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You just gave me a shudder, remembering the smell when the assistants in Woolworths wiped down the glass counters with meths, which were at face level for kids! I don't think I've had a whiff of it since the 1960s. Loved the smell of surgical spirit, though, which we were doused in when our...

My mate and I have just paid the balance on our (UK) birdwatching trip in May. We're assuming the same as always: unless one of us is unwell, we're going. We're staying in a rural property set in an acre of garden, so if we developed symptoms during our stay, it wouldn't be hard to stay away...

They sometimes negotiate with welfare advisors too. They really shouldn't be pressuring people to make an instantaneous decision like some dodgy double glazing salesman, though, especially if the person doesn't have access to an advocate who understands the caselaw. Ideally, people should either...

My solution at my old house was to ask my home help to change the beds in both bedrooms, and I'd sleep in one for a week and then move to the other. The spare room in the new house is tiny and where I keep my indoor wheelchair (and piles of other stuff that hasn't yet got a proper place), so I...

As far as I'm aware, no-one's saying that there's a problem at the moment – I might have missed something, though. One of the difficulties with patient stockpiling is that, even if it's only done to a modest degree, it risks creating shortages that wouldn't otherwise have occurred. I'm guessing...

Yep, along with the fact that the 14% figure will probably change as more work is done. It could be far fewer people...or many more.

Yes! We used to pester our mum for that suspiciously bright orange fizz. :laugh: (We never got it, except one time my dad bought it by accident when he was sent out for the shopping.) Some slightly odd news on its namesake the virus this morning, in that 14% people who're apparently fully...

Tee hee! I struggle with the duvet cover sometimes, and I'm not severely affected – I've recently found myself flirting with the idea of going back to blankets. I even looked up whether you could find secondhand some of the fabulous Tetem patterned blankets we had as kids in the 1960s. Oh...

This is a serious point, and if the virus does spread widely in the UK, I'm hoping it's dealt with. People living with or caring for an individual categorised as highly vulnerable, but who are not themselves showing symptoms that would warrant an absence from work, ought to have protection...

:laugh::laugh: The worrying thing is that I remember it being quite nice – God only knows what the rest of my diet was like if that was one of the highlights!

One particularly memorable effort from my bedsit days in the 1970s was made from onions, a tin of tomatoes, some slightly rubbery carrots, plus half a box of Alpen to thicken it up! :rofl:

I can't say I am, on a personal level at least. I probably won't change my routine unless I'm told to do so to protect others, or buy anything special. I think those with pre-existing lung conditions, or reduced immunity due to cancer treatment or similar, will be much more vulnerable than...

People think I started school in the 1760s rather than the 1960s when I tell them we learnt to write on little green slates! We had them all the way through infant school, then graduated onto absurdly long tapered ballpoint pens in junior school. I changed schools halfway through the juniors...

I'm confused. Is the PWME in the trolley? If so, why are they wearing a Manhattan diagram as a hat?

Presumably this would improve if, as seems possible, the virus escapes control measures and becomes pandemic? It's the containment effort rather than the virus itself that's currently causing the disruptions. I suppose if it's no longer worthwhile trying to prevent it, it becomes like a winter...

The basic out-of-work benefit in the UK is less than £4k per year for a single person, though that doesn't include housing costs. People with significant disabilities receive more (sometimes quite a bit more), but enhanced payments aren't easy to obtain for PWME who're, for instance, still able...

I'm not sure I could press hard enough to do that these days! :laugh: I have a fat pen with an angled barrel, so I barely need to grip it all, and it slides over good quality paper with almost no resistance. I still struggle to write, of course – I'd need at least five lengthy breaks to fill...

At Christmas, a friend with ME was talking about how much she struggles to write these days. A couple of weeks ago I bought her a fountain pen as a birthday gift, and she called this morning to say she was really surprised by how much easier it is to use. You don't have to grip a fountain pen...

It's be really dangerous, so I'm not at all surprised it can be an ME trigger. There was an outbreak of it some years ago where I used to live, caused by the aerosols spraying out of badly-maintained air conditioning units and falling onto passers-by. One old fella died of it; it took a long...

Limescale: dry surfaces after use, including the shower head – I unscrew it, wipe it with a cloth, and leave it to dry. I keep a dry cloth next to sinks for wiping splashes whenever I've got the energy, and tiled bathroom walls or shower panels can be dried in seconds with a cheap microfibre mop...