Lockdown diary, day 32

A beautiful sunny day here in Whitehaven. Went out for some essential shopping and the streets were almost deserted.

Which actually shows that people are doing the right thing but felt very odd.

Made sure I had cash when visiting one shop establishment which if memory serves did not take cards not all that long ago. Made sure I had cash with me. If I had been asked to pay cash it would have been the first time I bought anything with notes and coin for 32 days.

That was a somewhat stunning thought. Although I use my credit or debit card for the majority of purchases now, and other members of my family are used to using their phones to pay for things (and do so rather more now than in the pre-COVID-19 world) this will almost certainly have been the first time I have never paid for a single thing with notes and coin over a period of a full month since I was about eleven years old.

I have always thought it likely that I would live to see a cashless society, but I did not expect it to
happen in the way that it has.

Nevertheless  most people prefer to pay and be paid using contactless means at the moment - and who can blame them? And sure enough I paid today with my contactless credit card.

The lady members of my family were concerned this evening that a missing rabbit had failed to return to the hutch at bed-time.  I found the bad bunny safe and well and sheltering under a hydrangea bush.

Keep Well.

Stay home: protect the NHS; save lives.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the...
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more