Lockdown: The Positive Thread

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Noticed a few positives from the lockdown?
Post them here


No negative stuff. No moaning. No talk of CoVid-19.


Anything positive you've noticed from the lockdown/quarantine.
Any activities you've taken up as a result?
Post pics, anecdotes etc of things you've seen, noticed, or think about.


MoFo has threads on all the bad stuff... and we need some positivity in times of crisis and international bad-vibes.


As a starter, I'll start by reposting what I said the other day:


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In late 2011, the local council allowed a greenbelt to be concreted and turned into houses.
Summer 2012, all the flowers and trees in my local area died.


No birds, no bees.
No flies.
For 8 years, wildlife in the area has been minimal or non-existent.


Humans go into lockdown... and the birds reappear in the thousands within 24 hours, and now, I've got bees in the garden as well after only 3 days.
Big, fat, fluffy white-arsed bumblebees scouting the area for food.


Can only be a good thing if the wildlife is currently encroaching into built-up areas. Shows that there's an immediate knock-on effect for the other creatures that inhabit this world



Will add again.


I've taken up gardening again as well.
I've let my garden go overgrown for a while now. I kinda got bored with it and left it to ruin.


Yesterday I went out with 2 black binbags, and filled them with all sorts of crap.
Broken flower pots etc... weeded everything, including the weeds growing between the slabs and added new soil to the flower boxes and planted a bunch of seeds and stuff.
Just waiting on them to grow now
Edit: I haven't got a clue what the seeds are... it'll be a surprise if and when they sprout



Did you plant any glacier cherries or bananas???

Anywho, for me the biggest positive by far has been.....

.....not a single annoying 'doorstepper' has either rung the bell or knocked on the door ..... bloody marvellous so it is



That's another first for about 8 years... a robin in the garden.
Couldn't move the curtain for a better pic though





Thought of another positive:

We're practising 'only one person does the shopping' to minimise both our exposure to others and theirs to us, and as only the wife drives ..... which also means she's currently having to pay for the weekly shop (that normally falls on me) - leaving me with extra money for music 'n' movies

Edit:
Herself is back from shopping and I gotta say it's tempting but she only bought three so I reckon a good chance she might notice if 33% of them suddenly goes missing and ends up buried in the garden




Definitely some silver linings here:

1. I got to help out my elderly neighbors a little, and we talked about community and how things were when they were younger, and how maybe this'll lead people to come to rely on one another more.

2. My wife switched jobs recently, and went from working home most of the time to not at all. It's going well, but obviously she'd love it if she could work from home semi-regularly. This has forced them to get used to the idea, and might lead to it becoming a more regular thing in perpetuity.

3. I'd been thinking just before all this started how many books I hadn't gotten around to reading, games I hadn't gotten around to playing, how many movies and TV shows my wife and I wanted to watch

4. I've been dieting, and having food items seem a little scarcer certainly makes that easier.

Just got a bunch of little household tasks done, too. Making the best of the situation.



Re. Gardening...


I've managed to pull a muscle in the back of my leg and twinge one of my already slipped discs


Garden looks nice though.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
GREAT news, y'all!
Happy! Season 2 is now OUT!!!!
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I’ve mentioned this before, but where I live in Connecticut has got the landscaping crews out big-time. Anything that stands still is swept up & anything that moves is blasted with a leaf blower. Supposedly to keep people (men mostly) working, I presume, because I have never seen anything like it.
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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.




MoFo has threads on all the bad stuff... and we need some positivity in times of crisis and international bad-vibes.
We do have my good news thread.



For any situation whatsoever that our culture made us see / consider as negative, there's always something positive that we're not seeing. The virus causes death, destroys the countries economies, but gives a tremendous life to many other things, and this is not nihilism, I'm not nihilist, I'm actually a positivist, I try to swim against the crowd, just that. While old people are being condemned by this invisible virus, couples are trapped inside a cubicle, years to come people might wonder why so many of their friends born in the same month. Those who already have children's, whose daily-routine is driving them to school, going to work and pick them up, now have time to spend with their kids, getting to know their interests. It's a very long vacations where money doesn't buy you distractions so easily, you have to stick with the fundamentals, either yoga, meditation, conversations, culinary, movies and books. It's also a incredible test to mental endurance, people can't live with their own thoughts nowadays, it's also a moment of realization of how dependable we are on consumerism and how we must adapt. Those who've been fighting environmental annihilation have so many reasons to smile, this, probable year will save us, not just us, but many species.



The thing isolated becomes incomprehensible
Of the positives:


Resumed my Portuguese (Brazilian) online lesson, which I had given up. I do it for one hour everyday.


I have started working out again. Quite seriously.
If you need any help, just say! I'm portuguese! Where are you from?



It is a break Earth needed. My city is incredibly clean just 1 week after the government closed all public entertainment and advised everyone to stay home if possible.