America is behind Europe at the moment, but its coming. Italy is the worst affected country in the world at the moment, but some of the other European countries, including the UK, are following in its footsteps; so we are ready to brace ourselves.
The wartime spirit (from the 2nd world war) is engrained into the British psyche, so as a nation we’ll not panic and will maintain services and society in a wartime fashion. In that respect my son (a professional photographer), the nightclub he works for and many of the ‘Artists’ who regularly perform in the nightclub are looking beyond the epidemic to the future; even if that be more than a year from now.
My son still lives at home, so he has the security and support of his parents, who being on a regular secure income (Pensions, plus PIP and Carers Allowance) can easily afford to live in comfort as a family for the duration.
The nightclub owner in Bristol, where my son regularly works as a professional photographer, had to stay open until Boris (The Government) ordered nightclubs to close so that he could claim on the Insurance; which was finally yesterday (20th March).
Early in the year, as part of expanding his business, the nightclub owner bought another nightclub, in Trowbridge about 20 miles away, which had been run into the ground by the previous owner, through mismanagement. So he had intended to revitalise the Trowbridge nightclub overtime. But with the onset of COVID-19 in the UK, because that nightclub is currently not profitable, he took the decision last week to close it and make the staff there redundant. His action plan then being that, once the Government Officially ‘Ordered’ nightclubs to close, he would then employ his Bristol staff (on double wages) as helping hands to renovate the Trowbridge nightclub, so that it’ll be ready for a ‘re-Launch’, ‘Under New Management’, once the pandemic is over. Once the Trowbridge nightclub has been renovated, the owner wants to pay our son ‘double wages’ to do the ‘Promotional Photos’ ready for the re-launch.
As regards the Artists who regularly perform in the Bristol nightclub, all are freelance (self-employed) like our son, and we’ve heard from some of them today (circle of friends/contacts) that they are now going to spend their free time, while there isn’t any work (whether it’s six months or a year, while the pandemic lasts) to re-vamped their own businesses e.g. their web sites, promotional material etc., in preparation for their re-launch after the pandemic is over. As part of that re-launch (sometime in the distant future) one of the ‘performers’ was in touch with our son yesterday, because, once the pandemic is over, he wants to hire our son as his ‘personal photographer’, and promote our son’s photography business on his website.
As regards our son, he’s doing what the performers are doing e.g. re-vamping his website, and promotional material, to do a re-launch once the pandemic is over; and in that respect, I and my wife, both retired professional in the business world (Admin) have been using our expertise to help him.
As regards ourselves; we are sitting quite pretty at the moment. Although we didn’t panic buy, we were one of the many who did a month’s shopping (as we would normally do for Christmas) which has contributed to supermarket shelves emptying quicker than they can be filled.
On top of stocking up with a months’ worth of food and supplies, except for milk (which only keeps for a week), although we are not a ‘prepper’ like yourself, we do happen to have a ‘food store’ at the end of the garden with up to six months’ worth of food and drink.
The reason for our food store is that my wife buys food products in bulk when they are on offer e.g. at half price; and that way it cuts our annual food bill by $600 a year.
As well as the small freezer in the house we also have two freezers in our food store, the 2nd freezer being for all the fruit and veg I grow; to keep us in stock with home grown fruit and veg 12 months of the year.
In our back garden, I also grow all our own vegetables (organically e.g. no artificial fertilisers or pesticides), except potatoes, and during the summer months from May to October, a steady stream of a wide variety of fruits from our back garden, plus wild blackberries which I pick in the local countryside each August (just a 5 minutes’ walk from where I live). Growing our own fruit and veg saves us another $600 on our food bill.
I also make our own wine and beer, so we’ve got several years supply of wine, and enough homemade beer to last a couple of months. And a couple of years ago, I also started to make our own homemade soap, so we've got a good supply of homemade soap to last us for the duration of the pandemic.
