I don’t want to put a dampener on the high spirits and the echoes of we will all pull together and all but maybe if we are feeling a bit anxious we should say so. I AM FEELING SLIGHTLY ANXIOUS!

Sometimes I am on my own in my craft room day after day not really seeing anyone and with little contact with people on a regular basis. Sometimes its by choice, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes I am actually working and sometimes I am distracted by the WWW so I try to only let the outside World in when I have time to. I am a Sociable Animal at heart. I have two teenagers so they obviously just slope straight off to their rooms to sit at their computers to “study” ahem!!!

Actually are they still there? Haven’t seen them for days!

I don’t usually watch the news because I find it too depressing so I think people were actually isolating themselves before I knew the Virus was heading our way. But it didn’t matter because I was stopping at home anyway. I don’t watch the news because it plays on my mind and I worry about all the bad news too much. I think that stems from growing up in an era where we thought someone would press the “Button” at any time and blow us all up, or worse, we survive just to be killed from the Radiation that would be left behind. Yep, that is what my generation grew up watching on the news. Once we realised we probably weren’t going to be blown up by a Nuclear Bomb, we started to worry that we would be blown up by the IRA. Later down the line, they invented the World Wide Web and that was the most frightening of all, to discover that Evil people weren’t just a small minority. Then there were all the Terrorist attacks, and plane crashes and tsunami’s and volcanoes erupting as well as scientists telling us the World is going to end if we don’t recycle and cut back on all the pollution etc. Too much to bear don’t you think?

Actually on that note, today I watch footage of Venice. Someone was showing how clean all the canals had become since there were no tourist boats on it, the dregs from the bottom had settled and the water had become clean and clear and you can actually see to the bottom of the water. There are schools of fish everywhere which is quite rare on their canals. I saw footage from another Country – not sure where it was, where the Dolphins were re-appearing in the Harbours because there were no Cruise Ships there anymore. Mmm interesting isn’t it. It wouldn’t take much to clean up the Earth when you look at it that way, it almost feels like an awakening doesn’t it?

Why am I anxious now? Well apart from the obvious. Being told that we can’t go out – very much, at all- only to get food??? Not really sure, are you? For the next six Months or maybe even a YEAR on and off? So that they can filter us out slowly to catch the Corona Virus a few at a time to make sure the NHS doesn’t become too overwhelmed with too many patients at once???? Are you listening to this people??? The government are putting everything on the line to decide how many people became ill and when!

They have also just announced that they are closing down all cafes and restaurants, well thats just great, safe I suppose, but they could have waited until the Supermarkets managed to actually fill their shelves before they shut down places to get good wholesome meals from. How do long distance drivers who are delivering food to supermarkets etc get a meal? Will Motorway cafes still be open? Will the local shop still be open? If they can’t get bread for their Bate from the shops and there are no cafes open while they are driving they will all be passing out at the wheel? I assume “Drive Thru” places can keep going for a while?

At the moment we can’t add any food deliveries onto our schedule at Tesco. Looking at the news there is nothing left in the shops down South – notice they always show Sainsbury’s? What about single Mams who would have to drag all their kids with them to fight over a loaf of bread or a toilet roll. Have you seen the scenes on You Tube??? Surely its not something young children should see. How about support for those who are looking after kids on their own? Poor Boris, how can he possibly contemplate covering every situation that is going to arise from this. He can’t, and I think that is partly why I feel anxious. But even the Churches have been closed down, the very place that many people go to, to feel safe.

So whilst I have kept myself very calm about this whole situation and have barely left the house in the last Month, now, being told I might have to live like this for the next six months or maybe even a year is panicking me. I feel hemmed in, I wish I had gone out more over the last month now! All my family are at home, I have to find a way to keep feeding them. I can survive on a Cappuccino – full fat – and a couple of biscuits. My Daughter can survive on a tub of ice cream! But my teenage Son can’t he and my Husband definitely get a bit tetchy when they are hungry. When everyone is at home we consume twice as much food as normal. Are all the fish & chip shops going to close? I know Boris said that restaurants and pubs can stay open for takeaway food, but we are not allowed to visit them, so how does that work?

I really feel anxious because although Boris is saying a lot of the right thing, and telling us he is chucking money at those who need it, he is not actually telling people how they can get it. I have just had a conversation with someone on Twitter who has two self employed people in their house, they are already down by a fair bit of money this Month and they can’t get through to their Bank or any financial services.

Where are the online Help Lines? Where are the Information Sheets on how to claim the money being offered? Where are the guidelines on when and where we can go and buy food? Can we have a trip to the beach with the dog? Will we still be able to get petrol? Oh no I hope this doesn’t set off panic buying on Petrol!

Me and mine are OK at the moment, we are lucky, we have food in the fridge and Freezer, I bought a big pack of toilet roll BEFORE the crisis was announced (I think? I don’t watch the news) because Aldi had it on a Special. We still have a wage coming in and my kids are happy to sit and study and know that food has to be eaten on a use by date basis only. We have a list in date order on the fridge! We do!

I do worry that young kids are frightened or anxious like we used to be. I worry for my Son who is going to University this year, non of the kids put in the same effort for Mock exams as they do the real thing, and yet they are going to be judged on the mock exams. Last year my Son was mistakenly marked a grade lower and we wouldn’t have known it if his teacher hadn’t thought it suspicious that his grade didn’t reflect his coursework. We paid to have his exam papers checked again and he went up a Grade, so they had mis-marked it, of course it was too late by then because his place in University had been taken by someone else. So he had to go back to College again this year!! And now his grade in his new subjects and the subjects he has been trying to improve on will come from his coursework which isn’t finished yet and his mock exams which he didn’t bother much with because he had been there before! But this year, we won’t have the opportunity to pay to see if he was graded correctly?

I worry for those single Mams who will need a break very soon, for the elderly who live alone without families to care for them, for people who haven’t got a stocked up fridge and people who are ill and will become ill in the future.

I wish I was back in the RAF and could be useful while all this goes on.

But I also worry for the people who are too afraid to say they feel anxious. If you feel it you need to talk about it. You are not being selfish, or whinging, you are just saying how you feel. Getting it off your chest. Once you get something off your chest, and others feel its OK to get it off their chest too, we can all then bring on the stiff upper lip and pull together to get through it. So, goowarrnnn….. have a little moment if you want to. You can do it here in the privacy of my Blog Land if you like. Get it off your chest then we can all move on and support each other in whatever way we can.

Please don’t worry about what I have said and please don’t think I am being inappropriate by saying it, some tongue in cheek some serious. I am just thinking that people aren’t currently being allowed to digest, assess, and chat about personal feelings.

It’s great all getting through it together but as they used to tell us in the Airforce, “you have to put your own Gas Mask on before you can help someone else with theirs”!

Sam xxxx