Lockdown or Shielding?

We have since 22^nd March been on lockdown, now I think if you are in Scotland certainly this

is actually ‘Shielding’. That is because we are over 65 years old, we have been confined to the property for currently (as at 26^th May 2020) we have been there for the greatest part of 65 days. I say for the greatest part, as the last three weekends we have been allowed outside the property to walk or cycle as we please, but no use of public transport or motor vehicles for a few hours each time. These times out were deemed for exercise only. Locally as we are in a relatively small area, a blind eye was turned to some shopping in those shops that were open, but hairdressers, barbers and beauty salons were expressly forbidden to us over 65s. Hairdressers not having been open on those days and they were clear they would be subject to a fine as well as would we. Okay so Jim (my husband) is currently growing interesting curls and at times what look like horns (more worrying is this his true nature revealed?). I managed to buy a pair of barber scissors online and trimmed his beard and other offending hair, but I only run to ‘pudding basin’ style haircuts. We also had to ask one of local shoppers to buy a comb as we no longer possessed one. My hair is very thick at the back and has days on which it has a mind of its own! Fortunately my hair colour is my own.

We are not alone in out ‘shielding’ those with chronic illnesses and those born after 2000 are also shielded. This puts a great many parents at home and also shielded.  Our shopping is organised by a group of mainly English ‘Helping Hands’ or it can be done online for those who are happy to brave a Turkish app (me). This state of living was dropped on us, late on the Saturday evening 21^st March. Both of us received a text message from the president. In Turkey any mobile phone is registered to your Residence Permit the details of which are stored and anyone who has legitimate access to them can see your date of birth and your address and possibly more.

During May much of Turkey has been on lockdown. The last couple of weekends our province Muğla has had more lenient rulings, but large conurbations such as Istanbul and Ankara (Turkey’s capital) more have not been permitted to travel in and out of the areas. (There maybe exceptions to this, but that’s all hearsay as far as I know). The May lockdowns at weekends have come about due to national holidays and Ramadan (Bayram, Eid) to stop people from congregating on the streets and in other places.  All of this seems to have slowed down the spread of the virus.

What about us? Well we have been fine – we have not fallen out, bickered yes, that’s normal in any relationship. We have not killed one another nor threatened to. We have talked more than possibly ever on a continuous basis in our relationship because previously wherever we were we could get out and had our own interests, and at times I would be working away from home. We still do have our interests and can occupy ourselves here. We are very lucky, our apartment is one of four, none of the others are occupied, this means we don’t need to social distance. I have a pool to myself, it took a while to persuade the maintenance company to fill it, but the other apartment owners, said a) they had already paid half the maintenance and b) they hope to get out here sometime. I can also

walk round our house and get into next door’s garden to walk round there in the mornings because we are in the middle of five house and the others are all unoccupied. Plus we are opposite a field of pomegranates, who make for quiet neighbours and provide us with rich wildlife, earlier in the year we had robins, blackcaps and goldfinches. We have ever present hooded crows, two jays, a few pigeons, some doves, and many sparrows who nest under the eaves. Currently we have large green coloured dragonflies and at dusk many bats, plus the occasional hedgehog. The swallows have been here for a couple of months, the tortoises and hedgehogs woke a while ago. This year we haven’t seen any toads. Overhead we can see the storks flying to and from their nests that we inspect each week. Maybe next week the storklings will be fledging?

 

That’s it for now. More later.

 

Please feel free to ask questions, my aim is to intersperse reflections on Dalyan and hopefully more of Turkey at some point, as well as reflections on NLP and the LAB Profile® and how some of those might help currently #staysafe #stayathome #evdekal