Coping with home lock down and coronavirus
Stan Krawczyk • 5 April 2020
Coping with home lock down and Coronavirus!
What a terrible start to 2020! Ironically I saw a comic post somewhere saying China managed to start WW3 without firing a single weapon! Not really funny is it? (Above my home office is my daughters play room and a 20 year old Ikea table!)
I would like to wish everybody reading this a speedy recovery if you are suffering with the virus and pray this pandemic finishes soon.
More importantly all the healthcare professionals and everyone else maintaining the infrastructure of the country, keeping it running, they risk their lives on the front line for us.
I am not going to repeat everything you have already read in the news just my experience and ideas how to get through it locked in at home.
The Krawczyk family had the infection and self isolated for the duration the government dictated but actually we have been home a lot longer before and after the symptoms regardless.
Thankfully for us the symptoms were mild, constant coughing, a tightening of the chest more like an anxiety attack as much as anything but we did also get a temperature but managed to control it. Tiredness is still the ongoing issue now, 2 weeks after we felt well. Personally I am not even sure its gone, I don't think anybody can ascertain that yet?
So lets get down to living in lock down at home.
Food!
For food supplies luckily we found online local wholesalers that decided to provide deliveries to homes and used them to keep the fresh veg topped up, no need to leave the house.
In a strange irony the habits and skills my parents instilled in me all those years ago have paid dividends during this time. We never had much money but never went hungry always made use of whatever we had in the kitchen and I still continue that approach to this day, I hate waste.
We order a veg box. I take a look and see what we have in the fridge, check when things are likely to be on the way out and make something out of them.
The easiest thing to do is a curry, just lob everything in the pot, mix the herbs and curry powder in (not too strong, always easier to add than try and cool it down!). Throw in potatoes that have seen better days, even soggy apples they all taste really good. If you have a tin of coconut milk, it adds a nice sweetness and cools the curry if its a bit hot? My daughter chomped it up, not realising how much veg was in there! Bonus!
The other option is chilli
- same thing just chuck it all in but add some mince meat (lamb or whatever you have) , mixed herbs, chilli powder, tumeric, paprika and so on. A tin of baked beans (student version!) the longer it blends the better the taste.
Soups
- whatever veg you have leek and potato but add broccoli or anything else in there. Blitz it with a blender and sprinkle some grated cheese on top! Makes anything taste nice.
Ironically I have actually lost some weight probably because I have never eaten as much veg as I have being at home!
Thrown together curry below.
Bread
Bread freeze it in fact freeze as much as you can to stop things going off , we don't know how long this horrible virus will last?
Bread - ok I have restarted my home made Sourdough bread making again (after 6 years!!). As you may know by now Sourdough is the defacto bread for me!
I use this to make my starter - very easy (even easier if you have enough Strong bread flour which I don't anymore!)
Clean a suitable container as below - follow the recipe and within 3 days you have bread yeast! lovely!
Because selfish people have been panic buying you cannot buy flour anywhere, unless you want to pay over the odds on Fleabay which I won't!
All the mills are closed or won't service private individuals.
In the end I found a commercial wholesaler that will take your money and send it to you even if you are not a business.
I await my 16kg bag of strong bread flour!
Continuing my theme, not wasting food, bananas! What do you do with brown soggy nanas?
Well you make Banana bread!
I had never made this before, now 3 times and surprisingly it tastes nice and light as a feather no concrete in sight!
Improvised on some of the ingredients.
The Flour turned up!
16Kg is a lot of flour I can tell you. How they can still make money when a large HGV turned up with just this 1 bag for me!
I have dispersed it into Kilner type jars to keep it fresh, that's me sorted for the next 12 months.
So what next ......
Home Brewing!
Yes I don't drink anymore but if it means I have something else to do at home than stare at a computer screen I will jump at the chance! I was going to be an organic chemist, one of the few things I was actually good at, but no lets choose a totally different career!! I still don't mind a cheeky stout.
You don't really need much for this? I ordered everything online - this is a Wilko's Chocolate Stout kit. Day 2 so far and the smell from the bubbler on the top is fantastic!
I ordered a job lot of glass swing top bottles so I can reuse them again and again for something else (all 18 of them!) Lets see how it turns out?
Although I must remember to have my work conf calls in another room I don't want them thinking I am farting in the background from the bubbling noise.
Follow up to this post - 15/4/2020.
The bottles have been filled, 1/2 teaspoon of sugar added to each for the second fermentation. They are warmed up for 2 days, but now in hibernation for 14 days in a cold dark place! I just hope they taste nice and yes I ran out of bottle so had to use Kilner jars Dukes of Hazard Moonshone stylie.
Update 12/5/2020 The Beer is ready!
The beer was left for the required amount and one of my 'emergency' bottles opened up for a trial. Well its fizzy and windy. Tastes nice surprisingly, stronger than I expected but so far no hangovers or headaches.
Sanity and home education.
Yes how to keep your sanity? Well my other half is in the dining room working, her job involves a lot of conf calls, my daughter in the living room and I am in my daughters play room! Keeping apart is good but not for too long.
We still have to home educate my daughter, which is very difficult whilst trying to hold a job down! But we do maths in the morning and English in the afternoon, then she can watch some Youtube trash or play games in between. So far its working and thankfully the school provides material to follow.
You must keep to a routine or it will all fall apart quickly. Thankfully for my job I can work from home anyway so none of this is odd to me.
Get your favourite music on, install something like Podcast Addict and search for your fave subject or music?
Sadly I can't listen to music because the minute I put some on, I get a works phone call. It's some law of the Universe in the same way the delivery man turns up in the middle of important conference calls!
Try to video call your daughters friends so she can still chat with them. That must be the worst thing for her not being able to play or be with her friends just mum and dad!
Don't be tempted to binge watch Netflix before you know it's 01:00am and you have work in the morning!
Try to keep cool at home, its very easy to lose your temper over the smallest thing and get cabin fever but it's no ones fault this has happened.
Get some fresh air. I am just thankful we moved house when we did, because we have a decent sized garden.
I have started running again just up the road and back, well I say running I mean faster walking and not now because I fell off the ladder yesterday, just a grazed knee but no running for a while! Sometimes I amaze even myself.
I really don't know how long this will last, but if the worst we have to do is boredom being stuck indoors we are doing well.
When I see idiots on the news gathering on beaches or going to parties I get so cross!! Be thankful we don't have V2 bombs dropping on our houses or food rationing!
Stay safe everyone take care of yourselves and lets hope this will be over soon.
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