RDQ. Quarantine- what are you missing because of it?

The pub, football (playing and watching) , squash,

Right now we should be in our favourite holiday cottage in Great Langdale, but we are not. Even more disappointing, given the weather.

Still working on a simple autogyro design and have only come up with control via a gimbal mounted rotor with pitch and roll controlled via the bottom end of the gimbal. Best I can come up with for a simpler system. This will mean a fixed pitch for the rotor but nothing I can do for that right now. Hoping to have a rubber band flying example sometime soon.

The thing I miss most is quite simply Freedom - being able to go out at week-ends and evenings just to enjoy the world; being able to travel and visit new places, being able to get my hair cut, being able to shop - I need 2 new hinges for a kitchen cupboard door that broke last week but despite hardware shops being "essential" they are all closed for general entry and browsing; being able to visit mum; being able to host visits by my kids and grand-kids.... I hate being cooped up in the house all the time. My body is slowing down through lack of movement and I feel drained through depression through lack of movement and freedom.

(Fortunately I keep a spare pair of kitchen unit hinges at home, so I've fixed the offending door but I need to buy new spares ready for the next door to break..... and I need a haircut)

Swimming, pub, friends, family, privacy. Not necessarily in that order!

I don’t know if I’m missing much. I don’t live near my family so I don’t physically see them that often, but we’re talking more and use zoom so we see each other more. The nice weather has meant lots of time in the garden (I feel sorry for those stuck in flats) and lots of walks with the dogs. We had a bbq yesterday and it was lovely. I think because we live in the countryside isolation is normal anyway. To some extent it feels like the Pandemic is happening somewhere else.

I'll be honest, as an introvert, I'm not really missing much. I have actually spent time cooped up at home for weeks at a time before.

Sure I'd like to go and meet some friends and maybe drive about a bit, but I'm also equally fine with just spending time by myself alone.

I'm missing being able to go out for something to eat accompanied by a nice pint. And I also need a haircut - pretty soon I'll need to resort to the horse clippers (we do have a spacer for them so it won't be a number 1).

We've been very reminded of how lucky we are to live in the country. It does sometimes feel like the crisis is elsewhere, but then I'm reminded when something I try and order online is either sold out or not allowed to be delivered, so I'm looking forward to the tip and builders merchants reopening. And hairdressers.

It's only been 3 weeks so I'm not going stir crazy yet. I'm missing a game of golf and getting together with mates for a couple of beers, but we've been getting round that be using Zoom for video meetings. I'm not missing shopping or any of the pointless running around I used to do.

I will say there's a tremendous sense of freedom - I don't need to be anywhere and can pretty much please myself. If I want to get up a bit later, take a leisurely breakfast I can. If I want to read a book, watch a programme, no one is stopping me. If I want to sit in the back garden with a glass of wine I can, I don't need to be anywhere and I can do it without any sense of nagging guilt I should be doing something more productive. I've lost 3kg through walking everyday (and the odd bike ride), and I can take as long as I like as I don't need to fit it in around other stuff. I feel fitter than I have for years. The jobs around the house are the ones I've put off and it's lovely just to be able to start them and work through to they're finished without having a deadline.

I remember going to Alcatraz prison in San Francisco and being locked in the solitary confinement cells with headphones playing recollections of former inmates describing the experience and how they got through being locked in the dark for days on end. One said he pulled a button off his shirt and flicked it away into the darkness of the 6x8 cell and then hunted for it, finding it and then repeating the process for hours on end, just to try and stay sane. It kind of puts our minor inconveniences into perspective.

I’m not seeing the correlation personally, but here’s one. 50 years ago homosexuality was illegal and you could be imprisoned just because you fell in love with someone of the same sex, or beaten up in the street. Now you can marry, have a family, and have the same rights as everyone else. That’s progress.

^^ This. Agree wholeheartedly.

I think I most miss (a) meeting friends and family - skype/zooming them just isn't the same and (b) the ability to travel as and when I please. I certainly know that's what my wife finds hardest.

I'm ok with the quarantine for now because I understand the need for it and frankly I have more work than I know what to do with. 

It will be harder in the summer if we are, as is entirely possible, still locked down, because it would be pretty much the first time in both my and my wife's entire lives that we haven't been able to escape to the Mediterranean for at least one sun-kissed week of scene-changing battery-recharging down-time. Now that's very first-world but still that's our normality and hard to forego. 

We definitely have been taking too much for granted, not least the way global travel of people and good has given us so much at seemingly so little cost. Want strawberries for lunch but realise its mid December? No problem! Need to get a cheap piece of plastic for you kid to take as a present to a party? There's plenty on that big boat coming from China! The New York office wants to have a catch up meeting, better get the PA to book a business class seat on BA and a night at the Hilton downtown.

We've grown so accustomed to getting what we want, when we want it and going wherever we like, whenever we want that this period of global restriction is hard to process and I can understand how difficult it is to adjust if you're not in the fortunate position of still having work to do whilst at home. It's scary too, especially when you worry that just going to Tesco could expose you to a deadly virus. Chris is not the only one feeling like he does and it is going to take its toll on the mental health of a lot of people. It's taken me a few weeks to start properly exercising and feeling relaxed and stop constantly looking at my savings to check how many months I can pay the mortgage if the lack of work causes my employer to tank. So perhaps the biggest thing I've missed has been feeling safe. For someone living in Britain for the last 36 years, that's quite some adjustment to have to make.

I agree. I am sure that the new 'normal' post-Covid will be very different to what we, in the prosperous West, had come to take for granted. One good thing to come out of this could (should) be an opportunity to re-evaluate and change the way we live our lives with a greater emphasis on what is genuinely important to us as humans and the planet. I cannot help thinking of Masllow and what he would say right now.

Like many others my job situation is not as safe as it might be, but the current situation has had me thinking about what I really want to with my life and how I might re-set my work/life balance.

John
I fully understand your frustrations. Unfortunately holidays are banned since they are "non-essential", and anyway hotels and restaurants are closed so you can't stay anywhere or eat whilst away from home.

It's caused us issues at work as we can arrange for testing to be done at a few test houses still functioning, but our staff cannot stay nearby or eat due to these reasons..... they're too far to drive to-and-fro for a few days on the trot