Our old-fashioned Butcher started selling standard Sunday lunch vegetable boxes, when CV-19 started

The originators could not supply the Butchers due to high demand, so we went direct to their premises and have struck up a Phone and Collect weekly service relationship

The food is second to none as it is straight from the field and does not go through the supermarket supply chain

That chain includes, as it turns out, picking or digging up 2 weeks before it is ripe or ready, and it is stored and force ripened to match the supermarkets requirements

Our food, vegetables, fruit and salad is now firm, crisp and with double the  flavour we were used to, and there is a freshness about the flavour which reminds me of when I was a youngster, or when my father in law fed us from his allotment, as the food then was produced naturally, with farm manure as fertilizer, no chemicals and from earth to table in less than 24 hours.

Have an Attitude of Gratitude – when I experience stress I should Stop and then think of something I am grateful for

Get the right amount of good quality sleep

Don’t drink coffee after mid-day

Controlled exposure and inspection: Pause when watching a high-emotion film of Elated, Scared or Sad and body-scan quickly to see what is expressed and where

I had a dream that we were staying in our campervan with our two young grand-daughters and they were sleeping outside in a little tent by the front door

I noticed in a reflection in something inside the caravan that there was an enormous tiger standing outside, and I had to think very quickly, was it worth the risk to go outside to to get the girls in, given that the tiger might not know they were there?

I quickly did go outside and went to grab the two of them, then the tiger went off, because some lady rode by on big horse and the tiger went off after the horse instead

I think the tiger was a big threat like the Coronavirus

I’m not really sure what the lady on the horse which diverted the attention of the bad threat really meant

Perhaps I was thinking how I actually divert myself by thinking ‘what’s the worst that could really happen?’, and realising that for our family it’s not going to be the end of the world

I was in my local Co-op with just a few other customers circulating at the requisite 2 metre distancing.

Only twice did I have to either stop and wait, or circle round the end of an aisle to avoid a small logjam of other customers.

However, when I got to the till, while I was putting the last few items on the conveyor belt, this guy of about 60 started putting up his items.

He moved up fairly close to where I was standing twice, so I had to do something – I put out my open hand flat and with my fingers spread out, and looked him right in the eyes firmly, and made a pushing away motion.

He seemed to be from another unaware planet. Strange.

The whole thing would not have arisen just a fortnight ago.

23rd March 2020, first night following the UK lockdown announcement:

I was woken from sleep at half past 11 with a phone call:
“Your garage door is wide open”

Our neighbour had noticed our garage door was open from across the road, but she did not have our phone number.
She knew her husband did, but he was in work, and so he phoned us from work to let us know.

I got up and closed the door.

Next morning’s thank you note:

To *Him* and *Her*: thank you so much for letting us know last night – between *Her* noticing at home, and you calling from work (as had to happen under the new arrangements), what a team!  Thank you for being Neighbourly – warm wishes and Stay Safe 🙂 from David and Sharon