In little over a fortnight, we have seen supermarket queues & stockpiling, a run on lavatory paper and on sanitsing hand gel, before some of us even knew we needed it. We've witnessed schools close, then cafés & pubs. Many people are now working from home and older & vulnerable people are self-isolating. Sporting fixtures have all been cancelled. Next, all non-essential shops were instructed to close. Council offices shut and services diminished. And, there are more unwelcome gaps on the supermarket shelves. All this for the foreseeable future. We are restricted in terms of one daily exercise and we cannot associate outside the family in groups of more than two, always provided we keep a socially safe distance. Packages of financial support have progressively been announced for companies, firms, employees and self-employed people. This will leave us with a national debt similar to that after the Second World War. But it's absolutely necessary.
We had to stay away from our mothers on Mothering Sunday. The weather this week has also been exceptional for late March but none of us has been able to take advantage of it.
One phrase sums this up: unprecedented. We live in truly unprecedented times. Or, "unpresidented", as one shop notice in Rhuthun/Ruthin put it. No names.
The speed with which we have had to adapt to these changes is incredible. Would we have been able to do so 10 or even five years ago? Social media, smartphones, broadband speeds and internet technologies allowing us to function, communicate, shop and work from home are all available to make life as painless as possible for us. One wonders what life will be like at the end of all this. It will certainly change. Former Denbighshire chief executive Mohammed Mehmet once commented that we may no longer actually need county council buildings. He was half-joking, of course, but whatever happens, life will be more dispersed and virtual.
After the initial burst of intense and extreme activity, there are now signs, for those in work, of something of a slowdown. Even businesses allowed to function are taking decisions to close or to reduce output or hours. With few people about, it has resulted in demand for just about everything bar food and online DIY & gardening being choked off.
And yet, in spite of all this, it's still the calm before the storm here in Rhuthun... how fast is the storm approaching?
We had to stay away from our mothers on Mothering Sunday. The weather this week has also been exceptional for late March but none of us has been able to take advantage of it.
One phrase sums this up: unprecedented. We live in truly unprecedented times. Or, "unpresidented", as one shop notice in Rhuthun/Ruthin put it. No names.
The speed with which we have had to adapt to these changes is incredible. Would we have been able to do so 10 or even five years ago? Social media, smartphones, broadband speeds and internet technologies allowing us to function, communicate, shop and work from home are all available to make life as painless as possible for us. One wonders what life will be like at the end of all this. It will certainly change. Former Denbighshire chief executive Mohammed Mehmet once commented that we may no longer actually need county council buildings. He was half-joking, of course, but whatever happens, life will be more dispersed and virtual.
After the initial burst of intense and extreme activity, there are now signs, for those in work, of something of a slowdown. Even businesses allowed to function are taking decisions to close or to reduce output or hours. With few people about, it has resulted in demand for just about everything bar food and online DIY & gardening being choked off.
And yet, in spite of all this, it's still the calm before the storm here in Rhuthun... how fast is the storm approaching?
Appeared yesterday was this notice of a change of hours at our bank, to 10a.m. to 2p.m. The bank wasn't able to open today, owning to coronavirus-related staff shortages. Worse still, just after lunchtime, Rhuthun's sub-postmaster announced new office hours from March 30th open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10a.m. to 1p.m.
Tesco has now replaced the row of on-their-sides trolleys with more barriers