hero, Winston Churchill. ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man”, as they say.
9.45am
Just got back from our last school run for a while, my daughter in law has managed to arrange sharing child cover with her cousin’s wife, so, it’s pull up the drawbridge and back to the model railway. Chuff, chuff, David Raw, chuff chuff 😀
@ John Marriott I still get a thrill when I hear the sound of an A4 pacific, John. Happy days.
A4 LNER Line up at York all whistling with 60009 … – YouTubewww.youtube.com › watch
Video for You tube a4 whistle▶ 2:58
6 Jul 2008 – Uploaded by ben60009coll
Ben Collier’s video sequence of ‘The line up’ at York Railway Museum
I went to my local Sainsburys for the “venerable and vulnerable” hour this morning. It was great and i got most of the things I wanted.
But there’s a serious drawback. Soon after opening , the store became very crowded with clusters of people round the most popular shelves and long queues at the check-outs. Judging by the length of the queue of “younger and fitter” people waiting to go in at the end of the hour, this over-crowding was set to continue for some time. This is creating the ideal environment in which to spread the virus, not only among customers but also to the staff.
I wonder if supermarkets should be encouraged to limit the numbers of people they admit at any one time and to require people to queue outside. Meanwhile their efforts to expand the click and collect service and to encourage people to use it is much to be applauded.
Sorry, “venerable” was not the right word, although it does alliterate rather well; I did not see many Bedes in the queue.
Good to the see the supermarkets have not cashed in by raising prices so far. A lot of the online shopping systems are creaking and wonder what will happens when all the kids and all businesses try to use the internet simultaneously next week!
A lot of shops that may be forced to close might be used for selling essentials such as bread and milk to keep people going, or even some form of delivery going door to door using otherwise temporary unemployed people?
Loads of people have bought extra freezers to the extent that they are now very rare for quick delivery.
I have stocked up on cereal and porridge just in case of electrical failure doing in the frozen stuff.
The problem is panic buying begets more panic buying. It’s no good asking people not panic whilst encouraging panic. It was the same thing with terrorism, governments announcing various stages of alert, putting surveillance everywhere, setting up their beloved Cobra meetings and then telling people not to see potential terrorists on every street corner. People are not hoarding because they are selfish. It’s because they are scared. Fear causes fight or flight and in a consumer society that appears to translate into buying stuff. When people are also buying an extra freezer to hoard even more of this stuff that there is not really a shortage of, you know rational thought isn’t at play. I just wonder what is going to happen to all the frozen Pizzas, sausages, loo rolls and biscuits when the crisis starts to ebb.
My first online delivery has just arrived! Some acceptable substitutions and the only thing unavailable was – you’ve guessed – loo rolls. But we had bought some in between placing the order and getting it, so we are fine.
I gave the delivery man a tip. Not sure if that is what everyone does but I wanted to say how appreciative I was of the work he is doing.
Congratulations Mary.
With a warning that this might be disturbing for some, I have started doing without loo roll and using simple water. It’s more hygenic than loo roll anyway IMHO and most of the rest of the world do it that way. I will stop there without further details, but if you want them try here:
https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/06/cope-without-toilet-paper-case-coronavirus-related-shortage-12358036/
From a spot check yesterday, Aldi seem to be coping well at keeping their shelves topped up, helped by a firm “Maximum 4 units of any item” rule which is cleary signed through numerous signs up in the supermarket.
It’s conceivable that a large part of the rush is people bringing forward their weekly shops to the same day or two days as everyone else.
With a bit of ingenuity you can find most stuff but you may have to buy other brands than you normally do.
For example, I was dispatched to Sainsburys last night to get beef gravy granules.
There were no beef gravy granules – just a huge gap in the shelves. But there were MASSES of chicken gravy granules and lots of old fashioned beef gravy powder and lots of top notch ready made rich beef gravy in sachets.
So it is all a bit bizarre. But it is not really a hardship to have chicken gravy granules instead of beef ones, or beef gravy powder or luxury made-up beef gravy.
Alcohol based hand sanitiser is also scarce. But the reading I have done says that old fashioned soap is just as good, if not better at doing the hand washing job. For some reason old fashioned bars of Dove soap seemed to be left in plentiful supply on the shelves.
Dear Mary.
So glad that you got most of what you ordered today.
I think in these tight times some people would struggle to tip delivery drivers.
What I have done in our rural village on our community forum is to ask all keen gardeners for which I am one, to give all delivery drivers a flower as a show of solidarity for the hard work they are doing and the sacrifices that some are making when worrying about their own families. We tell the drivers to give them to their wives as well to say as a community we appreciate them. It does not matter if it is an online food order or yodel dpd whatever and as a community, we are doing this.
Obviously there are those who can tip and would still be doing so, but it was a way for people with less means in order to show support and solidarity to the wider workforce who must be working under extreme circumstances and worrying about their own families.
