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Is anyone else totally self-isolating? Other than a quick drive down and up the A3 last week I haven’t left the house and garden since March 17th.
Groceries get delivered once a week. These days DH answers the door, brings the bags in and puts the shopping away before sticking the empty bags in the wheelie-bin, washing his hands and cleaning the kitchen surfaces.
Just curious.
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Us too, Georgie. Only outside contact has been trip to local butcher: order on phone then dash into empty shop at 8am following day, grab stuff, then out and home. Have to take short walk every day or legs will seize up altogether – only quarter mile. Other than that, take occasional short 5/6 mile poodle in car once or twice a week to keep battery up and descale brakes – try to combine this with essential jobs like posting letter or returning delivery boxes to local shop.
Please supply picture of your 5/6 poodle. What happened to other 1/6? Tragic accident?
Deeply concerned re. Welfare of poodle.
🙂
The nearest to going out that I’ve got so far is to stand on my drive and “clap for the NHS and carers” on a Thursday night. Fortunately my son’s girlfriend is our ‘designated shopper’ so I can self isolate without the need to go out.
Poodle fine, albeit dogged by ruff jokes!
I am /we are very much on lock down here. On time I have been out is to Dr’s for blood tests. Thankful we have two adult children still at home ( knew they would come in handy one day lol) We send them out in the wild to forage for supplies.
@Georgie lol at the 5/6 poodle comment
Joss
Current car: BMW X2 sDrive 20i M Sport 5dr Step Auto In metallic Portimão Blue. 04:10:2025
Previous car:Peugeot 308 GT Premium 1.2 Pure tech Petrol.One of our neighbours received the dreaded vulnerable group letter, he was pulling his hair out after a couple of days, he now go to the local shop to get his paper etc and a walk with his wife.
Unfortunately I have suffered a brain injury and occasionally I get confused and often say the wrong thing.
Only contact since 20th March was the trip to Tesco on Tuesday as food supplies were dangerously low.
Next week I will run out of bread flour so I’ll be going on a tour to find some, I can’t eat the pre-baked & supermarket bread due to high salt & sugar levels. I will be out until I find the bread flour, visiting however many shops it takes until I find it.
Not sure why we have a government when they are unable to ensure supplies of basic foodstuffs like flour.
Tharg – Very funny. Arf! Arf!
Gothitjulie – I just looked for “bread flour” on the Waitrose website and all they have is Dove Farm gluten-free ‘White bread mix’ and g-f ‘Seeded bread mix’, which is a bit shocking. And only Marigold yeast flakes.
Sainsbury’s list own brand ‘Strong White’ bread flour plus Allison’s ‘Strong White’, ‘Very Strong White’, ‘Country Grain’ and ‘Wholemeal Plain’ flours, plus Dove Farm Organic Wholegrain Rye’ flour. NO YEAST!
Morrison’s only list Allinson’s ‘Very Strong White’ and Dove Farm ‘Buckwheat’ flour. Own brand ‘Yeast Flakes’ and Allinson’s ‘Dried Active Yeast’.
Asda list own brand ‘Strong White’, plus Allinson’s ‘Strong White’, ‘Very Strong White’, ‘Wholemeal’, ‘Brown’, ‘Seed and Grain’, and ‘Granary’. One brand yeast and Allinson’s ‘Easy Yeast’, ‘Dried Active’ and ‘Easy Bake’ sachets, and Marigold ‘Yeast Flakes’.
Tesco – own brand ‘Organic Strong’ and Allinson’s ‘Strong White’. Own brand ‘Fast Action’ yeast, Allinson’s ‘Time Saver’ and Marigold ‘Super Engevita’ yeast flakes.
I’ve no idea what your range of local supermarkets is, but as of today it looks like Asda might be your best bet!
Gothitjulie – think Georgie is probably right re Adsa. I’ve always found their DIY baking-and-stuff section has a great choice. Online lists at the moment should be filed under “fiction” and change v rapidly. Don’t know exactly what their flour section is like because I used to buy cake-making stuff there. Now, there’s an idea – perhaps I WILL get the ingreezement for sachetorte…
My sister said that she managed to be bread flour from Asda, but it’s a fair distance to my nearest Asda ( in to London…. which is kinda scary). I do have the possibility of going to my sister’s to pick up that flour but it’s a fair journey. However my sister has a different problem, she can’t get self-raising flour (I can’t get any wheat flour at all, only gram flour which is peas).
