Self isolation – DAY 1

OK Blippers. Own up. Which one of you lovely people has sent Ann this 'Mother's Day Card' from me????

There we were.......................... re-arranging the furniture in our living room because you've got to do something when you're self-isolating Ann is going to do some fitness Utube workouts everyday, when we heard the postie post something through our letter box.

And then this card popped onto our mat! It is most definitely from the same person who sent Ann a Christmas Card from me & a Mother's Day Card last year, from me. The writing is the same. They've even used the same felt pen. Oh and the postmark showed that it had been posted in Edinburgh. So come on Blippers. Own up. We know it must be someone that knows us well enough to know what our postal address is??!!

Anyway, whoever you are.......................... Ann loves it. Thank you. Xxx

And now for more Coronavirus rantings and an update on our Self isolation DAY 1 (Ann speaking now)

So this morning full of motivation (normally on a Saturday morning I'd just slump on the sofa and eat toast & drink coffee whilst catching up on the soaps), I washed the windows, washed all the wood/laminate floors, sorted out a load of financial stuff and then re-arranged the furniture in the living room so that I've got room to prance around doing a Utube fitness class every day. If anyone can recommend any good ones, let me know. Otherwise I'll just try a few out. I feel it's important to keep a routine going during these times of crisis.

Oh and I woke up this morning to a very nice message from my 20 year old niece, Emma. 'If your self isolating please message/ring me if your ever board I will try to be a good chatter' Whenever youngsters message/text me I find it really hard not to rant about grammar/spelling etc. How lovely was that? And she also messaged me a few hours ago to ask what I was doing. Soooo that is definitely a good thing, because normally she doesn't want to chat to her 61 year old auntie. Thank you Emma for being so caring.

This afternoon I took Trixie on a long walk. I thought it would be a lot more self-isolating than it was. It was a beautiful day so there were quite a few people around in Braidburn Valley Park (but I managed to stay more than 2 metres away from them) then I went up onto the Braid Hills. Lots of people there too, but that's a huge space so they were all miles away from us. And then I discovered a path that I hadn't been on before. It was a very empty path and we probably walked on it for about 15-20 mins but it came out at the bottom of Liberton Brae and by then we'd walked for two hours and my foot was killing me. So we walked up to the Kings Buildings, checked the bus app, which showed that a no 38 bus was due in 3 mins, so jumped on the bus to bring us home. We sat in the buggy spot which was at least 3 metres away from anyone else. Oh and once we got home I went straight into the bathroom to wash my hands, just in case I'd touched anything on the bus that was infected.

Only one day in self isolation and this is actually really hard. I thought about popping down to the local Sainsbury's this evening to pick up a couple of bottles of wine. 1) Because I don't want Trixie, the collie pup, to become so dependent on me that she won't stay 'home alone' after all this is all over. And 2) Because I have a fear of running out of wine. Lol!!! ….........BUT I'm not going to because 1) wine is not an essential item and I have enough for tonight. And 2) I actually can't be bothered going out again.

BUT I use BLIP as a diary of my life. I couldn't care less whether you want to read about my RANTS or not (you have the option not to read them), but I want to record how my life is being affected by the Coronavirus and because I've been recording my life on Blip for almost 10 years it seems the obvious place to do this.

Was planning on going down to St Ives for a month in April to do a bit of painting, weeding and re-potting but can that really be classed as 'essential travel'. Also as a 'responsible person' I haven't actually opened up my bookings for the time that I was going to be there in April because Cornwall is really struggling re medical stuff, (only 15 ventilators in the whole of the county) and how long are they going to be able to cope if the population doubles? Though I have to say, I have a booking that has just gone into my house today for three days........................... They booked last weekend. Airbnb is offering a full refund to clients. It's the owners who will lose out. And to be honest I just have to accept that. BUT why are people still booking when they've been told to avoid all non-essential travel???

Am I worrying?................................. Yes of course I am. Is there anything I can do about this situation?...................... No there isn't. My main income comes from renting out my house in St Ives. Every month I have two lots of council tax to pay, two lots of utility bills to pay, two lots of TV license's to pay, two lots of wfi to pay, etc, etc, etc.Sooooooo...................... now I need to rant talk about life in Cornwall.....................



For those of you who follow my BLIP regularly, you will know that for the past 20 years I have lived in Cornwall. I was an Assistant Manager in a hotel, I then worked in a holiday letting company for 10 years, and after that I was an office manger/PA for a linen/laundry company. I moved back to Edinburgh permanently last year. Obviously I still have a lot of ties with Cornwall. I still own a house there that is rented out via Airbnb – 
My plan was to come down to Cornwall in April, to re-paint the outside walls and decking on my sun terrace and sort out the pots so that my summer visitors have a nice outside space to enjoy. This is obviously not now going to happen as I can not justify travelling all the way to Cornwall.

Yep, I'm a 'property tycoon'....................... but I'm not actually a very rich one!!!! Yes, I've got two houses, but am I rich? No I'm not. And I have to say that I think that 'Airbnb' have totally done the correct thing in refunding visitors money in full. BUT I reckon that it is going to cost me thousands of pounds over the next few months

I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to survive over the next year. (I'll be OK for a few months), there's only me & my dog. …...........BUT after that, yes it's going to be a struggle.

I don't actually think that it is very helpful seeing all these posts on FB about how 'unaccommodating' the holiday letting agents in Cornwall are being. They're doing their best. They actually have an obligation to their owners as well. It's not all just about just cancelling a holiday and refunding visitors money. Unfortunately if you have booked a holiday through a letting agent, the hosts have a contract as well, so it's not just a case of ….................... oh the holiday letting agents are being really unaccommodating..................... they actually can't do anything because they've got a contract with the owners as well. So it's down to the actual owners to instruct the holiday let company re what they want to do. Soooooo.................. please visitors, stop having a go at all the lovely people who work in the holiday let agencies. They're having a really hard time right now and are working round the clock to ensure that you can still get your holiday to St Ives at some time in the future.

Anyway I'm fed up of RANTING now.

I'm really lucky because I'm in really good health and lets face it.................. isn't health, happiness & friendship the most important thing in the world??

….....................And if you've managed to read to the end of this BLIP

THANK YOU XXXX