@Paul Walter
Your ‘experiments’ with personal hygiene remind me of what an old acquaintance of mine once told me about his experiences when doing VSO in what is now Malaysia in the early 1960s. Many people, especially children, never used their right hand to shake hands over there because it was more often than not used for specific purposes other than writing. I assume that soap and water were in plentiful supply! I always wondered what happened if they were left handed!
Regarding purchasing ‘essentials’, we went past our local ASDA this morning just after 7am to pick up our grandchildren for our final school run for the time being and the car park, as they say around here, was “rammed”.
I went to Lidyl to buy Camelias (senior management suggests gardening in isolation) and the shelves inside were almost empty. Checkout lady said that there were over 200 people queuing outside when they opened.
As an aside..I listened today (R4) to a doctor explaining how he was using a bricklayer’s mask for C19 protection in preference to those supplied by NHS…His comment that the ‘protection’ offered by the NHS supplied equipment was equivalent to the Snatch Land Rovers (the ‘mobile coffins’ of the British army) was a chilling reminder of how fragile is the safety of those on the front line.
@matt – what a lovely idea to give flowers. At the moment there’s not much in my garden, though, because I am allergic to spring bulbs!
@Paul Walter – thanks for that, I can’t get the image out of my mind now…
With track suit on top of pyjamas, I have no problem in breaking my age-related house arrest and sneaking out to the Co-op at 6.15 am to get the Guardian and Bradford Telegraph and Argus – nobody delivers round here. With careful planning during the four minute walk I can get additional shopping in about 90 seconds before paying and scuttling off back home where the coffee will have finished brewing. I am full of admiration for the staff who demonstrate all sorts of people skills. With my Belgian beers on their way by mail order from a specialist supplier in Ossett I feel quite privileged in the midst of all this.
Paul Walter: “With a warning that this might be disturbing for some, I have started doing without loo roll…”
I remember my mum telling us about using newspaper as toilet paper ‘and the ink never came off’, leaving us to wonder which part of her body the ink never came off. I also recall Izal medicated toilet paper, favoured by institutions which wished to discourage use of their facilities.
When starting my walk this morning, I spotted a significant increase in road traffic motivated by fresh deliveries to Aldi. Media companies and we as citizens need to think whether our updates contribute to social cohesion. Maybe we should all act like Soviet citizens with string bags in our pockets on the off chance of spotting a queue for something desirable.
In these troubled times, perhaps a little humour, of whatever kind, does not go amiss. Paul’s idea of using soap and water instead of toilet roll reminds me that, for years, we have had a bidet in our bathroom and I in particular am a great fan of it – and I don’t mean for washing my feet!
Which also reminds me of a tale my late father once told me about an encounter with a bidet in a small French hotel where he had been staying. He happened to ask the patron what this piece of bathroom furniture was really for. “Well”, came the reply in impeccable English; “instead of taking a bath or shower, we are told to wash our face to as low as possible and our feet to as high as possible. Well, we in France have invented a way of washing the ‘possible’ “.
Headline in today’s “Guardian”: ” Experts Say ‘Happiness Is Contagious'”. Now I’m definitely going to self isolate in order to avoid catching the happiness virus.
@ John Marriott:
“In these troubled times, perhaps a little humour, of whatever kind, does not go amiss”
Definitely John!
@ Nick Collins
Are you sure you need to self isolate? What is the clinical evidence and is it reliable?
On the sad side my wife heard from a friend down in Camborne that police were called to a supermarket where two women were fighting over loo rolls. In the main though this really is the exception, thank God.
@ Rodney Watts
I think, in these difficult times, one has to err on the side of caution. We misanthropes cannot be too careful.
Eeyores of the world unite (but stay apart). You have nothing to lose but your thistles.
@ Rodney Watts
When this crisis is over, perhaps we could ask the Football Association and the English Cricket Board to get together and codify a set of rules (or should that be laws) for loo roll wrestling and elevate it to a new national sport. I’m sure Sky would pay well for the exclusive rights to televise it.
@Nick Collins
“one has to err on the side of caution” so true if you are a misanthrope. Now Eeyore — brings back memories of my early days at the University of Birmingham and what a hive of intellectual activity it was. To engage fully in the learning experience I was asked to play Eeyore in one society’s Christmas entertainment. You can see it made an indelible mark on me!
Now, loo roll wrestling — that’s a serious thought. Better watch out though for objections from the Cornish wrestling fraternity. Take care everone!
@ Rodney Watts
My closest contact to Birmingham University was walking through part of its campus en route to Edgbaston cricket ground for last year’s Ashes Test. But I did do a post-grad course in Industrial Administration at Aston circa 1970/71, so I have some memories of student life in England’s second city.
I am not familiar with Cornish wrestling, but I have happy memories of time spent in West Country pub nine-pin skittles alleys (far more enjoyable than ten-pin bowls alleys) in the 1960s.
@ John Marriott
Your reference to the left hand-shake sounds very sinister and puts a whole new complexion on the Boy Scout Movement.
Just had the durian ice cream home delivered. Hummus on the way.
Shopping Malls closed in Bangkok.