I’ve not been able to buy bread flour in my area for over 6 weeks & I’m on my last bag, I’ve been trying to make it last by mixing in some wholemeal with the strong white, but I’ll run out of both in the next week.
Flour is one of the staple foods that I live off & I have plenty of yeast still (just opened a fresh tin & I have another to use after that).
As for joking about obtaining flour, no, it’ll be obtain flour or start to starve, I’m sure most can simply go & buy bread from the local shop but not all of us have that ability when the bakers have put sugar & salt in it.
Annoyingly I can get any amount of fresh meat straight from the farmers although it’s hideaously expensive “organic” meat from pedigree livestock.
Come the summer I’ll be able to get grain straight from the local farms & grind that, but it’s months away.
I recognise and have sympathy for any medical condition that means you can’t have any sugar or salt but surely there must be an alternative to driving from shop to shop or considering visiting your sister or driving into London. This would be inviting serious risk to your and others health.
I have been in isolation with my other half since hospital called me regarding risk factors on 13th March.As previously mentioned, I had heart attack 23rd so extra careful since release from hospital.
It’s pretty weird here as I live in holiday town with pop of circa 8k but from Easter onwards, rises to about 20k with 2nd home owners and Easter weekend, we normally have about 75000 visitors a day. The building I live in has 28 apartments with only 3 full timers and no one else has shown up
Police have checkpoints at the only two roads into town and stopping non residents so place been empty. I take a little stroll every afternoon, with face mask, and see literally about 6 people The odd car but at least 3 Police cars or vans slowly cruising around.
Very strange times.
I managed 2 weeks and then I had to go out, only went shopping with my wife, stayed in the car but it was just nice to see people again.
From the sound of it everyone around here has now had enough of ‘Staying Inside and Protecting the NHS’ and is saying “S*d the lock-down – I’m going out”, because (no exaggeration) the traffic noise coming through the wood from the main road sounds like it’s back up to normal levels. Even the little back road I live on is busy.
Still quiet here, traffic is minimal, notably fewer trucks going past the house and less cars too. Dogs go mental at the sounds they used to ignore as they think silence is the new normal. One barked because I opened a can yesterday, sheesh, beer police!
In life, it's not who you know that's important, it's how your wife found out.
A lot quieter here, hardly any cars about town and even in the sunny weather the town centre is empty.
On my regular long motorway runs it’s like driving on Christmas Day.
gothitjulie – Any Luck in the Great Flour Hunt?
Well, I went to the Asda on the outskirts of London on Tuesday, queued, got sunburn, then found no flour.
Currently out of flour so no more bread once I finish my current loaf baked for early this morning.
I have a delivery of 16kg pack of bread flour due for delivery on Tuesday.
In the meantime I’ve ordered enough material, elastic, stiffener/non-woven layer, etc., to make 1200 face masks, the 50 metres of material just arrived….. also saw that there’s no lockdown applicable on Westminster Bridge as per pics from last night in the news….Cases of the virus continue to rise but the people have isolated for longer than the incubation period for the virus & are now questioning just who is still spreading it…..
just taken out an oat and linseed loaf, its sat there cooling issuing inviting smells.
afraid i use a machine gothitjulie but it still tastes good.lol
will it cool completely or will i succumb? hot bread and butter anyone
You’ll succumb, mitch, you can’t resist freshly baked bread.
I also use a machine, one of the expensive Panasonic ones that adds the yeast in the middle of the night part way through the program, it means I get fresh bread early in the morning, and helps with the length of time it takes for the yeast to do its job on the flour without any sugar being needed. French bread program, 6 hours, plus a few hours waiting to start the program on the timer, just load the machine the night before & wake to that fresh bread smell permeating the house…. irresistable.
Current loaf is 400g of bread flour, of which 150g was wholemeal, gorgeous soft & fluffy inside with a just hard enough crust. Recipe? here you go:
400g strong bread flour (use at least 200g strong white, the rest wholemeal)
15g unsalted butter (this will help with the hard crispy but not too thick crust)
400ml tap water
1 teaspoon of yeast, added part way through the process
Glad to hear you’ve got the flour situation in hand. There’s really nothing so delicious as fresh baked bread. 🙂
mines a panasonic, sd 255. its getting on a bit but well worth the money.
i think ive only bought the odd roll or loaf in years.
usually use the wrights bread mixes.
cheese and sundried tomato is a fave.
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