So, my mum will, as an over 70’s be under lockdown for mother’s day, I am not in the country and won’t be able to come over – what do I do to make it a good day for her ?

Stay healthy and organise a video call

No deliveries

Yep. Don’t be delivering her death flowers.

I’m posting my mum a card with 2 packs of paracetamol stashed inside.
I’m hoping she can use them to barter for squirrel meat.

With everyone being a fat bastard nowadays (well, 70% of us) a couple of weeks of not eating anything will do us the world of good.

2000 calories/day * 14 days = 28000 cals. At about 3500cals/lb that’s between 8-10lbs of fat loss.

That’s the best mother’s day present she’s ever going to have!

Win win 🙂

We’re seeing this from the other side…. I’m 72 and my wife 70… both fit and no underlying health problems.

The Mother’s Day plan was that we would go over to our son’s house and he would make us a nice meal (he’s a good cook) and we’d spend some quality time with him.

We had a call with him today where we discussed this and he was concerned that he could end up giving us the virus (he has no signes of it currently) and would be devastated if he was the cause of something happening to us.

What to do? My wife is getting really upset to think she may not see him. Call it off?  Maybe have him over to our house and keep our distance? We have to decide soon. Not easy. My instinct is to call it off but…..

Call it off.

Call it off. My folks, in their 70s, just cancelled their 50th anniversary party that was supposed to be on Easter Sunday. They’ve been planning for ages and friends and family were coming from all over but they said the decision was easy in the end.

Call it off.

It’d be a shame to give your son a lifetime of guilt just because your wife decided that a day invented by marketing gurus to sell sh1t is more important than taking pragmatic action to stay alive longer.

Eff all these “days”. There’s plenty of them and there’s nothing “special” about them other than people being coerced into buying stuff. “Buy this on this day for your mum or you’ll make her feel like you don’t love her”…

…as opposed to “stay alive, and you can spend years together”

It’s my Mum’s funeral on Wednesday. As with many funerals I expect there will be dozens of her friends and family in attendance with many travelling a long way to be there. Speaking to my dad ( a remarkably fit and healthy 85 next month) and he is completely oblivious to any concerns about that as do most of my family, including my sister and her husband who returned from New Zealand via Portugal just yesterday, I’m being dramatic apparently. I’ll be expected to greet elderly relatives and family and friends with a hug as usual and no doubt I will be seen as the ignorant **** when I keep my distance for their sakes.

It’s my mothers 70th this week too my parents are in isolation already due to my Dad being high risk. We spoke on the phone yesterday a card is going out today, her present was to see The Who which is postponed. She’s happy enough to wait to see us and The Who when the time is right.

What difference does it make for you when you’re not in the U.K. anyway.

We’ve just called of Dads Celebration of Life gathering. Celebrating one loss by causing lots of others is just plain wrong.

MrsMC was due to visit her 80 something parents this weekend for mother’s Day, birthday and some discreet care planning with her brothers, as both reached a stage where they need help – FiL with terminal prostate cancer has been quietly caring for MiL who has early dementia.

They’ve told her, quite rightly, not to go down, but could genuinely be the last chance she has with their various health problems. 😢

It’s my Nan’s 100th birthday in 8 weeks. Figure she’s had over 3 months worth of birthdays now, so she’ll probably not mind skipping this one.

(I jest, will be gutting if we can’t celebrate it, but needs must etc.)

My sister is a senior nurse and she reckons there’s going to be a huge increase in psychological problems as anxiety increases and people’s phobias grow. Imagine a family with kids and perhaps an autistic child stuck in a house or with an habitual abuser or alcoholic. She also reckons there will be an increase in domestic murders.

Americans are already queueing round the block to buy more gunes – seems to the the natural American response to any kind of anxiety.

Cranberry – Time to start something new?

I am similarly concerned about Mothers Day as my mum is well inside the at risk category (age and health wise). She used to like a good game such as Scrabble, Chinese Checkers, Rummy, Cribbage etc.

I am trying to track down some online games that we can play together whilst having a Skype chat. Not perfect, but shows care/attention and gives her time ‘together’.

If it works, it might mean I actually spend more time ‘with’ mum throughout the week as well as I work away a lot and could do this from a hotel room in an evening. In the end that is a positive thing that I would not have thought of without CV.

Americans are already queueing round the block to buy more gunes – seems to the the natural American response to any kind of anxiety.

When considering Americans and guns you have to shift your frame of reference a bit, they’re everywhere, and they’re popular, and they have a few niche uses.

Think back a few years and even STW had threads discussing stockpiling 100W incandescent light bulbs when “the government” banned them. 100W bulbs are probably a similar level of prevalence to guns in the USA.

It’s an election year and gun sales always go up when there’s even the slightest wiff of government interference with peoples liberties (i.e. a democrat gets elected, or the whole country get’s put under house arrest to deal with an epidemic).

Online games, such as Scrabble are a good idea, though I’d get my arse kicked and I’m not sure she’s a good winner 🙂

She was planning to visit me for a couple of weeks for Easter, I was really looking forward to spending most of May on holiday in N. Yorks with her, now for the foreseeable future, it’s Skype chats.

@cranberry Me too! I am a bad loser so it will be painful, but I feel it is a good thing to try!

Dads 80th is next week. He’s cancelled the meal on the Saturday and has stayed in France as they’re in the back of beyond. We talk regularly on FaceTime as it keeps us both grounded.