Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 17 January 2021

Diane - Thank you for starting us off this week. And especially thank you for the information about homesteading. I found it a fascinating read - a good way to start a Sunday morning. Will you publish your novel online? Hope so - look forward to reading it.

Clare - Hope you and Limpy manage to see some good birds today. At the moment the sun is doing its best, and with any luck I'll get a decent walk today.

Have a good Sunday, everyone.

ANNETTE Yup, tough cheese.

Diane thank you for starting up.

LINDY We were at M&S on Friday morning and it was quiet, as was the Morissons car park.

I am glad to see that unused vaccines are bring offered to others. There was a query on tv saying some were being wasted.

AQ - That's an awful lot of pasties! They must be destined for the freezer? It takes me all my time to make two...
I heard about the tennis folk having to quarantine. As you say, hard cheese!

DIBNLIB - I forgot to thank you for phoning OG. I think a lot of my worry was because when she was so ill a few years ago, EE messaged to tell us. The internet was the only solution that I could come up with.

Good morning: Many thanks to Diane for starting us off, and for the very interesting description of homesteading. Good Luck with the book!

We should be out on a walk, but as we began to prepare to depart, the sunshine we had for a couple of hours decided to go and we had a sudden sharp shower.

CLARE - I hope that you and LIMPY managed to get out to the reservoir, to help LIMPY distract from his PTSD x

Heather B said:

CLARE - I hope that you and LIMPY managed to get out to the reservoir, to help LIMPY distract from his PTSD x

We did get to Abberton.  He brightened up the minute I suggested the trip!

It's difficult to know exactly where we can go.  I know that people with certain medical conditions (including PTSD) are allowed to go out more, and a bit further away - but nobody can tell me what the limits are.  I dread getting it wrong and finding ourselves hit with fines, despite my having tried (and failed) to enquire what is and isn't OK.  It's very frustrating.

CLARE - I just checked the Gov website and agree, it's not exactly clear regarding distance but it does say 'travel to maintain health'. I wonder if any support groups for ex service personnel would be able to clarify ?

CLARE: I'm glad Limpy and you were able to get to Abberton. I hope he saw some interesting birds, and he feels less distress.

I tried doing some web searches in the hopes of finding clearer guidance to help you, just because I felt bad that you have to cope with the additional stress of ambiguous rules. The text isn't clear at all, and you shouldn't have to deal with that. I did see that the ministers were complaining about the ambiguity and appealing for immediate clarity. I hope you can find a support group or somebody in the NHS or anyone to clear up the parameters for you. Sending you strength. Wish I could help.

CLARE/HEATHER I don't think anyone is able to be sure what distance people can travel. We know we can travel locally, but your local and my local may be 2 very different things. It is so unfair to those who want to abide by the rules. We walked in the woods today and were treated to 10 red squirrel sightings. Three or fours years ago we would have counted ourselves lucky to have 10 sightings in a year. I do have to admit that there may have been 2 or 3 sightings of the same squirrel, but we know for sure that there were at least 6 individuals.

I am glad Clare, that you were able to get out and about with Limpy and that it did him good.